News on Agra & Current Affairs

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Agra boasts of one of the largest markets of arms and ammunition in Uttar Pradesh, with a number of arms dealers in the town dating back to the WW II era. Some of them possess “antique” fire-arms that have failed to find any buyers due to the unavailability of ammunition for them. But Harish Khandelwal, the owner of Hindustan Gun House in Agra, has chosen to exploit this problem with an absolutely different approach by collecting antiquated bullets and selling it to arms collectors who are in a continuous need for more ammunition to keep their outdated weapons in a working order. Sourcing his stock of antique ammunition from various ammunition auctions that are held from time to time all around the country, Khandelwal has in his possession the largest collection of pre WW-II ammunition in the country with bullets of almost all long-discontinued calibers that could possibly have been in prevalence during that era, ranging from 7 mm pin-fire “ra...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. After establishing itself as the biggest chain of family stores in Agra, the Bachoomal group of branded clothing stores made its debut outside the town last week by establishing a family store in Mathura. The store that was formally inaugurated at the Highway Plaza shopping mall on the Agra-Mathura highway, shall be the sixth store being run by the Bachoomal family and the first such store outside Agra. Talking to the media persons on this occasion, Pradeep Kumar Aggarwal, Managing Director, Sri Group, that owns the Highway Plaza said that this was the first time that a branded clothing store was being opened in Mathura, while earlier the residents of this town had to go either to Agra or Delhi to buy branded clothing. He said that with the opening of this store in Mathura, the need to make the unnecessary trips of Agra or Delhi for branded clothing had been eliminated. ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The number of bodies of unidentified persons in Agra has been increasing at an alarming rate. There is nobody to cremate the dead and, as per the Hindu custom, to immerse the ashes after cremation in the Holy Ganga. Seeking a way out, an Agra-based NGO has decided to do the needful. More than 700 unidentified bodies were found in Agra in the past two years. The NGO has decided to "adopt" such dead immerse the ashes. It has already cremated 756 unidentified bodies discovered in the town from September 30, 2003 to December 31, 2005. The NGO has now decided to also immerse the ashes -- though not in Gana but in Yamuna --for the deliverance of the dead. Talking to The Pioneer, Ashok Goyal, Chairman, Kshetra Bajaja Committee Agra said the organisation has been working in Agra for 121 years and more than 25 years had passed since the organisation formally decided to "adopt" all unidentified bodies discovered by the police in Agra. He said the committe...

In a rather strange fad, Harish Aggarwal from Agra holds the country's largest private collection of antique, non-conventional calibre bullets and cartridges that he has been collecting for past 30 years, says Vijay Upadhyay When most arms collectors prefer to limit their hobby to collecting guns and pistols of all kinds, this one from Agra has a completely different fad. He collects antique bullets and he could be seen participating in every old weapons auction held in the country, looking not for guns, but their cartridges! Sitting in a dingy two- room gun-shop of Agra that his family has run for almost 60 years now, Harish Khandelwal holds the country's largest private collection of antique, non-conventional caliber bullets. Surprisingly, after being in this trade for such a long period, Khandelwal does not prefer selling guns, having transformed his gun-house into a museum of the bullets that he has been collecting for the last 30 years. According to Khandelwal, he remains...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation would launch 200 air-conditioned sleeper buses to link major tourist destinations of the State. Notably, major tourist hotspots in the State were devoid of adequate number of trains The first such bus, linking Agra with the Buddhist pilgrimage centre Sarnath, over 600 km. away, was flagged off in Agra recently. The UPSRTC would launch 200 such buses by April, that would connect tourist destinations that were poorly linked by the railway. The UPSRTC Managing Director Umesh Sinha said that they had been indigenously developed on the lines of hi-tech, low-floor buses, introduced all over the globe, by world-class bus manufacturers like Volvo. Mr Sinha further informed that the bus had been designed in a manner that the tourists could lie-down and slumber away the entire duration of their trip, just like they would do in an AC-III tier coach of a train. This would be a cheaper cost for the tourists, he a...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The Budget this year may have been termed as a “common man’s Budget” by the Prime Minister, but in reality, tax provisions made by the finance minister have caused quite a tremor in the Agra industries. The diesel industry of Agra is fighting a losing battle in face of continuous rise in diesel prices and the stringent pollution norms made effective in Agra over the past one year. And it was hoping for a raise in the excise exemption for small-scale diesel engine manufacturing units from Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore, considering the rise in inflation rates. Now it has been dealt a terrible shock by the increase in the excise slab for diesel engines from 8 per cent to 16 per cent, which is expected to raise the prices of diesel engines by almost Rs 2,000 for an agricultural pumpset, something that this industry could ill-afford at this time. According to Rakesh Garg, director, Prakash Diesels, considering the raise in the excise sla...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. Holi is round the corner and industry too is bracing itself for the festival. A small town at 65 km from Agra, Hathras, is known for cold storages and its perfume industry. It also boasts of numerous large and small industrial units manufacturing synthetic dye-based colours and Gulal. Production in these units begins from Diwali and almost a week before the festival the town ships tonnes of colours to different parts of the country. From just three small-scale units about 60 years back, the Holi colours industry of Hathras has become one of the largest producers of synthetic dye-based Holi colours in the country. Today it has 70 units engaged in the production of colours. Deepak Goyal, a partner in Shakti Enterprises, a mid-sized manufacturer of Gulal, told Business Standard that Holi colours of Hathras were marketed all over the country under various brand names. He said that the colours manufactured in Hathras were purely chemical d...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra. The shoe industry of Agra has been hit hard by the Budget this year. The industry expected relief in tax rates. While the 2 per cent increase in service tax rates shall make competition with China tougher in the export market, fur shoes will be cast out of the market due to a 10 per cent hike in the manufacturing cost. Even the budgetary provision of 8 per cent reduction in the excise duty on shoes ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 750 has failed to provide relief to the town's ailing footwear industry. According to Nazir Ahmed, managing director, Park Exports, the Agra brands would not benefit greatly from the reduction in excise duty as a large number of footwear units in Agra have a turnover of less than Rs 1 crore, which brings them out of the tax net. But, this tax rebate could help the larger Agra companies in entering the Indian market with a renewed vigour, he said. He said that when the government was aware of the problems being faced...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The sight of an actress moving through the deep, dark recesses of dense forests and a body hanging from a tree have always been the favorite Bollywood formulae to instill the feeling of fear and anxiety in the minds of the cinema-goers. But the Bollywood forests seem to have come alive in Agra these days, with criminals utilising these forests as a heaven for disposing of dead bodies and abductees. Over the past week, five dead bodies being discovered hanging from the trees in the forests around the town, throwing the local police in a tizzy. Discovered by women venturing into the forests to gather dead wood, all the bodies found in the forests have a common feature. They had first been murdered and then hung from the tree using a rope noose. A number of empty nooses have also been found in these forests indicating that more bodies could have been disposed off by the criminals in similar fashion. The most shocking discovery was that of the bodies of ...

