News on Agra & Current Affairs

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. With Agra getting ready for the opening of its first CNG filling station by the first week of April and the Agra administration making CNG fuel mandatory for school buses, automobile companies have begun an aggressive marketing campaign of their CNG vehicles among schools in the town. Advertisements for CNG school buses from Swaraj Mazda and CNG autorickshaws from Bajaj are becoming quite frequent in the local media and the Bajaj dealerships in Agra have even begun promoting CNG autorickshaws in place of the LPG variants that have become quite popular among the local auto-drivers lately. Sources at the Swaraj Mazda dealership in Agra said that they had been receiving a large number of queries from the local schools for CNG buses that were costing around Rs. 12 lacs per 42-seater bus. They said that there was a market for atleast 1000 school buses in Agra and since the Agra administration had given strict guidelines to the schools to stop usi...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. In a rare incident of female-domination, a wife who had reportedly been torturing her husband continually for three years was arrested by the police, went on the offensive again and threatened to take dire action against her doctor-husband if he dared to report the incident to the police. The case of this medico couple in Agra has caught the attention of everyone last week, when Dr Himanshu Kulshreshtha, an anaesthetist, filed an FIR against his eye-surgeon wife, Leena Kulshreshtha, in the Hariparwat police station. The doctor had complained of physical torture both at home and in public, and even at the hospital where he worked, he even allegedly suffered fracture in his arm once besides numerous other injuries. The police have been searching for Dr Leena ever since, who has been absconding after the case was filed against her under Section 323, 325, 499, 504, 506 IPC in Agra. On Wednesday, Dr Leena was finally arrested at her maternal home i...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Politics is usually considered a male preserve and only recently has there been a move towards reserving seats for women in Parliament and the state assemblies. But now, those on the fringes of the two genders , the eunuchs have begun demanding representation for their community in the Rajya Sabha. This was one of the main points discussed by the eunuchs at the first session of the "Hijra Convention" that began in Agra on Tuesday. Initially scheduled to be a one- month- long convention it has now been reduced to twenty one days, an auspicious number , and will end on 18th April. On Tuesday, the city woke up to a colorful procession of 4000 colourfully dressed eunuchs , ranging from the traditional lehenga to western casuals and toting the latest mobile phones , parading through the streets of Agra, singing both traditional and movie songs. It was after this procession, that some of the eunuchs opted to break the ban on talking to ...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. The Khadi industry of the country is almost completely dependent on the cotton slivers produced in the six Central Sliver Plants of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission spread all over the country, catering to the cotton sliver requirements of the Khadi units in their respective areas. Lately, the prices of Khadi in North India have been taking a steep upward climb and most Khadi producing units in UP, Rajasthan, Delhi and other north Indian states blame this price hike to the rise in the prices of raw cotton slivers being supplied by the Central Sliver Plant in Etah, about 85 km. away from Agra. But the officials at the Central Sliver Plant in Etah have their own reasons for this price hike, blaming it to the rise in fuel prices. Talking to Business Standard, R.S. Pandey, Director, Central Sliver Plant Etah said that the Khadi prices were subject to the cotton sliver cost and availability and in North India, the Sliver plant...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. In one of the worst military disasters that has taken place in Agra in the past few years, seven employees of the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) were seriously burnt when an experimental balloon-shaped surveillance craft filled with hydrogen gas exploded on the ground on Monday near the Keetham lake on the town's outskirts. A part of the forest around the site was also charred in the incident. The injured have been admitted to a local hospital where they are undergoing treatment. According to the ADRDE officials, which is governed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), had a research facility near Keetham lake where experiments in aerial reconnaissance were being done using hydrogen filed balloons. Hydrogen is highly unstable and inflammable and that is why this facility is located outside the inhabited area. On Monday, a team of ADRDE scientists an...