News on Agra & Current Affairs

Vijay Upadhyay   Agra.                     It's the city of one of the beautiful architectures in the world but the ancient city of the Taj Mahal is perhaps one of the dirtiest cities of the country, with sanitation virtually non-existent here. It is this lack of sanitary discipline that has resulted in one of the largest outbreaks of virulent diseases in the town this month, disabling at least 15-20 per cent of the city's total population with a mystery viral fever. This has made the local health officials warn tourists arriving in the city to 'arm' themselves against the diseases plaguing the city of the love mausoleum. Doctors in urban areas are trying to cope with fever that is making people in thousands bedridden very week, but all they have are increased dosages of antibiotics to help the body's own immune system tide over the sickness. Yet the viruses have begun taking their toll in the rural areas where entire villages have come down with virus-related feve...

Vijay Upadhyay   Agra.             Taking heed of the strong public sentiment prevailing against the priests of the ancient 'Bihari Ji' temple of Vrindavan after they dressed up the idol of Lord Krishna in denims last week, the Mathura district court extended the suspension of the guilty priests on Thursday, handing over the charge of temple service to two new priests till further orders. According to temple management sources, the order passed by the court of Civil Judge (JD) Rashmi Nanda, who is also the administrator of the Bankey Bihari temple, has extended the suspension of the guilty priests Anand Kishore Goswami and Jugal Kishore Goswami from temple service "till further orders", keeping the fact in mind that reinstating the priests so soon after the despicable incident could result in causing further hurt to public sentiments. Also, as public sentiment was against the temple-deputed priest Kamal Kishore Goswami, to continue the service at the temple in place ...

Vishal Sharma   New Delhi/ Agra.                     With a large number of private educational institutions opening up in Agra, the Syndicate Bank has begun targeting them by offering to open ATMs on the institution premises. This indication was given by Executive Director George Joseph on Monday, while inaugurating the bank’s ATM at Anand Engineering College, located on the Agra-Mathura highway. Later, talking to Business Standard, K P Singh, senior manager, Syndicate Bank, Agra main branch, said Anand Engineering College was part of the Sharda Group of Institutions, which was a major client of the Syndicate Bank.

Vijay Upadhyay   Agra.       The dispute over dressing up Lord Krishna in contemporary attire at the Bihariji temple in Vrindavan is showing no signs of settling down. For the first time in recent history, Lord Krishna had to wait for two hours before he received his ritual bath, delayed due to an 'unclear' court order. In a disturbing development on Tuesday, the devotees arriving at the temple to witness the early morning 'shringar' of Bihari Ji were shocked to see that the temple doors had not been opened till almost 10 a m, when the usual time for the Lord's shringar was 8 a m. As it turned out later when the temple did open, the temple management was unclear over the court order suspending the temple priest Anand Kishore Goswami from the service as while Anand Kishore had been suspended during the pendency of a large part of his 42-day temple service, the court had not nominated any other priest from the temple roster to take over Anand Kishore's duties duri...

VIJAY UPADHYAY  Agra.            Following a public outrage in the entire country over the dressing up of the idol of Lord Krishna in blue Jeans and T-shirt at the Bihariji temple in Vrindavan near Mathura, the priests guilty of dressing-up the deity were suspended from temple service for three days by the Mathura court after they offered a public apology on Sunday, claiming that the 'mistake' was not deliberate but part of the Lord's 'Lila'. Earlier, a clash between the temple priests and devotees sparked fresh tension in Mathura on Monday, when the priests and Krishna devotees clashed at the Bihariji temple following a demonstration inside the temple by some devotees who even burned effigies of the priests. While the situation could only be controlled after the police entered the temple premises and separated the clashing parties, there were a number of demonstrations elsewhere in Mathura, with the devotees demanding the arrest of both the priests for their crime ...

Vijay Upadhyay   Agra.                Blindness poses scores of restrictions on a person, some of which include the inability to gain education through the books available only for 'normal' people. Blind since birth, Shravan Kumar Savita had never thought his blindness could become an unsurpassable hurdle in his quest for gaining higher education. As there was a shortage of sufficient literature in Braille till two years back he had to discontinue his quest for obtaining a PhD in history. But with Agra University now going ahead with its plan to set up a research institute for blind scholars by the end of this month his long wait is now about to end. Talking to The Pioneer, Shravan Kumar said that he had to go through a tough time dividing his time between Agra, Gwalior, Haridwar, Gorakhpur and back to Agra to fulfil his dream. What helped him in his pursuit was that he was one of the brightest students of the Raja Balwant Singh College of Agra and this helped him, attain the ...

