Elephants in silver ornaments, folk dancers welcome Vance family to Amber Fort as US Vice President goes sightseeing in Jaipur
Vance, his wife Usha, and their three children visited Amber Fort, about 10 km from Jaipur city, on Tuesday morning. There, they were greeted by two elephants – Chanda and Pushpa – adorned with the silver ornaments. The ornaments inclduded paajeb (anklets), kantha (necklace), mukut (head piece), kangoje (earrings), sher ki jhool (silver embroidered cloth covering the elephant) and audha (the seat on the elephant), said Ballu Khan, president of Hathi Gaon development committee and one of the mahouts of the elephants. Hathi Gaon is an area near Amber Fort where elephants are housed and cared for.
'These ornaments are taken out only on special occasions on the requests of the government. These are ornaments that are provided to us by the former Maharaja of Jaipur and we have been keeping them since then,' Ballu Khan told The Indian Express.
At Amber Fort, the Vance family also saw folk artists, who performed the Kachhi Ghori, Ghoomar and Kalbelia dances.
After this, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma and Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari met Vance and family.
The Second Family of United States spent one-and-a-half hours at Amber Fort, and visited various parts of the massive complex made of different materials, including sandstone, marble and yellow stone.
They visited the Diwan-e-Aam, Ganesh Pol, Sheesh Mahal and Man Singh Mahal in the fort.
At 11.30 am, they left the fort and went back to the Rambagh Palace Hotel, where they are staying.
The US Vice President is on a four-day visit to India. He reached Delhi on Monday, and after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he visited the Akshardham temple in the national capital. He reached Jaipur at 9.30 pm Monday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
3 hours ago
- Indian Express
4,900 football fields: In Delhi's land pooling zones, that's the area lost to unauthorised construction
More than 3,500 hectares of land in outer Delhi areas, earmarked for the Delhi Development Authority's ambitious land pooling policy, has been taken over by unauthorised construction, according to the DDA's internal assessments. Unauthorised construction now stands on 17% of the land in the land pooling zones — the size of more than 4,900 football fields — stretching from Burari and Narela in the North to Najagarh and Chhawla in the Southwest. This is the first time that the scale of settlements that have cropped up in the national capital, in contravention of the zoning regulations laid out by the Master Plan 2021, has come out. The 3,511 hectares — mostly agricultural land — is part of the 20,600 hectares of land in sectors earmarked for the policy. The DDA did not respond to questions sent by The Indian Express about why the agency has allowed unauthorised construction to come up and what action the agency has taken against it till now. The land pooling policy, first introduced back in 2007 and the latest regulations for which came out in 2018, have seen little success on the ground. Under the policy, DDA was aiming to do away with costly land acquisition and construction of housing and amenities, and instead bring in the private sector to build homes. It had envisaged that the policy would lead to the creation of world-class neighbourhoods with high-rise group buildings that could house 85 lakh people in the rural belt — areas such as Narela, Bawana and Najafgarh. However, work has not started in even a single sector till now. Amendments in the policy, which will make it easier to move forward with development work, were sent by the DDA to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in 2022 but have not seen any movement. The outer area of the city has, instead, witnessed haphazard urbanisation with steady population growth. For instance, electors in the Assembly constituency of Burari have grown from 2.88 lakh in 2015 to 4.26 lakh in 2025, data from the Election Commission of India shows — a massive increase of 1.38 lakh electors. Matiala has also seen electors grow from 3.47 lakh to 4.54 lakh in the last decade. As part of the policy, the DDA has delineated 138 sectors into six zones (P 1, P 2, N, K 1, L and J) in northern, western, and southern Delhi. The maximum unauthorised construction has happened in Zone K-I, in which out of 2,836 hectares, 1,008 hectares have seen unauthorised construction. Zone K-I is in West Delhi and covers villages such as Mundka, Bakkar Wala, Baprola and Nangloi Jat. Zone L, which lies in Southwest Delhi and is the largest of the land pooling zones — spread over 8,649 hectares of land — has also seen a large increase in unauthorised construction. 928.48 hectares has been taken over in the zone in which villages such as Najafgarh, Dhansa and Chhawla fall. Zone P-II in North Delhi has seen 806 hectares of its land lost to unauthorised construction, out of 2,640 hectares. Zone P-I, where DDA's Narela sub-city project is located, has seen 541 hectares of land out of 1,857 hectares disappear under unauthorised construction. In Zone N of Northwest Delhi, 226 hectares out of 6,496 hectares have been built on without any approvals. These unauthorised settlements, which have come up, are excluding the 1,731 unauthorised colonies which are under the purview of the Pradhan Mantri-Unauthorised Colonies in Delhi Awas Adhikar Yojana (PM-UDAY). PM-UDAY, which was brought ahead of the 2020 Delhi elections, sought to confer ownership rights on about 50 lakh people who reside in unauthorised colonies in the national capital, which suffer from 'problems of haphazard growth, lack of public amenities and social infrastructure, unsafe structures and unhygienic conditions'. When contacted by The Indian Express, BJP MPs from Northwest Delhi and West Delhi, Yogender Chandoliya and Kamaljeet Sehrawat, respectively, said they are not aware of any such construction.
