Manoj Sharma is Metro Features Editor at Hindustan Times. He likes to pursue stories that otherwise fall through the cracks.
Articles by Manoj Sharma
The eclectic world of Delhi Metro’s lost-and-found
It’s around 1pm, and a sling bag has just been brought to Anil Kumar’s desk at the Delhi Metro’s Lost and Found Office (LFO) at the Kashmere Gate Metro station
Published on Jan 30, 2023 12:02 AM IST
Delhi bookstores turn new chapter as better sales, lower rent push growth
In 2010, Ajay Jain, a travel writer and photographer, opened Kunzum Travel Café in Delhi’s Hauz Khas village
Updated on Jan 18, 2023 06:43 PM IST
Class act: 2 decades of Delhi Metro, the great leveller
The first Delhi Metro train rumbled out of the Shahdara station on this day two decades ago. Since then, the service has become the city’s transport backbone, being used by millions a day and bringing nearly every corner of the Capital together.
Published on Dec 24, 2022 04:50 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Upgrades give Constitution Club brand new lease of life
Set up in 1947 to provide members of the Constituent Assembly a space to socialise outside Parliament, the club fell on bad times in the 1980s due to neglect and became a derelict place. But in recent years, its footfall has more than tripled and in its restaurants and cafe, one can see not just politicians and their families but also ordinary city residents
Updated on Dec 12, 2022 12:27 PM IST
How Delhi became the setting for racy crime novels
In the past few years, an increasing number of writers, some famous and some not-so-famous, have been exploring the dark underbelly of Delhi in their novels
Published on Nov 22, 2022 08:25 PM IST
Urdu publishers struggle to stay afloat as readership bottoms
Till the late 1990s, there were more than 100 Urdu publishers in Delhi, most based in the walled city, bringing out hundreds of titles every year – fiction, non-fiction, biographies and children’s books. However, most of them have shut shop along with Urdu printing presses, and barely 20 have survived
Updated on Nov 22, 2022 06:09 PM IST
Inside India’s 200-years quest for vernacular medical textbooks
The initiative by the Madhya Pradesh government marks an important chapter in India’s 200-year-old quest to impart medical education in vernacular languages.
Updated on Oct 31, 2022 04:58 PM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Are analogue cameras making a big comeback in the Capital?
With an uptick in sales, it appears that there is a revival of the old-fashioned cameras, primarily as an art form
Published on Oct 11, 2022 07:31 PM IST
Electric cabs find niche in Delhi’s green mobility push
In the past few years, several electric cab services—such as BluSmart, Plug Mobility, Evera, and eeeTaxi—have been launched in Delhi/ NCR.
Updated on Sep 26, 2022 12:06 PM IST
Manoj Sharma, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
Plays, politics coalesce at Delhi’s Ramlila
Lavkush Ramlila is Delhi’s biggest and the grandest, which has over the years seen the prime ministers and chief ministers as chief guests on Dussehra day
Updated on Sep 19, 2022 11:30 AM IST
Unfazed by politics over name, revadi makers of Meerut prepare for winter sales
New Delhi/Meerut: Sunil Gupta, an otherwise reserved person, is quite loquacious when he talks about revadis-- the traditional candy sweet made from jaggery and sesame seeds
Updated on Sep 12, 2022 12:37 PM IST
Sprinkled across Delhi, shops hold on to family history, pre-Partition legacy
Even as the country saw a flurry of name changes after Independence, the owners of these businesses have stuck to the original names -- many for emotional reasons, the names being the markers of their personal histories, others for purely business ones
Updated on Sep 07, 2022 04:55 PM IST
Toy industry’s Make in India moment
NCR has over 100 small and medium enterprises making toys. Most of these enterprises, which were struggling to survive until a couple of years ago, are now on an expansion drive, and they attribute the turnaround in their fortunes to a slew of government interventions in the past couple of years
Updated on Sep 05, 2022 01:03 PM IST
Remember Campa Cola? It is set to return this Diwali
The soft drink brand is back in the news with Reliance acquiring Campa from the Pure Drinks Group, and is planning to relaunch it nationally by Diwali in three flavours -- the iconic original, and lemon and orange variants
Published on Sep 01, 2022 07:48 AM IST
An unprecedented scramble to meet record Tricolour demand
“Usually, in the build-up to August 15, I make around 5,000 national flags a day. But this year, I’m making over 100,000 every day. And even after that, the phone just doesn’t stop ringing,” says Ansari, who runs Bharat Handloom Cloth House in Delhi’s Sadar Bazar.
