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TOI : PUNE: The courts that have seen P Gopi Chand win the 1997 national title and Prakash Padukone the first ever Open prize money tournament in India (Indian Masters in 1981) haven’t seen flying birds for around three weeks now.

The WIE complex, where major renovation work has been undertaken, is caught in legal hassles and it’s unclear how soon shuttles will take flight again.

The Progressive Education Society (PES), which owns the premises, had asked the Poona District Metropolitan Badminton Association (PDMBA) to stop the work on the courts until both reached an agreement.

The PES has sought court’s intervention in the renovation and other works on the premises. “We only want the PDMBA to take necessary permissions before carrying out any work,” said PES trustee Chintamani Ghate. “We want badminton to resume. But the ball is in their court. Despite sending initial draft of the agreement and our subsequent attempts to sit together and sort out the issue, the badminton officials have not responded.”

Girish Natu, city’s prominent badminton official, refused to divulge any information to TOI on the progress of agreement vis-à-vis renovation work.

However, Ghate said: “We have filed a case in civil court and notice has already been issued. The matter is expected to be heard in the first week of May.”

He claimed that the PDMBA didn’t seek permission from the PSE before starting the renovation work. “They wrote a letter saying they are carrying out the work. Though we expressed our reservation, they simply went ahead with the renovation work.”

According to Ghate, the original tripartite agreement between WIE, PES and PDMBA in 1982 and the subsequent draft in 1986 was not perfectly legal. “The document, which had some blank spaces, was not even notarised,” he said.

“Now, the WIE doesn’t exist. Hence, the remaining two parties…More

TOI : PUNE: Although 360 children work as rag-pickers in the city, the government machinery finds itself helpless as proving them child labourers is “not possible”.

Deputy commissioner at the labour department, Anil Lakaswar, expressed his helplessness in dealing with such cases as proving them as child labourers was not possible on technical grounds.

“A person can be called a child labourer only if he or she is proved to be below 14 years of age. Even the employee-employer relation has to be proved. It is only after these things are proved that we can take action,” he said.

“Children working as garbage collectors or as shoe-shine boys are self-employed. Proving employee-employer re-lationship here is not possible.”

Shabana Diler of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat said, “We have conducted a survey, under which we found that more than 360 children are working as garbage collectors in the city. Some of them are even working in the PMC’s garbage depot at Urali Devachi.”

She said the age of these children is between four years and 16 years.

The survey was carried out with the help of some educational institutes in September-October 2007. The report will be handed over to the PMC and other bodies soon.

Manish Shrof of the Action for Rights of Child, an NGO, said steps were being taken to counsel these children and their parents.

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TOI : PUNE: The marriage season is on, but Rashmi is struggling to find a groom. She is nearing forty and is frustrated that her dreams of getting married will remain unfulfilled even this season. Her only fault, if it can be termed that, is that she is well-educated and, therefore, unable to find a suitable match from within her community — the Other Backward Class (OBC).

Hundreds of women from among the backward classes (BCs) and OBCs are as despairing as Rashmi for the same reason. Education, indeed, has become a disadvantage for them in the marriage market.

“I did my BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) and work in a clinic. Since the last five years, my parents have been searching for a suitable boy, but in vain. I am worried for my younger sisters, as they are well-educated too,” says Rashmi, who hails from the OBC Patharvat community, which has a low level of education among boys as compared to other communities.

Anuja, a commerce graduate from the Dhangar community, has already given up hope of finding a match.

“I have crossed forty. I was working with the Pune Municipal Corporation, but now I don’t feel like doing anything,” she says.

Anuja’s parents insist that she should marry a boy from the community, but she is unable to find someone who can match her education. The parents are averse to an inter-caste marriage because they feel it could create problems for her younger sister. Incidentally, the younger girl dropped out of school after her eighth standard.

Shyam Sahani, who has been running a marriage bureau for the last 20 years, admits that the mismatch in education has turned out to be a major problem when it comes to tying the knot. “Many girls and their parents, after failing to get suitable educated boys from their…More

TOI : PUNE: Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) will soon develop two mechanised car parking lots to solve the parking problem at its main office building premises.

Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, Subhash Dumbre, additional municipal commissioner, said the mechanised car parking facility will be the first of its kind in the Pimpri-Chinchwad Township. It may be noted that the Pune Municipal Corporation has built a mechanised parking lot at Sambhaji Park on J.M. road, at an approximate cost of Rs 2 crore, which has been lying unused.

The PCMC main office building is located along the Pune-Mumbai highway in Pimpri. Due to increasing vehicles in the township, parking space in the premises has become inadequate. Moreover, since the civic body is extending the main office building, the available open space has reduced considerably. Consequently, civic officials and visitors have
to park their vehicles along the compound wall on the highway.

