News

indianexpress: IN the last five years the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has not conducted the mandatory tree census as prescribed by the Maharashtra Tree Act 1975.

Instead, the PMC blatantly permitted cutting of 42,000 trees. The civic body allowed transplantation of 7,000 trees but has no idea how many were actually transplanted and how many survived.

The civic body has registered just 19 cases against those felling trees without permission.

On most construction sites, nails are hammered into green trees and tree guards are filled with salt and acid to turn them dead and then the PMC’s permission is sought to fell them.

Despite this, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will receive the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for “extraordinary work” in afforestation on Tuesday.

Environmentalists and common citizens, appalled by the civic body’s laxity in preserving the city’s tree cover, are livid that the civic body may have ‘concealed’ these facts from the ministry. “Before presenting the award to PMC, the ministry should verify the information submitted by the PMC when it sought the award for tree protection,” said activist Vinod Jain, who has submitted an application to the ministry.

“The PMC receiving the award is a mockery as it has hardly done anything for the protection of environment and greenery in the city,” said Jain who had filed an application under the RTI seeking information from the PMC on tree felling.

The PMC’s answer is that it has no records of the transplantation of trees and it has not conducted a tree census for last five years. The reply does mention that the civic body was fined Rs 5,38,000 in 2005-06 for illegally cutting trees by the Pune Cantonment Board.

Garden superintendent Yashwant Khaire admitted that the PMC has not conducted a tree census for last five years. “ We were waiting for the completion of the survey of properties. It is in the last stage. Once this survey is completed, we will start the tree census,” said Khaire, claiming that simultaneous surveys would have created confusion and duplication.

indianexpress: SHIV Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe has initiated a campaign to locate and rescue a girl who is missing from a village in Khed district.

Two girls from Ritewadi village in Rajgurunagar area found themselves trapped in a prostitution racket after they were lured by Rani Tukaram Shinde, also from their village. The parents of the girls approached the Rajgurunagar police and Rani was held, but later released.

The girls were drugged and taken to Indore and then Bhopal. Fortunately, one of them escaped and returned home. But the other girl is still missing. Her parents regularly visit the police station. The only response they get is that investigations are underway.

Gorhe, who runs the Stree Adhar Kendra, has been requesting Rural SP Vishwas Nangre Patil to send a squad to Bhopal in search of the missing girl. She expressed disillusionment over the way in which the issue has been dealt with by the SP. “There is lack of co-ordination between the police of different states. This gap needs to be bridged. I approached Nangre Patil and requested him to send a squad to Bhopal to trace the girl. Though he said he would look into the issue, no action has been taken so far. It’s been over a year now since the girl went missing.”

Speaking about the trafficking rackets in Pune, she said, “Sixty per cent of the girls are from Nepal or Bangladesh, 20 per cent from the southern states and the remaining from drought-affected areas.”

indianexpress: THE National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to the State government for the failure of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) in Pune in dispensing justice in nearly 3,000 cases, some of them pending for the past 16 years, and attempting to dispose of some 171 cases at a recent Lok Adalat in full public glare exposing the identity of the juveniles.

The notice, a copy of which was received by the complainant city-based child rights activist Sheela Barse on May 29, has sought ‘appropriate action in the matter’ and further requested that an action taken report (ATR) be sent to the NHRC within four weeks from the date of receipt of the notice. The notice has been issued to the law secretary and the principal secretary of the State government.

However, JJB member and noted child rights activist Anuradha Sahastrabudde said they had not received any such notice from the NHRC. “What notice? We have not received any such notice,” she told Pune Newsline on Sunday .

The notice states that Barse’s grievance is two-fold: “Firstly, that most of the cases have been pending before the Board for many years. The second objection of the complainant is against holding of Lok Adalat to decide juvenile matters….Let a copy of the complaint be transmitted to Secretary (Law), Government of Maharashtra, for his comments within four weeks”.