VISHAL SHARMA AGRA. With the Taj Mahotsava coming to an end in Agra on Monday, the UP State Road Transport Corporation made a new introduction in its bus fleet, launching its first state-of-the-art AC sleeper bus service from the festival that was inaugurated by UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh’s son and Member of Parliament Akhilesh Yadav. According to Umesh Sinha, Managing Director, UPSRTC, this AC sleeper bus service is the first such innovation made by the UPSRTC in its fleet, which shall incorporate custom designed buses having a seating capacity of 31 passengers while functioning as a sleeper, this bus shall have 18 sleeper seats. According to Mr. Sinha, the bus service has been designed to provide passenger comfort comparable to journey in an AC III-tier coach on a train and initially, the bus shall run between Agra and Sarnath, completing the link between the Heritage and the Buddhist circuits for the benefit of the tourists who, till now, had to...

VIJAY UPADHYAY Etah. At a time when trains all over the world are reaching speeds exceeding 550 kmph. and the rise in the speed by only a fraction makes its place in the news headlines in the country, a train in UP is still running at a speed befitting a snail. The Tundla-Etah train is making a record for being probably the slowest running passenger train in the plains of India. Covering a distance of 66 km in over four hours over a strainght, no-traffic track, the only train connecting Etah to the railway network at Tundla runs at an average speed of just 16 kmph, maintaining it ever since the track was inaugurated by the first President of India Dr Rajendra Prasad in 1959. Over 47 years have gone by the day when this train first reached the 150 acre railway station of Etah on January 18, 1959 but the track that could have become the lifeline of this extremely backward area of Uttar Pradesh, lies virtually unused, save for the only three-bogie train that makes a daily ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The Agra administration and the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) are at loggerheads over a sensitive issue. Last Friday, the Agra administration unilaterally decided to permit namaz and anti-Denmark demonstrations at the local idgah despite specific ASI regulations prohibiting any religious activity at the idgah on days other than Eid. Over one lakh Muslims converged at the 416-year-old idgah for namaz and broke open the locks put by the ASI. They then conducted namaz inside the protected site despite objections raised by the Director General of ASI. The prayers were followed up by a series of demonstrations by Muslims against the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. The crowd at the idgah waved banners and black ribbons. The high-pitched slogan-shouting silenced all protests by the ASI staff posted there. The entire exercise received the full support of the district administration which reportedly refused to heed the repeated objecti...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/Agra. After almost a decade of remaining buried in red tape, the Agra Software Technology Park may get off the ground. A team of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) officials will visit Agra on February 24 and 25 to mark the land for the parks. Apart from Agra, STPs in two other towns of UP—Varanasi and Moradabad—are on the cards this year. According to STPI sources, an initial provision of Rs 4.25 crore has been made by the UP Electronics Corporation Ltd for establishing the Agra STP, of which Rs 1 crore will be spent on the purchase of 3 acres of land in Agra. Another Rs 1 crore has been earmarked for the purchase of equipment and the development of requisite technology. Rs 2.20 crore has been set aside for the construction of the STP in 3,000 square metres, while the remaining Rs 44 lakh has been marked for contingencies. According to sources, the STPI had received a proposal from the Agra Development Authority to setup the park on th...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/Agra. The UP government’s initiative to establish Land Assemblies in major cities of the state has begun to show results in Agra. Attracted by the construction boom in the local real-estate market, sixteen major construction companies of Delhi, Lucknow and Agra have applied for registration with the Agra Development Authority, to be granted a license to develop their projects in Agra. According to the officials in the Land Assembly project, the authority shall earmark its prime land available in the city for the construction of housing projects. These projects shall only be offered to builders registered and licensed by the ADA. According to official sources, Delhi-based builders registering for a license with the authority include Ansals, Nagarjun, Omaxe, Parshvnath, Uppal Housing & Rajshri, among others. Some local builders have also applied for registration though the majority of applicants are from outside the town. Sources said the final t...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/Agra. Uttar Pradesh has begun preparing for the possible outbreak of the Bird Flu in the state. According to the chief veterinary officer of Agra, Uday Shanker Gupta, the department has prepared a list of all the 47 major poultry farms in the district which bred almost 50,000-60,000 fowls per farm and teams had been dispatched to these farms to take blood samples of the birds in these farms. Besides, he said blood tests were made on migratory birds arriving in the Keetham bird sanctuary of Agra and so far, no cases of bird flu had been found in these birds.

