News on Agra & Current Affairs

Shifting to a new, well-maintained building was a happy moment for the Trade Tax Department employees of Uttar Pradesh. However, they had no idea that the happiness would soon turn into a nightmare. VIJAY UPADHYAY reports from Agra on the unfortunate incidents that took place inside a new office building. Considering the poor economic status of Uttar Pradesh, new office buildings do not hold priority status with the State Government and even departments earning crores in revenue are stuck with centuries-old buildings where they work in continuous fear of the structure crumbling on their heads. The Trade Tax Department of Agra is one such department that has been functioning out of the haveli of Mirza Raja Jai Singh since Independence and a major part of this palatial building is currently in a dilapidated condition, demanding urgent and continuous repairs to prevent it from caving in. As a result, when the Trade Tax Department's offices were shifted to a new building in 2005, the ...

VIJAY UPADHYAY Agra. Agricultural land situated on the Uttar Pradesh- Rajasthan border near Fatehpur Sikri has been instigating quarrels between villagers on both sides with continuous squabbles over water and land distribution. But a swarm of monkeys let loose by the municipal authorities of Bharatpur into Fatehpur Sikri has put these disputes on the backburner, with monkey-bitten villagers seeking medical aid at the primary health centres in Rajasthan, going up to Jaipur to get anti-rabies shots, unavailable in Agra. So far, more than a dozen people have been bitten by monkeys. As no anti-rabies shots are available in primary health centres either in Fatehpur Sikri or Agra, victims are forced to cross into Rajasthan where the doctors have been treating monkey-bites with anti-rabies shots available in surplus. While locals are praising the Rajasthan Health Department for having treated patients from UP, residents of Samra village, worst affected from monkey bites, are angry tha...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. In tune with its policy of giving maximum benefits to its customers, Reliance Communications announced a new Double Talk Time - Double Validity Offer. Announcing the launch of this Double Talk Time - Double Validity Offer in an official release, Arvind Kumar, CEO, Uttarakhand and UP (West), Reliance Communications said the offer was in continuance to the efforts made by the company in providing value and utmost customer satisfaction. In the offer, according to Kumar, all subscribers e-Recharging with specified Recharge Vouchers (RCVs) during the promotion period will get either double talk time or double validity depending upon the recharge denomination. Subscribers get double of the normal talk time on every e-recharge denomination of Rs 300, Rs 350, Rs 430, Rs 495, and Rs 565. And, on every e-Recharge of Rs 650, Rs 750, and Rs 950, subscribers are entitled to double of the normal validity. The bonus talk time, available as part of the Double T...

