News on Agra & Current Affairs

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Marriages may be made in heaven but humans have a role to play. Take the case of a Mathura-based doctor, who had vowed to remain a bachelor for life. But, life took a turn when he fell in love with a Nepali girl, whom he had rescued from a local brothel. However, life is not always easy going. The doctor's wedding dreams are on the verge of getting shattered. The reason: The girl's parents are unwilling to agree to the marriage saying that the doctor was a foreigner. They want their daughter to get married to a Nepali. Nevertheless, the doctor has once again made a pledge, this time to marry the girl of his dreams even if that meant crossing the border into Nepal for the purpose. "I would try my best to marry her," the doctor has reportedly said. According to Reeta Shukla, station officer, women's cell, Maiya, the said Nepali girl was abducted by some Agra-based pimps from Kathmandu back in April this year. Subsequently, she was...

State promises tax breaks, cheaper land for new hotels Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The Uttar Pradesh government will unveil a new hotel policy, under which hotels being set up in the state will get a 100 per cent rebate on luxury tax for a period of five years. Apart from the tax holiday, the state has also made an offer to provide prime land for constructing the hotels at a rate applicable for industries. The land will be made available by the UP State Industrial Development Corporation. The new policy also empowers various development authorities to take over the possession of rural land if required for the development of new hotels. According to sources in the Agra development authority, development authorities will have to mention the land reserved for hotels in the forthcoming city master plans that will be reserved for five years, after which, if no proposals are received for the construction of a hotel, the land can be used for commercial purposes. Accord...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. While the Uttar Pradesh government’s plans to develop a software technology park in Agra are still awaiting final approval, Narsi Value Creations Ltd has fielded its own project for developing a separate software technology park in the town to develop which, company sources claim, discussions are underway with a Bangalore-based internationally acclaimed IT group. The software technology park (STP) will be located in the 1,500-acre Narsi Hitech City that will be developed in Agra over the coming three years. According to company sources, the detailed project report for the integrated township has been submitted to the Agra Development Authority (ADA) and the development of the project shall be done in three stages, with 600 acres being developed in the first stage. This will begin as soon as the report is approved by the ADA and land is allotted to the company. Besides the STP, sources said, the company also planned to develop a...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. With Hutchison Essar launching India's first prepaid ringtone & caller tune cards, even rural customers with limited knowledge of operating a mobile could select ringtones of their choice and download them without having access to the internet or going through the cumbersome IVRS process. Talking to the Pioneer on the occasion of the launch of its prepaid "Fun Cards", Rohit Adya, Chief Operating Officer, UP (West), Hutchison Essar said that the "Fun Cards" were ordinary prepaid scratch cards that could be used by the subscriber to download the ringtones of his choice. The available ranges will vary from latest Bollywood hits to the "desi folk". He informed these cards would be available all over India for an affordable cost of Rs. 20 - Rs. 45.

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Earlier, it was only movie theatres that ran in a three-hour shift through the day but these days, the entire city of Agra is being forced to operate in three-hour shifts, courtesy the UP Power Corporation Ltd. Owing to the environmental sensitivity of the Taj Trepezium Zone, the Supreme Court had issued stringent directives to the UP goverenment to ensure 24 hours uninterrupted power supply in Agra notwithstanding the current power crisis looming over the entire state. But despite the Supreme Court directions, while the Taj city was receiving less than 18 hours of electricity earlier, the situation has suddenly taken a downward plunge over the past fifteen days with the blowing up of a 40 MVA transformer located at the Power Corporation's Sikandra based 220KV sub-station due to a minor circuit break up in the town immersing almost three-quarters of the city in complete darkness. Ever since the transformer blew up, the power crisis in the cit...