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra With the industrial policy of the state becoming outdated in the changed global scenario, the Uttar Pradesh government has begun formulating a new draft industrial policy that will replace the state's three-year old industrial policy. According to K L Meena, director (industries), Uttar Pradesh, the UP department of industries has been asked to prepare the policy draft by working in cooperation with the neighbouring states that have successfully implemented their industrial programme and this policy draft shall be ready soon. Meena was in Agra to address a two-day industrial awareness seminar organized by the National Chamber of Industries and Commerce (NCIC), UP on Thursday. Talking to mediapersons, Meena said the new industrial policy shall be targeted towards catering to the specific demands of Industrial development in Agra and the other industrially backward cities. He said the government was aware of the problem of the shortage of la...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Kolkata-based Priya Food Products Ltd, one of the largest players in the biscuit market in Eastern India, has now forayed into manufacturing toilet soaps. On Sunday, the company launched an entire range of toilet soaps under the brandname – “Priya Yours” in Agra. On this occasion, the company director Anoop Agarwal said that in just 18 years after being established, the company had grown into a formidable player in the biscuit market of Eastern India and it was slowly spreading its wings into the Northern India, establishing an extensive dealer network in UP and Utaranchal and it had entered into stiff competition with other major companies already dominating this market. He said the company has now entered the toiletries market by launching “Priya Yours” toilet soaps as its first product line. He said that the company was aware that by launching toilet soaps, it was entering a highly competitive market but the products had already begun ge...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. For a city that holds numerous international conferences each year, Tuesday shall bring an unexpected surprise. Daily train commuters from Agra to Delhi are well acquainted with the large number of eunuchs they encounter during their journey, demanding money by making lewd remarks and suggestive actions. The eunuchs or hijras are seen singing film songs during weddings, demanding money from the father of the bride or groom. There suggestive posturings while singing a few snippets of a song embarrasses the victim so much that he quickly coughs up as much money as will rid him of the unwanted attention. Beginning March 28th, over 5000 hijras from the entire country shall be congregating at Agra, to participate in a month-long annual Akhil Bharatiya Hijra Sammelan. Being held in Uttar Pradesh after a long time, the Hijra Sammelan is the biggest gathering of eunuchs, where they dress up in their best and celebrate the "new arrivals" to their clo...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Though the police may find it hard to instil fear in criminals, for the common man, facing the police is still a much dreaded task with several instances of third degree torture and encounters making frequent headlines in the media. It was probably this ear that forced an Agra youth to commit suicide rather than surrender to the police, when cornered by them in his house, for killing his neighbour. He was rushed to the hospital, but was proclaimed dead on arrival by the doctors. According to sources, Raju Yadav, a resident of Etmad-ud-Daullah , Agra, had a running dispute with his neighbour, Bheekam Singh since Holi. Though the dispute was settled due to the intervention of some local elders, last week at about 10 pm, Raju, who had not been able to forget the incident, shot Bheekam in the stomach while he was sleeping in his house. Hearing the shot, Bheekam's family tried to catch hold of Raju but the latter fled from the spot and hid inside his house...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. March twentyfifth has come and gone without the arrival of the latino pop-star Ricky Martin. In his stead Kelly Rowland shall perform at a later date. After being postponed twice in the past two months, the Eighth Wonder of the World concert, against the backdrop of the Taj Mahal at Agra ,shall now be held on April 12th, if the organisers manage to get their act right this time, and instead of Ricky Martin, the star of the show shall be Kelly Rowland, a member of the rock band Destiny's Child. According to the show organisers, the concert, that was to be first held on 25th February and then postponed to 25th March has again been shifted, now to be held on 12th April, though no reason was given for the postponements. Other artistes who have been signed up for the concert are 13-year-old rap artist Lil J Xavier, Pakistani sufi singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and also the rock band Strings. But while the show organisers are still not willing to come fo...