In the biggest ever multi-nation online pharmacy scandal busted recently by the US authorities, a little known run-of-the mill doctor from Agra has emerged as the astonishing kingpin. All of 59 and a son to aid him from the US, the man set up a parallel pharma economy in Agra, selling banned drugs in bulk to online pharma companies. Vijay Upadhyay brings you a case that has shocked even the otherwise deadpan DEA agents in the US From online phishing rackets to data-thefts; from call-centre rackets to online pharmacies; from drug-trafficking to porn websites - Indian entrepreneurs seem to be excelling in every aspect of Internet crime, a fact that has dug deep furrows on the brow of US law makers who are the worst affected from this Indian "rule bending". Over the past couple of years, the number of Indians involved in illegal trading through the internet has grown exponentially, with youngsters unable to physically go to America, being lured into earning dollars back home, b...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Following the abrupt shutdown of the Agra Footwear Components Park project, due to the non-availability of land and the withdrawal of central government grant, the local footwear industry has now raised the demand of this project being revived in the Eleventh Five-Year plan to enable the Agra footwear industry to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). According to the industry sources, the footwear components park had been approved by the central government on a conceptual level but it could not be started due to the non-availability of adequate land on the Agra-Delhi highway, which had been targeted as the area for the development of this project. Talking to Business Standard, Puran Dawar, local footwear exporter and Managing Director, Agra Footwear Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. which had been designated as the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the footwear park project, said that a delegation of the footwear industrialists...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The 16th Annual Taj Mahotsava was inaugurated in Agra on Sunday by the UP Development Council Chairman Amar Singh amid apprehensions of the festival venue being taken over by the Agra Municipal Corporation for realisation of due taxes. However, the corporation has agreed to defer its action till the festival’s completion. Organised in the Shilp Gram, the Taj Mahotsava has more than 450 craftsmen, from across India and about 1500 artists, participating in it. Talking to Business Standard, DK Burman, joint director (tourism), UP, said the ten- day-long Taj Mahotsava was an international event and it was included in the national tourism calendar. This year, he said, the state government had set aside Rs 600 crore for the development of tourism in UP and a major part of this fund was to be spent on the Braj region which included the towns of Agra and Mathura. He said a marketing strategy was being planned by the state government to publicise t...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. With the Surajkund fest coming to an end in Faridabad, Agra began its end-of-tourism-season fest with the 16th Annual 10-day Taj Mahotsava, which was inaugurated in Agra on Sunday by UP Development Council chairman Amar Singh at Shilpgram, followed by playback singer Shaan performing in a musical evening. Functioning year-long as a mere parking place for tourist buses coming to the Taj Mahal, the Shilpgram comes abuzz with activity and fanfare only during these 10 days, with the participation of over 450 artisans from around the country for which the State Government has granted a fund of just Rs one lakh. Talking to mediapersons after the inaugural, Agra Divisional Commissioner Ashok Kumar said an Opera by a French cultural troupe was also scheduled to be held during the festival. According to Kumar, the festival shall be closed on February 27. He said this year there was a lack of adequate funds for the festival and the festival committee had to arran...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Bad planning may not have seen a better example than the much-debated Taj Expressway that is destined to link Agra to Delhi through an ultra-fast corridor. Designed to bring the distance between Delhi and Agra a little more closer, the Taj Expressway has in fact, increased this distance by more than 30 km, linking Agra at a point almost 10 km on the road towards Firozabad. Sources linked to the Expressway project in Agra claimed that the project would link Agra to Noida, close to Etmadpur about 10 km down the road towards Firozabad. When the project finally becomes operational, the tourists arriving on this expressway would be entering Agra from across the Yamuna river, directly entering the proposed "heritage zone" consisting of Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Itmad-ud-Daullah instead of the usual route that leads them through the city's centre and the tourists could return via the same route.

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The possibility of a forthcoming Congress-BSP tie-up in the UP Assembly elections is fast coming to an end with the BSP supremo Mayawati planning to confront the Congress President Sonia Gandhi with an evidence of the double game played by the Congress against the BSP in the Uttarakhand parliamentary by-polls elections. According to the party sources, the reports of back-stabbing in the party had been reaching the BSP supremo for quite some time but the party was spurred into action when it faced a massive setback in the Tehri parliamentary by-polls with its candidate Nasimuddin withdrawing his name from the elections at the last moment. Talking to The Pioneer, a senior BSP leader in Agra said that the first axe for this setback has fallen on the party's State coordinator of Uttarakhand and member of UP legislative council (MLC) Dharma Prakash Bhartiya who was sacked by the party supreme on Friday. Bhartiya, who had only recently been appointed as th...

Vijay Upadhyay   Agra.             Seven years after an Etah youth was allegedly robbed of his kidney at the Aligarh Medical College, the Aligarh district court has ordered an FIR to be filed against six doctors including two surgeons of the medical college in the case. Talking to The Pioneer, Rampal Singh, Inspector-in-charge, Civil Lines Police Station, Aligarh said that Satyabhan Singh Chauhan, a resident of Kuthila Layakpur village in Etah was injured in a bus accident on February 13, 2000 in Atroli town of Aligarh. He was admitted in a nearby private hospital where it was diagnosed that he had a burst abdominal diaphragm. He was referred to the Aligarh Medical College where he was subjected to an emergency operation and discharged after a few days. About a year back, Satyabhan had serious pain in his abdomen following which he got an ultrasound of his abdomen conducted and was shocked to find that he was short of his left kidney. He remembered that he was operated in the Aligarh M...

