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indianexpress: After three and half years of promises and inaction, the Dilip Band-led administration of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has finally woken up and gone on a demolition spree in Pimpri Camp, the business nerve centre of the twin industrial township. On Tuesday, the anti-encroachment department demolished parts of as many as 89 shops which have been doing business for decades. The shops were razed partially to facilitate 18 metre widening of the road stretch from Shagun Chowk to Sai Chowk.

The action, which was initiated by PCMC after years of complaints from citizens and civic activists, will help ease the daily traffic congestion in the Pimpri Camp area. Throughout the day, Pimpri Camp witnesses traffic madness as foothpaths and chowks were grabbed by shopkeepers and other vendors to display their wares. The entire stretch from Shagun chowk to Sai chowk has been home to traffic chaos, day in and day out. “This is the first time any municipal commissioner of Pimpri-Chinchwad has initiated a strong action in Pimpri Camp. Whatever was done in Pimpri Camp so far was half-hearted,” says civic activist Kannan Nambiar.

PCMC executive engineer Deepak Thube told The Indian Express on Thursday that parts of 89 shops were demolished by the PCMC squad on Tuesday. “A few shopkeepers had pulled down their shops and shifted their wares. Many of them however could not do so as they lacked the necessary equipment to demolish parts of their shops,” he said. Thube said the demolition drive will now move to the stretch between Sai Chowk to Gerald Chowk. “Currently, the demarcation work is going on and we will soo initiate the demolition drive on the stretch,” he said. The River Road stretch, which is another choatic spot in Pimpri Camp, will also be widened. “Residents and shopkeepers have been intimated about the road widening process,” he said.

Civic activists say the Band administration has taken its own time to act in Pimpri Camp which is located right in front of the PCMC headquarters in Pimpri. “Nearly 10,000 students and thousands of shoppers visit Pimpri Camp daily. There is no respite for commuters. Compounding the situation are the shopkeepers who had brazenly grabbed footpaths and chowks. On its part, the PCMC administration acted only last month and even that action was meaningless as next day the encroachers were back in action,” say D G Baliga who has been among the few residents of Pimpri Camp voicing his anger against the PCMC inaction. Even Mayor Vaishali Ghodekar at a public meeting had expressed her frustration at the traffic choas that prevailed in Pimpri Camp, but that had little effect on PCMC administration

indianexpress: A total of 22,000 hectares (approximately 54,363 acres) will be released in the city with the State Legislative Assembly on Thursday passing a resolution to repeal the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act of 1976. Of the 22,000 hectares, 9,500 hectares (23,475 acres) will be used for construction activity.

However, many city builders are still nurturing hopes that the cooling of heated up land rates will take up to two years to become a reality. President of the Promoters and Builders Association of Pune (PBAP) Lalitkumar Jain, while welcoming the decision said, “Mere repeal of the Act will not bring down the prices. The government has to address the demand and supply issue and a master plan will have to readied for the same. Infrastructure should be made available to support the desire to provide affordable housing,” he said.

Municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi too welcomed the decision, but said that land prices will definitely come down in the “near future.” This will help low cost housing for the poor and will also put a full stop to burgeoning slums, he said.

Another builder, Rohite Gera, vice-president of PBAP, said the repeal of the Act and the ensuing price slump that could happen over 15 months would affect the “fly-by-night operators and not the regular real estate developers.” Also, the government decision to levy a tax on vacant land will have to assessed to see how much it would benefit the end user, he said.

With the Act being repealed by the state, it will also throw open the blocked funds under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), a pre-condition put by the Centre.

indianexpress: A Mother who lost her son to AIDS filed a complaint that her daughter-in-law was verbally and physically abusing her. The latter told the police that it was the other way round; that the mother-in-law was making false allegations intending to dispossess the widow of her husband’s two-roomed house. The police were initially unwilling to accept such a complaint being unfamiliar with the provisions of the law.

Over several meetings the Human Rights and Law Defenders (HRLD), an NGO, was able to convince the inspector in charge of the case to lodge a complaint against the mother-in-law under the recently introduced Prevention of Domestic Violence Act. The mother-in-law was warned against making false complaints. The case was finally settled out of court with the mother dropping the complaint and allowing the daughter-in-law to continue living in their home without any further abuse.

