News on Agra & Current Affairs

VIJAY UPADHYAY INDIA (AGRA), 29 Nov. Reacting to the dismal performance of Indian sportsmen in world sports meets including the Olympics, the government of the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in India has decided to make sports a compulsory subject at school & college level, to ensure an all-round personality development of the young generation of UP. Providing this information in Agra on Sunday, the UP Director of Secondary Education Sanjay Mohan said that the keeping in view the poor performance of Indian athletes and sportsmen in the sporting meets world over, the UP government had decided in April this year to include sports as a part of the state school curriculum but now it has been decided that sports should be made a separate compulsory subject from the coming academic session in July 2005 and only the students who pass this subject with a minimum of fifty percent marks, shall be allowed to continue into the next class. He said that a notification in this regard has been is

VISHAL SHARMA INDIA (Agra), 28 Nov. The Indin Department of Post issued two postage stamps and first day covers on Sunday at the Agra Fort, to commemorate the 9th Aga Khan Awards for Architecture. The stamps were released by the Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Shaqeel Ahmed, in the presence of The Aga Khan, hereditary spiritual leader (Imam) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and founder of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The stamps, in the denomination of 15 rupees each, depict the Agra Fort. They offer views of various architectural features, including the Khas Mahal (Private palace), which was built entirely by Shah Jahan in 1637. The Award, which has a triennial prize fund of US$ 500,000, is the world's largest architectural award. The Awards ceremony was held on the 27th of November 2004 in the gardens of Humayun's Tomb in Delhi. Addressing the extended function of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture held in Agra Fort for th

VISHAL SHARMA INDIA (Agra), 26 Nov. After a long gap of two decades, the tourists may finally view the world famous Mughal monument Tajmahal by moonlight, albeit, on a premium. The Archaeological Survey of India which is the custodian of the Tajmahal has declared a hefty entry fee for both foreign and Indian tourists, though the Indian tourists shall suffer more, who shall have to pay 25 times the day tariff while the foreign tourists have been exempted from the tariff raise. It took over an year of hard labour for the UP government to get the Tajmahal opened by night, but today, when the time came to reap the fruit of this labour, the Union government was ready to make the most out of it. While the UP government declared the night-time Taj entry "Tax-Free", the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was busy selling heftily priced tickets to Indians well past the stipulated time on Friday. A strategic move of the UP government, designed to attract foreign tourists through this

VISHAL SHARMA INDIA (AGRA) 25 Nov. The landmark decision of the Indian Supreme Court to allow the night opening of the Tajmahal has again raised the hopes of the tottering tourism industry of Agra, which may now expect a major boost in the tourist traffic coming to the town. The Tajmahal is seen all over the world as India’s tourism icon and the tourist traffic in Agra serves as the most reliable gauge for the foreign tourist traffic in India. For years on end, the Indian tourism industry has been dogged by the low turnout of foreign tourists largely due to the prevailing uncertainty, both in the international as well as the domestic scenario. Delivering a landmark judgement on Thursday, the Supreme Court has allowed the UP government to open the Tajmahal for five moonlit nights, barring Fridays, on an experimental basis for three months - November, December 2004 & January 2005. In the month of November, when the Tajmahal shall be opened for night viewing on 27 & 28 Novem

VISHAL SHARMA INDIA (Agra), 24 Nov. The plain copper wire entering the Indian households shall soon unleash a ‘Genie’ toprovide “unlimited mazaa” to the telecom subscribers of the country. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the leading telecom company of India, has planned to introduce Broadband services through its vast basic telephone network served through a high-bandwidth capable copperwire which shall be available in all major cities ofthe countries within the current year. Talking to the UNN, the General Manager BSNL, Agra Pradeep Kumar Srivastava said that BSNL is in the process of commissioning of a world class, multi-gigabit, multi-protocol, convergent IP infrastructure through National Internet Backbone–II(NIB-II), that will provide convergent services through the same backbone and broadband access network. The Broadband service will be available on DSL technology (on the same copper cable that is used for connecting telephone), on a countrywide basis spanning 198 cities

VIJAY UPADHYAY India (Etah) , 23 Nov. Examples of such marriages are hard to find in Indian society. A community panchayat held in Soron town of Etah district has created an uproar by arranging the simultaneous marriage of a mother and daughter to their respective lovers on the same day under the same roof, while the Etah District Magistrate has announced a prize for the daughter in order to promote widow re-marriage. After losing their husbands a few months ago, Mamta (45) and her daughter Preeti (22) married their respective lovers in Soron town of Etah district on Friday following the decision of a panchayat. Soron is reputed to be the birth place of the third avatar of Vishnu and has a major religious significance for the Hindus. Being located at the banks of the Ganga river, the Mallahs (boatmen) form a large community here and the Mallahs abide by the panchayat's decisions. According to sources, Mamta, the wife of Raghuvar,

