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indianexpress:  Even as the future of Munnabhai Chale Amrika, the sequel to Lage Raho Munnabhai, is caught in a cloud of uncertainty, Sanjay Dutt was not willing to commit himself to turn student in a course on ‘Gandhian Thought’. Asim Sarode, lawyer and human rights activist as also founder of the Sahyog Trust that conducts the course for prison inmates, said Dutt seemed unsure of his tenure in the jail.

If Dutt enrolls for the course, he will need to sit for an examination on ‘Gandhian Thought’ on October 2, barely a couple of months from now. Sarode believes this should not be a problem as the course material comprises simple booklets on Gandhism.

Dutt who was brought here on Thursday night was allotted a single barrack cell to guard against potential harassment by other inmates, said Yerawada Jail superintendent Rajendra Dhamane. “Dutt’s prison number is C-15170 while Yusuf Nalwala’s is C-15171,” Dhamane said.

While donning the role of a student on ‘Gandhian Thought’ is optional, he will have no option but to participate in manual labour as an inmate undergoing rigorous imprisonment. Dutt has not been assigned a task as yet, but he will soon undergo an ‘aptitude test’ and thereafter asked his preference of a task.

“Every inmate is given a few days time to orient himself to the prison environment before being assigned a task. If the inmate states a preference, it is taken into consideration. If needed, training is provided in case of skilled tasks,” said a prison official.

The Yerawada Jail has a huge campus and has a variety of activities for inmates like painting, laundry, carpentry, weaving, besides kitchen chores. The jail also has a small paper printing unit and a farm for inmates of the open prison.

indianexpress: Veteran stage-film actor Shreeram Lagoo on Friday expressed confidence that Marathi theatre will reclaim its old pomp and glory with infusion of young talent. “Audiences may have turned their backs to Marathi theatre but this should not deter us. New talented artistes will restore old days of glory,” he said.

Lagoo was speaking after being honoured with the ‘Punyabhushan’ puraskar by Tridal-Pune at a packed Balgandharva Rangmandir. The award was presented to him by playwright-actor Girish Karnad. Others present on the occasion were Dr Jabbar Patel, Dr K B Grant, Mohan Dharia and Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale.

Lagoo is the 19th recipient of the prestigious award, following stalwarts in their chosen fields like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Dr Shantanurao Kirloskar, Dr Banoobai Coyajee, P L Deshpande, B K S Iyengar and R N Dandekar to name a few.

Referring to the history of Marathi theatre since 1843, Lagoo said there were always ups and downs in its popularity. “At present Marathi theatre is going through a particularly bad phase. Yet, what is noteworthy is that new talent is trying to create its own themes and language,” he added.

indianexpress: Here is good news for those visiting multiplexes, shopping malls, hospitals, education institutions, hotels and restaurants. Parking at these establishments will be free of charge. The City Improvement Committee (CIC) of the Pune At Kesariwada, the Tilak family is eagerly waiting for the Rs five coins minted to commemorate Lokmanya Balgangadhar Tilak’s 151st birth anniversary. The demand in Pune for the coin is high and the family has requested as many as three lakh coins.

Early this year a letter was dispatched by the Finance Ministry to the Tilak family apprising them about the government’s decision to mint around 20 lakh coins. The despatch of the coins has been held up due to a fault in the plate. Tilak’s great-great-grandson and trustee of Kesari Maratha Trust Rohit Tilak told Newsline on Friday that the coins are in demand from private collectors, businessmen, shopkeepers and citizens. “Shopkeepers and businessmen will need them in thousands and have asked for them. Some have even told me that they need around 50,000 coins,” Tilak said.

However, he added that common people can avail these coins from Kesariwada in Narayan Peth, Tilak Smarak Mandir and Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth in Mukundnagar. The popular expectation was that the coins would arrive by August. However, a few days before the event, the plates had to be corrected. “So there has been a delay of a few days. I am expecting the coins to arrive soon,” added Tilak.

“We have asked for three lakh coins from the Finance Ministry and they have told us that they will inform us and send the coins as soon as they are minted. Once they inform us, we will know how to make the payment,” he added.

On July 23 in Delhi Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had unveiled the commemorative coins. “It was an important event, considering Lokmanya Tilak’s contribution towards the country’s freedom movement.”

indianexpress: Municipal Corporation on Friday passed a proposal to initiate enquiry against those collecting parking charges from visitors.

Congress leader Ulhas Bagul had proposed that legal action be initiated against establishments collecting such charges despite the free floor space index (FSI) given to them for their parking areas. The proposal will now be tabled before the Standing Committee and General Body before its implementation.

Bagul said the PMC was not collecting premium charges for the parking areas in these establishments. Due to the charges, visitors were parking their vehicles on the roads, adding to the traffic chaos. These establishments would stop collecting parking charges only if the PMC took legal action against them, he said. He said the PMC should start collecting premium for parking from these establishments if they continue to charge visitors.

indianexpress: District collector Prabhakar Deshmukh on Friday announced the list of prominent developers who had constructed compound walls for their projects along Ram Nadi.

Deshmukh declared seven prominent developers among the 30 illegal encroachments in the 5-km stretch between Bavdhan Khurd-Bavdhan Budruk and the 2-km stretch of Baner on a total of 380 hectares that were totally surveyed. Among the builders named are Paranjape Schemes, Kumar Builders. Aditya Shagun, DSK Developers, Shiv Shailam Developers, Mantri Developers and Tejas Developers. Most are members of the Promoters’ and Builders’ Association of Poona.

Ram Nadi, viewed by environmentalists as Pune’s Mithi, overran its banks after heavy rain on July 2 and flooded several housing societies in Baner and Bavdhan.