With no legislation governing HIV discrimination, there is little guarantee for justice being met through the court, says Asim Sarode, founder of the HRLD. There is a stigma attached to people affected by HIV/AIDS. They are often denied basic human rights. Job promotions are held back, they are refused medical help and are denied education.

Sarode pointed out several cases pertaining to HIV discrimination. “For instance a woman who contracted HIV from her husband wanted to file a divorce on the grounds of cruelty she suffered rather than her HIV status. The woman wished to ensure that the divorce be granted because of her husband’s infidelity and treatment towards her and not simply because she was infected with HIV. Understanding the woman’s request to not make any mention of her HIV status in the divorce petition was aimed at protecting herself from becoming another victim of discrimination and of social stigma attached to HIV, the HRLD filed her divorce petition accordingly. Fortunately the divorce was granted with an agreement from the husband,” Sarode said.

indianexpress: With ‘Take the lead’ being the theme for this year’s world AIDS campaign, Wake up Pune HIV/AIDS awareness campaign has urged citizens to take the lead on December 1 and educate themselves about the disease.

Organisations under Wake up Pune campaign will conduct day-long events including educational games, competitions and distribution of posters and leaflets.

Wake up Pune campaign was launched in November last year with the aim of educating all sections of society about HIV. The campaign also strives to eliminate the stigma and discrimination directed against HIV-infected. About 20 NGOs have come together to join the campaign. Posters, leaflets and slide shows will be used spread awareness while interns from Open Space will campaign in colleges.

indianexpress: With the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) undertaking a major work to lay water pipeline from Warje Pumping station to Holkar Pumping station, the disruption in traffic flow will create inconvenience to citizens for next six months due to the work that will be carried out on various major city roads from November 30.

“The Holkar water pumping station needs to be operationalise for which it will draw water from Warje Pumping station. The PMC has already laid down water pipeline for the purpose, but have to lay pipelines through major junctions of various roads to link the already laid pipelines,” Satish Bhosrekar, deputy engineer (water works) told reporters.

He said that the digging of roads will have to be done for laying the pipelines at various junctions starting from Karishma society chowk on Karve Road, SNDT chowk, Athavle chowk, parts of Law College Road, Dnyaneshwar Paduka chowk, near Police Parade ground, parts of F C road and Mumbai-Pune highway near Thermax office. Since, the work will continue at least for six months, Bhosekar said the citizens will have to face inconvenience using the roads.

He said they have to also ensure that there is no damage to the existing service lines, including electrical and telephone cables on the roads.

Though, the PMC will take up work at various junctions one at a time and also try to carry out the work during night time, he said it is likely to affect the traffic flow.

However, the completion of work will enable commissioning of the Holkar Pumping station having a capacity to treat 40 million litres water per day.

techtree: Merging the experience of a PC with a home entertainment center, Sony has launched the new VAIO LM notebook with a panel PC design.

Aimed at those who want the functionality of a PC in their living area, the VAIO LM comes with an inbuilt TV tuner, 1.3 mega pixels camera with face-tracking software, 2.1-channel speaker system, and sub-woofers that can be used for making video conference calls.

The new VAIO has a 19-inches screen framed by a transparent bezel to blend into the surrounding environment — reminiscent of BRAVIA, and can be mounted on a wall. It also packs a wireless keyboard, mouse, and remote control.

The VAIO LM comes with an Intel Core2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.00GHz), 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 250GB Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Windows Vista Home Premium, and Nvidia graphics card.

In addition, it features the latest VAIO Music Box software, and the MOVIE Story software for creating and editing videos.

The Music Box software enables users to define default channel capacity for music in advance, eliminating the need to adjust the sound manually every time. The system can automatically select signal descriptors for sound classification into 24 channels.

techtree: Cyberstar Infocom has introduced Creative’s SBS A300 and SBS A500 speaker systems in India.

Creative’s SBS A300 2.1 speaker system for music and gaming comes with two satellite speakers and an eleven Watts RMS subwoofer. It has two powerful channels with satellite speaker power of five Watts RMS each.

The adjustable bass level control and easy-access knob let users command full control over master volume- and bass- effects.