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. The market for biscuits in India is worth more than Rs. 6500 crores and it is growing rapidly at a rate of over 10-12 percent yearly and almost all the major biscuit manufacturing companies are on an expansion spree to capture the remaining Rs. 2000 crore market that is still in the hands of the unorganized sector. On Tuesday, Anmol Bakers Pvt Ltd, manufacturers of the Anmol brand of biscuits, held a meeting of its distributors and dealers in Agra in order to plan the marketing strategy of the company in the upcoming fiscal year while also inviting suggestions from the distributors on the possible ways to increase the sales of the Anmol brand, which was currently lagging at the fifth place in the country’s leading biscuit manufactures, far below Brittania and Parle. On this occasion, Mr. Gobind Ram Chowdhary, Managing Director, Anmol Bakers Pvt. Ltd. said that the company had been established in 1994 and since then, it had grown to a turnover of over Rs. 200 crores...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Faced with a target of electrifying 200 villages in the Agra division by April under the Accelerated Rural Electrification Programme (AREP), the UP power discom, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (DVVNL), has decided to lease out power distribution in these villages to private entrepreneurs on a minimum revenue guarantee of Rs 100,000 per village. Talking to Business Standard, Kirpal Singh, managing director, DVVNL, said the company had been asked to achieve the target of electrifying at least 200 villages by the end of April this year and considering the fact that most of the electric connections in these villages shall be plain light and fan connections, it was not possible to dedicate manpower for the realisation of revenue from the villages as the company was already facing shortage of manpower to maintain its almost 1.7 million power connections in the region out of which, about 1.334 million connections were domestic light & ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The Hunter aircraft - once dreaded by the enemies and the "hero" of the blockbuster motion picture Border - might have been decommissioned by the Indian Air Force in 2000, the longest serving aircraft still continues to serve the country. The Indian Air Force, on the occasion of the completion of 160 years of Agra's St Peters College, presented an airframe of the dreaded aircraft to the institution. The aircraft was put on display to attract students of the college towards the glamour, adventure and patriotism associated with IAF. Arriving in Agra on Tuesday as a present from Air Officer Commanding of Western Air Command AK Singh, a former student, the Hunter aircraft is the first aircraft to be presented to any private school in the country to promote the entry of the GenNext to the Defence services. According to college principal Father Matthew, the St Peters College holds the reputation of being one of the best intermediate colleges i...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The intensive Care Unit of a hospital is specialised for providing intensive healthcare to critical patients who are fighting for their life, manned by healthcare specialists. But this Agra medico uses the ICU as a hideout to save himself from the merciless beating by his wife. The cases of post-wedding violence faced by women in the hands of their husbands are quite common. But when a husband complains of facing three-year-long brutality by his wife, it's something that easily draws attention. The police personnel posted at the Hari Parwat police station of Agra were deeply surprised on Monday, when a local medico climbed the steps of the station to file a complain against his wife Leena, also a medico, who had been allegedly beating him ever since their marriage about three years ago. Citing his medical reports that detailed every beating he had received so far in the hands of his wife, Dr Himanshu Kulshreshtha, a resident anaesthetist at the P...

Vijay Upadhyay Aligarh. The history of Uttar Pradesh during this decade has been full of political murders -- be it BSP MLA Raju Pal, BJP MLA Nirbhay Sharma, BJP MLA Krishnanad Rai. And now former BJP MLA Malkhan Singh was killed on Monday evening in Aligarh in the same manner as the other three MLAs. Malkhan Singh, currently district president Rashtriya Lok Dal, was sitting outside his house in Gyan Sarovar colony at 5:30 pm on Monday. He was surrounded by three bodyguards, including two police gunners. Few minutes later, a car stopped at the gate of his house. A group of armed gunmen got off the car and began firing with semi-automatic weapons dropping Malkhan Singh's entire security detail in the first flurry of shots. Singh tried to save himself by running inside the house. The assailants followed him and shot him repeatedly, killing him on the spot. After murdering Singh, they fled in the same car, which was later found abandoned a few hundred paces away. Apart fro...