Vijay Updhyay Agra. The political parties in Uttar Pradesh have suddenly gone into election mode. May it be the Congress, BJP, BSP or the ruling Samajwadi Party, all of them have suddenly entered into an electoral frenzy, with UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav giving indications at a public meeting in Agra of his intention to declare elections in the State within a month. Immediately after Mulayam made his intentions to hold an early election public, he has launched a number of developmental projects in the State. Some of these projects may have been a "backlog" that has been mounting since he took over in UP. He has been enumerating the work done by him during his tenure in every public meeting that is held in the State. Perhaps the most interesting factor of these public meetings is that for the first time, even Mulayam seems to be in the grip of "Sonia-phobia", incessantly charging on the Congress leader in the meetings like he had never do...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Apollo Hospital is once again in the news, and once again for the wrong reason. This time it is a hospital of the Apollo group in Agra that has come under the scanner of the police after a newborn child and a young man died allegedly due to non-availability of doctors, who were to arrive from Delhi. The police have filed a case of murder against the chairperson of the hospital, eliciting an angry response from local medicos, who have asked the Agra administration to allow Indian Medical Association (IMA) to intervene in hospital-related disputes before it s handed over to the police. Speaking to The Pioneer, Agra Superintendent of Police Gulab Singh said that KK Sharma - a resident of Sahabad area of Hathras district near Agra - had arrived at the Apollo Pankaj Hospital on June 16 with a newborn boy. The infant was suffering from some breathing disorder. KK Sharma has alleged that his son was kept in the hospital's ICU and he had been told that do...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. To curb the massive use of pirated software in the country, especially in Agra, Microsoft Corporation held a roadshow of its Windows XP Starter Edition in the city last week, with company representatives enumerating the benefits of genuine software and the disadvantages of using pirated software. Over 80 per cent of Microsoft software products being used by corporate and domestic users in Agra are pirated. Recently-launched localised versions of Microsoft Office and Windows XP Starter Edition, too, have failed to elicit response from the users of Windows-based PCs. According to a recent survey by a local PC reseller, the market share of genuine Microsoft software being installed in the near 600 laptops sold by the town’s resellers each month was negligible. The company executives said they were aware of the high percentage of pirated software being sold, but at present, the only measures being taken to prevent piracy was generating awareness amo...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Following a new terrorist threat to blow up the Taj Mahal, the monument has finally received its much-awaited external security cover. Early risers on Monday morning in the Tajganj area of Agra saw all the roads leading to the Taj Mahal being guarded by AK-47 toting policemen and fresh barricades installed 100 meters ahead of the eastern gate of the monument, being protected by yet another armed contingent of UP Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC). According to local police sources, new posts for 755 police personnel, including over 100 inspectors and sub-inspectors have been created in Agra recently, especially for the security of the Taj Mahal. A significant part of this newly created police force has already been deployed in the area surrounding the monument, which included all the three gates and the roads leading to these gates, where a large number of PAC personnel had been deployed. Commenting on this huge augmentation in the Taj security by t...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Striking back at the recent statements made by Congress president Sonia Gandhi referring to him and his partymen, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav allegedly said on Monday that Sonia Gandhi was a habitual liar. Addressing a public gathering at the inaugural function of the Rs 10.83-crore Kachaura Bridge over the Yamuna in Agra on Monday, Mulayam said the aim of Sonia's political game against his party was to spread as much misinformation about him as possible. He said, with the next Assembly poll approaching, the Congress president was trying to secure her stand against the Samajwadi Party (SP) with her blatant lies. The UP Chief Minister had recently claimed that his Government was being partial towards the development of Raibareli, which is Sonia's constituency, and that Raibareli was next to Lucknow in terms of development in the State.He claimed that his Government had spent over Rs 1,100 crore and it was not done with an aim ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. At a time when the prices of all commodities are reaching the unprecedented highs in the country, connoisseurs of mangoes in Agra have a reason to rejoice as the prices of the local delight Dussehri mangoes have reached a record low this year. Priced at just Rs 6-8 per kg, Dussehri mangoes have flooded the markets in the town over the past couple of days. While one kg of "Mumbai" mangoes cost as high as Rs 30 per kg, the huge influx of the local delight Dussehri mangoes has tipped the scales , bringing the aam prices within the reach of the aam aadmi. Notably, the prices of this much-in-demand mango variety have always remained between Rs 10-12 at their lowest point every year and this is the first time that too because of a bumper mango crop, the prices have gone further low touching Rs 6 per kg. This sudden drop in mango prices has prompted the local entrepreneurs into profiting from this opportuni...