News on Agra & Current Affairs

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Three days after a minor girl from New Delhi was raped at the Agra cantonment railway station by a railway driver, the police is still to trace the whereabouts of the absconding driver who has been suspended from duty after the incident. According to Mr Raj Bahadur, Superintendent, UP Government Railway Police, the 13-year-old girl was a resident of Delhi's Khajuri area and had been living at her sister's home in Agra for some time. On Saturday, the girl was returning to Delhi alone and was sitting at the Agra cantonment railway station waiting for the train to arrive when Mohammed Ali, a shunting engine driver, took her into the nearby railway shunting yard, promising her a ride in the railway engine. Upon reaching the yard, Ali locked the engine from inside and raped the girl. It was only when some other railway workers working near the yard heard the girl's cries that they banged the engine's door to force it open, upon which Ali jumped

Vijay Upadhyay Etah. In a glaring example of how the police can break the very law they are supposed to enforce, the staff of an entire police station along with the station in-charge fled from their post after a youth died in their custody. The police disappeared from the scene with the dead body. The incident took place on Sunday in Jethra town of Etah district in Uttar Pradesh. The incident invited severe public outrage with angry crowds gutting the police station. One person was injured in the police firing that followed. Five policemen including station officer Manish Yadav and sub-inspector Gajraj Singh have been suspended for their alleged involvement in the "murder" of Mohar Pal Singh, a local youth, in police custody and the subsequent disappearance of the dead body along with the General Diary (GD) of the police station. The accused policemen are still absconding and paramilitary forces have taken over the town to prevent further outbreak of violence

Vijay Upadhyay AGRA. More than 800 delegates from 84 countries of the world are congregating in Agra from Saturday for a 10-day global convention of youth organisations from all over the globe. Being hosted for the first time in India, the AIESEC International congress featured the participation of a delegation from Pakistan, a country which is joining the AIESEC for the first time. Inaugurating the convention in Agra on Saturday, Brodie Bowland, president of AIESEC, said that this was the 57th Annual international congress of AIESEC that was being held in India. The last event was held in Hannover, Germany. He said this time the convention would showcase the diversity that exists within AIESEC. There will be colourful display of cultures of five continents and 84 countries. On this occasion, the Coca Cola group built a "Global Village" at the hillock of Taj Khema behind the Taj Mahal, where all 800 delegates in the convention met each other and discussed common issues o

Vijay Upadhyay MATHURA. Despite the confusion over the exact date of Krishna Janmashtami celebrations this year, the festival will be held with full vigour and devotion on August 27 at Lord Krishna's mythological birthplace at Krishna janmabhoomi in Mathura. Girish Goswami, a priest at Bankey Bihari temple in Vrindavan, says exactly at midnight, the Lord's birth hour, every temple in Mathura and Vrindavan will resonate with the sound of aarti. Butter is especially included in the celebrations as Krishna is known to have been very fond of it in his childhood. Traditional prasad called Panchajiri - made of five ingredients, powdered ginger, suva, coriander, sugar and ghee - is also distributed on the occasion. According to Goswami, after the aarti, devotees jubilantly sing kirtans extolling the Lord; celebrations continue late into the evening of the following day when the crowd slowly begins to disperse. According to Kapil Sharma, Secretary, Sri Krishna Janmasthanam trust,

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. Planning to buy a new Maruti or any four wheeler for that matter? Make sure you use good fuel from a reliable outlet, otherwise, the car manufacturer may completely deny the warranty cover on your engine. In a small town like Agra, where the number of cars running on the streets is barely over 32 thousand, the car models being manufactured by Maruti are especially popular, selling almost 6-7 hundred cars each month, followed up closely by Hyundai. But these days, the users of this most popular car in Agra are in a state of panic with the cases of engine failure in newly purchased Maruti cars taking a steep upward hike. On top of that, the car dealers of the town too have begun to refuse warranty claims on engine repairs, citing company guidelines againstwarranty cover on engine failure arising from fuel adulteration problems. According to the Maruti sources in Agra, atleast 3-5 percent of the Maruti cars sold in the town were coming back to the workshops a

