News on Agra & Current Affairs

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 11 MAY. The management & business dispute in the family run Agra based Amar Ujala group of publications has begun to draw attention of the UP government which has become concerned over the growing differences in this major newspaper & publication group of the state. The UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav openly expressed his concern over this dispute while talking to the Group Chairman Ashok Agarwal in Agra during his visit, suggesting that the group settle its disputes soon to save this prestigious newspaper brand of the state from splitting and he was also prepared to mediate for the peaceful resolution of this dispute if the group wishes so. The dispute in the management of this group had come out in the open recently after Ajay Agarwal, the editor and 35 percent share holder in the group had alleged before the Company Law Board (CLB) that he had been removed from the post of Agra edition editor and his financial ...

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...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 22 Feb. Just a few days after it was inaugurated by the UP Development Council Chairman Amar Singh, the Taj Mahotsava being held in Agra to promote tourism through a display of handicrafts suffered a major setback when a fire burned down the entire crafts village on Monday evening, causing loss worth several crores to the craftsmen who had arrived here from all corners of the country. No casualties have been reported so far. According to the initial reports, the fire was caused by a short-circuit in the wiring over the roof of stall no. 82. Starting at about 6:30 in the evening just before the performance of Kathak Maestro Birju Maharaj, the fire quickly spread from one stall to the other, accelerated by the presence of inflammable handicrafts items and in barely an hour, the complete Shilpgram, spread in about 12 acres area was ablaze. The intensity of the fire was so great that even the trees inside the campus were burned down. Though at least 40 fire engines were...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. The Surajkund crafts fair may have ended, but it does not mark the end of festivities in Northern India. The famous ten-day “Taj Mahotsava”, a crafts fair symbolizing the end of the tourist season, began today in Agra. This annual Taj Fest, which shall continue till 27th February, was inaugurated at the Shilpgram in Agra on Friday by the UP Development Council Chairman Amar Singh and UP Tourism Minister Kawkab Hamid. An interesting aspect of this year’s Mahotsava is that unlike previous years, while Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has refrained from any publicity at the crafts fair, mobile companies like Reliance, Tata Indicom and Airtel have installed large hoardings of “Mahotsav offers” to capture a bigger market share than BSNL. Even the automobile manufacturer Bajaj took full advantage of the Taj Mahotsava to launch the environment friendly version of its auto-rickshaw brandnamed “Eco-Rick”, running on LPG. Though this crafts fair is an annual event, this...

VIJAY UPADHYAY If you are childless, come to Agra. Who knows, you may find a baby girl lying in a trash can yearning for your loving embrace. Incredible as it may sound, infant girls are turning up in Agra's trash cans at a rate which has shaken this sleepy town out of its inertia. In clearly the worst possible form of female infanticide, in the past month alone, about half a dozen new-born girls have been found alive in trash cans of Agra while three others have been discovered dead in sewers. Two such girls were recovered alive from the elite neighbourhood of Judge Compound, a residential colony of senior administrative officials of Agra, early this January, while one was found behind a bus-station and another in a 20-feet deep sewage drain. These abandoned girls have been taken over by the Rajkiya Shishu Sadan in the city which is already raising 33 orphan children. After the local administration refused to give away these orphaned girls for adoption without proper verification...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA , 29 JAN. Every year there are a number of cases of frauds committed against foreign tourists by Indian nationals, but this is probably the first time when a defrauded tourist has been adamantly camping in India for almost a year to recover the money and get the culprits punished for their deeds. This interesting case of fraud surfaced last December in Agra when Elisabeth Kaulfuss, a resident of Koeln in Germany, complained before the Taj Ganj police in Agra that Raju Gupta, a local guide, had fraudulently obtained Rs. 1,43,000 from her in May 2004, in the name of constructing his house and was now refusing to return the money. Following her complaint, when the police intervened, Raju agreed to return Rs. 55 thousand as the first installment and promised before the police to return the rest of the money along with Rs. 10 thousand as interest before Christmas, though he again turned away from his word, after which, Elisabeth again returned to Agra on Friday and t...

Vijay Upadhyay Etah. Promise to shed the pursuit of crime and who knows, you may become a policeman! The Etah police seems to have adapted this ideologue to reform criminals. During the Republic Day parade held in Etah on Wednesday, criminals were pledged by the police to "protect" the civilians in the presence of Samajwadi Party leader Prof Ram Gopal Yadav. This new "para-police force" will soon be provided with Suraksha Prahri identity-cards by the Etah police. The Republic Day Parade presented unlimited temptations to onlookers in Etah. Besides policemen, the National Flag was saluted by a contingent of armed civilians firing blanks from their guns. A large number of "Gandhi-cap" adorned history - sheeter criminals were also awarded with the honourary portfolio of "Suraksha Prahri" after the flag hoisting. Notably, this interesting parade also included over 200 policemen marching smartly ahead of the contingent of the armed civilians, who ...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA , 26 JAN. In order to take the advantage of large number of foreign and Indian tourists coming to Agra, Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corpor ati on (MPTDC) is now making seductive “commission” offers to Agra based tour operators to divert this huge influx of tourists towards MP. Besides being home to the world famous Mughal wonder Taj Mahal, Agra also enjoys the advantage of being the located at the borders of four states – Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan & Madhya Pradesh and all these states direct their tourist traffic towards Agra but now, the tides are reversing. Targeting the tourists coming to Agra, Ashwini Lohani, Managing Director, MPTDC announced two special tour packages for domestic tourists in Agra on the Republic Day eve, through a multimedia presentation at Hotel Clarks Shiraz, which was also attended by over 25 tour operators of Agra, including Travel Corporation of India, Touraids & Travel Bureau. Selling these packages to the tour operator...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 20 JAN. Tired of biting your nails for the website to load on your screen or the download to complete? At least four major broadband players are gearing up to your rescue but wait; it’s not a time to celebrate yet! Despite the presence of big names like Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance, Airtel & Satyam in the fray, Agra residents may have to wait a bit longer as the portals to this broadband revolution are not expected to open before March this year. According to the definitions set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), any internet service that offers bandwidth in multiples of 128 kbps can be termed as a broadband service and judging by these standards, only Reliance, which has already launched its broadband services in Agra, riding the advantage of Wireless-in-Local-Loop (WLL) technology, can be termed as a broadband service provider. The company is offering broadband internet through its mobile handsets and Fixed Wirel...

