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TOI : Pune has its very own butterfly park. This might come as a surprise to many who might not have heard about it. This park is the brainchild of local corporator Aba Bagul, municipal chief garden superintendent Y.S. Khaire and retired Indian Forest Service official P.C. Thomas and Sumitra Thomas. Work began on the park some years ago and after a long delay, it is said to be in its final stage of completion.

Of the many parks in the city, the butterfly park comes as a breath of fresh air, as it is quite unique. According to Bagul, “We are looking at inaugurating the park as soon as possible.” Children are in the midst of their summer vacations and the other parks in the city get numerous visitors everyday, so this park should be a novelty to both children and adults.

Housed on an acre of land in Sahakarnagar near the Aranyeshwar temple, the park is only the second butterfly park in the country. The other one is in Bangalore.

“Some 50-60 varieties of plants and trees, including the cassia, hibiscus, lime and balsam, were planted in the park a couple of years ago,” says Bagul. “Today the trees are in full bloom and are successfully attracting butterflies. We have about 40 to 45 varieties of them in the park.”

The life span of a butterfly is only 18 days and the park intends to breed butterflies too. To keep the butterflies safe from predators, particularly birds, the plants and trees have nets surrounding them, making it difficult for the birds to get through. The varieties of butterflies found here include exotic breeds like the spotted blue tiger and Nawab, and common ones like the grass yellow, lime butterfly, common castor and plain tiger.

The total cost of the project is around Rs 10 lakh….More

TOI : PUNE: A city-based activist, Vinod Jain, has alleged that over 3,000 trees have been hacked at the Rajiv Gandhi zoological park at Katraj by Pune Municipal Corporation authorities over the past seven to eight months.

In his complaint lodged at the Bharati Vidyapeeth police chowky, Jain has charged that while the department of social forestry had planted thousands of trees at the zoo premises around 20 years back, many of them have gone missing of late.Neither PMC’s chief garden superintendent Yashwant Khaire, nor tree officer B.V. Jagtap were available for their comments despite repeated attempts made by TOI to contact them on their mobile phones.

Citing the rules of the Maharashtra Tree Act, Jain said that permission from the Tree Authority has to be obtained before the cutting or transplantation of any tree. An official docket is prepared and the Tree Authority takes a decision after hearing the objections, if any. The applicant is also required to pay a deposit of Rs 10,000 per tree that is to be cut.

Jain charged that PMC undertook several development works such as construction of cages, boundary walls and pits for animals at the zoo over the past three to four years. But permission for cutting of trees was sought only in just two or three instances. In his complaint, Jain also wanted to know if the PMC had paid any deposit amount for cutting the trees.He appealed to the police to take cognisance of the cutting of trees and said that PMC should put numbers on all trees that it plans to cut. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: It was another sweltering day on Sunday. The maximum temperature in the city shot above 39 degrees C and temperatures in Nagpur, Jalgaon, Malegaon and Solapur hit the 40 degree mark.

This latest rise means that the mercury rose by 4 deg C in a week’s time. Pune has been witnessing increase in maximum temperature since April 7, when the city recorded 35 deg C. On April 8 the temperature went up by one degree and by April 10 the maximum temperature was 37 deg C. On April 11 the maximum temperature went up by 1.6 degrees C and on April 12, the temperature recorded was 38.8 degrees Celsius. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: The immigration officials arrested one Mohammed Hanif (30), a resident of Khozikode, Kerala, for trying to board a flight to Dubai from the Lohegaon airport on a fake passport.

Assistant police inspector K.D. Mhase said that Hanif was in possession of a resident visa of Dubai. The police became suspicious because his passport carried an address of Andhra Pradesh but he was unable to converse in Telugu.

Hanif kept insisting that he was from Andhra Pradesh, but failed to convince the cops. He kept misleading the police by first claiming to be from Andhra Pradesh, then from Mumbai and finally from Chennai. But since he couldn’t speak either Telugu, Marathi or Tamil, the police refused to buy his arguments.

After sustained interrogation, Hanif admitted that he hailed from Kerala and that he had replaced one Kadri Shankar’s photograph by his own to mislead the authorities.

Hanif said that he forged the passport to seek employment as a waiter in a hotel at Dubai. However he refused to give details as to how he came in possession of Shankar’s passport. He only said that he had come to Pune from Mumbai on Sunday for going to Dubai.

The immigration team took him into custody for cheating and forgery and handed him over to the airport police for further investigation. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : PUNE: The city Crime Branch arrested rickshaw driver Bandu Namdeo Kave (49) and painter Anil Chandrakant Wabke (47), both from Janata vashat in Parvathi, on Saturday. Two country-made revolvers were recovered from them.

A police team — led by inspector Vijaysinh Gaikwad, received a tip-off that the duo would come to a place near the Shivajinagar state transport bus depot to sell fire arms.

The police took Kave and Wabke into custody on the grounds of suspicion and recovered the weapons and four cartridges, total worth Rs 6,080, from their possession. A case under the relevant sections of the Arms Act was registered at the Shivajinagar police station.

The police team, under the guidance of ACP Sangramsinh Nishandar, included inspector Vijaysinh Gaikwad, assistant police inspector Ashok Shelke and policemen Rajendra Marne, Sunil Pawar, Chandrakant Jagtap, Fakkadrao Waghchoure, Yogesh Jagtap and Narendra Parkhi. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More