Haridwar is in the Indian state of Uttarakhand and is a famous pilgrimage destination  for the Hindus from all over the world. Situated between the Shivalik Hills in the north and the north east and the Ganga River in the south, Haridwar inspires those inspired by spiritualism and nature. Haridwar blessed by all the gods of the trinity Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh was earlier known as Kapilsthan and Mayapuri.

Considered to be one of the seven holiest places on earth for the Hindus, Haridwar is also one of the four places where the ‘elixir of immortality’ fell from the heaven when a tussle for the elusive pot of nectar of immortality had taken place between the gods and the demons. The Brahma Kund at Har-Ki-Pauri is the place at Haridwar where the elixir of immortality is believed to have fallen.

The other three places are Nasik, Ujjain and Allahabad. Like these places, at Haridwar also Ardh Kumbh and Maha Kumbh Mela are held after every six and 12 years respectively which attract thousands of pilgrims and visitors from all over the world.

Mythology has it that King Bhagirath brought Ganga to Haridwar to salvage the souls of his ancestors who had been cursed by the sage Kapil. Haridwar is a very ancient town; it finds mention by the famous Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang who has mentioned Haridwar as Maurya.

Haridwar is also the place where the River Ganga, for the first time, enters the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Maybe, that’s why the place is also known as Gangadwara. The waters of the sacred river look sparklingly clean and fresh at Haridwar. Haridwar is also the entry point to the Char Dham-Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri. A holy dip in the Ganga at Haridwar is regarded very auspicious and cleanses one of all sins and impurities.

Besides the renowned Har-Ki-Pauri at Haridwar, which is much renowned for its mesmerizing aartis and the floating diyas, there are some other ghats spots at Haridwar visited by the pilgrims in good numbers to bathe and offer their offerings to the god. They are: Gangadwara, Kankhal, Nila Parvata, Bilwa Theertha, and Kussavata. The beautiful sight of thousands of diyas with marigold flowers floating in the waters of the sacred river is very enriching, and it turns out to be the experience of a lifetime.

Apart from the its many bathing ghats, Haridwar is also much famous for its numerous temples–much like Varanasi. Gangadwara Temple, Chandi Devi Temple, Mansa Devi Temple, Maya Devi Temple, Daksha Mahadeva Temple, Vaishno Devi Temple, and Bharat Mata Temple are just some of the many well-known temples of Haridwar that are worth visiting.

Haridwar is a pilgrimage centre not only for the Hindus but for the Muslims also. Piran Kaliyar, also known as Kaliyar Sharif–the much revered dargah of Hazrat Makhdum Allauddin Ali Sabir–is a pilgrimage destination for the Muslims and the Hindus alike. It is located just 23 km away from Haridwar.

For the wildlife and nature lovers, there’s the Rajaji National Park in Haridwar which is home to many varieties of flora and fauna. Spread over an area of 820 sq km, the Rajaji National Park is home to 23 species of mammals and 315 species of birds.

And oh, did I mention that Haridwar is also much renowned all over India for its Ayurvedic medicines? In fact, the place is the best resource for these medicines. No wonder, the practitioners of this ancient form of alternative treatment make it a point to visit the place at least once in their life.

Haridwar is 214 km away from Delhi and just 28 km away from Rishikesh–another holy destination of Uttarakhand–and is well connected by rail, air and road. The National Highway 45 passes through Haridwar, and hence, the place is easily reachable from all parts of the state and beyond by road. The nearest airport is at Dehradun.

You can get cheap student airfare in several ways and the best way is to book your tickets in advance. This way you will be the first one to get hold of the discounted tickets. Your airfare can go further down if you happen to fly during the off season.
However traveling in off season becomes difficult for students as they get their vacations during the festive seasons which are the peak traveling time. Families travel together during this period and so it becomes quite difficult to get cheap airfare in this busy season.

There are a number of sites that deal with student travel. Some of the best sites are Student Universe, Travel Cuts and STA. You need to fill in the registration details and after that you can make use of the various facilities available on these sites.
Travel Cuts and STA ask you to buy an International Student Identity Card where Student Universe asks you to enter the email address of your school or college. This email address is used for verification of your identity as a student.

You can also attain cheap student airfare from many travel sites. They give special offers to those students who buy tickets from their site. Students can also avail the general discounted fares. So you have a lot to choose from.

International traveling rates for students are further cut down. Students get much more discount that the usual travelers. Airlines readily adjust to the changing dates of students and also charge a lower cancellation fee in case the ticket is cancelled. A student can hold the open ticket for a longer period of time than the usual travelers.

You need to do some research before you buy the ticket. You should have a lot look at the airlines and student sites which provide student tickets. You should do all this before you buy the ticket and you can end up saving a lot of money.

You should keep certain things in your mind while buying the student ticket. Student airfare is a new form of airfare created exclusively for the students considering the fact that students are usually short on funds. This is to be used by students who want to go abroad for further studies or at some other distant place. This is also for those students who are living far away from their family doing some research work and want to go home during vacations.

Student airfare was first offered by the leading airlines. All you need to show was your identity card and you can get the ticket at a cheaper rate. This fare may or may not be less than the usual discounted airfare offered to the general public. So as a student, you must check the student airfare rates and compare it with those offered to the general public.

Students can also get great discount offers if they buy the tickets through some sites like STA or Student Universe. Travel Cuts and STA even have offline services and you can make a call to them and get your ticket. But they need your identification proof before the tickets are issued.

Some sites take the help of search engines and display all the best airfares available. They will also show the discounts offered by the airlines. Domestic discounts may be even higher than the student discounts.

