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indianexpress:  Pune police admit that though the traffic department has banned the entry of heavy vehicles into city limits from 8 am to 9 pm, instances of these large carriers entering the city has become a regular feature. The reason cited for this open flouting of the rule in different parts of the city is shortage of police personnel to man the entry points.

More than 17,000 heavy vehicles a day, which constitute 30 per cent of the total freight traffic on city roads, enter the city that has no regular bypasses like most cities in the country do. These heavy vehicles not only add to traffic congestion within the city limits but also add significantly to pollution, at the same time causing accidents and leading to deterioration of roads.

According to the traffic branch of the city police, Holkar Bridge, Jehangir Chowk, Mangaldas Chowk and the road along the Inspection Bungalow are the major problem areas and face congestion due to the movement of heavy vehicular traffic.

Today, you have Solapur and Hyderabad-bound trucks access the Mumbai-Pune road via Jehangir Hospital chowk, Wadia College, Empress Gardens and Hadapsar Road. Similarly, Ahmednagar and Aurangabad-bound trucks enter and exit the Mumbai-Pune road via Jehangir Hospital chowk, Wadia College, Bund Garden bridge and Nagar road.

DCP (Traffic) Mahesh Ghurye said, “Ring roads are the only permanent solution to the issue of diversion of heavy traffic from city police. We are working closely with the PMC and PCMC for the same and have started diverting traffic successfully from some areas.”

Even as Pune Municipal Commissioner Pravin Pardeshi and Guardian Minister Ajit Pawar have proposed a ring road to ensure that heavy vehicles bypass the city, everyone seems to have forgotten the Eastern bypass work that’s been pending for the past 30 years.

It was in 1976 that the Central Ministry of Roads and Transport and Highways proposed a four-lane Eastern bypass because even then the city fathers felt the need for one. This was a 34-km stretch from Katraj to Loni Kalbhor, bypassing the villages of Pisoli, Undri and Handewadi. A good 31 years have gone by and the project is still stuck in red tape.

indianexpress: Raising the pitch on Bajaj Auto Limited’s Akurdi plant closure issue, district guardian minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar said here on Friday that the State government will not allow companies to set up IT parks in the state’s industrial zones.

Referring to the huge tracts of land in possession of BAL at Akurdi, Pawar said the land was worth a whopping Rs 2,000 crore and this may have fuelled dreams of setting up an IT park or some other such facility.

“This will not be allowed. You cannot close an old facility here to reap benefits of a Special Economic Zone elsewhere. Such tendencies on part of companies will have serious repercussions. How long are you going to pay workers without work. You have created uncertainty in their minds,” said Pawar.

“Use the land only for the purpose for which it was originally taken,” Pawar said in an obvious reference to BAL’s decision to suspend production at its Akurdi plant. “Repeated references are being made to the benefits of production at Pantnagar, Waluj and Chakan. But all these plants happened because there was the Akurdi plant in the first place,” he said at a press conference.

He said the state cabinet had discussed all the pros and cons of the issue with bureaucrats from the departments of industry, finance and planning. “We will not allow any other use of land allotted for industrial purpose. We want to send a strong message to companies across Maharashtra,” Pawar added.

Pawar said he also had discussions with deputy chief minister and home minister R R Patil and they had talked to the unions at BAL. “We want peace to be maintained on the industrial front and no untoward incident will be tolerated,” he said.

indianexpress: For the first time, an application has been moved in the Family Court under the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (DMV) 2005. Renuka Dnyanesh Hambir, a resident from Wanavdi, has filed an application under Section 12 of the Act for obtaining orders for protection from her husband. She has also sought shelter, monetary relief, compensation and damages from husband.

Earlier Renuka’s husband had filed an application under the Hindu Marriage Act 1950, under Section 14 of the Act for divorce which was rejected by the Family Court, Pune, on the grounds that there were not enough reasons.

Renuka, who married Dnyanesh on March 8 this year, stayed with him barely for 18 days as her mother-in-law and husband allegedly ill-treated her.

Not having sufficient means to appoint a lawyer, Renuka approached the District Legal Aid Services Authority who directed her to the Sahyog Trust’s Human Rights and Law Defenders to seek legal aid.

With the help of advocates Asim Sarode and Umesh Bhagwat, Renuka who is pregnant, filed an application under Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 for restoring her conjugal rights.

She also filed an application under Section 12 of the Domestic Violence Act 2005 for getting some urgent reliefs.