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Almost 500 years after it was built by Mughal emperor Akbar and his predecessors, the historic Agra Fort is ready for a brand new flooring. While the weather-beaten red sandstones are being replaced on the outer walls of the fort, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is now preparing to replace the sandstone blocks paving on the walkway from the Amar Singh Gate the main monument complex inside the fort at a cost of Rs 25 lakh. According to ASI officials, the stones had been laid out on the 200-metre ramp leading upto the Diwan - e - Aam in such a manner that elephants and horses walking up the ramp do not slip on the stones, for which, the Mughal architects had carved grooves in the stones. Now, they say, most of these grooves as well as the stones had been worn out and often tourists slipped on these stones. Keeping this in mind, the officials said, it had been decided to replace atleast 450 sandstones in the first stage that will cover the major...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The genetically modified potato would soon take root in the market, say the growers of the new breed. Despite being high in carbohydrates, potatoes often lose out to green vegetables in terms of providing complete nutritional value, but some ingenious potato farmers of Agra have found a solution to this problem by genetically engineering a new breed of potato that contains significant levels of Erythrosine and Beta Carotinoids to increase their nutritional value. But though the newly developed potato breed has attracted a lot of scientific attention from all over the country, the potato consumers are yet to develop a taste for a potato variety that has a red-violet tinge to its insides and has is slightly higher priced than the ordinary potatoes. According to Arvind Bhargave, a local potato farm owner who has played a significant role in developing this new potato breed in his farms in Sadabad near Agra, the Agra potato belt was the largest...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. This teenager from Nepal had never imagined that learning to ride an auto-rickshaw to earn a living would land her in the flesh trade in Agra. A couple of sympathetic clients freed her from the brothel where she was being kept under sedation. Recent raids in red-light areas of the city, have revealed that a large number of Nepali girls are being forced into the trade. Most of these girls are abducted from home by local pimps, who promise them well-paying jobs in India. In a similar raid conducted in Kashmiri Bazar on Thursday, the Agra police freed nine girls from the clutches of women operating brothels in the area. Of the nine victims, six are from Nepal and two belong to Arunachal Pradesh. Narrating her sad tale to the police, Maiya said that she was a resident of Sinduli Kodra in Nepal. About two months ago, she went to Kathmandu to meet her sister and work as an auto-rickshaw driver. Here Maiya met Nirmal, who said he would teach her to d...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. BSNL’s prepaid mobile users in Agra are going through a bad patch these days. Barely a few months after it launched the “Excel Anant” lifelong prepaid scheme in Agra, the company has gone short of mobile recharge and top-up coupons causing trouble to a large number of prepaid subscribers who are unable to recharge their phones due to unavailability of prepaid recharge coupons. Understanding the gravity of the situation, Sudeep Kumar, deputy general manager, mobile operations, BSNL, said the problem arose due to a sudden break in the supply of recharge coupons from the headquarters in Meerut. “In Agra alone, he said, there is a shortage of 20,000 recharge coupons and top-up coupons of small denominations. He said, at present, the company only had recharge and top-up coupons of Rs 560 and above. In view of the tough competition being faced by the company from other private operators in the prepaid mobile segment, he said, it was imperative that ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. In its near 400 years of existence, it is probably the first time, when physically challenged will be able to enjoy the full glory of Taj Mahal up close. Paying heed to a long standing demand to create a facility for physically challenged tourists visiting Taj Mahal, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has decided to allow these tourists to ride inside the monument in a "battery-operated auto-rickshaw", which will have a special entrance that lead directly to the monument. Talking to this correspondent regarding this innovative decision, D Dayalan, Superintending Archaeologist, ASI said the ASI had noted that a large number of physically challenged tourists arriving at the Taj Mahal were forced to return as there was no provision for a wheel-chair ramp at the entrance of the monument that is at least 6 feet high. Besides, he said, even inside the monument, the track followed by other tourists is not conducive for physically challenged tou...