Barse, in her complaint dated April 27 which was taken up by the NHRC on May 7, has raised the issue of nearly 3,000 pending cases involving juveniles, some of which have been pending since 1991. She has also strongly objected to the holding of a Lok Adalat on April 8, where juvenile matters were taken up in the presence of the media and general public.

Barse said organising Lok Adalats to dispense with juvenile cases does not follow the spirit of the Juvenile Justice Act, and is unlawful.

indianexpress: VILLAGERS from Ahire, near Khadakvasla, will take out a morcha on Monday from Shaniwarwada to the collectorate to protest against the lack of efforts by the State government to rehabilitate them even though the village was acquired by the Defence Ministry in 1950 for the National Defence Academy (NDA).

The villagers have threatened to go on an indefinite hunger strike if their demands were not met with. The demands include allocation of five guntha land each for the displaced families, financial aid for construction of houses, government job for a member of the affected families and immediate handing over of 65 acres of land for rehabilitation. The demands of the dam-affected villagers included handing over the excess land acquired by the State government for the Varasgaon dam and registering the land in their names.
 
Last November, the issue of rehabilitating residents of Ahire village was addressed in a meeting organised by district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh at the instance of a suggestion by Member of Parliament from Khed constituency Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil. It was decided to rehabilitate the residents at Ganapati Matha in Warje and the nearby hamlets of Mhokarwadi and Khadewadi. The responsibility of providing required amenities to the rehabilitated residents was given to the Pune Municipal Corporation.

The decision of constructing a new approach road to Ahire village in the outskirts of NDA was also taken at the meeting.

indianexpress: MEMBERSHIP of five corporators in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and three in Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) came under a cloud on Saturday after Additional Divisional Commissioner Ramesh Devkar found them guilty of producing invalid caste certificates for contesting the February 2 civic polls. The corporators have a one-month period to challenge the decision.

The five corporators from the PMC are Bandu Gaikwad (Congress) from Mundhwa ward, Malan Bhintade (independent) from Rajiv Gandhi zoo ward, Balasaheb Bodke (NCP) from PMC Bhavan ward, Bandu Kemse (independent) from Vedbhavan and Rajendra Gorde (MNS) from Mahatma Society, Kothrud ward. They had contested the civic elections on reserved seats by claiming that they were Kunabis and thus entitled to the same. However their opponents had claimed that Maratha corporators had submitted invalid caste certificates, falsely claiming to be Kunabis. The case was registered with the caste scrutiny committee and the final hearing was conducted on Saturday, where Devkar passed a ruling that the caste certificates submitted by corporators were invalid.

Arakshan Hakka Sangharsha Samiti in Pune had objected to the “encroachment by Maratha leaders” on reserved seats under the garb of being Kunabis. In Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, the caste certificates of Manoj Khanolkar and Eknath Thorat (both NCP) and Ganesh Bhendwe (independent) were declared invalid.

indianexpress:  SUBRAO Patil has taken charge as general manager of the Pune Municipal Transport (PMT). Previously Satara’s district collector, he has also served the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) as additional commissioner.

Patil takes charge at a crucial period with the merger between the PMT and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Transport (PCMT) on the cards. On Saturday, he held his first meeting with officials to take the stock of the situation.
 
Patil’s predecessors have had varied durations during their respective tenures: CK Anil (three months); Niranjan Kumar Sudhanshu (16 months); Charuchandra Pathak (21 months); Shirish Karle (nine months). Anil ensured the PMT broke even after 30 years of incurring losses.

zdnet: Pantech announced the launch of its S100 handset, a sleek and simple candy bar phone as part of a bid to increase its market share in the high-growth mobile phone market of Mexico.

The sleek-designed candy bar phone is mounted with a full-featured digital camera with digital 4x zoom(credit : Pantech)
The new phone will be made available through Telcel, the largest service operator in Mexico, which commands 80% of Mexican mobile phone market with around 38 million subscribers.

The sleek-designed candy bar phone is mounted with a full-featured digital camera with digital 4x zoom and video recording function as well as an MP3 player and Bluetooth connection.