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
Bihar Assembly Elections: Seemanchal, close to Bangladesh, sees significant voter deletion
Bihar's Seemanchal region which accommodates four districts - Araria, Kishanganj, Purnia and Katihar - has witnessed a significant voter deletion in the draft electoral roll. Since the region is close to Bangladesh and shares boundaries with Nepal, these four districts, which have a high Muslim population, are known for infiltration. Araria saw a deletion of 1,58,072 voters, Kishanganj 1,45,668, Purnia 2,73,920 and Katihar 1,84,254 in the draft list. Now after the deletion, the number of voters in Araria stands at 19,24,414; Kishanganj 10,86,242; Purnia 19,94,511 and Katihar 20,44,809. The Seemanchal region, which has 24 assembly seats, is considered a tough battlefield for both main political players - ruling NDA and main Opposition INDIA bloc (previously known as Mahagathbandhan) because of polarisation of voters on communal lines during the elections. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Data Science Data Science MCA Cybersecurity Project Management CXO Healthcare Management Operations Management Leadership Product Management MBA Artificial Intelligence Public Policy Degree Design Thinking Others Digital Marketing healthcare Finance Technology others PGDM Data Analytics Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months IIM Kozhikode CERT-IIMK DABS India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 30 Weeks IIM Kozhikode SEPO - IIMK-AI for Senior Executives India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 11 Months IIT Madras CERT-IITM Advanced Cert Prog in AI and ML India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 10 Months E&ICT Academy, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati CERT-IITG Prof Cert in DS & BA with GenAI India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 11 Months E&ICT Academy, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati CERT-IITG Postgraduate Cert in AI and ML India Starts on undefined Get Details In most of the 24 constituencies, the candidates faced close contests in the previous elections. In 2020 assembly polls, AIMIM had made its presence felt in this region by bagging five seats. The presence of AIMIM candidates in different seats of this region was a major source of trouble for the Mahagtahbandhan then. Although a clear political picture of the Seemanchal region will emerge after the final publication of electors' list, both the NDA and INDIA bloc are set to swing into action to ensure proper verification of the draft list of electors in this region.
The Hindu
8 hours ago
- The Hindu
House of wars: on Parliament, Operation Sindoor discussion
The government and the Opposition crossed swords in Parliament during a discussion on Operation Sindoor this week. There was unanimity in praising India's armed forces, but there was little common ground beyond that. Operation Sindoor was India's military response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, on April 22, 2025, which claimed 26 lives. The elimination of three terrorists behind the attack, just before the parliamentary debate, helped the government's case. It told Parliament that these terrorists were Lashkar-e-Taiba members from Pakistan. The Narendra Modi government's strident approach seeks to change the behaviour of Pakistan and reassure its domestic audience. The success of this approach is debatable and the Opposition sought to put the government on the spot on both counts. A demonstrated willingness to use force against Pakistan in the event of a terrorism incident is a definitive turn in India's strategy, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) takes pride in that. But there is no evidence yet that it is working though there has been chest thumping around it by the ruling party. The discussion in Parliament barely addressed the implications of this approach, which is being touted as the new normal. The Opposition and the government agreed on the need to punish Pakistan, and also disagreed on who would do it better. The government claimed success in meeting its objectives of launching a military operation and denied that it had acted under pressure in ending the war. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi demanded a pointed response to repeated claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that he mediated the ceasefire but the Prime Minister evaded a direct response on it. The government contradicts itself when it says that the operation was a success, and that it is continuing. It is also exasperating to hear a party that is now in its eleventh year of uninterrupted power, blame people who passed away decades ago for any challenge that India faces now. There was little self-reflection regarding the lapses that led to the terrorism incident, and whether and how the government plans to address them. The government had sent joint teams including several MPs from the Opposition abroad to garner support for India in the aftermath of the operation, but that sign of statesmanship was a short-lived aberration, as it turns out. The world is changing rapidly and India's capacity to navigate those changes will be largely determined by its own character. Questioning the patriotism of political opponents is an easy route to take to evade tough questions, but the BJP must realise that such an approach has diminishing returns.