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Following repeated notices of relocation served by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), over 300 imitation jewellery-manufacturing units of Agra have decided to move to the outskirts of the city. A decision in this regard was taken in a meeting of the Imitation Jewellery Manufacturers Association held in Agra on Monday. According to Association General Secretary Alok Arya, Agra was a major centre of imitation jewellery manufacture in Uttar Pradesh, with over 300 units linked with the manufacture of jewellery functioning inside the old city, within small, constricted areas. Over the past couple of years, the Agra Development Authority and the UPPCB had been serving repeated notices to these units to either move out of the city or shut shop. As a result, it was decided that the artificial jewellery manufacturing units would move to the outskirts of the city to save their business. Arya said for a long time, jewellery manufacturers h...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. With the rise in petroleum prices throwing household budgets out of gear, Agra industrialists, utilising CNG for operating their units, too have got worried at the imminent rise in gas prices. According to local industrialists, CNG was being delivered to their units by Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) at a price of Rs. 6 per cubic metre while any consumption over the prescribed gas limit was charged at about Rs 10.50 per cubic metre. Recently, the industrialists in the nearby town of Firozabad received a letter from GAIL which stated the prices of the over-limit consumption of gas at Rs 23 per cubic metre, which has created panic among the local industrialists who are shocked at the more than two times hike in gas prices by the company. Devicharan Agarwal, a local industrialist, said this letter could have only one meaning that GAIL was planning to sneak in the new, higher rates of CNG without taking the industrialists into confidence. He sai...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Taking a strong stand on the lethargic approach of the Agra district administration towards freeing over 110 community ponds of the town from illegal encroachments, the UP High Court has sent a notice to the Agra administration, setting a deadline of July 13, for demolition of hundreds of commercial and residential buildings constructed on these ponds. Following the High Court notice, the Agra administration held a meeting to discuss the situation arising from the notice. According to DK Joshi, member, Supreme Court's Monitoring Committee on Environment, there were at least 110 ancient ponds in Agra that were listed in the revenue records, but the Agra administration in collusion with the land mafia, had allowed the ponds to be encroached by the builders. Over the past few years, he said, almost all the ancient ponds had disappeared under large buildings both residential and commercial and the administration had done nothing to save them. The di...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The employees of Dr BR Ambedkar University, Agra, are in a fix over the presence of two Vice-Chancellors in the university. The problem that has grown from bad to worse in the past week, began when the UP Governor TV Rajeswar removed the university's Vice-Chancellor AS Kukla following charges of corruption and financial irregularity on May 26, appointing Prof Bhumitra Dev as the new Vice-Chancellor. Unable to accept his removal, AS Kukla returned to the university within a day of his removal and took hold of the Vice-Chancellor's residence, car, security guards and office, claiming that he was still the v-C and he shall prove that the charges made against him by were false. It was only after the Agra administration interfered upon the request of V-C Prof Bhumitra Dev that Kukla relinquished his post on Monday, but he still continues to hold the keys to the Vice-Chancellor's official residence inside the University campus claiming that he was ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Sanjay Joshi has accused UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav of not being IT savvy - distributing jobs to "professional criminals" instead of "IT professionals". He has also accused the central government of buckling under US pressure in making India self-reliant in defence sector. Addressing a meeting of IT professionals in Agra on Sunday, Joshi said it was due to the criminal-oriented employment policy of Uttar Pradesh that the IT professionals were leaving the State. He said graduates from professional and technical courses like PMT and IIT, UP, lagged behind, but UP was busy creating jobs for criminals instead of providing better employment and educational opportunities to youth. He said the low share of the state in professional courses had resulted in a serious shortage of IT and other professionals in UP and the state government appeared to be unperturbed by this fact. He said...