VISHAL SHARMA India (Mathura) 21 Oct. The devotees arriving in Lord Krishna’s birthplace Mathura were in for a surprise on Sunday as the doors to more than 2000 temples of both Mathura & Vrindavan remained closed today in protest to the arrest of the Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswati, the religious head of the Hindus world over, in a criminal conspiracy. Along the banks of River Yamuna, about 56 kms from Agra and south to the national capital city of Delhi, lie the twin cities of Mathura & Vrindavan, which, being the birthplace of Lord Krishna, the religious icon of love for Hindus, are reputed to be the main pilgrimage centre for Hindus and one of the seven sacred cities in India. The history of Mathura or Brij dates back to 600 BC and this land has been in the limelight during the Mauryan era, and under the great Emperor Ashoka, and later under Kushanas too. According to Hindu scriptures, it is believed that Lord Krishna was born in a prison cell of his maternal uncle

VIJAY UPADHYAY Agra, 20 Nov. After almost a fortnight of painstakingly extracting potable water from deadly chemicals flowing in the Yamuna, the Agra water works officials have a reason to rejoice. Fifty cusecs of Ganga water were released into the Yamuna on Friday to dilute the industrial sewage flowing in the river. Mr AK Dubey, General Manager, Agra Water Works alleged that for the past 15 days, his organisation had been processing the Yamuna water flowing through Agra, serving deadly chemicals and urban waste to the 20 million strong population of the city. With the sub-soil water in Agra heavily laced with fluoride, the lives of the locals fully depend upon the water supplied by the water works through a comprehensive water supply system. This water had become extremely polluted after the industrial sewage from Delhi and Haryana began to be dumped untapped into the Yamuna, which resulted in an increase in the chlorine demand at Agra upto 110 ppm, raising the brows of health exper

VIJAY UPADHYAY Agra, 18 Nov. Agra, the city of Tajmahal is also known as the breeding ground for innovative architectural styles in the medieval ages and this historic city has now be chosen to become the honored host of the "International Aga Khan Foundation Awards-2004", being held for the first time in a non-Islamic country, India. The details of this award ceremony were discussed on Tuesday evening in Delhi in a meeting attended by senior officials from the Union & UP governments, presided by Union Addl. Secretary (Home) Anil Chowdhary. The meeting was also attended by the Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, C. Babu Rajiv & Jt. Secretary (Cultural), K. Jay Kumar. From the UP government, the meeting was attended by UP Principal Secretary (Home) Alok Sinha, District Magistrate and Senior Superintendent of Police, Agra. The District Magistrate Agra Nitishwar Kumar told The Pioneer on Wednesday that to be held on 28 th November, the 3 – day Aga Khan Awa

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 18 Nov. “Good Morning, this is Rob from Infoway Solutions, Dallas; how can I help you?” This sentence may seem out of place coming from the lips of a teenager chattering away into his headphone in a remote town of India, but with the trend of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) becoming increasingly common, it would not appear strange to you in barely a few months. After the metros, the effects of burgeoning Indian economy have started to show on the B & C class cities of the country. With a large chunk of the populace well-conversant in English, these cities are fast becoming major outsourcing destinations for the corporates around the world. Within the past couple of years, the number of international call centres has grown exponentially in C class cities of Uttar Pradesh like Agra, which is slowly leaving its faltering tourism industry to enter the IT outsourcing arena. The attraction of the huge cash influx generated by these Call Centres is beginning to at

VIJAY UPADHYAY Agra, 14 Nov. Ever since the then US president Bill Clinton expressed his concern over the effect of air pollution on the soft marble of the Tajmahal, tackling this growing monster has been a tough nut for the state government. The effect of emissions from diesel vehicles on marble is well-known. Apart from high sulphur content, the noxious fumes emitted by Diesel vehicles and generating sets also contains high columes of "Suspended Particulate Matter" (SPM) which causes "pitting" in the soft marble stone surface, both directly and by binding to the atmospheric moisture, forming acidic compounds, causing the yellowing and corrosion of the stone. Experts have long been trying to introduce a "greener" alternative to the poisounous Diesel fuel in the vehicles & industries and so far, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) seems to be the only commercially viable alternative available. Widely available in the country, the use of CNG in the public

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 9 Nov. Take the entire world’s technology on one side and one Indian “Jugaad” (contraption) on the other and the balance shall tip over towards India. An Indian jugaad costing barely Rs. 20 has put the multinational mobile manufacturers on the run for their money on Diwali. Marketed with many names like “Ghost”, “V-Power” & “Magic”, this ingeniously manufactured itsy-bitsy bit of hardware accommodating two SIMs at the same time, has enabled people to keep two mobile numbers without having to buy two handsets, bringing the mobile market to a standstill. As the number of GSM service providers in all telecom circles has increased manifolds in the past few years, the passion of keeping two mobile numbers also increased among the mobile users, but this hobby also meant considerable expenditure on keeping two mobile phones and the introduction of this chip has obliterated the need of keeping a pair of mobile sets.