Updated on Jul 30, 2022 05:25 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
With all Afghanistan flights cut off, Delhi’s ‘Little Kabul’ takes a beating
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 15,559 Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in India, and most of them are in Delhi.
Updated on Jul 12, 2022 10:23 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Delhi: From a granary to creative business street
For the uninitiated, Dhan Mill Compound, a former granary and a cluster of warehouses, has morphed into the city’s modish food, fashion, design and lifestyle destination.
Updated on Jul 05, 2022 07:46 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Hindi novels turn a page after Booker fillip
Amod Maheshwari, the CEO of the family owned Rajkamal Prakashan, a well-known Hindi publishing house, which had published Ret Samadhi in Hindi, in 2018, sent out a message to his printers to print 15,000 copies of the book by the next day.
Updated on Jun 13, 2022 11:29 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
Growth is mushrooming: Delhi farmers harvest success at temp-controlled farms
In the last two years of the pandemic, over a hundred mushroom farms have come up in Delhi-NCR, especially in outer Delhi’s Najafgarh, Bawana, and Bakhtawar areas
Updated on Jun 06, 2022 02:57 PM IST
Gramin Sewa autos chug on despite unchanged fare
Most drivers have operated the autos at a minimum fare of ₹5 for the first 3km for 12 years now, even amid the sharp increase in fuel prices
Updated on May 23, 2022 01:02 AM IST
Uncertainties of pandemic era build traction for the common man’s biographies
The Covid-19 pandemic shutdown when life came to a grinding halt led to common people writing their autobiographies, memoirs, or biographies of their family members, and publish them on their own.
Updated on May 16, 2022 04:58 AM IST
DU at 100: Schools of excellence made a varsity shine brighter
In early 1946, Dr BN Ganguly, who taught economics at Hindu College, invited his student PN Dhar and former colleague Prof VKRV Rao for dinner. It was a conversation that eventually led to the birth of the Delhi School of Economics (DSE).
Updated on May 03, 2022 12:15 PM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
DU at 100: The judge who envisioned DU as a miniature Oxbridge
Born in London on 25 April 1878, Maurice Gwyer was appointed the vice-chancellor of the Delhi University in 1938. In fact, he had been also appointed the first chief justice of the Federal Court of India, a year earlier in 1937
Updated on May 02, 2022 05:39 PM IST
DU at 100: Delhi and its university: How an institution helped shape a city
The first three universities in India were established in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1854. A 1917 commission set up to suggest improvements in Calcutta University paved the way for an independent varsity for the new imperial capital
Updated on May 02, 2022 05:35 PM IST
Samosa to kulfi, tea to pakoras, street food in Delhi gets pricier
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February this year, prices of crude oil and edible oils have been on the rise. India’s annual retail inflation shot up to a 17-month high in March.
Published on May 01, 2022 11:43 PM IST
The judge who envisioned Delhi University as a miniature Oxbridge
Maurice Gwyer, was appointed the vice-chancellor of the Delhi University in 1938, is widely credited with single-handedly transforming it.
Published on Apr 30, 2022 03:19 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Delhi and its university: How an institution helped shape a city
The first three universities in India were established in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in 1854. Delhi just had three colleges — Ramjas, Hindu and St Stephen’s. A 1917 commission set up to suggest improvements in Calcutta University paved the way for an independent varsity for the new imperial capital.
Updated on Apr 30, 2022 04:52 AM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
Landless in Bakkargarh: A village suffers for its role in Revolt of 1857
Bakkargarh is perhaps the only village in Delhi where almost 90% of the land is owned by people outside the village.
_1650863657620_1650863667655.jpg "Dharampal Singh( in white kurta) in Bakkargarh village in Delhi(HT)")
Updated on Apr 25, 2022 01:20 PM IST
Manoj Sharma, New Delhi
‘It’s Greek to us’: Sectors in G Noida to get fresh names
Narain wanted it to have better infrastructure than Noida, and one of his concerns, as he set about planning the brand new city, was to find a nomenclature for its neighbourhoods that would suit a futuristic city.
Published on Apr 18, 2022 05:51 AM IST
At Delhi’s Daryaganj, bibliophiles can weigh their options — literally
Daryaganj may no longer be home to the iconic Sunday Book Bazar, a 50-year old popular weekly books market that was shifted to the nearby Mahila Haat about two years ago, but over a dozen permanent bookshops have come up in the central Delhi market in the past few years.
Updated on Mar 21, 2022 10:41 AM IST
