Over the years, the
pristine white marble of the Taj Mahal, located on the banks of River Yamuna in
Agra, has been turning yellow. To combat this, the Archeological Survey of India
(ASI), a government agency tasked with research and the conservation of
monuments, has been applying Multani Mitti (Fuller’s earth) on portions of the
Taj, including its celebrated minarets, since 1994. Beginning in April 2017, the
ASI plans to extend this treatment to the main dome—a process that is expected
to take over a year. So, tourists
visiting the 17th –century structure next year will be greeted by
the decidedly non-photogenic scaffolding around the dome !
Elections in Uttar Pradesh
are round the corner. In UP, there are 403 assembly constituencies and 80 Lok
Sabha constituencies. Three people, including two elderly women, died and
several people got injured on Sunday (9.10.2016), during a stampede at Bahujan
Samaj Party’s supremo Mayawati’s rally in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The incident
took place when a large group tried to force its entry from gate No. 1 at the
Kanshiram Smarak Sthal, the rally venue. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has
announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of those killed in the
stampede, and instructed the hospitals to give proper treatment to the injured.
BSP has also announced Rs 5 lakh each for kin of the deceased. Asked about the
incident, BSP chief Mayawati blamed the UP police which failed to make proper arrangements
for the rally.
Miles away, the debate
night that will be discussed for generations in Political Science classes – and
Women's Studies seminars – ended with Republican Donald Trump landing more
punches than Democrat Hillary Clinton, and successfully deflecting attention
successfully away from a two-day-old crisis about graphic sexual language that
threatened to derail his White House bid.
In the first debate at
Hofstra University 13 days earlier, Clinton sat back and let Trump hang
himself. But on Sunday her quiet patience gave him room to roam and dominate. Neither
candidate appeared in the hall where reporters waited to grill them. Clinton
established herself as a superior bureaucrat Sunday night with more mature
knowledge of foreign policy minutiae and a more intelligible way of
communicating details about how laws are made.
Donald Trump took the gloves off 90 minutes before Sunday night's debate
against Hillary Clinton, holding a meeting with four ghosts from Bill Clinton's
sexual past – and letting a handful of unsympathetic reporters in to hear them
speak. Trump introduced his coalition of the willing – Kathleen Willey, Juanita
Broaddrick, Kathy Shelton and Paula Jones – in St. Louis as a press pool
snapped shutters and reporters shouted questions about a new audio recording of
Trump saying vulgar things about women 11 years ago. One of them said - 'Mr. Trump may have said some bad words, but
Bill Clinton raped me. And Hillary Clinton threatened me. I don't think there's
any comparison.'
This is nothing on the sex
row but on Taj - Donald Trump opened his
Trump Taj Mahal casino 26 years ago, calling it 'the eighth wonder of the
world'. But his friend and fellow billionaire Carl Icahn closed it Monday
morning, making it the fifth casualty of Atlantic City's casino crisis. The
sprawling Boardwalk casino, with its soaring domes, minarets and towers built
to mimic the famed Indian palace, shut down at 5.59am, having failed to reach a
deal with its union workers to restore health care and pension benefits that
were taken away from them in bankruptcy court. Nearly 3,000 workers lost their
jobs, bringing the total jobs lost by Atlantic City casino closings to 11,000
since 2014.
The union went on strike
July 1, and Icahn decided to shut the place down a little over a month later,
determining there was 'no path to profitability'. The Taj Mahal becomes the
fifth Atlantic City casino to go out of business since 2014, when four others,
including Trump Plaza, shut its doors. But this shutdown is different: it
involves a casino built by the Republican candidate for president, who took
time out from the campaign trail to lament its demise.
The Taj Mahal joins the
Atlantic Club, Showboat, Trump Plaza and Revel in the growing club of Atlantic
City casinos that, since 2014, have succumbed to economic pressure brought
about in large measure by competition from casinos in neighboring states. The city now will have seven casinos.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
10th Oct 2016.
