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indianexpress: When 13-year-olds Sujit and Akshay met their idol, former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Sunday, they were desperate to ask him one question: ‘Why does the government want to snatch away our land for building an airport and factories, and would you help save it?’ But lack of communication skills in English prevented them from doing so.

The same question lingered in the minds of hundreds of other students of zilla parishad (ZP) schools in Rajgurunagar and nearby villages, about 50 km from Pune, who are well acquainted with the burning issues of the airport, MIDC and factories.

Though they are taught English from std I onwards, the subject is taught in Marathi by teachers who have done their diploma in education in Marathi. This hardly equips the students to communicate in the language.

Teachers of the ZP schools admit they that have not been able to train students to read and write in English. “When the state government started compulsory English from std I, nobody remembered that the teachers assigned to the task were themselves educated in Marathi-medium,” said one of the teachers.

Ironically, Kalam told the children, “You were born at the right time and you will succeed in life”. A message that went down well with the students was, “Set a goal, work hard and defeat failure to achieve the goal.”

punetimes: A proposal to build a residential school for visually impaired, differently abled and orphans will come up for discussion at the general body meeting of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on December 20.

Corporators and members of PCMC’s slum improvement, housing and social welfare committee - Santosh Londhe, Sunanda Phuge and Jyoti Bharati have tabled the resolution.

Speaking to TOI, Londhe said that PCMC’s social welfare department gives scholarships to students belonging to backward classes, financial assistance to widows and distributes cycles among students, but does very little for the visually impaired, differently abled and orphans.

“Visually impaired, differently abled, child labourers, orphans and child beggars are deprived of education. They fall prey to various addictions and later start committing crimes. The PCMC has no welfare schemes for them,” he pointed out. The committee as a result took a decision to start a residential school from std I to XII for such children and give them vocational training to make them self-reliant, he added.

The resolution states that the residential school should be built on a minimum of four to five acre land. It should have a well-equipped building, a big hall for training, kitchen, cultural hall, dining hall and children’s garden.

The allocation for the building should either be made through funds received under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) or from allocation of five per cent share in the civic budget for backward class.

The resolution also called for naming this residential school as ‘Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Ashram’. It called for allocation of Rs 5 crore for the school and another Rs 5 crore to be kept as fixed deposit. The daily expenditure was to be met from the interest earned from the fixed deposit.

indianexpress: With India gradually emerging a global economic powerhouse and many Indian companies aggressively perusing global acquisitions, Switzerland is making an all out bid to woo Indian investments.

“Switzerland offers extremely favorable conditions for international investors. Access to European markets, a highly specialised, multilingual workforce, especially in knowledge-based sectors and a modest corporate tax rate to foreign companies,” Beatrice Maser Mallor, head, Switzerland and State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said .

Mallor was speaking to the media on the sidelines of Go Global via Switzerland Investment conference which was organised in the city.

Switzerland, the official programme of the Swiss Government for the promotion of foreign investments into Switzerland, organises a number of conferences designed for businesspersons encompassing on-the-spot answers to their questions and to putting them in direct contact with its representatives.

indianexpress: Stop encouraging bribery if you are doing any business with USA, otherwise the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) will land you in a serious trouble. The message was given to the corporate world during the day-long first international conference in India on FCPA, held at Hotel Le Meridien on Sunday.

FCPA is an important Act that is applicable to all US incorporated companies or companies with their principal place of business in the US. Speakers at the conference warned that violation of FCPA, whether knowingly or unknowingly, attracted severe penalties. Some of the recent examples being the York International company paying $ 22 million recently in connection with the UN oil-for-food-scam. In another case, the former chairman of AT Kerarney India paid $ 70,000 of personal fine to settle the FCPA violation case with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it was stated.

The conference started with a presentation by Anil Roy, partner and head, Grant Thornton India. He discussed the fundamentals of FCPA compliance. While Sidarth Khasu, manager, E & Y, India spoke about the enforcement terms in FCPA compliance. Later, Joginder Singh, associate director, KPMG gave a presentation on FCPA in merger and acquisitions, while Dr Vishnu Kanhere, director of KCPL explained the link between Corruption and Fraud. Also, Vidya Rajarao, Associate Director of PWC India shared her knowledge on the role of FCPA in internal audit.

Dr Kanhere said that fraud and corruption have a close link. “Both reflect a deviant behaviour that corrupts a moral democratic society based on the rule of law. Hence they should be curbed and controlled at all levels,” he said.

punetimes: With the traffic increasing rapidly on Baner road, citizens travelling here are in for a harrowing time, particularly since there is no traffic island at Aundh junction where minor accidents have become the order of the day.

Traffic has increased exponentially with the development boom taking place in Baner, Pashan and Aundh. Also, vehicles heading towards Hinjewadi prefer this road, which adds to the load.

Baner road is one of the roads being developed under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) projects and most of it, from University chowk to Greenpark hotel, has been widened during the first phase.

The concretisation and widening has enabled a smooth drive for four-wheelers, two-wheelers as well as heavy vehicles. Naturally, the result is not just more traffic but faster traffic.

Vehicles heading towards the Mumbai-Pune highway, those heading towards University chowk or city areas and those turning towards or coming from Aundh ITI road all intersect at Aundh junction, creating chaos.

With no traffic signal or policeman to organise the traffic, there can be only one result, and confusion it is.

Speaking to TOI, Sharayu Sangvi, a resident of ITI road and member of the Aundh mohalla committee said that she has been urging Pune Municipal Corporation officials to take cognisance of the growing problem.

“We have demanded that a traffic island be constructed at the junction, so that vehicles don’t turn haphazardly towards ITI road. There will also be some control on rash driving in the absence of the traffic police,” Sangvi said. She added that Punekars were known for their traffic indiscipline, therefore a traffic warden is a must at the spot.