Vijay Upadhyay AGRA. The UP Government may be making tall claims of polio eradication from the State, which is most affected by the disease, but for 1-year-old Reshma, number 13 onthe polio patients' list in the State, the claims mean nothing. A resident of Islam Nagar village in the Khandoli area of Agra, Reshma was detected with polio recently, after she complained of weakness in her legs. She had been administered a total of six doses of pulse polio vaccine and yet her stool tested positive for polio, putting a question mark on the pulse-polio drive in this district. The appearance of a polio patient in Agra almost three years after the district had been declared "polio-free" by the UP health department has made the WHO raise questions on the veracity of the claims made by the State health authorities on the success of the pulse-polio campaign in UP. The authorities in turn are questioning the authenticity of Reshma's stool test. According to Agra District

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. With this year’s tourist season just months away from beginning and the impending end of the 350 th Anniversary celebrations of the Taj, the UP government is getting ready for the huge influx of foreign tourists in Agra that is being expected this year, keeping Agra on top priorityin terms of tourism development. On Thursday, Ms. Aradhana Shukla, Director General, UP Tourism held a meeting with the representatives of the tourism organizations in Agra to chalk out a strategy to attract more tourists in Agra and to make them stay longer in the city. Later, talking to Business Standard, Ms. Shukla said the UP tourism department has decided to host a mega show on the sandy bank of Yamuna river behind the Taj Mahal at the culmination of the 350 year celebrations of the monument’s construction on 27 th September, which shall also mark the beginning of the tourism season in Agra. According to Ms. Shukla, in terms of tourism, this year had been exceptionally good fo

Vishal Sharma Agra. While international hotel chains like the Oberoi, Taj, ITC, Holiday Inn, and Howard & Hilton have established their presence in Agra, two US-based hotel groups—Radisson and Mariott—are planning to enter this town, looking at the promising business prospects that Agra has to offer. Being the home of the Taj Mahal offers a distinct advantage for Agra--almost Rs 1,000 crore annually in tourism-generated income. This income is now attracting business groups from the world over, to invest in the tourism industry of this town, with the primary investment being made in the private sector. Tourism sources indicate the possible investment of almost Rs 600 crore in Agra in the next two years, with most of the capital going into the booming hotel industry of Agra, with more than 230 hotels at present and several dozen more to be added in the coming few years. Talking to Business Standard, D K Burman, joint director, UP Tourism, said he had been contacted by the

Vijay Upadhyay AGRA. Four decades of his life were spent in the shadow of schizophrenia. This is the story of 85-year-old Raghuvanshi, first a teacher, then a police officer, and now a cook at the AgraMental Asylum. This modern Rip Van Winkle's life has a perplexing blank of 43 years of which he remembers nothing, clueless how and why he ended up in the mental asylum 38 years ago. The oldest patient at the asylum, Raghuvanshi, finally pieced his life together when he met his 62-year-old son recently. Suffering from schizophrenia since 1962, Raghuvanshi is shocked to see how the world has changed in these interim years. He does not know India has fought four wars in this period, nor is he aware that Jawahar Lal Nehru is no longer India's Prime Minister. Having spent 38 years as a schizophrenic patient at the Institute of Mental Health here, Raghuvanshi recalled nothing of his earlier life, treating the 600-odd patients at the asylum as his family. One day, however, in

Vijay Upadhyay AGRA. Legend has it that Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan never really intended to be buried alongside his beloved queen Mumtaz Mahal. Instead, after the construction of the Taj Mahal, he wanted to get another mausoleum constructed for himself across the Yamuna river, in black marble. These two monuments were then supposed to be joined by a marble or silver bridge, though the confinement and death of the emperor in the hands of his son resulted in the end of this project. Historians attribute the authenticity of this legend to the asymmetrical layout of the emperor and his queen's cenotaphs inside the Taj. Among the numerous stories prevalent to justify the construction of the Mehtab Bagh by the emperor behind the Taj Mahal, across Yamuna. This story holds a ring of veracity, though the exact location of the black Taj is yet to be verified by the Archaeological Survey of India, which is conducting extensive excavations in the Mehtab Bagh.

VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA. Besides being the tourism icon of India, the Taj Mahal is also on the prime focus of the world’s environmental agencies for the structural damage being caused to this world heritage monument by air-borne pollution. In continuation to its support to the Central Pollution Control Board of India on pollution control, the Environment Ministry of Canada sent its deputy minister to Agra on Saturday to hold meeting with the CPCB officials regarding the effect of Suspended Particulate Matter on the Taj Mahal and on the environment of Agra as a whole. Talking to The Pioneer, Dr. Dipankar Saha, the local official of CPCB in Agra said that the Canadian delegation, led by Samy Watson, Deputy Minister and David Brackett, Director General Environment Canada, visited the CPCB’s installation at the Taj Mahal on Saturday and discussed the possibilities of Indo-Canadian cooperation in the field of the study and control of air-borne pollution in India,

VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA. The Taj Mahal may have given Agra the title of the “city of love”, but even in this city of love, the grim reaper is making a good harvest of souls with the number of suicidal youngsters rocketing skywards in the past two months. According to a conservative estimate, these days, Agra is facing the appalling toll of at least one youngster committing suicide daily. In the past one month alone, more than two dozen young people attempted suicide in Agra and even August opened at a tragic note with seven youth committing suicide in seven days, majority of them males between 18-28 years of age, belonging to respectable families of urban background and in almost all these cases, “future insecurity” came out as the primary reason. May it be Pradeep, the son of an IRS official; Nikhil, the son of a police officer; Manoj Mani, an engineering student or Sonvir, the son of a humble farmer, the reason behind these tragic deaths has been the same – fai

Vishal Sharma Agra. Continuing its efforts to upgrade its existing transport infrastructure in the state, the UP State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) will purchase 100 CNG buses at Rs 55.80 crore to restart its city bus service in Agra. The company officials held a meeting with the Taj Trepezium Zone Authority in Agra last week to discuss the financial aspects of this project and to finalise a time-frame for its implementation. Talking to Business Standard after the meeting, Umesh Sinha, managing director, UPSRTC, said the corporation had run a city bus service in Agra a few years back but the diesel buses produced a lot of sulphurous fumes and were not environment–friendly, which was the main consideration in the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ). According to Sinha, CNG buses, being a lot more expensive than normal diesel buses, could cost the corporation around Rs 20 crore and the supporting infrastructure, including the upgrade of the workshops to handle CNG bus servicing and the

Vishal Sharma Agra. Besides being the source of livelihood for several thousand Agra residents, petha, a world-renowned delicacy manufactured by more than 700 cottage units of the town, has also generated a serious waste management problem for Agra. To combat the continuous outflow of petha waste from almost 700 small and mid-scale petha-manufacturing units, concentrated in the Noori Gate area of the town, the Agra administration has decided to develop a “petha complex” just outside the city, providing the petha-manufacturing units ample space on the Agra-Delhi national highway. Talking to Business Standard on Monday, Ashok Kumar, Agra commissioner and chairman, Agra Development Authority, said the petha industry of Agra consumed several hundred trucks of ripe petha fruits every day during the petha-manufacturing season and a major part of these fruits was reduced to bio-waste after processing and it was this waste that gave rise to a serious waste-management problem for the t

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. Four years after it was shut down for not being able to achieve its production goals, the UP Leather Development & Marketing Corporation Ltd. in Agra may be revived soon by the UP government. This indication was given by the Agra Member of parliament Raj Babbar while talking to the mediapersons recently. According to Mr. Babbar, the issue of LAMCO closure has been raised before the UP Chief Minister and it may be revived soon. According to Raj Kumar Sama, a former director in LAMCO, established in Agra in 1974 with the goal of promoting unorganized footwear manufacturers and providing them with raw material and marketing assistance, LAMCO was engaged in the production of police boots for the UP government since 1974 but it was suddenly declared a sick unit and shut down by the UP government in Decmeber 2001. He said that equipped with more than a dozen imported vulcanizing plants from Sweden, the company was fully capable for

