Floriana concept marble is the first ever brand to introduce branded marble retailing in India

Imagine this. A well-constructed bungalow in a plush locality of Noida, furnished with varnished marbles bearing a diamond-like glow and complemented with paper plain walls, jeweled chandeliers and swanky masterpieces. Wow! What a perfect home. Looks like SVIL Mines Limited world’s largest Marble-processing unit sensed our desires and hence opened the first of its kind concept marble boutique in Noida, to make our dreams come true.

With a plan to launch 300 retail stores across India, Floriana concept marble brings to you pre-polished, calibrated, fit to size and ready to use natural marble first time in Noida at sector 49, Marble market. Natural marbles come in various distinct sizes and types to make our ambience look sophisticated or simple, warm or cool, elegant or rustic in the most natural way.

Those who were traveling to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata Jalandhar and kanpur to buy Floriana marbles can now catch a dekko at their first Noida store. On the launch Mr. Sanjay Jain, Chairman Floriana Group said “We are really excited at the launch of Floriana Concept Marble retail store in Noida. It is a very fresh and innovative concept in India, Floriana Marble will be equivalent to the glaze of mirror and will be unmatched by any other marble brand for its quality, finish, product benefits and applications”, he further added “the Group has a plan to open 09 more stores in Uttar Pradesh in the cities like Lucknow, Merrut and Muradabad just to name a few and each store will offer a perfect ambience and purchase experience which includes concept display and advice from trained experts in architecture and interior design to assist customers makes the right choice and the support of providing trained masons to lay the marble”.

What Floriana has in store for us?

Floriana processes marble up to 3mm thin - by far the thinnest in the world. To add to the excitement, it offers whole new dimension in marble thickness - 5mm, 7mm and 10mm with the conventional 20mm. Florina concept marble now surprises us with-

Three different variant of product range; Big size marble slabs in size as big as 3×2 mtrs, marble in a tile format of 300×300mm, 450mm x 450mm and 600mm x 600mm.

And the very innovative product ‘Convinio’ for the first time in the country, which is thin natural marble combined with various other materials like glass, steel and aluminum honeycomb for various innovative applications.

Dream homes are made with fancy products, hence these innovative ones can be used for drawing a wall partition or for external and internal wall cladding, modular kitchen top, modular floating floor, elevator, false ceilings, furniture etc.

The Floriana marble, touted to offer a one-stop Marble solution to consumers, has become a must-visit on our chart. With so much baggage attached to the group and a heavy investment of Rs. 650 crore in this ambitious project, it would be interesting to note how does it fare on Noidaites scoreboard. Once you visit the premier store, leave a comment here on its range, prices and services.

Even though many of us lugged the message of Taare Zameen Par with tears and resolutions, some academics fans still inhabit a desire to make their students and children toppers and academicians. However, the vaulting ambitions of generation next do not take long to be realized, if they are fed with creativeness and ingenuity.

The exemplary success story of Isha Das, a class tenth student and also a noted Odissi dancer, pins down our typical belief and incites us to desire and dream. Already a star in Noida for her impeccable dance performances, Isha has a rich experience of 10 years in Odissi dance. At just 15, this little star has delivered over hundred performances at zonal and sub-zonal level.

Isha is an acolyte of Deb Prasad Das gharana. She is being trained by the most revered Odissi dancer, Jyoti Srivastava, also a director of Nehru Institute of Odissi Research and Training in Delhi. Isha bumped into this unconventional dance form on TV and hence got smitten by it so much that she finally resolved to pursue it. “When I was young I used to remain glued to television. Once I noticed an Odissi dancer and realized that I should also be like her and I started working on it. Soon I got a dance teacher close to my house and started learning,” says Isha.

Isha bagged the first prize at a Youth festival organized in 2007 and second prize in 2008-2009. At this tender age, she has registered success by winning numerous awards at MTNL Health mela, Nehru Bal Samiti (Gold medal), Arya Vidya Sabha. Her profile also boasts of various workshops, which she has attended with various renowned dancers like Ramli Abraham, Durga Charan Ranbir and Gangadhar Pradhan. A very well known face in Puttaparthi Satya Sai Ashram (near Bangalore) and Sadagat Ashram in Rishikesh for her talent, she has also performed at World Dance Day, International Yoga Festival, Trade Fair (Shakuntalam theatre).

