News

indianexpress: The city traffic branch has made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of Ganesh visarjan procession in the city scheduled on Tuesday.
A total of 14 arterial roads will remain closed for traffic from nine in the morning, as most of them are crowded by mandals carrying Ganesh idols.

These roads include: Shivaji Road — from Kasba Chowk to Jedhe Chowk; Laxmi Road — Nana Peth Chowk to Tilak Road; Bagade Road — Sonya Maruti Chowk to Phadke Haud Chowk; and Bajirao Road — from Puram Chowk to Phutka Buruj.

Besides, Kumthekar Road — from Alka Talkies Chowk to Chitale Corner; Ganesh Road — Daruwala Pul to Jijamata Chowk; Bhonde/Kelkar Road — Budhwar Chowk to Alka Talkies Chowk; Tilak Road — Jedhe Chowk to Alka Talkies Chowk; Shastri Road, Sendatta Chowk to Alka Talkies, Junglee Maharaj Road — from Jhansi Rani Chowk to Khandoji Baba Chowk; Karve Road — from Nal Stop to Khandoji Baba Chowk; and Bhandarkar Road — from PYC Gymkhana to Good Luck Chowk up to Natraj Chowk will remain closed for traffic from 12 pm onwards.

However, traffic from Satara Road has been diverted via Shankar Sheth Road, Golibar Maidan Chowk up to Bhairoba Nalla Chowk via Circuit House to Yerawada Chowk and further to Mumbai.

indianexpress:  As part of the Mahatma Gandhi Tanta Mukta Gaon Scheme or the squabble-free villages scheme) initiated by Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil, the city’s rural police have formed 1,294 village-level committees covered under Gram Panchayats till date and shut down illegal dens in over 1,110 villages following swift implementation of the scheme.

Rural SP Vishwas Nangre Patil said around 1,110 grampanchayats had issued bonafide certificates calling for the closure of these dens, following a survey.

After Patil and Kolhapur range IG Ashok Dhiware held a series of meetings with villagers, the rural police implemented Ek Gaon Ek Ganpati Scheme in 857 of the 1,300 villages.

“The Tanta Mukta Gaon Scheme helped us implement the Ek… scheme,” Patil said. “The police have also taken preventive action against 517 criminals on record.”

indianexpress: The Poona Merchants Chamber has opposed levy of Value Added Tax (VAT) on essential commodities.

A delegation of the chamber submitted a memorandum to Finance Minister Jayant Patil recently. The State government has decided to impose 4 per cent VAT on commodities including rice, wheat, jaggery, pulses, turmeric, puffed rice, coconut and other daily use commodities from October 1.

The VAT on tea and dry fruits will be augmented to 12.5 per cent. The chamber has organised a state-level meeting on September 30.

indianexpress: Cooperation and collaboration between Maharashtrian mandals from various countries across the world will foster a global Maharashtra Mandal, said Girish Thakar, president of Brihan Maharashtra Mandal of North America, Inc. Thakar who hails from Pune, is visiting the country to meet Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to discuss the Rs 50-lakh grant to the Mandal, which Deshmukh had announced on June 29.

“Instead of a granting the lump sum to our organisation, we will request Deshmukh to distribute it among the voluntary organisations doing good work. In turn, a network can be established,” said Thakar. The complications involved in putting the lump sum amount to optimal and honest use — such as the knotty logistical procedure, accounting that would be necessary after the expenditure commences, etc — will be avoided if various voluntary organisations in need of funds can avail of the money to further their welfare work.

Thakar, who recently assumed the post of the Mandal’s 11th president of the mandal, described his agenda during his tenure for the next two years. “All the Marathi mandals in North America can be brought under one common forum. Schools or institutions implementing a Marathi syllabus and using Marathi books will serve to spread and reinforce the Marathi culture,” he said, also calling for collaboration with Pune’s schools and local organisations to address the concerns of those NRIs who worry about their parents back home and initiate welfare activities for them.

indianexpress:  Bank of India was the only bank out of 42 participating at a day-long conference of Information technology heads at College of Agricultural Banking on Saturday to procure the Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) accreditation. In all, 305 banks from India have gone in for this certification.

This only shows banks have policies and internal controls in place in case of a disruption in operations due to information technology. Increasing dependency of banks on information technology exposes banks to a range of operational risks including unauthorised access to significant information, said Chief General Manager and Principal of CAB, Sandip Ghose. As IT would play a deciding role in the survival of the banks in future, the day-long seminar was held to sensitise IT heads at banks to strengthen their internal control systems and augment their ability to handle disruptions due to information technology.

Calling information security a ‘management issue’ with technical overtones, guest speaker at the conference David Brewer, co-author of ISO/IEC 27001 standard, called on banks to assess risks due to the use of information technology and formulate policies and internal control structures on how to react to such situations where even if risks crystalises, the effect would be minimum. Adoption of ISO 27001 helps in providing confidence to the regulator in deciding the capital charge, he said. The ISO/IEC 27001standard lays down the best practice for developing ISMS in an organisation.

indianexpress: Vijay Babuji Nakwal (22), caretaker of a pay-and-use toilet in Yerawada, lost his life while fixing an overhead tank. Death due to head injury, said Sassoon General Hospital’s report where he was taken. “He lost his balance and fell,” said the police officer who registered Nakwal’s death as ‘accidental’.

“When the land, the toilet buildings and the water connections belong to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the labourers who toil in these toilet blocks are a forfeited responsibility,” said Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Pune branch secretary Vasant Pawar.

Anil Rajpal Chandaliya, a caretaker at a toilet block in Lakshmi Nagar, Yerawada, said: “I’ve been working for six years with no documents to show I am employed here.”

In 2001, the civic body through an agreement handed over the maintenance, and in some cases construction, of pay-and-use toilets, to 12 voluntary organisations from Pune, Mumbai, Wardha and other places, for 30 years. While land, electricity and water connections would be given by PMC, the responsibility of manning and maintaining the blocks was to be the organisations.

indianexpress: Vijay Babuji Nakwal (22), caretaker of a pay-and-use toilet in Yerawada, lost his life while fixing an overhead tank. Death due to head injury, said Sassoon General Hospital’s report where he was taken. “He lost his balance and fell,” said the police officer who registered Nakwal’s death as ‘accidental’.

“When the land, the toilet buildings and the water connections belong to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the labourers who toil in these toilet blocks are a forfeited responsibility,” said Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Pune branch secretary Vasant Pawar.

Anil Rajpal Chandaliya, a caretaker at a toilet block in Lakshmi Nagar, Yerawada, said: “I’ve been working for six years with no documents to show I am employed here.”

In 2001, the civic body through an agreement handed over the maintenance, and in some cases construction, of pay-and-use toilets, to 12 voluntary organisations from Pune, Mumbai, Wardha and other places, for 30 years. While land, electricity and water connections would be given by PMC, the responsibility of manning and maintaining the blocks was to be the organisations.