News

IndianExpress: High drama unfolded on the third day of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s stay at the Le Meridien Hotel in Pune, with Angelina’s personal bodyguard threatening the assembled media and even manhandling a photographer from the UK.

The incident happened at around 2 pm on Saturday afternoon when the London-based photographer from Barcroft Media, Sam Relph, tried to click a picture of the film crew who had stepped into the driveway. ‘‘I was just taking pictures generally in the hotel when this security guy came up and caught me by my throat and told me: ‘If you take any pictures of Angelina, I’ll kill you’. I was caught completely unaware and didn’t know how to react because he caught me so hard that I was breathless,’’ Relph said. According to Relph, the threat was liberally laced with swear words.

IndianExpress: In a prelude to the 74th Air Force Day on Sunday, an open day was held at the Lohegaon air base for family members of Air Force personnel. As part of the Air Force week celebrations, over 7,000 people took part in the festivities organised near the Su-30 hangars on Saturday afternoon.

With the Indian Air Force entering its 75th year of establishment, the annual celebrations were held on a grand scale with a flypast by Air Force fighter jets in the morning. The event was followed by a flight display of radio controlled model airplanes by NCC cadets.

IndianExpress:  Cantonment residents, who have been getting turbid water due to faulty sewage and drinking water pipelines near the Artificial Limb Centre (ALC), can expect better water in the next few days.

Work on fixing the drainage line on the road near the ALC, which residents feared would result in a health problem, began on Saturday evening.

The drainage line has been leaking for the past three months. On Thursday, the Pune Cantonment Board had palmed off the blame for the leaking pipeline on the Military Engineering

IndianExpress: The civic administration of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, which is facing a spate of court cases over the shoddy state of roads, has taken a new vow. It has declared that anybody who digs up roads without permission from the PCMC road departments would be fined Rs 10,000 and also face a criminal complaint.

Municipal Commissioner Dilip Band told Newsline on Thursday that once the road work starts, no digging work would be allowed for the next three years. He said any individual or department which needs to dig up a road for different works should immediately get their work done with the help of PCMC road engineers.

IndianExpress:  Gearing up for the oncoming civic elections, the Nationalist Congress Party (MCP) has begun holding meetings of party workers at Assembly segment level across the city.

NCP’s city unit president Jaydeo Gaikwad said the meetings are aimed at planning strategies for the civic elections and to attract various cross-sections of the society towards the party.

Gaikwad said issues like road conditions, traffic and transport problems, water supply, health and hygiene and educational facilities in the area would be discussed.

IndianExpress: Corporator Nitin Jagtap on Saturday staged a protest at the office of Archeological Survey of India (ASI) to protest against alleged apathy of officials towards preserving the Mahatma Phule memorial in Ganj Peth.

In a press statement issued, Jagtap alleged that although the proposal of giving the status of national monument to the structure had been pending for the last 13 years, no action had been taken to preserve the site. He said that the areas near Phule’s residence was mushrooming with new buildings although the ASI has put up boards in the area prohibiting construction within 50 metres area of the memorial.