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Having successfully achieved 46 per cent of the electrification target in the Agra zone, Reliance Energy Ltd has accomplished a major feat. At a time when the entire state of Uttar Pradesh is having to cope up with the worst power crisis in the recent years, Reliance Energy Ltd, one of the flagship companies of the Anil Ambani-controlled share in the Reliance dynasty, has taken up the gigantic task of electrifying 7,220 UP villages as a part of the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Project. The company has already achieved 100 per cent electrification target in 2,200 villages and hopes to complete the remaining work much ahead of the schedule. According to sources in the Reliance industry, the company is participating in rural electrification of the state as a part of its commitment to improve the quality of life of the people of Uttar Pradesh. The sources said Reliance is committed to carry out rural electrification of 18 districts in the state...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Agra Development Authority's failure in installing cardiac defibrillators at Taj Mahal led to the death of a tourist inside the monument on Saturday. According to ASI sources, Bachhubhai Hirji Dedia, a resident of Raija, Malad East in Mumbai, arrived in Agra on Saturday alongwith a group of about 450 tourists to visit historical monuments. They said at about 4 pm the same day they visited the Taj Mahal and as Bachhubhai entered the premises he complained of dizziness and chest pain. He stayed at red-sandstone platform while the rest moved ahead. Soon afterwards, the ill-fated tourist collapsed on the stairs of the platform, and even before he could be rushed to Agra district hospital, Bachhubhai was pronounced dead. The incident has outraged organisations associated with tourism in Agra. They were shocked that no medical help was provided to the tourist at the monument and despite knowing that the tourist could not possibly survive the long ...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra For a town where the concept of developing an international airport is still on the drawing board and where regular flights have become a rarity, Agra has been especially fortunate. Over the last eight months, the city has seen 110 international chartered flights, each carrying a load of foreign tourists coming directly from their home country, landing at its airport. This has proved to be a boon for its tourism industry which is usually at its lowest during the summers. According to Prahlad Agarwal, convenor, Agra Foreign Tourist Traders and Exporters Association, the arrival of such a large number of international charters in Agra during the past eight months had had a great influence on the tourism business of the town, and if such direct arrivals of international charters continued, the present domestic airport could be granted the status of an international airport. He also said that in such a case there will not be a need for the UP...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. On the heels of a shake-down from the Uttar Pradesh government over its poor performance in the Rs 84 crore Agra rural electrification project, Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Energy has picked up pace on the job. According to Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. sources, Reliance Energy had entered into an agreement with the UP Power Corporation Ltd in August last year to electrify more than 600 villages of four districts of the Agra division — Agra, Aligarh, Hathras and Mathura — under the Accelerated Rural Electrification Project (AREP) of the central government. But after initial hiccups, over the past almost 10 months, the company managed to achieve 46 per cent of the electrification target while other companies like Accurate and SPML that had joined the fray to electrify villages in other areas like Etah, Firozabad and Mainpuri were hardly close to completing 35 per cent of the target and due to this they had come close to losing t...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. After successfully establishing its presence in the business of diesel engine, generators, pump sets, PVC pipes, hyper/high chrome steel media balls and railway components, the Rs 30 crore Atul Group of Companies has introduced futures trading in the Agra potato market. The group recently began its multi-commodity exchange terminal in Agra for which the Atul Group has been appointed as the main broker. Talking to Business Standard, Sanjeev Mittal, Director, Atul Group of Companies said that Agra is the largest producer of potatoes in North India, growing as much as 8 per cent of the total potato production in the country. This status had earned Agra the distinction of being the largest potato market in India and out of the Rs 25-Rs 30 crore national trading in potatoes every day, Atul Group’s share was as much as Rs 20 crore. He said that since the launch of the trading terminal in Agra, the group had dealt in almost Rs 700 crore worth of f...