To get the best deal, students must be flexible in their schedules. Tickets should be booked well in advance and on those days when there is less traffic. This you can find out from the internet. Just visit any travel site and you will get all the required information.

You can go for the cheaper airlines. As a student you should pick up the cheapest airline and not look for any comforts. You should be ready to use smaller airports if they are not too far away from the college. All this will help the students to cut their traveling cost and save lot of money

Yatra.com also introduced a slew of services in the domain of international travel. Currently Yatra.com is offering the Fair Deal Promise scheme on international flights where one who books an international ticket with Yatra.com and gets a lower price elsewhere can ask Yatra.com to match the fare and avail a lower airfare. Yatra.com also renders its customers the free Visa assistance facility wherein a team of experts help the customer with the procedures of applying for Visa without charging any additional service fees. Payment convenience is another value added service by the Yatra.com portal wherein customers are given the flexibility of paying only 25 per cent of the air ticket fare and balance can be paid at a later date. With such value added deals and offers Yatra.com aims to continue being a pioneer in bringing innovative applications and services in international travel.

After such strident posturing, the two sides surprised everyone in the evening by agreeing to talk. Accordingly, an emergency meeting was organised. They met, they talked but failed to agree, boding ill for Jet passengers scheduled to fly on Thursday.

The Mumbai high court, which on Tuesday had ordered the pilots to go back to work, issued a contempt notice to NAG the day after for continuing the strike. The July sacking of two pilots prompted the mass sick leave, which, in turn, prompted the sacking of two more by the management.

About 160 expatriate pilots on Jet Airway’s rolls worked as usual, enabling the airline to operate some flights. The airline employs 1,026 pilots.

Jet Airways’ chief commercial officer, Sudheer Raghavan, told media that the airline had accommodated 80 per cent of the stranded passengers on flights of other airlines. He said Jet Airways had readily refunded fares to other passengers, on domestic and international flights, who could not or did not fly.

The airline said it had set up a crisis management centre and was updating its website on a real- time basis. We are also sending SMS updates on flights that are operational and those cancelled, so that passengers don’t have to come to the airport and face inconvenience,Raghavan said.

The airline’s chief operating officer, Hamid Ali, said, We are trying hard to end the strike. We sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience caused to them.

The airline said it had not yet taken stock of the loss it suffered because of the strike. We calculate our revenue on the basis of the number of flights we operate in a day. As per the last information received, we are operating 230 of the total 360 flights, domestic and international. There is not much impact on international flights, which contribute almost 50 per cent of our revenue. The company has managed to generate more than 50 per cent of the revenue earned on any other day, Ali said.

Except flights to West Asia, Saarc countries and South- East Asia, international services to destinations in the US, the UK and Canada are operating as usual, Gaurang Shetty, the airline’s senior vice- president in charge of alliances and inter-line distribution, said.

Travel agencies said the strike could cost Jet Airways over Rs 5 crore a day. Jet Airways usually flies over 21,000 people every day. In the current scenario, when over half its flights are cancelled, it is flying no more than 6,000 passengers. Even if the average ticket price is taken to be Rs 3,500, the company ends up losing over Rs 5 crore each day. This scale of loss is not sustainable, said Rajji Rai, president of the Travel Agents’ Association of India (TAAI).

Jet tickets account for up to 40 per cent of TAAI’s total bookings. Rai said most of these bookings were now going to other carriers which took the opportunity to increase fares by between 13 and 15 per cent.

A Jet Airways official, who did not want to be named, thought the loss could be higher. Considering our business class and international flights, the average ticket price comes to about Rs 7,000, he said. This would imply a daily loss of Rs 10 crore.

This, however, would not make any impact on Jet’s balance sheet, he claimed. It’s a matter of a couple of days. It will not have any impact on our margins in the long term, he said.

Travel portals like Yatra.com have already stopped booking Jet tickets. An official of the website said that in normal circumstances we book over 2,000 Jet tickets every day. But we have stopped displaying ticket availability for Wednesday and Thursday.

The stock of Jet Airways fell marginally to close at Rs 262.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday

A fresh row is brewing in Kashmir over the delay in this year’s Amarnath yatra. The Shri Amarnath Shrine Board SASB blames inclement weather for the delay, but the Shri Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti SASS and the VHP-backed Amarnath Yatra Niyas AYN, feel the Omar government is dithering under pressure from separatists. AYN wants the yatra to begin on June 15 come what may

Even BJP, which rode high on last year’s Amarnath crisis, says the government was deliberately delaying the yatra.

The yatra was to take off on June 7, but was rescheduled to June 15 due to the weather. The board says incessant rains and snowfall have hampered track clearance. Some sectors continue to be under 5-6 ft snow.

Governor NN Vohra, who is the SASB chairman, is scheduled to visit the shrine and the two base camps and carry out an aerial reconnaissance on June 11 to assess the timeline for restoration and setting up of required facilities, a board spokesman said.

We support the SASB, but are sceptical of the government, which is succumbing to pressure from communal forces, state BJP president Ashok Khajuria said.

SASB says there is a lot of snow on the tracks, but there is no independent confirmation. If the yatra is postponed once more, it will be construed that the government is giving in to pressure from Hurriyat hawks. They had said that the yatra period should be curtailed to 15 days, Brig retd Suchet Singh, officiating convener of the Samiti, said.

AYN wants the yatra to begin on June 15 come what may. If the yatra is postponed, we will appeal to the pilgrims to reach Jammu and begin the pilgrimage on their own, AYN chief Rama Kant Dubey said.