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TOI : PUNE: A city-based advocate has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against the state government for failing to curb illegal land dealing and proliferation of land mafia in Pune.

Dinesh Gonjare has filed the PIL in the Bombay high court saying that land mafia in Pune are holding all to ransom. They are not only responsible for unprecedented hike in the real estate prices, but also for the inflationary situation citizens are trapped in.

Apart from the state government, revenue minister, divisional commissioner, district collector and superintendent of police have been named as respondents.

The PIL has sought that the HC issue an appropriate writ, order or direction under Article 226 of the Constitution directing the respondents in pursuance of the principles of transparency and also in invocation of the spirit of the RTI, or reply on sworn affidavits to the “serious charges” levelled against them.

The court has directed the respondents to file their reply to the PIL on or before June 7.
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TOI : PUNE: A 30-year-old labourer fell to his death from the fifth floor of a residential building that was under construction at Pimple-Gurav here on Thursday.

Shivanna Talwar was working in the absence of proper lighting arrangements when he lost his balance and fell nearly 50 feet below. He was taken to the Yashwantrao Chavan hospital at Pimpri and later shifted to the Sassoon hospital. However, he died early on Friday.

On Sunday, TOI had reported that a woman labourer was killed at a construction site at Balewadi when a cement-laden handcart that was being lifted by a trolley snapped and fell on her.

The Sangvi police have arrested the contractor, Mukund Ramling Kokare (29), of more vasti in Chikhli, on charges of negligence leading to Talwar’s death. Investigations have revealed that Kokare had taken no proper measures to ensure the safety of workers at the site. The contractor was, however, later released on bail.

Talwar’s tragic death has again brought to the fore the oft-repeated concern over the safety of workers at construction sites. The city is witnessing an unprecedented boom in the construction industry with a large number of projects particularly coming up in the fringe areas.

The police said the incident occurred around 11.30 pm at the site being developed by Vinayak Enterprises. The company had outsourced the construction work to the contractor, who had not taken any precautionary measures, the police added.

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TOI : PUNE: Bharatiya Janata Party corporator Ujwal Keskar has strongly objected to the civic standing committee’s nod to a proposal to outsource road projects to a developer. Under the plan, the developer will get a concession in the building premium fee charged by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) in return.

A proposal to allot a road project tender worth Rs 42 crore in Kharadi to Panchsheel developers was approved by the standing committee last Tuesday.

Pune municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi had defended the move saying it will lead to several public-private partnerships (PPP) for undertaking important road projects in undeveloped areas.

Speaking to mediapersons on Monday, Keskar said that he was not against PPP per se, but was opposed to the clandestine way in which the proposal was tabled without properly informing corporators.

“Such an important proposal amounts to a policy decision and should, in fact, be placed before the general body,” Keskar said.

Keskar has written to Pardeshi, demanding why the option of granting transfer of development rights (TDR) was not considered by the civic administration.

He further pointed out that the PMC would first have to acquire land to build the road.

“Since the road falls in a fringe village area for which the Development Plan has not yet been cleared by the state government, how the PMC can acquire the land,” Keskar questioned.

He asserted that this policy will also lead to unequal development, as developers will prefer to build roads only in areas of their choice.

“Moreover, if the PMC has money to give away by way of concessions to developers, why hasn’t it implemented the proposals for the inner and outer ring road projects for so many years,” Keskar asked.

Keskar has demanded that a detailed discussion should be held on the issue before a…More

TOI : PUNE: Abhijit Kamble, a scientist at the city-based Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) of R&DE (E), a premier Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratory, has received the DRDO Young Scientist of the Year 2007 award.

Kamble received the award for his outstanding contribution in the project titled, ‘Design and development of a real-time operating system based, distributed and mission critical launcher control system for an underwater platform’.

The project is the first of its kind in the country and the first time an input-output intensive process control system has been successfully developed within the country for marine application. This control system has features like fault-tolerant hardware design, component level/module level/system level redundancy and state-of-the-art communication interfaces.

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TOI : PUNE: The students of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) have once again proved their worth with two of its films bagging awards at the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA) awards in Mumbai recently.

‘Chasing Angelina Jolie’, a documentary by Saurav Dey, has won the best student documentary (Golden Trophy) award. It is based on the star’s shooting schedule in Pune and the filmmakers’ attempts to catch her live in action.

Another movie ‘Haravalele Indradhanushya’ (lost rainbow) by Dheeraj Meshram of the FTII has won the best short fiction film (Golden Trophy) and best screenplay (Silver Trophy) awards. The movie is about two brothers, one of whom suffers from guilt and is finally able to relieve himself from it.

The awards were presented by noted film director Jabbar Patel and Kuldeep Sinha on Saturday evening.

Incidentally, the IDPA is celebrating its golden jubilee this year.

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