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/Agra. With Agra seeing a record number of international flights this winter, the need for an airport of international status is being increasingly felt. According to the latest proposal being prepared by the Agra administration, the airport will require at least 1,700 acres of land for the construction of a minimum of two intersecting air strips and a terminal building of international standards having enough room to accommodate transit lounges, duty-free shops, customs houses, and passenger traffic. The proposed Agra international airport will be independent of the control of the Indian Air Force that presently governs entries and exits to the domestic airport located deep inside the Agra Air Force base, sharing air strips with the Air Force. The UP chief minister had announced the government’s plans to construct an international airport in Agra. Soon afterwards, Agra District Magistrate Sanjay Prasad had sent a detailed report highlightin...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. It is often seen that any new satellite channel begins claiming its "record-breaking popularity" among the masses shortly after its launch, based on the Television Rating Points (TRPs) amassed by them through sample surveys among the viewers of some metropolitan cities. But if the data made available by the UP Entertainment Tax Department is to be believed, the satellite channels are still a long way from becoming the voice of the masses as these channels have virtually no viewership in Uttar Pradesh and most of the population still relies on the good old "Doordarshan" for their daily dose of entertainment. According to the official figures of the State's Entertainment Tax Department, Uttar Pradesh, with its gigantic population of 17 crore people, has a surprisingly low number of only 9 lakh cable television connections, amounting to nearly 0.05 percent of the State's population. Even Agra, despite being in close v...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/Agra. After taking the market with a storm with its diesel-based "Indica" cars, Tata Motors launched the petrol variant of Indica in Agra recently. The new car, named Indica V2 "Xeta" was unveiled at Siyaram Motors, the local dealership of Tata Motors by Sunil Agarwal, director, Siyaram Motors. On this occasion, Mr. Agarwal said that compared to other similar cars in the market, the new Indica V2 Xeta offered the best fuel economy and power ratio for a petrol car with an engine of 1396 cc. He said that the car had been specifically designed to cater to both the urban as well as the rural driving conditions, which made it ideal for the quality of roads that Agra and its surrounding towns had to offer and at a cost between 2.77 to 3.72 lacs, it also gave the customers the advantage of value for money.

The recent Beta release of Google Desktop 3.0 was downloaded and installed by a large number of PC users mostly unaware that the new software lays you bare to snoopy eyes and hackers, says Vijay Upadhyay Got a neat stash of images or secret love-letters hidden somewhere in your computer away from the eyes of your wife and the rest of the world? Then take care before you install Google's new desktop search software. After peering in your homes through its satellite imagery-based software, Google Earth that "de-classified" the classified satellite images of military installations around the world, is all set to peer into your computers connected to the internet. This new beta release of Google's software could pull these files out of your systems and place them on display, bang on your desktop or in the worst scenario, make them available for search to millions of hackers across the internet, if you install the software with all its default options enabled. Unless you ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. At a time when fake currency is in ample circulation in the market, probably the most interesting use of this currency was seen in Agra, when a local youth used a fake bank note to finance his sexual urge but was caught before he could succeed in his plan. Interrogation of the youth and his associates has revealed that this gang had been circulating fake currency in the local flesh market since a long time but it was only due to a sharp-minded prostitute, that this gang was finally brought to the book. According to Suresh Panwar, in-charge, Chhatta police station, Mohd Yusuf, a resident of Firozabad district, was a regular visitor of the local brothels in Kashmiri Bazar and for the past several weeks, he had been utilising the services of the prostitutes using a steady supply of fake currency from Nepal to finance his brothel trips. He said that the local shopkeepers in the area had been complaining since a long time about the high turn-up ra...