News on Agra & Current Affairs

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. Judging from the demand for branded goggles & optical accessories in North India with the rising temperatures, Nayan opticals, a reputed optical accessories importer of Indore has now decided to enter the North Indian market. In its quest to establish optics showrooms in every major town of the country, the company launched its first “super-specialty store” in Agra on Sunday. Talking to Business Standard on this occasion, Bishandas Purasnani, chairman, Nayan Opticals, said that the company is dealing directly with a number of reputed optics brands of the world, including Bausch&Lomb, manufacturing the world-famous “RayBan” brand of goggles & contact lenses. Besides, he said, the company also resells a number of foreign and indigenously manufactured optical accessories & vision testing equipments that are either imported directly or through the company’s agents. He said that after establishing a domineering presence over the optics market in Central I...

VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA, 21 APR. United States Drug Enforcement Administration (USDEA) & Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), India have jointly busted an “online pharmacy” racket in Agra, operated by a reputed local medico and his medical student son in the United States and a number of other countries including Australia, Canada & UK. The gang busted in Agra supplied Indian manufactured drugs to more than 200 e-pharmacy websites globally. In a raid conducted by NCB & DEA officials in Agra on Tuesday & Wednesday at the residence of Dr. Brij Bhushan Bansal & his brother Anil Bansal who is a practicing advocate in Agra Sessions Court, the NCB authorities have seized more than 20 thousand tablets, ampoules & capsules of psychotropic & narcotic drugs that were meant to be sold “online” through a website that was being operated by Dr. Bansal’s son Akhil Bansal a student in the United States alongwith another Indian student Atul Patil. Dr. Akhil too has been ar...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. Usha Shriram Furniture Ind. Pvt. Ltd., a leading name in branded furniture has made a big splash in the imported furniture segment by presenting a new international stylish range of “imported beds & accessories” on Friday in Agra. Talking to Business Standard, Mukesh Gupta, Manager, Concept Furniture, the local showroom of Usha Shriram Furniture Ind. Pvt. Ltd. said that this new range of furniture, being marketed under the “Lexus” brand nationally, had been imported by the company from Malaysia and had been specially designed to suit the requirements of a typical Indian family. He said that though the company had presented only single & double beds in this furniture range, the presence of another such range launched by the company earlier in November did not make these beds look out of place with a 12 – 13 piece furniture set comprising of a double bed, two single beds, sofa, dining table etc. coming at an affordable price between Rs. 63,000 to Rs. 80,000....

VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA. There is an old saying that “those whose houses are made of glass, don’t throw stones on the houses of others”, but the former chief secretary of UP Akhand Pratap Singh did exactly that. When this “venerable gentleman” was suspending top IAS officials like D.S. Bagga & P.L. Punia for their involvement in the Taj Corridor scam, he had already created the grounds for another “corridor” for himself in Agra besides the river Yamuna. Now, when the CBI has applied brakes to the full-throttle corruption-ride of AP Singh, the links of his corruption are being unearthed all over the state. One such link has been uncovered in Agra, where 132 acres of land worth several crores was “donated” by him freely to an agricultural society to “grow potatoes”, against all established norms and practices. The land has now been taken back from the society, after the UP Chief Minister issued strict directives to the Agra administration to get the land vacated, during his Agra visit. T...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA (INDIA) Barely a fortnight after the acceptance of VAT by 19 states of the country, the traders of Uttar Pradesh, who had opted out of the VAT regime have begun to face the music. The prices of consumer goods & commodities alike have taken a sharp upward climb and already, the UP government has begun thinking of an “easy way out” of this tricky situation. Talking to Business Standard in Agra on Tuesday, the UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh said that he was aware of the difficulties being faced by the traders of the state after the state became an isolated non-VAT territory, surrounded by states that have accepted this tax from this fiscal year. He said that he was consulting the prominent traders’ organizations of the country to find a solution to their woes. These organizations shall decide if UP should go the VAT way or not. But the Chief Minister categorically ruled out the possibility of implementing VAT in UP against the will of the state’s industrialists and...

VISHAL SHARMA Agra, 14 Apr. Maruti Suzuki, India’s leading small car manufacturer begin a two-day “Used Car Fair” under the aegis of its used car dealership brand “True Value”, in Agra on Thursday. This fair being held by the company in collaboration with its dealers in Agra – Madhusudan Motors Pvt. Ltd. & Kavisha Motors Agra Pvt. Ltd., is being touted as one of the largest “used car fairs” held in Agra with almost all Maruti car models being offered on sale in the fair. Talking to Business Standard, Ajay Sharma, Managing Director, Kavisha Motors Agra Pvt. Ltd. said that despite being the auspicious time of “Navratras”, the car sales have been painfully slow this month with less than 20 cars sold on each of the two dealerships, while in the previous years, the dealerships sold more than 200 cars in the month of April. By holding this True Value fare, the company hoped to boost up car sales in the town. Rama Shanker Agarwal, MD, Madhusudan Motors Pvt. Ltd. said that may it be new c...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 31 MAR. The Jai Prakash Hydropower Limited public issue that closed on Tuesday has been oversubscribed by over 6.5 times, with maximum bidding by institutional investors reaching the extreme limits of the price band sent by the company. According to the company sources in Agra, this IPO is the first such public issue from any hydropower company in India, which has gained such a huge success. For 18 crore shares put up on offering, the company received 117 crore applications till the issue closed on Tuesday, after requesting a number of “time-extensions” from both NSE & BSE. Sources said that while the institutional investors have oversubscribed the issue by 7 times, the private investors have oversubscribed it by 10 times, with more than 99 percent of the bidding made on the upper end of the price band at Rs. 32, while the price band was between Rs. 27 to Rs. 32. The issue had been opened for public on 22nd March and indications ar...