Nagin's revenge chase Vijay Upadyay Agra. In what is being termed as the height of superstition prevalent in rural India, a 12 years old Agra kid spent an entire week on a six foot high charpoy, guarded by a horde of baton-wielding villagers, afraid of a snake that was a mere chemical locha of his mind. This drama that had gripped the Taharpur village of Agra for a full week came to an end on Saturday evening. It was only when a snake-charmer brought a snake to the village claiming that this was the same snake that had been stalking Monu. Following a ritual that involved allowing the charmed snake to harmlessly bite Monu three times, he was declared free from the "snake's curse". According to the residents of the Taharpur village, Monu, the twelve years old son of Chandrakant was going to school on Monday when he accidentally killed a cobra under his bicycle and when he returned home, he found another cobra stalking him wherever he went. Though when he told t...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The usual boring routine of sorting parcels at a courier office in Agra broke into commotion on Wednesday evening when a large bag that had just arrived from Chennai broke open and spilled hundreds of dried carcasses of snakes and turtles on the floor. Alarmed by the recovery of such a huge consignment of rare animals at the courier company, the Agra wildlife authorities immediately raided the courier office and arrested five employees including Ajat Oliver, the manager of the courier company's Agra branch. Raids are underway at locations in Chennai from where this consignment had been booked by 28-year-old Brajesh. Investigating into the recipient of this 'deadly' consignment, the wildlife authorities also came across with Braj Scientific Laboratories, an Agra-based entity, which was supposed to receive this consignment. Talking to The Pioneer, Agra Divisional Forest Officer SP Yadav said that the consignment which had been booked by Saida...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Contrary to the impression presented by the way the high-profile lawyers working at the Supreme Court and High Courts carry themselves, the working conditions of ordinary lawyers working at the Uttar Pradesh district courts are far from being comfortable. Sitting in shanties built on open grounds in the court campus, the lawyers are completely exposed to the furies of nature, be it the sweltering summer heat, bone-chilling winds of winter or the drenching showers of monsoon, with little shelter offered by the meagre tin-shades that form the "offices" of these lawyers. On top of these, the mandatory "British-era" dress code of wearing an all-season black coat wrecks havoc on these lawyers who have to continually don this heavy black-cloak just to conform to the dress code prescribed by the Bar Council of India. While Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had promised the construction of chambers of these lawyers almost a year back, these mu...

Vijay Upadhyay Etah. With Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav announcing a monthly pension of Rs 500 to the detainees of Maintenance of India Security Act (MISA) and Defence India Rules (DIR) during the Emergency in 1975, the Etah prison administration is stuck with a strange problem. Working head over heels, digging out the names of the actual political detainees out of the termite-infested lists of hundreds of prisoners who were imprisoned during the 1975-1977 period, the prison officials have come across the names of a number of detainees, whose names feature in the Etah jail's list of detainees under MISA and DIR, but they had also been charged under a number of heinous crimes including armed robbery, murders, kidnapping and possession of illegal weapons creating a dilemma before the jail officials, who are finding it difficult to categorise over 100 of these prisoners as mere "political detainees". Talking to The Pioneer, Karey Singh,...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The answer-sheet evaluation issue of Meerut University took a much expected turn on Thursday, with the Agra District Court issuing non-bailable warrants against BL Arya, the Registrar of the university who is being charged as one of the prime accused. The case has been registered in both Agra and Meerut. Arya can now land up in a major trouble if he fails to turn up in court in a week's time. The registrar has till now preferred to stay out of sight but his son was arrested for allegedly running an answer-sheet evaluation racket, revealed by the police. Five more accomplices were arrested in the case and about 60,000 answer sheets were recovered by the police from Arya's house. According to the Agra police sources, the non-bailable warrants issued by the Special Chief Judicial Magistrate, Agra, specifically directed the police to commence with the confiscation of all the property belonging to Arya under section 182 / 183 of CrPC, if he could ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. Even though India is the second most populated country in the world, most of the villages still remain cut-off due to the lack of approach roads, which according to a latest survey by the Indian Road Congress, could still take another 20 years in the making. Talking to mediapersons in Agra , Tribhuvan Ram, President, Indian Road Congress(IRC) said that the IRC had prepared a draft "Vision - 2025" for the development of roads in the country in which, all villages upto the population of 250 would be connected by approach roads by the year 2025. He said that the IRC had issued 109 guidelines on the construction and quality of roads in the country and most of these guidelines had already come into effect while others, including the adoption of new technology of road construction were in the process of being implemented. According to Ram, the IRC is holding a three--day international seminar on Innovations in Construction and Maintenance of Flexi...

The ingenuity of evil can be far more outrageous than you fear. Now infants are being biologically manipulated by abductors not willing to wait for their youth. With engineered puberty, these abducted infants are being pushed into flesh trade, enabling touts to mint instant money. Years after the Agra police stumbled upon a heinous "prostitute grooming" racket which packaged infant abductions with forced female hormone injecting processes for faster growth of victims, the menace is far from over.In the notorious Bedia settlement of Basai Khurd which, incidentally, is a red-light area just a couple of km from the monument of love Taj Mahal, little girls look much older than their biological years, having achieved pre-mature puberty due to growth injections. Abducted from all over the country, they live a captive's life in Bedia homes till they are ready to be dispatched for earning mega bucks in the widespread sex market spreading from Mumbai bars to the G B Road redlight ...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has said that compared to his predecessors, he was not a 'Ghoshna-nath' Chief Minister as he stressed on the implementation of whatever announcements he had made to the State . Addressing two separate public meetings held in the Arnauta and Shamshabad areas of Agra on Thursday, he claimed that he was the 'hot favourite' politician in the country and the CMs of other Congress-ruled States were consulting him on the various welfare projects that he had launched in UP. Mulayam again asserted the fact that he was the only CM in UP to have lasted for more than 2800 days and that he was even being awarded by the President of India for excellent administration.