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. The Gas Authority of India Limited has decided to extend its gas supply to 39 more Agra units in the coming days. At present, it is supplying natural gas to almost 300 industrial units of Agra and Firozabad. Talking to Business Standard on Tuesday in Agra, U.D. Chowbey, Director Marketing, GAIL said that while the company was supplying gas to about 132 industrial units of Agra, quite a large number of units had also begun demanding for a CNG connection and assessing from the 34 thousand mscmd Metric Standard Cubic Meters per Day gas still left over with GAIL for consumption in Agra, the company had decided to add 39 more industrial units in its consumers list in the town and the project was expected to commence soon, completing off within three months. He said that these newly added industrial units could be supplied with natural gas at prorata basis. Besides, he said, despite being among the lowest gas consuming customers of GAIL, th

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. For such doctors, treating patients is only a side-business. Barely a few months after the arrest of an Agra medico for selling psychotropic and narcotic drugs through a virtual drugstore on the internet, another Agra doctor has been tracked down by the police for committing fraud worth several crores in the name of stock trading. Dr Anil Nigam, a resident surgeon in a reputed hospital of Agra, was arrested recently by the Agra police for funnelling money of investors from his brothers' stock-broking firm to a nursing home he was constructing for himself. According to Inspector NK Yadav, Hariparwat police station in-charge, Dr Nigam was anonymously operating a stock broking firm, Rishab Share Securities, in which his brothers Abhay and Arun were his partners. He said about three months ago, some investors who used the services of this firm complained to the police that the doctor had declared his firm insolvent and was refusing to return their money or

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. For a country fighting hard to control Pakistan sponsored militancy in Kashmir, the Shramjeevi blasts have come as a wake-up call pointing towards the jehadi mentality fostering in the Muslim youths back home. A home-brew Islamic extremist organisation, which was dormant since 2001, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) could not have chosen a better time to raise its head in UP. At a time when the London & Egypt blasts have sharpened the focus of the world towards Pakistan's suspected role in promoting Islamic terrorism, the terror strikes deep inside the heart of India. This seems to have been motivated with an idea of attracting global attention and this yearning of SIMI for world attention is what has now propelled the security agencies to completely overhaul their security plans for the world famous Mughal monument Taj Mahal in Agra and Lord Krishna's birthplace in Mathura. Soon after a high-level Taj visit of the officials of

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. The ongoing flood crisis in Mumbai due to heavy rains has brought a number of Agra industries to a standstill but probably the worst hit are the potato traders of Agra, who are losing business in the tune of 50-60 lakhs a day in cancelled consignments to Mumbai while the shoe industry has already lost more than Rs. 4 crores in two days. According to the Agra Cold Storage Owners Association sources, about 150 trucks of export grade "Khandoli" & "Chipsona" breeds of potatoes were loaded for Mumbai every day during the months of June-October but in the past two days, the incessant rains in Mumbai had resulted in the trucks en route to Mumbai being stuck in the way, resulting in the rotting of the potatoes loaded in the trucks, while several hundred tonnes of potatoes were waiting to be loaded for Mumbai at more than 200 cold storages in Agra, Firozabad & Shikohabad since Tuesday. According to the sources, the trucks stuck in the way were no

Vijay Upadhyay AGRA. With the new generation taking up the reins of the majority of industries in Agra, the city is slowly giving way to the development of the IT industry, replacing the age-old foundry industry of this city, which had, for almost two hundred years, supported the economy of Agra single-handedly. This deduction was made by the Agra industrialists during a get-together organised on the occasion of the 57th Foundation Day of the National Chamber of Industries and Commerce (NCIC), UP in Agra on Sunday. Talking to The Pioneer on this occasion, Rajiv Gupta, president, NCIC said that beginning 57 years ago as a consortium of Agra foundries, the NCIC had come a long way, from an organisation of Iron foundry units to a future conscious establishment. He said that with more than 200 Iron foundry units of Agra either shut down or facing closure due to pollution threats to the Mughal monument Taj Mahal, the NCIC was now shifting its focus towards less energy consuming and n