Reliance earmarks Rs 20 crore to check pollution Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The 5,600 Mw Dadri power generation project will begin by 2009. It is expected to reduce power shortage in Uttar Pradesh substantially, while also benefiting the neighbouring states of Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan. The company will be spending Rs 20 crore on environmental conservation work on the project site. According to Reliance Energy Generation Ltd (REGL) sources, as soon as the work is completed in the Dhirubhai Ambani Energy City at Dadri near Ghaziabad by 2009, the state shall begin getting electricity. They said 2100 acres out of 2176 acres land required for the project had been transferred to the REGL with the land records mutated in favour of the company. The project had already received mandatory clearances from the Central and UP government authorities, including the civil aviation department and the ministry of environment. The REGL had even completed the first cut of the load...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The "84-Kos" (250-mile) Braj region - spread around Agra, Bharatpur and Faridabad - is dotted with religious symbols and relics reminiscent of the era of Lord Krishna, 5,000 years ago. However, while Christians in Jerusalem and Muslims in Mecca have preserved every symbol associated with Christ and the Prophet, relics that are a symbol of the Hindu heritage are being reduced to dust by some greedy stone mafia, who indulge in illegal blasting of hills in Vrindavan near Mathura. Important relics like the Phisalini Shila and Khat Shila, where Lord Krishna had played and rested during his childhood, have become history. Many other heritage sites like the Vyomasur Cave where Lord Krishna is said to have killed the demon Vyomasur is caving in. Saugandhini Shila, where Lord Krishna pledged never to leave Braj, will soon be a thing of the past. To prevent destruction of places testifying Lord Krishna's existence and establishing the authenti...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. BJP Vice-President Kalyan Singh has accused UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh of being "hand in glove" with terrorists and criminals. Addressing a "Jan Chetna Rally" organised at the BSNL stadium in Agra on Sunday, Kalyan Singh said under the Samajwadi Party's regime, people who should be behind the jails were sitting in the Assembly. The BJP had decided that anybody, who had even a slightest blemish on his character, should not get a ticket in the upcoming elections even if the party had to sit in Opposition yet again. He said the BJP had never abandoned its directive principles. The Ram Temple in Ayodhya would be constructed as planned earlier. He said Mulayam Singh was terrorising the people of the State to prevent the downfall of his Government. But his party would fall prematurely and within 90 days of being elected to power, the BJP would completely overthrow the reign of terror and crime in the State. He said while...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Rural health teams visiting UP villages Pradesh are often faced with resistance during immunisation programmes of infants and pregnant women. Villagers rely more on local wise-women who recite folk-songs as a foil to a host of ailments as also to aid child birth. And now, a Delhi-based social worker has compiled maternal health folk songs in original voices of the old women of these villages in order to promote community health efforts among villagers. Sponsored by a Meerut NGO, research scholar and social worker Vaani Sethi's efforts in three villages of Agra began in September 2003 when she first arrived here to work on her thesis on public health but her involvement in the local health programmes soon grew into promoting community efforts with the help of the old, experienced women of the villages. During her research in Gopau, Nagla Mansh and Nagla Khushhali, Vaani came across several women who had inherited knowledge of pregnancy problems in t...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. VVIP visits at the Taj Mahal maybe disliked by tourists who are deprived of visiting the monument during the time, but the local media welcomes such visits with press photographers scrambling around to get exclusive shots. But this frantic scene may become a matter of the past with the Union Ministry of External Affairs directing the Archaeological Survey of India not to allow the entry of mediapersons into the monument during VVIP visits. According to the Archaeological Survey of India sources, the MEA had taken strong view of the regular breach of protocol during VVIP visits. Security agencies usually allowed mediapersons, especially local cable channels, to interview a VVIP during their brief visits at the monument. However, the sources said aides of a number of VVIPs had raised their objection to the local administration. The breach of protocol was evident on Sunday when the Agra district administration allowed a large number of mediaper...