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The fresh delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary seats in UP could become a major issue this year for Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, who has been freely passing hints of his intentions to get the Assembly constituency of Jaswantnagar into Kannauj, the Parliamentary constituency of his son Akhilesh. In a 'delimitation meeting' in Agra on Tuesday, Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalswami hinted that the EC would stress upon limiting the Parliamentary seats in their respective districts instead of borrowing some Assembly seats from other districts, just to ensure demographic uniformity on the seats. With the Election Commission setting the deadline for the delimitation of all Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in UP to be completed by 31st March, 2007 and the completion of hearings for the delimitation to be completed by September 13, Mulayam Singh's efforts to get Jaswantnagar included in the Kannauj Parliamentary constituency came close ...

Vishal Sharma New Delhi/ Agra In order to attract more customers to the petrol pumps operated by it in the rural areas and highways, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) will shortly introduce six new models of state-of-the-art fuel pumps at its petrol pumps in the rural areas and highways of Agra, Etah, Mathura and Badaun districts. According to company sources, the corporation wants petrol pumps to become complete ‘utility terminals’ for consumers, who could buy anything from groceries to airline tickets, during their brief stop at the petrol pump. Sources said in the coming months, about 20 petrol pumps in the four districts of Agra, Etah, Mathura and Badaun would be completely computerised and then be connected directly to the corresponding area office, which would have complete command over these pumps and a daily report of all transactions on these pumps would be automatically forwarded by these pumps to the area office. This would ensure that the company has a complete com...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. In a series of experiments introduced by the Election Commission towards electoral reforms, 70 assembly constituencies out of the 403 constituencies in UP will act as model constituencies in the forthcoming UP assembly elections, where the new electoral rolls containing the photographs of the voters shall be brought into practice. Announcing the decision of the Election Commission to make Voter Identity Cards mandatory for the upcoming UP Assembly elections in Agra on Tuesday, N. Gopalswamy, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) said that the issue of voter ID cards must be fulfilled by October 6 this year. The District Magistrates have been endowed with the responsibility of the concerned districts. It has been observed so far that, the seven districts in Agra division were lagging far behind, with just over 55 per cent of voter ID cards distributed till date. Earlier, Gopalswamy had arrived in Agra to review the preparations for the forthcoming elections in th...

Situated barely a km away from the Taj Mahal, Diwanji Begum's tomb is a lost piece of Mughal history that nobody cared about till date. With the ASI working in full swing to conserve it, the perils surrounding it are blocking its way, says Vijay Upadhyay It is a lost piece of Mughal history that nobody cared about till date. Now when the ASI has set off to re-discover and conserve history, there is very little left to conserve and that too, is going down in shambles due to the continuous danger posed by the locals who still treat this monument as a public urinal and recreational area despite the ASI taking it over for conservation. Diwanji Begum, the mother-in- law of Emperor Shahjahan is considered to be one of the lesser known characters of the Mughal empire and till early this year, even the Archeological Survey of India was hardly aware that barely a km away from the Taj Mahal, the emperor's mother-in-law lay interred in a plain tomb, in sharp contrast to the ornate tomb...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The security agencies have set up bullet-proof gun-shelters on the gates of Taj Mahal following another terrorist threat to blow up the monument. Orders have also been issued to shopkeepers conducting their businesses at the eastern gate of the Taj Mahal to move to a new complex, about two km away from the area. On Thursday, Agra Superintendent of Police Gulab Singh received a letter, supposedly written by an Al-Quaida operative Mohd Mirza, threatening to blow up the Taj Mahal. Interestingly, it was the same Mohd Mirza who had written a letter two months earlier to the police, threatening to blow up two Jain temples and Taj Mahal, but the police had failed to trace the identity of this so-called terrorist. Also taking the responsibility of the Mumbai train blasts, the so-called Al-Quaida operative has threatened to bomb the Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, Agra Cantonment Railway Station, Sadar Bazar and Agra College if his demands for money were not met. The po...

Vijay Upadhyay Agra. The UP High Court has totally redefined the definition of tourist guides at the Agra monuments, giving a relief to the guides who had been working without a license from the Archaeological Survey of India. The High Court has ruled that a person could not be stopped from working as a guide inside the monuments just because he had not obtained a 'license' from the government. However, the court has also ruled that the so called 'unlicensed' guides would have to buy the usual entry tickets before they could function as guides inside the monument. In an order passed by the court of Justice Yatindra Singh and Justice Ran Vijai Singh on a writ petition, the court has directed the Union Ministry of Tourism, Central Industrial Security Force, Archaeological Survey of India and the Senior Superintendent of Police that until further orders of the court the petitioners (unlicensed guides) would not be stopped from working as tourist guides on the groun...