A PCMC engineering department official said one mechanised car parking lot will be in the building premises itself.

This one will be built at a cost of Rs 3.33 crore and will accommodate 116 cars. The second parking lot, to be developed outside the building premises, will be on a reserved plot on the other side of the highway. Four towers will be built in the parking lot, each with a capacity to park 34 cars. After the construction, the parking lot will be given out to a private contractor, for a period of five years, to operate and maintain.

The official added that tenders are being invited for both the parking lots and the whole process will take two months. The facility is expected to be operational in a year’s time.

Moreover, the space that is used for parking corporators’ cars, in the main office building premises, will be developed into a two-wheeler parking lot with a…More

TOI : PUNE: In a bid to provide the latest statistics and information about the registration of properties, the state government plans to build an advanced data centre in the city. All available data on the registration of properties and flats across the state will be available here.

A place has already been identified while the process of building the centre and installing the required software will begin soon. The government is to start work on the project in the next six months.

Ramrao Shingare, inspector-general of registration and controller of stamps told TOI , “It is been observed that, across the state, thousands of properties are registered every month. With the increasing registration figures, each registration office in the state generates a large volume of data every month. The proposed data centre will compile and store all the data generated at various places in the state.”

“With this, the search for registration of any property in the state will be possible at the click of a mouse. It will prove helpful to the government as well as builders, agents and the real estate sector. The data centre will be a unique step in consolidating information,” he added.

“The state is witnessing a growth in the registration of properties every year. For the year ended March 31, 2008, the state registered about 18, 47,000 properties and flats. Pune, Mumbai and Thane accounted for more than 80 per cent of the total registrations. These cities have about 25,000 registrations every month. Other cities in the state are also witnessing aggressive growth in this area,” Shingare said.

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TOI : PUNE: In the absence of a proper system of checks and balances, corruption has firmly gripped the funding of civic projects under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). An embarrassed state government, while maintaining that audits were being conducted at the local level, has asked citizens to wield the Right to Information (RTI) Act to stem the corruption!

Tenders worth crores of rupees are being floated for various works under the JNNURM and the civic corridors are teeming with contractors attempting to corner a piece of the funding pie.

Last week, a road work tender worth Rs 42 crore was tabled and passed clandestinely by the Pune Municipal Corporation standing committee. It was ensured that the media did not even get a glimpse of the proposal.
Not surprisingly, the estimated cost of the JNNURM works has swelled from the initial Rs 807 crore to Rs 1,462 crore now.

Interestingly, the tenders floated for the road works under the JNNURM have some strange conditions — which read more like an open demand for kickbacks — that contractors should provide the PMC’s engineers and consultants with things like Tavera cars, laptops, tea-cups, laptops, water purifiers and chairs! The PMC officials have, however, defended this clause, saying that the spending on these items was not even one per cent of the total expenditure. In fact, Vinay Deshpande, head of the PMC’s JNNURM cell, told the general body meeting last week that these items were being provided to the officials “to complete works in time and ensure quality”.

Commenting on this, a contractor who requested anonymity said, “Now it is an open secret that not a single tender in the municipal corporation is passed without paying kickbacks. There should be some checks on those who approve tenders and those who move files from table to table.”

The contractor pointed out…More

TOI : PUNE: A builder and his staff members were assaulted and his office on the Katraj-Kondhwa road was ransacked by miscreants on Monday afternoon because he reportedly failed to pay extortion money of Rs 5 lakh.

The builder, Rahul Arun Deshpande of Motibaugh society on the Pune-Satara road, who received injuries to his head, arms and legs, was admitted to a private hospital at Bibvewadi. He received 17 stitches on his head.

Deshpande has alleged that the policemen at the Kondhwa outpost police chowky wanted him to reach a compromise with the attackers. The police, however, refuted the charge.

The others who received minor injuries were site engineer Mahendra Shah, office administrator Bhushan Runwal, centring contractor Nitin Kadam and security guard Tanaji Birajdar.

The victims were attacked with iron rods and sticks, besides kicks and blows, the police said.

Deshpande and his partners of Jai Ganesh Developers are constructing a residential-cum-commercial complex, ‘Shri Ganesh Vishwa, at S. No. 48/1 at Kondhwa Budurk on the Katraj-Kondhwa bypass. The firm had started constructing a compound wall at the site when one Mahadeo Naiknaware of Gokulnagar and others started creating obstacles one-and-a-half months ago.

The miscreants had threatened the workers with dire consequences and allegedly demanded extortion money. The plot owner, where the structure is coming up, had filed a complaint with the Haveli police, but no action was taken. The miscreants, however, continued creating trouble on various occasions.