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The Uttar Pradesh government is planning to make ISI certification mandatory for all packaged water units in the state, a move could hit more than 80 water filtration and packaging units of Agra, with the summer round the corner. A delegation of members of the Packed Drinking Water Association of UP met the Agra district magistrate recently and presented him a memorandum, reminding him that obtaining ISI certification was mandatory for any packaged water unit but apart from about 5-6 brands, most of the over 90 water packaging units of Agra were being operated without ISI certification. Besides, being a serious health hazard, the modus operandi of these units was also giving a bad reputation to the entire water packaging industry, he said. Reportedly, the district magistrate has indicated possible action against the uncertified water packaging units of Agra in accordance with the policies set by the UP government. This could mean the closure of...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Is the Taj Mahal in Rajasthan? Most of us would quickly say no to this seemingly obvious question, but not the tour operators of Rajasthan, who have included this magnificent monument of Uttar Pradesh in their "Rajasthan Heritage" tour packages. A cursory glance at the packages offered by various tour operators based in Rajasthan and Delhi makes it clear how the tour operators based in these neighbouring States are taking advantage of the fact that Agra being located on the borders of both Delhi (196 kilometres) and Rajasthan (235 kilometres), is easily accessible through a day-trip from either Delhi or Jaipur, offering "Rajasthan Heritage Tour Packages with Taj Mahal". In contrast to the Agra based travel agencies that "honestly" mention Jaipur and Delhi as parts of a separate "Golden Triangle" tour package, a large number of the outbound tour packages from Jaipur include Agra as a part of the tour, apparently ...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The UP government has decided to allow the owners of closed movie theatres to utilise the land for building commercial complexes, on the condition that they build a minimum 300-seat mini theatre in the complex. According to sources in the UP entertainment department, over the past decade, with the advent of cable television, the number of cinema-goers had plunged considerably. The 900 cinema halls in the state, with a capacity to seat one billion people in a year, saw barely 12.4 crore viewers in the past year. Sources said a normal movie theatre in the state had 600-700 seats and the number of viewers exceeded 25 crore each year about two decades back but in the past one year, it had been observed that on an average, barely 90-95 viewers watched movies at cinema halls and most of the 6.35 lakh seats remained vacant all the time. In Agra alone, where movie theatres were the major crowd pullers about a decade back when there were no other ...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. With the financial year coming to a close, the UP trade tax department has become more vigilant in an attempt to achieve the annual tax collection targets for various districts of the state. The annual tax target of the department was Rs 11,650 crore. Till February, the target was Rs 9,713 crore, against which the department has so far collected Rs 9,958 crore, which was a record tax recovery in the past 10 years. For Agra, the target was Rs 463 crore and the collection so far has been at Rs 385 crore. To make up for the balance, the department has now strengthened its grip on Central government departments like the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) which buys building materials in bulk from manufacturing companies and then sell the material from their stores to the contractors without paying any trade tax on the sale even though this is a direct sale of the building material with the central government departments acting as mere stock...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. There is a difference between making a claim and achieving it - this applies to the Indian Railways as well. Touted only a month ago as the fastest train of the country, the Bhopal Shatabdi Express, running at 150 kmph between Delhi and Agra, has turned into an ordinary super-fast train, coming down to the "trademark" speed of the Indian Railways. Ever since it was flagged off by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, the train has been running late almost daily. Sometimes even by an hour, it brings down the average speed of the train, which almost never reaches 150 kmph. In fact, the train, which is touted to complete the Delhi-Agra trip in 116 minutes, is not a record-breaker considering the same train would make the trip in just 115 minutes back in 1988, when it was launched. According to sources in the railway, the Agra-Delhi railway track had undergone major changes in the past few years that included the strengthening and fe...