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TOI : PUNE: On December 7, 2007 when Vijendra Sharma, a doctorate student from Nagpur, hired a rickshaw from the Shivajinagar bus stand for National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) at Pashan, he had not the slightest idea that the events in the next few hours would change his perspective on life.

As Sharma and a companion reached the NCL guest house around 9:15 am on Monday, his companion paid the fare while he walked ahead to the allotted room at the guest house on Pashan Road. Just as he reached his room, Sharma realised that his bag - that contained a laptop worth Rs 45,000, a mobile phone worth Rs 23,000 and more importantly, his research documents and data sheets that were a result of five years of hard work - was missing. It then struck him that he had kept the bag behind the seat and forgot to collect it.

“I now remember that I literally ran out to find the nearest police chowky. More than the valuables, I was concerned about my research data and original documents, that are priceless,” says Sharma. “I went to the Chatushrungi police chowky to file a complaint about my missing bag. As there was a change of shift, the police told me that I should go back and check my room once more. After running around for a while, I was back at the police chowky and had just started filing the complaint when I got a call on my cell phone,” narrates Sharma, a research fellow at National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) Nagpur.

To his utter surprise, Sharma found the man calling was the same rickshaw driver who had taken him to Pashan road. “Nilesh Gaikwad, the rickshaw driver told me that he had found my bag in the rickshaw and he wanted to return it to me. So he asked me…More

TOI : PUNE: In a setback to the prosecution, a fast-track court on Wednesday rejected its plea for securing the presence of leading Marathi actor Ramesh Bhatkar and others before the court for hearing their anticipatory bail applications.

Bhatkar and the others - film directors Ravi Naidu and Ashok Londhe, and the victim’s uncle and aunt, Dilip and Jayashree Kaware - are facing charges of allegedly seeking sexual favours from a 17-year-old girl under the pretext of giving her a role in a Marathi film.

Fast-track court judge Sanjay Patil will now hear the anticipatory bail applications of the accused on January 16.
Additional public prosecutor D Y Jadhav argued that the prosecution was entitled to seek the presence of the accused under section 438(4) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

However, defence lawyers Vijay Nahar, S.K. Jain, Harshad Nimbalkar, Biju Aloor and Makarand Aurangabadkar asked for the rejection of the prosecution’s plea, stating that he had not given any reasons for demanding the presence of the accused.

The defence lawyers insisted that their clients be exempted from appearing in the court because their lives were under threat from the public. They sought to remind the court that the public had manhandled and thrashed some of the accused in the past.

The lawyers contended that none of the accused had breached the interim bail conditions and said they were co-operating with the investigating agency whenever they were called for questioning.

Advocates Baban Salve and Vivek Chavan, who are representing the victim and her mother, appealed to the court to reject the defence’s contention and said it was the practise that accused seeking bail be present in the court.

However, the judge upheld the arguments of the defence lawyers…More

TOI : PUNE: Revealing that the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has failed to recover dues worth Rs 45 crore in the last 10 years, when the city is facing a paucity of funds to complete development works, city-based Surajya Sangharsha Samiti (SSS) on Wednesday asked the PMC to speed up the recovery process and has threatened to approach high court if it failed to do so.

Vijay Kumbhar of the SSS told TOI that the information given to him by the civic administration under the Right to Information (RTI) Act admits that in the last 10 years it has failed to recover dues worth Rs 4597,00,000 under different heads, including development charges, property tax and licence fees.

Less than 10 per cent of the records are inspected by the PMC auditors and then reports of the same are prepared to recover dues. In the last ten years, only 862 reports were prepared,” said Kumbhar.

He said, if all records of the PMC are inspected, the total amount of dues to be recovered would be much bigger. In last 10 years, the PMC has recovered dues worth Rs 959,00,000.

The civic audit department has 61 auditors, but in the last ten years only 862 reports were prepared,” said Kumbhar.

The dues are not recovered only because of the apathy of civic officials. Actually this amount could be used for various development works,” the activist said.

The civic standing committee controls the audit department, but hardly the committee bothered to look into the matter.

“If the PMC fails to recover the amount in next three months, we would move the high court as development work is affected due to the civic body’s apathy,” said Kumbhar…More

TOI : PUNE: In a major policy decision, the state government has decided that the state food and drugs department will be in charge of implementing the Food and Adulteration Act in municipal limits.

The state urban development department, in a letter to local self government bodies on December 17, has said that the inspection of food and drug shops was till now being done by municipal bodies, but here after, this task is being assigned to the state food and drugs department.

The food and drug administration was set up under the Central Government’s Food and Drug Adulteration Act in 1970. Under the act, the municipal bodies were empowered to appoint inspectors to check complaints of adulteration in their limits. Now, complaints regarding adulteration in municipal limits have to be registered with the state food and drugs department…More

TOI : PUNE: The recent Ahmednagar incident in which a minor girl was raped and then set ablaze is a gory pointer to a disturbing trend in western Maharashtra: the number of rape cases in the region is on the rise!

According to the state criminal investigation department (CID), western Maharashtra alone accounted for 27 of the 97 rape cases registered in the state in November last year. In October, the region registered 21 rapes in a total of 107 in the state.

In fact, western Maharashtra is known for logging a high percentage of crimes against women. As per police records, Mumbai tops in crimes against women in the state (8.7 per cent), followed by Ahmednagar (4.9 per cent) and Pune (4.2 per cent) - the latter two regions fall in western Maharashtra.

-It is a fact that the number of rapes is on the rise. This is cause for concern and the police are taking every effort to curb such incidents. It is a social problem and we must take at look at how society has changed rapidly,” additional director general of police (CID) S.P.S. Yadav told TOI on Wednesday. Yadav said there were a number of cases registered as rapes wherein women had indulged in sex after being promised marriage but had been subsequently ditched by their lovers.

There is no scope under the Indian Penal Code for inducument to be registered as a case. Hence, such cases are categorised as rape,” he pointed out. Yadav sought to pat his colleagues on the back by saying that the police force was prompt in registering rape cases and that partly explained the high figures in the state. However, Neelam Gorhe, MLC and founder president of the Stree Adhar Kendra, said only 50 per cent of the rapes happening in the state are registered with the police. -Half…More