The superintendent of the Family Court Pune, S J Dravid, initially refused to accept the application filed on September 6 saying that under the Domestic Violence Act 2005 the application should only be filed at Judicial Magistrate (First Class) and not the Family Court. Sarode said he had to show the superintendent of the Family Court that relief could be sought in legal proceedings before a civil, family or a criminal court under sections 18-22 of the DMV act.

indianexpress: IT was celebration time for girls at University of Pune (UoP) ladies’ hostel on Friday when vice-chancellor Narendra Jadhav assured them that all students staying as ‘temporary guests’ would be accommodated. Over 50 girls took out a protest rally to the V-C’s office on Friday evening, where they met him to air their grievances.

The girls, who were staying in the hostel on a temporary basis paying Rs 20 a day due to the shortage of space, feared expulsion from the hostel in favour of girls who had secured admission to the hostel. These ‘temporary guests’ who found it difficult to find girls willing to take them in as hosts, had demanded that they be regularised and a temporary shed be constructed to accommodate them, which the authorities had said was not feasible.

However, Jadhav told the students that arrangements would be made for the girls to stay at a temporary shed, while the necessity of paying Rs 20 a day would also be done away with.

The students also had other complaints, including sanitation problems due to the bursting of a drainage pipe near the residential quarters. “While an earth-mover has been deployed to clear away the sewage, efforts are being made to replace the pipe with a wider one to prevent such occurrences,” said hostel chief rector A B Chakranarayan.

indianexpress: The Akurdi plant of Bajaj Auto Ltd owes Rs 6.59 crore to the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation by way of property tax. Assistant municipal commissioner Sahebrao Gaikwad said the company is supposed to pay around Rs one crore as property tax every year on 18 of its properties located at Akurdi. “But since the company has gone to court disputing levying of tax on certain properties, we have not been able to recover the full tax amount. As much as Rs 6.59 crore is due from Bajaj,” he said.

PCMC legal advisor Ajay Suryavanshi said there are three cases pending in the Bombay High Court with regard to the dispute over levying of tax on properties belonging to Bajaj Auto. “The company has objected to PCMC action on two counts - the company has disputed levying of tax on open space. Also, it has expressed objections over measurement of built-up area. The matter is subjudice,” he said.

Gaikwad said the company has been paying property tax from 1970. In the beginning, it paid property tax to the tune of Rs 9.90 lakh a year. As it acquired more properties, the property tax kept rising. Between 1986 and 1988, the property tax levied on Bajaj Auto rose sharply as it acquired property worth Rs 55 lakh. “But from 1993, the company disputed the tax levied on certain properties and since then the arrears have mounted,” he said.

indianexpress:  With the city gearing up to celebrate sarvajanik Ganesh utsav, police commissioner Jayant Umranikar has urged mandals as well as citizens to exercise caution and abide by the law.

Speaking at a meeting organised by the Commissionerate and attended by police officials, representatives of the city’s Ganesh mandals as well as politicians, Umranikar urged all mandals to register themselves before continuing with their festivities. “Registration is a must, but Pune still has around 1,100 mandals that don’t have a permit. Those who have been refused permits to operate, should integrate themselves into neighbouring mandals with an appropriate permit. This will be a smoother and more authorised way to celebrate the festival,” he said.
 
Referring to the recent blasts in Hyderabad, Umranikar said the citizens’ safety lies in their alertness. “The situation is very different from the past. People have become soft targets for terrorist attacks now. Not all policemen can guarantee your safety,” he said, urging people to notify the nearest police station on spotting suspicious objects or individuals.

The meeting was featured by complaints, requests and suggestions from mandal representatives who spoke about the traffic problems, pits, slower visarjans, police complaints by citizens and court cases, as well as the emergence of mandals as centres of gambling and alcoholism. Several members requested the police to be patient with mandal workers and volunteers and refrain from filing cases against them.

Umranikar stressed that the police would go to any extent to help the citizens, albeit within the limits of law. “If we refrain from filing cases against mandal workers, we would be answerable to those Right To Information petitions that citizens will file complaining about our failure to act on their complaints,” he said. Addressing the traffic issue, the commissioner said the mandals should not encroach on the roads must and leave space for ambulances and fire brigade vehicles to pass.

indianexpress:  Students of the electronics course at the Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Kasarwadi, have been religiously attending their classes for the past one year. But during their “classes,’’ they indulged in lots of idle talk, arguments or kept themselves busy cracking jokes. From 10.30 am to 5.30 pm, it’s the same story, day in and day out. That’s because the institute hasn’t appointed regular teachers who could impart training to students in the two-year electronics course.