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 07 Nov. Such incidents were only witnessed in the parliament and state assemblies before this. Earlier, politics was targeted as a breeding ground of criminals, now even the academicians are not far apart. In an unfortunate incident that happened first time in the history of 77-year history of this oldest University of North India. The educators of the University assumed the role of rogues by attacking the UNESCO fellowship awardee University Vice-Chancellor Prof. A.S. Kukla on Saturday, shocking the entire Agra town. Perpetrated by a section of the education mafia operating in the University, the attack on the Vice-Chancellor has come as a surprise to the academic community of the city, which has termed this incident as an attack on the very roots of the society. Arriving just about 2 months back, the Vice-Chancellor had introduced several academic reforms in the University, which included a significant change in the Research programmes in a University, where ev

VIJAY UPADHYAY ETAH, 4 Nov. Two kids, who have barely initiated on the arduous journey of life, shall now have to pass through a DNA test to prove that the blood flowing in their veins belongs to their fathers. Riasuddin, a simple farmer of Etah district in Uttar Pradesh, has demanded for a DNA test of his child Umra, before he accepts his wife and child back into his home. Married to Nazia Beghum of Etah on 20th May 2002, Riasuddin threw her out of his home when she gave birth to a daughter about five months after the marriage, claiming that the child was not his and Nazia was an adulteress. But his wife Nazia Beghum claims that she never had physical relations with any man other than Riasuddin, who used to visit her months before their “Nikah” and they had engaged in pre-marital sex several times before being wedded, which could have made her pregnant with his child before marriage. Answering to Nazia’s claims Riasuddin denies having pre-marital physical relati

By VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA, 2 Nov. It was the second “Taj evening” in Agra that failed to attract audience despite the presence of renowned Indian artists. The colorful evening party of Fatehpur Sikri organized on Monday in a sequence of such events as a part of the 350th Anniversary celebrations of the Tajmahal miserably failed to lure the foreign tourists, for whom this event was conceptualized by the UP government. Instead, the evening turned out to be a “get-together” of bureaucrats and politicians in the historical surroundings of the 400 year old red sandstone fortress of Mughal Emperor Akbar. Despite the large number of entry passes allotted to the tourism agencies for distribution among foreign tourists in Agra, most tourists preferred to avoid the event altogether both due to the distance and the late-night programme. In the absence of foreigners, the hoteliers and emporium owners sought to distribute the passes amongst their kins, who flocked to Fatehpur Sik

By VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA, 2 Nov. The UP Development Coucil Chairman Amar Singh was spitting fire when he lashed out at the Union Government’s “un-cooperative” attitude towards the UP government on the issue of Taj’s 350 th anniversary celebrations, from the historic Diwan-e-Khas of Emperor Akbar’s deserted capital Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra on Monday evening. The second colorful mega-event in continuance of the series of events being held on the 350 th anniversary of the Tajmahal was held in the “Diwan-e-Khas”, from where Mughal Emperor Akbar had delivered his message of “Sulh-e-Kul” or World Peace, in consultation with his “Nav Ratnas”. Addressing the assembled guests from the very same stage, Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh tried to deliver his version of “Sulh-e-Kul” but he could not keep out his political aversion towards the Congress led Union government from his short speech and said that while the UP government had visualized the 350 th anniversary events of the T

By VISHAL SHARMA Agra, 1 Nov. Mobile subscribers in UP West & Uttaranchal will have more options to choose from with Hutch making its entry in the circle as the fifth player on Monday. In a region, where four major telecom companies - BSNL, Reliance, Idea & Airtel are already fighting for a piece of the cake, Hutch is confident that despite making a late entry, it shall make its presence felt felt in the region with the largest Hindi-spoken population of the country, through its special range of Hindi-language options including IVRS, SMS & Bills for its subscribers. Talking to the media persons in Hotel JayPee Palace, Agra after the formal launch of Hutch on Monday, Asim Ghosh, Managing Director, Hutchison Essar, said that Hutch, a 32 billion dollar company, is the pioneer in mobile telephony in the world and in India, it is providing world-class services in 9 states catering to the communication needs of over 25 lac subscribers in North India alone. He said that Hutch is