For this talented girl world is her oyster, but that doesn’t keep her away from studies. She takes her classes seriously and also manages time to attend her practice sessions. In this hip-hop generation, choosing a cultural dance form, of course, makes her choice unconventional but she pursues it for her inner urge. “I know that Odissi is not a saleable item in Bollywood but I am still learning the dance because I want to do it for my inner urge. Dance is a respectable subject and it cannot be measured in monetary terms,” she says.

Currently enjoying the coveted state-level scholarship from CCRT (Centre for Culture and Research Training), Isha feels she wouldn’t have been able to make it without her parents’ support. Despite of coming from a non-dancers family, her parents have propped her lot, as she says,” my parents mother Aarti Das and father AK Das respect my feelings and supports me a lot. They always join me when I go on tour”.

Now, how does Isha manages her career would be an object of interest, meanwhile if you have a similar inspiring story or know somebody who can be a muse to several others, please write into us.

In a routine drive check in Noida, the police on Monday arrested two notorious criminals, wanted for murders, attempted murders and robberies in various different cases over the years.

According to Parmesh Kumar Shukla, an officer of Sector-20 police police station, ” The two criminals, Naeem and Nadeem, committed various crimes in Delhi and other places”.

In 2006, Naeem had murdered his sister with the help of his brother Haneef in a case of honour-killing as she allegedly had an affair. He also murdered a trader in Seelampur and was named in two other murders registered at different police stations in Delhi.

Nadeem is the co-accused in many of the crimes committed by Naeem.

From Naeem’s possession, the police recovered a .36 bore revolver, five live cartridges and a knife. “We are interrogating them further and are getting to know about other men in their gang,” said the police.

After staying in Noida for a whole month, I vowed never to come back again. At that time, I was interning with a TV channel in sector 63 and stayed close by in a flat with friends and fellow colleagues to make commuting easy. Compared to the hustle bustle of Delhi, Noida seemed like an unorganized, impersonal city with long lonely stretches of road and poor connectivity.

The actual nightmare was the every day commute to work. Though it took only 20 minutes to reach (a marvel by anyone’s standards), those 20 minutes were the worst. From cat calling, haggling with callous auto-wallas to almost being run down by lawless drivers (while crossing roads); it truly was a teeth gritting experience, more so for my Manipuri friend who was constantly bothered with calls like ‘chinese’ and ‘chowmein’.

To go out anywhere on our off days, we walked, changed buses, vikrams, rickshaws and walked again. Moreover, we envied anyone and everyone who owned a set of wheels. In short commuting was a pain.

Four months later, I’m back in Noida, in a different sector with a different firm but the same problem. What’s worse is that this time I have to commute from Delhi and the best and the most economic way to do so is by bus. In these 3 days I have learnt a lot.

There are a lot of blueline buses that go to Noida from ISBT provided you’re ok with literally hanging out of the bus or being cramped in with people who desperately need a shower.

The few Noida Authority buses that run are the most sought after as they take the shortest route possible. However traveling in these is far from comfortable. If you’re lucky enough to get a seat and a partner who ignores you, the one and a half hour ride can even be called pleasant. If not, stand close to a window for fresh air and start elbowing your way to the bus doors a stop early. Ignore offers for modeling, voice modulation etc. In any case, how fantastic can the offer be if it’s coming from someone who travels in a bus?

After all’s said and done, the fact remains that Delhi-Noida and inter Noida connectivity is dreadful. I, for one, am looking forward to the metro which will run from June 2009. Till then, I’ll just have to pluck my courage and carry on or work really hard at my job, get a raise and hopefully, cab service all the way to the office and back!

Five men who siphoned off Rs 16.6 million from an industrialist’s bank account in this Delhi
suburb through Internet banking were arrested and Rs 5.5 million was seized from them, a police official said on Wednesday.

