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indianexpress: With a majority of the private and unaided engineering institutions becoming part of the State government-conducted Common Entrance Test (CET) for engineering courses, the State Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has written to the Supreme Court-appointed Pravesh Niyantran Samiti to disallow the Association of Managements of Unaided Engineering Colleges (AMUEC) from conducting their own private CET and instead conduct one CET.

According to a Supreme Court judgement on August 12, 2005, the AMUEC conducts its own CET for engineering —the MH-ENG-ASSO-CET— and the government cannot claim seats or effect admission process in these colleges. However, of the total 162 private engineering colleges in the state, 153 have written to the State government that admission, as well as the selection procedure for their institutes would be conducted as per the CET conducted by the Government.

“When barely ten institutes have registered for the private CET, then it is in the larger interest of the students to have one single entrance test, instead of multiple ones,” said director of technical education NB Pasalkar. The DTE wrote to the Pravesh Niyantran Samiti eight days ago, requesting that AMUEC be barred from conducting its own CET.

Students appearing for CET this year will have to take a judicious approach while making the choice of colleges. While there will be a total of three rounds plus an additional round for counseling, students will not be allowed to seek admission in the next round, if they have already received the college of their choice.

In the first round, students can give up to 20 options, and will not enter the second round if they get admission into any college from the first nine on the priority list. Similarly, the second round will allow 30 options, and students getting admission into any of the first 15 will not enter the third round, which allows up to 45 options. A student who fails to secure any of the 45 options even in the third round can seek counseling in the fourth round, wherein he is allocated a college.

 indianexpress: With the launch of the Optical Smart Card system by the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO) on March 7, motorists will no longer need to produce registration papers of the vehicle at a checking drive. The new system will enable the RTO to take a look at the soft copy of the registration certificate book stored in the optical card with the help of a reader.

The RC book and other related documents will be replaced by an e-book saved in the optical chip of the card. The New Delhi based National Informatics Centre (NIC) has designed the software called Vahan, which will help in operation of registration of vehicles.
 
Earlier, NIC had also designed the smart card software Saarthi incorporated in the licensing system.

Deputy regional transport officer Jeevan Bansod said the optical smart card is a value addition to the original smart card system implemented in Pune. “Whenever an erring driver is caught, the process of checking the papers becomes lengthy. With this system, the documents can be checked in seconds,” he said.

A photograph of the vehicle’s owner along with the form will also be scanned and saved in the card.

“The photograph will help check the identity of the vehicle owner,” Bansod added. The contract of producing the optical smart cards is being awarded to Shankh Technology International Ltd.

indianexpress: Saturday’s trance party raid at the foothills of Sinhagad fort has once again brought Pune under the scanner of various agencies dealing with drug menace.

Hours after the police stormed the venue at a farm near Donje village, Central Excise and Customs officials swooped down as well. All of a sudden, the city was being swamped by various agencies including the Anti Terrorist Squad, Mumbai Police and Thane police — all with a common agenda — finding out why, how and since when has Pune started playing host to such parties?
 
In the 1990s, ‘techno parties’ were commonly held in Koregaon Park, Wanavdi, Wagholi and Hadapsar. Patrons included foreign tourists, mostly hippies.

When the police turned the heat on, venues were shifted to remote areas on the border of the Pune and Raigad districts, and no reports of such parties were heard of for a decade.

Saturday night’s party indicates they may have returned to Pune. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sunil Phulari, though, Pune was only a last-minute option to hold Saturday’s party. “The plan was to organise the party in some other metro. But the venue was changed to Pune later on,” he said.

Three factors are responsible for the change of plan — availability of secluded areas, availability of party-goers and Pune’s geographical proximity to Mumbai: Home to many party-goers.