The Haveli police have booked Naiknaware and his accomplices under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint lodged by Runwal, one of the victims.

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TOI : PUNE: Those potent chillies used in your cooking are turning out to be mighty explosive too, though not in the kitchen. Pune-based High Explosive Material Research Laboratory (HEMRL) has developed teargas bombs that contain chilli extracts, which experts say can be used for riot control and even for battling terrorists.

Speaking to TOI , HEMRL joint director R.K. Pande said the chilli-laden bombs were crowd-friendly as they cause only temporary irritation to the body. HEMRL has developed the technology for the manufacture of the bombs and has also patented it.

Pande said an extract of the dry ripe red chili, known as Oleoresin Capsicum (OC), has been used in making the bomb. The other ingredients included natural oils, fats and colouring matter like capsaicinoids.

“The bomb weighs around 300 gm and can create a smoky atmosphere for duration of 35 seconds which can spread over an area of 2,500 sq.m,” said Pande. “On exploding, the bomb spreads around 20 per cent capsaicinoids in the air. This creates a white and dense smoke screen. The bomb has a shelf life of three years.”

According to Pande, the bomb will be an effective mob-dispersal weapon. “It can be used to smoke out terrorists from their hideouts. In fact, a section of the armed forces has already started using this bomb,” he said.

The lab has also developed a teargas grenade called chloroacetophenone (CAP). CAP is a white volatile solid and effective even in low concentration. The grenade is capable of forming high-density smoke with a delay of merely 1.5 seconds with a burning duration of 60-100 seconds. The effects of the grenade on explosion include irritation to the eyes, throat and nose and sneezing and salivation. It is effective even 15 cm under water or under sand and sawdust.

Traditionally, lachrymatory compounds are used for riot or mob-control. These…More

TOI : PUNE: Can the University of Pune (UoP) effect direct admissions of foreign students, including people of Indian origin (PIO), to professional courses, such as engineering and medicine? The question is all the more important especially when an independent centralised admission process for such courses is conducted by competent authorities like the state directors for technical and medical education.

The question was raised by UoP senate member Atul Bagul at a press conference organised here on Tuesday in the wake of the ongoing row over alleged irregularities in PIO admissions effected since 2002-03 by the UoP’s International Students’ Centre (ISC).

The ISC is the nodal agency for foreign/PIO student admissions to all colleges, professional and recognised institutions affiliated to the university.

Bagul, also a member of the Poona University Teachers’ Association, alleged that the then ISC administration did not check whether the foreign/PIO students, who approached it, had fulfilled the mandatory norm of first getting their admission finalised by the government’s competent authority.

So much so that the ISC did not even check whether the colleges — to which the foreign/PIO students were granted admissions — were authorised by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to maintain a foreign/PIO quota, Bagul alleged.

A UoP circular (No 6 of 2002, dated Jan 1, 2003) states that foreign/PIO students may be admitted to diploma, undergraduate and post-graduate professional and non-professional courses — on a supernumerary basis upto 15 per cent over and above the sanctioned student intake.

The circular also states that this provision “shall not be applicable” to the courses for which the government of Maharashtra or other such competent authority makes admissions. University bulletins and brochures, published at regular intervals, have reiterated this position by stating that foreign/PIO students will have to get their admission finalised by the state government before approaching the ISC.

…More

TOI : PUNE: An unidentified pedestrian died after falling into an open manhole of a storm water drain near Jayashree theatre at Chinchwad station along the Pune-Mumbai highway on Monday.

The commuters coming out of Chinchwad railway station informed the fire brigade and police that an unidentified person had fallen into the drain around 2 pm on Monday. Policemen from Nigdi police station and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) fire brigade officials rushed to the spot and got the person out of the drain.

He was taken to the PCMC-run Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH) but the doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. The unidentified person was wearing a red shirt and a black trouser. The PCMC is widening the highway and constructing a grade separator at Chinchwad. There are a number of stormwater drains without any covers along the highway.

Ghulam Ali Bhaldar, executive president of the Chinchwad Pravasi Sangh told TOI that a number of similar mishaps have occurred at Chinchwad station.

Manholes without covers can be found at Kalbhornagar, Chinchwad station, Akurdi and Nigdi. “We are taking legal opinion to find whether a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) can be filed in this regard. The victim’s family members should get compensation from the PCMC or the contractor who did not care to cover the manholes,” he said.

An official from the PCMC engineering department said that the PCMC had placed cement covers on the manholes but some people had broken them up to steal the iron rods embedded in the lids. They sell these rods to scrap dealers and earn money. The PCMC will check the storm water drains along the Pune-Mumbai highway and install covers on the open drains wherever required, the official said.
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