A portable extension to any PC/laptop or ZEN MP3 player, the SBS A300 comes with two satellite speakers with attached cables, a power supply adapter, a ported wood subwoofer, a quick-start leaflet, a technical support booklet, and warranty.

Meanwhile, the SBS A500 is a 5.1 speaker system with five channels with satellite speaker power of six Watts each. It has five satellite speakers, and a powerful 17 Watt RMS subwoofer with a 5.25 inches subwoofer driver with built-in amplifiers and an adjustable bass control.

The system’s wired volume control comes with LED indication for flexible placement anywhere on a desktop.

The SBS A500 comes with: one center satellite speaker with attached 1.7 cable; two front satellite speakers with attached 1.7m cables; two rear satellite speakers with attached 4m cables; a ported wood subwoofer with attached wired remote; a power supply adapter; a quick start guide; technical booklet; and warranty.

techtree: Genius has come up with a digital photo key chain with photo album, the DPF-101K.

A key chain that doubles as a photo album, the DPF-101K lets users carry life’s memorable moments along with them.

Sporting a 1 inch color display, the DPF-101K is able to store nearly 80 images with the built-in flash memory.

The gizmo’s key features include: manual or auto slide show photo, real time clock, calendar, temperature display alarm, and set turn on/off time. Besides, it comes with photo compression software and a multi-language manual.

Genius’ key chain photo viewer is available with Transtek, Ingram Micro, and Redington for Rs 1,399.

indianexpress: After sky bus, tram and metro it’s now the turn of monorail to have caught the fancy of planners as an alternative mode of transportation for the city. Just as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning a monorail for the state capital, the Pune Metropolitan Area (PMR) is looking for monorail as solution to the city’s traffic congestion.

But with no Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) in place, the metropolitan commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad had no option but turn to MMRDA to bring out a request for qualification (RFQ) of bids for the Pune project. The advertisement, taken out on Wednesday under the banner of MMRDA as a ‘Corrigendum’ to a notification dated November 12, comes with strap line — “RFQ for bidders for implementation of monorail system in Mumbai Metropolitan Region.”

The insertion says: “The Pune metropolitan area is rapidly expanding metropolis of the country which is also looking for solution of monorail transport system in their area on similar lines of Mumbai. In view of this, the revised scope of bidders also includes implementation of monorail system on route length of 20 to 25 km in Pune Metropolitan Area on turnkey basis and operation & maintenance for a minimum period of three years.”

“We would be tapping the possibility of monorail system for Pune region as it could be implemented immediately with comparatively low cost. There is no need to develop new corridors for the implementation of monorail system and we can use the existing infrastructure,” said municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi, when asked about the initiative.

It may be recalled that in September, following an eight-part series on the city’s traffic problems, The Indian Express had organised a round table conference of stakeholders where the municipal commissioner had promised that all alternative options would be tapped.

indianexpress: Even though Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had announced a new Pune-Nashik train during the last railway budget, its status is not clear yet. Officials at the Central Railway headquarters in Mumbai and the Pune division headquarters in the city are totally clueless as to when the new train will be inaugurated because the Railway Board is yet to take a decision on the matter.

M.G. Dhamangaonkar, additional divisional railway manager of Central Railways (Pune division) told The Indian Express, “The Pune-Nashik route falls under three divisions of the Central Railway — Pune, Mumbai and Bhusawal. So whenever more than one divisions are involved in any of the Central Railway projects, the decision is taken by the headquarter (Mumbai) office. Therefore we are not exactly aware of the where the proposal exactly is. But, once the go-ahead is received, it is possible to start the train service in the current financial year.”

When contacted, the senior spokesperson headquarter office, Central Railways, C. Pitambaran said, “There were two routes proposed for the Pune-Nashik train — the Pune-Daund-Manmad-Nashik route and the Karjat-Panvel-Kalyan-Nashik route. Out of the two, the Central Railway has given approval to the Kalyan route. However, it will take more than seven hours to traverse the distance between the two cities.

“The modalities of this train like how many number of rakes the train will have and the ticket prices are to be fixed up by the Railway Board. But it is difficult to predict when the train will actually start operating,” Pitambaran added.