Patnaites pledged with a difference.

For people across society chose to be the voice of those who spend their lives in oblivion and die incognito.
The pledge, taken for cause of the poor, was: "Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger from the face of the earth and achieve 8-point millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015". Over a thousand people raised their hands when justice Mihir Kumar Jha of Patna High Court read out the pledge at a programme organised by the Bihar branch of Art of Living (AOL) at Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir . Delivering the inaugural speech, state health minister Chandramohan Rai praised the participants for showing concern for the deprived and promised every possible help from the state government to achieve the desired results. "It is really good that civil society is coming forward for causes hitherto supposed to be the responsibility of government alone," he said.
The AOL and the United Nations Millennium Campaign for "Stand Up & Speak Out" is a part of the worldwide campaign for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. Speaking to TOI on the sidelines of the programme, the AOL Bihar coordinator Ritesh Raj said the purpose of organising such programmes is to remind countries about their promises made in the UN in 2000 to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world for all by the year 2015.

It may be recalled that AOL Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shanker has joined the UN Millennium Campaign and pledged to engage and mobilise four million people around the globe on the day in the UN Millennium Campaign to "Stand Up and Speak Out" against poverty and hunger.Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universalisation of primary education, promoting gender equity and women's empowerment, reduction in child mortality rate, improving maternal health, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability and to develop a global partnership for development, are the eight goals which the heads of 189 countries have taken pledge to fulfil.