News on Agra & Current Affairs

By VISHAL SHARMA Agra, 30 Oct. A newborn boy faces certain death here while the birth of a girl means celebration. Mothers carry their pregnancies to full-term only if the foetus is a girl; otherwise, the foetus is aborted. A custom prevalent earlier in Bedias, a tribal community of nearby Rajasthan, engaged in sex-trade since ancient times, the foetal killings have now become a matter-of-fact in the Agra brothels. The recent exposé of the prep school of Mumbai Bar girls in Agra has uncovered a ghastly practice of kidnappings and foeticide prevalent in the newly sprung brothels of Agra. The call-girl rackets busted in Agra recently by the police feature a common fact; almost all pregnancies go through the process of sex-determination and a male foetus is invariably aborted but a female foetus is nurtured with care to give birth to another generation of sex-slaves. Basai Khurd, a ten-thousand strong settlement of Bedia sex-workers, on the outskirts of Agra near the world famous mo

400 Test Tube Babies hit the ramp in Agra on Thursday By VISHAL SHARMA Agra, 29 Oct. A Test Tube Baby is perfectly alike a normally conceived baby and its physical & mental development is not different from the normal babies in any manner . This was the message sent forth by the world's second largest Test Tube Baby show organized by Malhotra Test Tube Baby Centre, in Hotel Holiday Inn, Agra on Thursday evening. Participated by 400 test tube babies born at the centre since the birth of "Utsav", the first test tube baby of Agra in 1998, the baby-show was an attempt of the medico couple Dr. Narendra Malhotra & Dr. Mrs. Jaideep Malhotra to disprove the myths that have stunted the growth of this technique in India. Addressing the couples assembled in the auditorium, Dr. Narendra Malhotra tried to make the facts about this technique clear by explaining the entire procedure. He said that a test tube baby is merely a layman's term referring to a child that is con

By VISHAL SHARMA Agra, 28 Oct. The UP government may have received a conditional permission to open the Tajmahal in November after fulfilling some requirements, but this Thursday, on “Sharad Poornima”, when the moon toured over the Taj at its brightest best, the monument was again standing alone under the bayonets of the paramilitary forces. After a long gap of two decades, the apex court may have finally given a conditional permission to the state government to open the Taj during five consecutive moonlit nights, but with several restrictions still barring the way, the tourists may have to wait for one more year to witness the once-a-year spectacle of “Chamki” sparkling on the Taj surface on “Sharad Poornima”. This spectacular resplendent “Chamki” has remained hidden from the eyes of the tourists since 1984, when terrorism in Punjab struck deep on the nerve center of the country. With the advent of terrorism in Kashmir, the security threat on the monument increased several folds

By VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 27 Oct. Over 80 million people world over are affected by infertility but despite being available as a cure to infertility for almost 30 years, Test tube baby or In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is still a long way from being socially approved in India due to the preconceived notions surrounding the technique. Since the birth of Louise Brown, the first test tube baby in England in 1978, the technique has become highly refined with significant improvement in its success rates, but still, India lags far behind the developed countries with just over 20 thousand births to its credit. While in the metropolitan cities, the infertile couples are increasingly seeking the help of the over 200 Test Tube Baby Centers in the country to realize their dream of building a family, the notions like the “naturalness” of babies born through this technique, combined with the prohibitive costs involved have kept the Indian middle-class away from adapting this technique, though being

Vijay Upadhyay, Agra It earns over Rs 12 crore per year from the Toll Tax imposed on the Taj Mahal, but the Agra Development Authority (ADA) is not ready to fund the mandatory security arrangements to enable night viewing of the Taj Mahal, considered as its "Golden Goose". Following the Supreme Court directives regarding enhancing the Taj security for night viewing, the Agra Police had sent a proposal for the one-time purchase of hi-tech security equipment worth Rs. 3.5 crore, which includes state-of-the-art body scanners, to be funded from the Toll Tax obtained from the tourists by the ADA. But, instead of funding the security arrangements, the ADA has now decided to "fight it out" with the police, claiming that the Taj security does not classify under "Tourist Welfare" and the "Taj Heritage Fund" is strictly meant for tourist welfare, according to the Supreme Court directives. Talking to The Pioneer on Saturday, Senior Superintendent of Po

By VISHAL SHARMA, AGRA Generations after generations of people world over have grown up with the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down” but the way the International media, co-opted by a group of Indian media, is creating hype over the “tilting minarets of Tajmahal”, the day is not far when the children may have to learn a new rhyme “Tajmahal is Falling Down”. The entire controversy lies in a media report issued about a week back citing two so-called historians who claimed that the Tajmahal’s minarets are tilting for the lack of water in the Yamuna and the monument could “crumble” or “sink” in the riverbank within a few years. This report was taken up immediately by the International media as a new tool of “India-bashing”, displaying the news prominently on their portals, pointing accusing fingers at the Indian government and the Archaeological Survey of India for neglecting this monument of eternal love. Reports issued by reputed news agencies like Britis