Pawan Kumar Agrawal, owner of M/s PPS International, lodged a complaint with the police on October 11.

He said that a sum of Rs 16,652,500 had been taken out from his company’s account being operated at sector-27 branch of Punjab National Bank.

He said that the theft took place while he was out of the country for 15 days. The money was siphoned off through about a dozen transactions from his account.

After returning from abroad, he was shocked to see his account statement, which showed that a huge sum of money was missing.

RK Chaturvedi, senior superintendent of police, Noida, said that they tracked the men involved in the crime to Goa, Pune and Mumbai.

The arrested men include Savio Dairoch Lobo, Mitul Trivedi, Bharat Bhai Patel, Udai Kapadia and Yogi Anjani Bhandar.

Lobo is a resident of Goa, Trivedi hails from Pune while the remaining three are from Mumbai.

The gang leader is yet to be arrested, said Chaturvedi.

NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: Abdul Saleem alias Islam “died” on February 21, 2002. His siblings recognised his charred body by the clothes and shoes he had
been wearing. Four years later, the “dead” man was arrested by Delhi police under the Arms Act - even as his neighbour was serving a jail term for “murdering” him.

The bizarre crime where a murderer sought to escape punishment by “posing” as the victim was unearthed by Noida police on Tuesday when Islam was arrested under the NDPS Act for possessing narcotics and according to police sources, confessed to the murder of his friend Zakir during the interrogation. Police officers said he told them that he had burnt Zakir to death and put his own clothes on the dead body. He then got his siblings to file his own “murder case” and name his neighbour Shamshad.

Shamshad, a resident Kallugarhi in Massoori police station area of Ghaziabad had to stay in jail for three years and two months, in two stints. He was eventually granted bail by the Allahabad High Court but Noida police made no attempts to withdraw the murder case even after Islam was arrested in 2006 by Delhi Police and the latter had, as per norms, informed their Noida counterparts about the arrest.

Massoori police chief, PK Singh, said, “This is an old case. I can hardly comment on this. But I believe that Islam had lived with Zakir for while and then relations between them soured. And, this why Islam murdered Zakir.”

Asked for his version on the matter, then Massoori police station chief Om Prakash Singh, who is currently posted ain Garhmukteshwar in Ghaziabad district, said, “It is an old case. I remember that a partially burnt and unrecognizable body was found near the Dasna bus stand. Then, on February 26, Islam’s two sisters and a brother, all of them from Kallugarhi, claimed to have recognized the body by the clothes and shoes. They also named Shamshad as an accused, in a report. I do not know what happened after that.”

Shamshad’s nephew, Arshad, told this correspondent, “Delhi Police personnel came to our house, with Islam. Shocked beyond words to see a dead man alive, about a hundred of our neighbours rushed to the Massoori police station. But, nobody listened to us. And, we were chased away with lathis.”

He said Shamshad, father of 5 children aged between 10 months to 11 years, sold his house to pay for his trial and has, since his release, been unemployed. His 11 year old son studies in class II as his schooling got interrupted several times. His daughter died of dengue while he was in jail.

Police said Islam had, in 1984, been arrested for committing a murder in Baghpat, his native town. Then, for some years, he moved to Loni in Ghaziabad and then to Dasna to live with Zakir, whom he later allegedly burnt alive. After murdering Zakir, he went to Kolkata for a brief while but soon returned to western UP.

Prosecution proceedings against Shamshad are still on in the Ghaziabad sessions court. The SHO of Noida’s Sector 58 police station, Dharmendra Kumar, who happened arrested Islam for carrying narcotics, and later learnt that he was “officially dead”, said, “We just happened to arrest Islam. And, then, during interrogation, he told us of his own ‘murder.’ Now, the Ghaziabad police have to book his relatives for their role in the impersonation, and suppression of evidence.”

For Shamshad meanwhile, his travails are far from over. “There is even now an arrest warrant in my name and this is because I could not go for one hearing.”

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Source: TOI