Ji-Kwan Kim, President, Pantech Mobile Mexico said, “Mexico, one of the rapidly expanding mobile phone markets, is integral to our efforts to further expand in Latin America. Thus, Pantech has built up our operations in Mexico including the establishment of a dedicated subsidiary in the region in 2005. The introduction of the S100 is in line with our goal to position ourselves as a leading mobile phone manufacturer.”

The S100 includes a voice memo function, allowing users to keep a record of their thoughts any time without having to grapple for a pen and paper. Its flight mode function allows users traveling by plane to use handset applications without transmitting a wireless signal, meaning they do not have to turn off the phone while in flight, as is normally required.

zdnet: Pantech announced the launch of the IM-R200 handset, the latest dual-LCD sliding phone equipped with an OLED touch-sensitive screen.

When sliding up, the virtual keypad shows up on the LCD that is touch-sensitive, allowing users to dial numbers and view contacts with a stroke of a finger.(credit : Pantech)
Separated from its main LCD display, the new phone does away with the standard keypad in favor of a brand-new LCD-typed keypad. When sliding up, the virtual keypad shows up on the LCD that is touch-sensitive, allowing users to dial numbers and view contacts with a stroke of a finger.

Its touch keypad offers a fun and easy way to use its multimedia applications with separate and virtual interfaces for each function. For example, the touch sensitive LCD displays various lists of songs when the phone is used as a music player, while it shows camera functions when used as a camera.

The capacitive touch screen of the IM-R200 vibrates when pressed, to give the feel of a real buttons, sporting enhanced and unique sense of the entire phone.
 
Its touch keypad offers a fun and easy way to use its multimedia applications with separate and virtual interfaces for each function(credit : Pantech)
The dual camera - a 2 mega-pixel camera and a VGA camera - mounted on the IM-R200 features face recognition function; it can recognize the shape of a face and automatically adjust it for the best look when shooting.

zdnet: The Ministry of Information and Communication of Korea and Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion have released their product selections for handicapped and those with hearing, low vision, speech and physical impairments. The products ranging form screen reader, special keyboard and communication device, totaling 44 devices.

This year’s picks has grown twelve more compared to last year’s thirty two. Products for the impaired, low vision and physical/mentally challenged category and also for quadriplegics, six packages aimed for special handicaps were included in the top picks.
 
Meantime, there are plans to open resource support centers through postal outlets to provide handicaps and disabled with the information on the latest high tech devices. For the mentally challenged, in-home service consultation will be provided to ease the ordering and distribution process.

Further plans include opening ‘Online digital experience website’ starting in June, provide user instruction and advice on product information, along with online consultation and assistance for applying A/S service

zdnet: Samsung Electronics announced that it has developed a four gigabyte(GB) MCP(multi-chip package) for mobile phones that for the first time forgoes the need for an external memory card slot and also eliminates having to develop interface software for all types of NAND memory.

Samsung’s new moviMCP is a multi-chip package carrying an embedded (moviNAND) memory solution, which provides a simple-to-design memory package that satisfies the high-speed data transmission needs of mobile phones, while fully supporting the communication features within the handset.

Samsung’s new moviMCP provides a simple-to-design memory package that satisfies the high-speed data transmission needs of mobile phones(credit : Samsung)

The new moviMCP combines a 4GB embedded memory card. which consists of two 16Gb (gigabit) NAND flash chips and a controller, together with a 1Gb mobile DRAM chip to support the processor and a 2Gb NAND flash chip for general handset operations. This provides a total memory capacity of 35Gbs.

Samsung’s use of an eMMC interface, the MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA) standard for embedded memory, resolves the design complexity inherent in the functional differences of the various types of NAND flash, by integrating an embedded controller, into the moviMCP. This removes the need to develop interface software for each type of NAND flash.

The new moviMCP stacks several memory functions vertically to enable a small footprint. Its high density eliminates the need for having to also provide an external expansion slot. Samsung’s moviMCP is currently available for OEM sampling.