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. For the ailing footwear industry of Agra, which caters for almost 55 per cent of the total domestic footwear market in India but is seriously lagging behind China in export, this could be a ray of hope. The department of industrial policy and promotion of the Union ministry of commerce and industry has decided to provide an assistance of Rs 290 crore for the modernisation and technology upgrade in all segments of the leather sector, namely tanneries, footwear, footwear components, leather goods and garments under its newly formulated Integrated Development of Leather Sector (IDLS) scheme. Last week, the Agra Footwear Manufacturers & Exporters Chamber (AFMEC) and the Council for Leather Exports (CLE) held discussions with officials of the Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI), Noida, at the Hotel Holiday Inn in Agra, on the possibilities of Agra footwear industrialists being able to utilise this helping hand of ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The Agra-based Kendriya Hindi Sansthan under the department of Education of the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development is world renowned among students coming to India to study Hindi. The institute is gaining notoriety of being unsafe for foreign female students, all due to the alleged activities of a professor. In a shocking revelation, a former Austrian student of the institute has in a letter, addressed to the institute's registrar Dr Chandrakant Tripathi, accused her Hindi professor of making sexual advances, which ultimately compelled her to leave the course in mid-term and return home in order to save herself from his clutches. In the wake of the serious charge by the student, the institute director (acting) Professor Kutumb Shastri has set up a committee to investigate the incident which will be headed by the registrar. Talking to The Pioneer, Dr Chadrakant Tripathi, registrar, said that Judith Antonio Rainer, a student of Hindi, w...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. However grim the law and order situation and political struggle may have become in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress is still not willing to take back its support from the Mulayam Singh Government. The Congress claims that Mulayam was acting as the party's primary weapon in its fight against communal forces. Voicing the policy of the party while talking to the media after holding a meeting of the party workers of Agra division on Friday, Congress General Secretary Ashok Gahlot said that the party was aware that the situation in the State was slipping out of the hands and the Mulayam Singh Government. He added that supporting Mulayam was the only option left for the Congress to prevent him from becoming a pawn in the hands of the communal forces. Beating the "Rahul Drum" once again in an effort to unite the Congress ranks 16 years after the party was ousted from the State by Mulayam Singh Yadav, Gahlot said that Rahul Gandhi had agreed to take the ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister and expelled BJP leader Uma Bharti has declared that she possessed a formula to oust the Samajwadi Party Government from Uttar Pradesh in six months. She said the people of the State were in danger under the present Government and only the "new BJP" will be able to protect the people's life and property. Addressing a small gathering at a public meeting in Agra on Thursday evening, Ms Bharti said the Varanasi bomb blasts, despite prior information, have proven that the Mulayam Singh Government plans to divide the people of Uttar Pradesh on the basis of caste and religion. She even met the State Governor, and asked him to terminate the Mulayam Singh Government. She said she will hold a Sankatmochan Path in Varanasi on March 11 for the well being of the people of the State after which she will continue with her Janadesh Yatra to form the "new BJP". She said 25 years back, when the BJP was crea...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The central excise and customs department yesterday started a helpline in Agra to make it easier for businessmen to file their service tax returns. Inaugurating the helpline, set up by the department at the Agra Iron Founders Association building, Central Excise Chief Commissioner Anil Bhatnagar said businessmen who had problems going to the excise office could come to the helpline centre and deposit their service tax. He said the centre was manned by central excise department officials during usual office hours and would handle new registrations and solve the problems of businessmen. On this occasion, he also announced that with this year’s Budget, 15 new services had come under the service tax regime though they did not have to pay taxes till further notification. Services like the railways, education, private catering, and management consultancy, which were enjoying exemption from the tax, will now have to pay service tax as the exemption...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Several students were injured, some critically, when some private security guards of Dr BR Ambedkar University Agra, armed with sticks and batons, attacked a large group of demonstrating students assembled before the University Vice-Chancellor's office on Wednesday. The students have filed an FIR against the University guards for deliberately attacking the students with the intent of causing grievous injury. In what is the second bout of violence that broke out in the University in the past two weeks, a group of students who were demonstrating before the Vice-Chancellor's office tried to enter the office premises by forcing open the gates of the office after the Vice-Chancellor reportedly refused to meet their demands. Soon after the students entered the VC's office, they were attacked by baton-wielding security guards of the University and chased out of the office, which resulted in injuries to a number of students, among which, four were se...