Vishal Sharma   New Delhi/ Agra.                With the Union Budget round the corner, Agra exporters have again raised their three-year-old demand for income tax rebate for income generated from exports under Section 80 HHC, claiming that since the export industry was the single-largest contributor in the town’s economy, it deserved some incentives in the wake of globalisation and the tough competition posed by China. The industrial sector of Agra thrives on the footwear, handicrafts, glass and carpet industries and these are largely dependent on small export-oriented units managed by local entrepreneurs, earning close to Rs 3,500 crore annually from exports. A delegation of exporters recently met the Assistant Income Tax Commissioner (Agra) and gave him a charter of industry’s expectations from the forthcoming Budget, with the request that these be forwarded to the finance minister. Later, talking to Business Standard, Prahlad Agarwal, managing director, UP  Handicrafts Devel...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Barely a week after the Agra Municipal Corporation decided to auction off a part of the Shilp Gram in Agra, the UP Tourism Development Corporation has managed to get the auction stayed through a court order till the issue of municipal taxes on this valuable property, located just a few hundred metres away from the Taj Mahal, could be finalised. According to the UPTDC sources, the corporation had raised its objection on the municipal taxes levied on this property in the court as the Shilp Gram was a property of the state government and the municipal corporation was charging tax rates applicable for commercial properties, which was not acceptable. Acting on the application moved by the UPTDC, sources claimed, the court had stayed the auction organised by the Agra Municipal Corporation till the issue of applicability of municipal taxes on the property was decided. Meanwhile, the UPTDC chairman Nawab Kazim Ali has called a meeting of the corporati...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. When the Agra trade tax department moved into a new building back in 2005, the officials appeared ecstatic to be moved from a mughal era structure into a well-ventilated, air-conditioned office. But just two years later, with five of their colleagues dead and a number of other injured in their line of duty in the past couple of years, the local tax officials now believe they were handed over a haunted building. A special 'havan' and chanting of the 'Sunder Kand' was held at the office on Tuesday, which was participated by all trade tax employees and officers to please Lord Hanuman.

Vishal Sharma   New Delhi/ Agra.              With just over 10 days left for the 15th annual Taj Mahotsava to begin on February 18, the fest is in deep trouble with the Agra Municipal Corporation preparing to auction a major part of the Shilp Gram for the recovery of property taxes, accumulated over the past 15 years. The Shilp Gram, which belongs to the UP government’s industry department, had been taken over by the UP tourism department 15 years ago, to run tourism-centric activities centred around the Taj Mahotsava, conceptualised jointly by the local tourism industry and the state’s tourism department. According to the Agra Municipal Commissioner Shyam Singh, ever since it took possession of the Shilp Gram, the tourism department had not paid the municipal taxes applicable on such a large tract of land, despite regularly holding commercial activities, which categorised this land as commercial property. Singh said the tourism department had been sent several reminders to pay the ta...

Vijay Upadhyay  Agra.        Twenty-five years after he failed to appear for a wrestling match organised against a wrestler 'Gem Kid' in Agra, former wrestler and actor Dara Singh has been asked to appear in an Agra court on February 14 to give his testimony on that incident. According to police sources, a wrestling match had been organised on December 14, 1982 between the two wrestlers by Murarilal Verma and some other people of Agra, but the wrestlers failed to arrive at the Ramlila grounds, the venue of the match. Consequently, a group of locals had filed an FIR against the organisers of this contest at the Rakabganj police station and the case had been pending in the court. At that time, Dara Singh had claimed in his written statement that the organisers had not paid him the agreed Rs 40,000 and thus he refused to appear for the match. Now, when the case has finally come for hearing, Dara Singh has been asked to appear as a witness for the prosecution at the court of the Ch...

The famous Taj Mahal attracts thousands of tourists from the country as well as the globe. A perfect picture at the 'lovers' seat' inside the premises of the monument is something no one likes to miss, says Vijay Upadhyay . It may sound a little absurd, but ask any tourist who has visited the Taj Mahal in Agra and he will tell you that a visit to this monument of love is not considered complete without a picture taken at the "lovers' seat" at the central tank there. The attraction of this seat, which is also called the "premier seat" or "VIP bench" of the Taj Mahal for having seated hundreds of dignitaries like the kings and queens in its over 350 years history including emperor Shah Jahan, the creator of the Taj Mahal and also Lady Diana. Though the tourist cameras start clicking as soon as a group enters the monument, probably the highest number of photographs of the monument are taken at the central tank, with couples jostling with each ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Two days after the badly mangled bodies of two school kids were discovered in the fields of Semra in the Khandoli area of Agra, police solved the double murder that had brought the town to the brink of communal tension. According police, two brothers Chaman and Irshad have been arrested in connection with these murders. They had been spreading a story since July last that the fields of Semra village were being haunted by ghosts, though nobody had believed them at that time. When they could not succeed in their efforts, they decided to lend some credence to their story by displaying some hard evidence. They took three kids Hashim, Rehan and Shah Alam, belonging to their rival families, to the field and murdered Hashim and Rehan. Seeing this Shah Alam ran for help but fainted. Chaman and Irshad decided to leave Alam alive, so that he would tell the story of a white-clad ghost killing his classmates. But police on Thursday took Shah Alam into confidence ...