Deshmukh said the present survey was superimposed on earlier records. “It has to be seen how the builders got permission for their construction. In all likelihood there are chances of misrepresentation in the permission procedures,’’ said the collector. The survey was conducted by officials from the collectorate, PMC and the gram panchayat.

PBAP president and chairman of Kumar Builders Lalit Kumar Jain said a hearing should have been granted to the developers before the names were disclosed. “As for our project, no wall has been constructed and our demarcation is as per land records,” he said.

Societies like Chandraneil, Sai Kamal, La Chappel, Ujjwal Estate Cooperative Society, the gram panchayat crematorium, Praj Industries and Hotel Mahabaleshwar who had their compound walls in the prescribed limits along the Ram Nadi are also in the list that the second and final phase of the survey of Ram Nadi the Collectorate compiled.

indianexpress: Depositors of Shree Suvarna Sahakari Bank on Friday met state Finance Minister Jayant Patil urging him to merge the bank with other cooperative bank in public interest. The depositors’ association said the bank has started collecting loans from the defaulters, but the depositors are unable to get their entire money so far.

Since the bank has not recovered from losses in the last few years, association member Srikant Limaye demanded that Patil take the initiative to speed-up the process for merger of the bank with other big cooperative banks.

“This would maintain confidence of the public in cooperative banks,” he added.

Limaye said Patil has assured that he will take up the issue with union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

The association have been demanding that the State government resolve the bank issue since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had set restrictions on the bank to carry out any transaction to pay money to the depositors.

indianexpress: The city, referred to as the cultural capital of the State, may soon have an official cultural consultant at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh a year. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has proposed the appointment of Sunil Mahajan of Samvad Sanstha, a cultural organisation, as consultant for a period of one year. The proposal will be taken up at the Standing Committee meeting scheduled on August 7.

However, Congress leader Ulhas Bagul said that the proposal is politically motivated and his party was never consulted. “We will decide our stand later,” he said. The PMC is making the appointment primarily for effective organisation of various cultural functions it organises every year. The civic body organises Ganesh Festival, Bhim Festival and other awards ceremonies.

msnbc: At airports, supermarkets and big-box retailers, “customer service” in recent years has meant self-serve — aided by touch-screen kiosks.

As digital kiosks become more user-friendly and capable of handling more complicated tasks, health care providers, fast-food chains and other businesses say trading face-to-face encounters for face-to-monitor transactions improves service and saves money.

Yet the complexity of human decision-making and service expectations in different industries means any possible self-serve revolution is more likely to be a gradual transition.

“Every time you see a door, there’s an opportunity for a kiosk to be deployed,” Juhi Jotwani, director of marketing and strategy for retail stores at Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, likes to tell her staff. Opportunity is knocking: IBM’s kiosk orders have quadrupled in the past four years.

Numerous airlines use IBM’s customer kiosks. Caribou Coffee and Cheesecake Factory employees use them to manage recipes and to enhance order speed and accuracy. The Virgin Megastore in Times Square has 150 kiosks that process 450,000 music previews per month.

Still, “none of the players in this market have even scratched the surface” of the multibillion-dollar potential, Jotwani said, even though consumers hooked on text-messaging and interactive Internet gaming now expect greater control over their purchasing experiences.

An April report by consulting firm Summit Research Associates Inc., estimated 800,000 customer kiosks, not including ATMs, will be installed in North America by the end of 2007 and hit 1.2 million by 2009.

msnbc: Thirty-one teams say they’ll line up to compete for at least $10 million by developing a marketable 100-mpg automobile … if the Automotive X Prize program can come up with the cash, that is. The X Prize Foundation says it’s hoping to do that by the end of the year, in time for the big auto shows.

The 31 would-be entrants have sent in letters of intent to participate once the competition is launched, according to today’s announcement from the foundation. The best-known teams on the list are Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley startup that is selling plug-in electric sports cars; and ZAP Motors, which has long been involved in electric-powered vehicles and is now marketing the fuel-sipping Smart Car.

The list serves as a good initial indicator of who’s interested in the multimillion-dollar purse - but Donald Foley, executive director of the Automotive X Prize, emphasized that he doesn’t expect the list to stop at 31 entries.

“We’re certainly not closing the door,” he told me today. “We want to get more, including some of the large automakers, I hope. It’s fair to say that we’re in active discussions with the larger companies.”

It’s not surprising that the big automakers haven’t yet joined in, considering that the prize has yet to be funded and there’s no firm time frame for the contest yet. One of the purposes behind releasing the first 31 names now is to attract additional sponsors for what’s projected to be a multimillion-dollar purse. Historically, each X Prize reward (for spaceflight and genomics) has amounted to at $10 million, “and we’re still aiming for that,” Foley said.

msnbc: At the beach of the future, high tide will meet high tech.

Visitors will wear wristbands that automatically debit their bank accounts or credit cards to pay for beach access, food and parking. Garbage cans will e-mail cleanup crews when they’re ready to be emptied.

And people won’t even think about trying to sneak in: Beach checkers could scan the sands with handheld devices and instantly know who didn’t pay.

This southern New Jersey city plans to deliver a variety of public services and Internet access using radio-frequency identification chips and Wi-Fi wireless technology. The $3 million project is expected to be finished by next summer.

Beach badges, those plastic or cloth scourges of the Jersey shore could become a thing of the past. The beach access fees — $5 per day, $10 for a week, or $20 for the entire summer — will remain.

“This is the future,” said Karen Kinloch, a summer resident. “It’s where we’re at right now. It’s probably overdue. It’s kind of antiquated to take a piece of plastic and pin it to your swimsuit.”

Will McKinley, a badge checker stationed on boardwalk at the 19th Street beach, said the new system would make his job easier.

“It will take the hassle out of going up to people and asking to see their badges,” he said. “They’re more OK with it up here. On the beach, they don’t like to be hassled.”