VIJAY UPADHYAY AGRA. The Varanasi blasts could have been the result of a “Urea (Ammonium Nitrate) Bomb”, according to the initial information provided by the Agra based Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) experts. According to the FSL sources, the evidence gathered from the two blast sites by the experts team being led by Dr. Santosh Kumar, the chief forensic expert at the FSL, had a common feature of Ammonium Nitrate and Aluminum powder residues spread out in the area which indicated that a large quantity of these two ingredients had been involved in making these lethal bombs. Apart from these, the residues also contained traces of fuel oil that had been added to the mixture, indicating the most common terrorist recipe of a “Urea Bomb” that could have been detonated by using a small pellet of RDX as the initiator, though according to Sangeeta Rani, Jt. Director Agra FSL, there was a need for further testing of the samples at the laboratory in Agra, before the use of RDX could be confirm...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. For tourists arriving at the Taj Mahal, the gun-toting, grim-faced security personnel often are a turn-off. But these security personnel may soon be seen sporting a pleasant smile and greeting the tourists, courtesy Yoga classes that Taj security personnel will attend. The rising number of tourists at the Taj Mahal may be a matter of pride for those associated with the tourist trade, but this rise in tourist traffic is also a matter of concern for security agencies engaged in safeguarding the monument. With the Taj Mahal being frequented by tens of thousands of tourists every day, the effect of work-related stress has become all too evident on the CISF personnel deployed at the Taj Mahal. The otherwise friendly CISF personnel's behaviour, sometimes leaves much to be desired - a matter that has lately been of considerable concern among the tourism officials in Agra. To combat this and to make CISF staff more active and friendly to...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. With Agra gaining the status of the 27th metropolitan city of India, the UP government’s project of developing six high-tech cities in Uttar Pradesh is on the verge of taking off. Both Narsi Value Creations and Unitech Builders, whose proposals for setting up the high-tech cities in Agra had been passed by the state government, have submitted the concept reports for their projects with the Agra Development Authority for setting up their mini-cities in Agra. According to Agra Development Authority sources, Narsi Value Creations planned to spend about Rs 1,150 crore in developing the township on 2,850 acres, though due to the paucity of land in the metropolitan area, the ADA had asked the company to submit a fresh proposal for a maximum limit of 1500 acres of land. According to the sources, the company had already purchased 200 acres of land in the city and was planning to buy about 1100 acres more land from the Uttar Pradesh Housing and...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. VRS Foods Ltd, a premier Delhi-based dairy product manufacturer, has opened its first exclusive showroom in Agra. Talking to mediapersons on the launch, Narendra Singh Nagar, director (operations), VRS Foods Ltd, said the company had been in the business of dairy products for the last 40 years and was currently manufacturing pure ghee & skimmed milk powder in bulk and consumer packs, dairy whitener, table butter, white butter, de-mineralized whey powder, casein edible and industrial grade, apart from pasteurised milk. The company is the second largest milk distributor in Delhi. Nagar said the company’s products, marketed under the brandname “Paras”, had found wide acceptance as raw materials among renowned food products manufacturing companies like Nestle India Limited, SmithKline Beecham, Hindustan Lever Ltd and Mother Dairy and the company had even begun exporting casein powder which resulted in the company’s turnover touching Rs ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Following the row between the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Agra administration over unauthorised namaz offered at the local Idgah two weeks back, despite ASI objections, an FIR has been filed by ASI against one lakh unidentified Muslims for flouting the ban on offering namaz at Idgah. ASI has also filed a formal complaint with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary against the uncooperative attitude of the Agra administration, including District Magistrate Sanjay Prasad. According to ASI Superintending Archeologist D Dayalan, almost one lakh Muslims defied the ban on religious activities inside the protected Idgah by breaking open the main gate locks and holding a religious meeting and offering namaz inside the Idgah. He said the ASI had registered its objections with the local administration against the Idgah being used for anti-cartoon demonstration by the Muslims. But, apparently, the Agra district magistrate did not pay heed to the objections persona...

The 4.5 per cent trade tax has reduced incomes to merely Rs 2,500-3,000 per metric tonne Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. There was a time when the “dal mills” of Agra catered for the processing needs of faraway states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Today, this industry is just a sorry remnant of its prosperous past. Once spread all across the town with 150 units working in tandem to process over 400 tonnes of pulses a day and a clientele spread throughout the country, Agra’s dal mill industry has now shrunk to barely 30-35 units processing little more than 75 tonnes of pulses. The repercussions of the weakening pulse of this “pulse-processing industry” can be felt in the machine-tool forging units in the Nunhai industrial area of the town, where production of dal mill equipment has dropped to less than a quarter of what was produced earlier. These units now lay more stress on producing flour mill equipment. According to Agra Dal Mill Association General Secret...