That’s not all. For six months, one of the teachers taught the students lessons on the electrical trade instead of the electronics trade. When the students pointed out the goof-up, the teacher stopped coming. An entire year has gone by, but the final exam has not been conducted as the institute could not complete its portion for want of teachers. To top it all, the 16 students are still clueless about their syllabus.

The ITI was set up last year by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation exclusively for women. Aggrieved students and their parents on Friday mobbed vice-principal Babita Bansode, demanding immediate appointment of teachers. Surekha Tope, a student, said, “Throughout the year, only a handful of lectures have been held. Otherwise, we have had nothing to do. We keep coming regularly, but nobody bothers. We have complained to the vice-principal, but nothing has moved,” she said. “When the MLA’s committee came visiting, we were told not to speak out against the institute,” says Priyanka Lad, another student.

Tope said only the vice-principal has held lectures for two months. “But she too stopped taking lectures, citing workload as the reason.” Lad said one teacher initially taught them for six months, but nobody understood what she was teaching. “After six months, when we asked her why she was teaching us only electrical trade, she realised her folly. Instead of teaching us electronics, all the while she was teaching us electrical trade.” Tope said when the MLA’s committee came visiting, they complained to Ashok Surgude, who heads both women’s as well as men’s ITI, but nothing moved.

techtree: Intel India has unveiled the industry’s first quad-core processors specifically designed for multi-processor (MP) servers.

Intel claims the 6 new Quad-Core Xeon 7300 series processors can deliver more than twice the performance, and more than three times the performance per watt over their dual-core predecessors.

The company says the new processors will help complete it’s transition to energy-efficient Core microarchitecture in less than 15 months.

And that the new energy-efficient platform, together with enhanced virtualization capabilities will benefit customers in the ultimate analysis.

The energy-efficient 7300 series includes frequencies up to 2.93GHz at 130 watts, several 80-watt processors and a 50-watt version optimized for four socket blades and high-density rack form factors with a frequency of 1.86GHz.

The Intel 7300 chipset with Data Traffic Optimizations provides a balanced platform design with several new technologies that enhance data movement between processors, memory and I/O connections.

“With the Xeon 7300 series, Intel is delivering new levels of performance and performance per watt, and driving the Intel Core microarchitecture into such innovative systems as four-socket, 16-core blades that use less energy than our older models,” said R Ravichandran, director of sales, Intel South Asia.

According to Intel, the 7300 series and the 7300 chipset offer up to four times the memory capacity of it’s previous MP platforms, thus enabling very large consolidation ratios that can reduce space, power, and operation costs.

techtree: There’s a ‘Digital Imaging Festival’ on at Mumbai’s Xplore Lounge till September 29th.

Sources at Xplore said the 24-day event has been organised to help customers make the right purchase by offering them hands-on experience with digicams and camcorders.

Brands including Canon, Sony, Intel, Brother, HP, Epson, LaCie, UMAX, and LaserSoft are showcasing their digicams and handycams at the event. And this includes live demos on how to click pictures indoors/outdoors, how to adjust camera settings, etc.

The festival is open on all working days between 1pm and 7pm with entry free-of-charge.

A highpoint of the festival is a series of workshops to be conducted by photographer Rohinton Mehta that include: Essentials of Photography on September 14th (5pm to 8pm); Selecting the right digital cameras on September 21st (5pm to 8pm); and Digital Imaging solution and Photoshop basics on September 22nd (5pm to 8pm).

techtree: Asus has introduced the P5K3 Premium motherboard with Turbo D3 Onboard Memory feature.

Asus claims that 2GB Dual Channel DDR3 onboard memory will enable DDR3 overclocking speeds of above 1,500 MHz, and reduced clock cycle timings for random data access.

The integrated DDR3 2GB memory modules are custom-made, and only about three-quarters the length of standard DDR3, claims Vinay Shetty, product manager of component business, Asus India.

The P5K3 is based on the Intel P35 Express Chipset and supports Intel next generation 45nm Multi-Core CPU.

Asus claims the new technology incorporates the Perfect T-Tree design and Hyper PCB design, and works seamlessly with Super Memspeed technology for superior overclocking performance.

The PSK3 utilizes the Perfect T-Tree design to provide simultanous random data access on every memory chip. Which means that data access to each memory chip occurs at the same time, instead of conventional DDR3 Fly-by Topologies that require time to be spent waiting for one by one random data access. This in turn reduces clock cycle timing by 50 percent for random data access, thereby ensuring faster memory speeds.

Asus however recommends installing a CPU with 1066 MHz FSB or later to enjoy the guaranteed overclocking speed.