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TOI : PUNE: The city police arrested nine people with sharp weapons at Hinjewadi and Pimpri on Tuesday night.

Ajay Palal Tak (22), Sandeep Nirmansingh Bidlan (19) and Ramdar Dilipsingh Gahus (27), all from Dehu Road, were arrested by the Hinjewadi police when they were allegedly planning to conduct a dacoity near a petrol pump at Tathawade. The police seized a countrymade revolver from them.

Two of their associates, Arun Ranfal Soparo (23) and Pappu, fled the scene.

At Pimpri, six people carrying sharp weapons were arrested near Kapse garden during a combing operation.

They were identified as Bunty alias Vijay Baburao Kamble (25), Anil Pandurang Waghmare (24) and Raju Ramesh Pawar from Gandhinagar slums, Ganesh alias Datta Gulab Dhotre (20) from Bharatnagar slums, Motiram Shankar Pawar (20) from Chinchwad and Vinod Ramdas Mohite (25) from Nehrunagar…More

TOI : PUNE: Commissioner of police Jayant Umranikar on Wednesday advised women to learn basic self-defence techniques to protect themselves and said the police were ready to send trainers to colleges to teach them defence techniques.

Umranikar was speaking as the chief guest at the ‘Industry-institute alliance programmes for effective education’ at the Bharati Vidyapeeth.

“With the huge rise in population, there is no longer any homogeneity in the city. Now, Pune is not a place of docile people enjoying cultural programmes. Girls should learn self-defence techniques to protect themselves and learn how to avoid getting trapped in difficult situations,” he said.

He said, after the murder of an IT employee recently, the police had asked companies to take the necessary measures to ensure safety of women employees.

Industries should come together and look into the security of their zones by conducting patrols, Umranikar said. “The police have limited strength to do so. We have only one policeman for 1,000 population. One should not expect the government to do everything. Instead the society should come together as movement to solve problems, and this is not happening.”

The police commissioner said that while the budget for farmers’ subsidy was around Rs 10,000 crore, the budget for the police department was just Rs 2,000 crore. “We have to rethink about utilisation of resources. Everyone wants the police to do many things. One should admit that the police and the industry suffer image problem.

Umranikar came down heavily on the poor infrastructure of the city. To solve traffic problems proper infrastructure should be in place. “Unfortunately the responsibility of infrastructure is with the municipal corporation and the police are left with the duty to manage traffic. People have lost respect for law. They don’t follow traffic rules if policemen are not around.”

During the interaction session,…More

TOI : PUNE: To make your friendly neighbourhood pharmacist more knowledgeable, the Maharashtra State Chemists and Druggists Association (MSCDA) and the Maharashtra State Pharmacy Council have introduced a patient counselling programme.

Some 4,000 pharmacists from Pune are expected to benefit from the eight-day refresher course.

The course has subjects such as customer communication skills, patient compliance, paediatric pharma care, use of apparatus, interpretation of lab values and information about major illnesses. The programme started at the Poona College of Pharmacy on January 14 and aims to create a good counsellor and friend out of a pharmacist.

According to Mahendra Pitaliya of the Chemists and Druggists Association, Pune, the state accounts for 18 per cent of the turnover in the pharma business in India. “Big retail houses are entering the Rs 9,000-crore market and pharmacists want to be prepared to beat the competition. The course will revolutionise the business.”

With doctors getting busier by the day, the programme will train pharmacists to provide value-added services, says Atmaram Pawar, professor, department of pharmaceutics, Poona College of Pharmacy.

For instance, a patient with high blood pressure will be advised by the pharmacist against taking a high-selling antacid as the latter will know it can increase the sodium content in blood and, consequently, risks of a heart attack. Or, the pharmacist can alert a woman on a contraceptive pill not to take medicine with amoxycillin for cold, as it will reduce the effect of the contraceptive.

The pharmacist will also tell customers not to go on a fast and take medication simultaneously as that will slow down the absorption of the medicine. While Pawar agrees that some patients could find certain advice offending, he says “pharmacists will have to gulp down exceptions if they are to become future ready”.

Nitin Deo, a pharmacist for 20 years, says…More

TOI : PUNE: From being a socialist and an associate of Jayaprakash Narayan, Madhu Dandavate and SM Joshi to promoting a special economic zone (SEZ), Sopan Bhor has certainly come a long way while keeping his principles intact.

In April last year, the 72-year-old Bhor conceptualised the first all-farmer SEZ in the country at a time when industrialists were running long and ugly battles with farmers over acquisition of their lands for SEZs.

“Ours is an SEZ with security and socialism - one that will be democratic, protect the sovereignty of farmers and not result in a single displacement,” says Bhor about the SEZ in his native village Avasari Khurd, some 40 km from Pune.

The dozen Bhor siblings own 15 acres of land in the village with two brothers presently tilling the land.

“Before turning into a businessman, I worked in the state government’s industry department and later as a sales and works manager in an automobile spare parts company. I have also spent 50 years in politics, worked as a labour union leader, represented sick small-scale industries and am presently the secretary (industry and trade) in the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee,” says Bhor.

What amazes one about the man is that despite being only an arts graduate, he has planned and mapped the proposed SEZ meticulously. The white-haired Bhor is armed with every possible information, document, government resolution, map, rule and regulation pertaining to SEZs.

He is aware of the strategic importance of his village as it lies barely 20 km from the proposed international airport at Chakan and is conveniently located near the Pune-Nashik highway and the industrial Pune-Mumbai-Nashik triangle.
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TOI : PUNE: Road accidents, on an average, claim at least three lives every day in Pune district, and 1,170 people were killed under the Pune rural police and Pune city police jurisdictions in 2007.

Consider this. A total of 796 people lost their lives in 3,616 mishaps in the jurisdiction of the Pune rural police last year. The number of fatal accidents was 759 in the 3,609 accidents reported in 2006 in rural areas. Of these, around 70 per cent were serious accidents where victims received severe injuries.

In the city, according to the traffic branch of the Pune police, 374 were killed, 418 seriously injured and 1,446 sustained minor injuries in 1,980 accidents till November 2007. In 2006, around 372 people were killed, 309 were seriously injured and 1,257 people sustained minor injuries in 1,920 accidents in 2006 in Pune city areas.

According to a study by the Pune rural police, drunken driving is one of the main reason for deaths in road accidents.

“We have studied the trend of the last three years in rural areas. The major contributory factor is drunken driving, speeding and defects in vehicles like absence of reflectors,” additional superintendent of rural police Ashok Morale said.

Morale said the trend suggests that a large number of two-wheelers ram into heavy vehicles that do not have reflectory tapes on the rear side.

“A majority of accidents take place between 5 am and 8 am involving drivers who have been driving all the night. Besides, a large chunk of drivers have not passed their higher secondary exams, 20 per cent of them are uneducated and the same number of them suffer from colour blindness,” he said.

Accidents due to rough roads and climatic conditions are very less. “However, almost all the two-wheeler riders, who were not wearing helmets,…More