VIJAY UPADHYAY FIROZABAD, 24 JAN. Army jawans on Sunday morning got into a quarrel with fellow passengers and threw them out of the compartment directly on the path of an oncoming train. Five persons were killed and one was critically injured when they were run over by the speeding train after being thrown out of stationary Farakka Express near Shikohabad railway station in Uttar Pradesh. The Railway Police has arrested four Army men in this connection. The incident on the Delhi-Kanpur section occurred when some passengers entered a compartment of the Delhi-bound Farakka Express occupied by troops belonging to Rajputana Rifles, the police said. This led to a scuffle with the jawans, protesting the intrusion saying it was a compartment for Army personnel. Talking to The Pioneer, Superintendent of Police, Railways-Agra, Raj Bahadur said that five people who were travelling in the general compartment of Farakka Express had a quarrel with some Army personnel who were travelling in th...

AGRA, 22 JAN. The lenient view adopted by the Supreme Court on the alleged security lapses during the moonlit viewing of the Taj Mahal during the past two months has made the Agra tourism industry "feel good" after a long time. For the first time in the experimental three-month night viewing of the Taj Mahal, will be able to view the Taj Mahal for the entire duration of five nights, unhampered by fog as the Meteorological Department has predicted that though the skies shall remain overcast, the visibility shall remain sufficient to provide a clear view of the monument. Meanwhile, Ricardo Lagos, the president of Chile, is expected to visit the Taj Mahal on Saturday, though in the daytime. Talking to The Pioneer, Ashok Jain, chairman of Touraids (India), an Agra based travel agency said that the Supreme Court's decision has come as a respite for the tourist trade of Agra as most travel agencies had already planned their year-long itinerary with the night opening...

VISHAL SHARMA When it comes to tourism, Agra holds the status of India’s tourism capital, being the home of the Taj Mahal. A town devoid of major industries, tourism serves as the staple business for Agra, generating revenue of over 1000 crores per year. Though this revenue has seen an upward trend lately due to the Taj’s night opening on an experimental basis, this figure could increase dramatically if the Taj’s moonlit-viewing becomes a permanent feature of Agra. When the yearly handicrafts sales in Agra account for over 300 crores, the hospitality industry is earning merely in the vicinity 100 crores, a pittance in comparison to the huge number of tourists arriving in Agra. Tourism sources have long blamed the low night-stay rate of tourists behind this insignificant turnover of the hotel industry of the town as most of the tourists arriving in Agra prefer to treat it as a day-trip, not staying overnight due to the lack of night-time attractions. Ever since the Taj Mahal was shu...

VIJAY UPADHYAY Over 90 dancers and 50 musicians are expected to perform at the inaugural ceremony of the annual "Taj Mahotsava" to be held between February 18 and 27, 2005. Dubbed "Ismail Durbar Nite", this mega-concert is being seen as the most expensive and grand concert to be held in Agra at the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Taj Mahal. But, the tourism industry is also apprehensive of the SC's review of Taj's night opening to be held on Thursday. If the Taj is again shut down by the court in view of the alleged security lapses, the tourism industry could lose a great deal of money. Besides Devdas fame music composer Ismail Durbar, several other Bollywood and pop celebrities are expected to perform, which would feature a song composed especially to commemorate the Taj Mahal's 350th year. Talking to UNN , DK Burman, Joint Director, UP Tourism, Agra said, though the venue of the concert is still to be decided, the tourism department is conte...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA, 18 JAN. The "Pravasi Bhartiya Divas" may have passed, but the UP government's offer of "greener pastures back home", extended to the Non - Resident Indians (NRIs), still stands. Proudly flaunting the elite of Indian corporate world it has roped in the UP Development Council as the only example of Public-Private Partnership in the country, the UP government has assured the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) that they could confidently invest in Uttar Pradesh as it has developed one of the most investor-friendly policy frameworks in the country. Contrary to the times when only a select few southern states in the country had monopoly over the Information Technology boom, the current data indicates that the IT revolution is slowly inching home towards UP. With the setting up of special NRI friendly economic-zones in the state metros like Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Noida & Agra, the state is surging ahead towards becoming an NRI-heaven, providing a congenia...