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TOI : PUNE: Activists of Human Rights and Law Defenders (HRLD) are up in arms over the district court’s alleged refusal to allow inspection of records under section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 on Monday.

HRLD members filed an application to request information on the number of domestic violence cases filed in Pune District from 2005 and their outcome. The application, filed under Section 4 of RTI Act, 2005, was rejected outright by a district court registrar.

“Section 4 allows the applicant to inspect the original records of the court. They are not allowing us to view the original records, and are insisting on sending the information to us by post,” said Swati Darvatkar, one of the applicants.

“We need to view the original records to ensure authenticity of the data. We want to make use of RTI,” said Tejaswita Dalvi, another applicant.

Earlier, the applicants had approached the court on Friday with the same request. However, it was turned down because the application was not presented in the right format.

When TOI contacted registrar Eknath Hadap, who refused to accept the application under Section 4, he said, “We have not refused any information. We are here to help people. But I am unaware of any provision that allows the applicant to view the original records.”

The applicants are students doing a month-long summer internship with HRLD. “Let them approach me as students, with a letter from their college. I will certainly help them out. We have helped many such students earlier,” said Hadap. Insisting that they do not need to file an RTI application for the required information, he said, “They can approach me either as students or as citizens. Not as both.”

Human Rights lawyer Asim Sarode who heads HRLD said, “They make people run from pillar to post to file…More

TOI : PUNE: Following the furore over appointment of NCP activist Babasaheb Galande as transport director of Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML), the civic activists on Monday used the Right to Information Act (RTI) demanding PMPML Managing Director Subrao Patil to disclose under on what basis the appointment was made.

Activists Vivek Velankar, Sujit Patwardhan and others approached Patil on Monday with the demand. “We asked him what was the procedure followed. We have also sought to know how many applications were received and who were the applicants. This information has to be disclosed suo-moto by the authority under section 4 1(b) and (c) of RTI,” Velankar said. Patil assured the activists that the information would be made available to them on Tuesday.

The issue has been embroiled into controversy since Friday, when it was announced that Galande, who is associated with Nationalist Congress Party, has been appointed on the post of transport director as one of the experts. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : In times when the city’s autorickshaw drivers often make headlines for robbing or assaulting passengers, auto driver Kisan Dikhoba Nivangune (48) is part of a rare and treasured breed.

This is what Mumbai-based veteran newsphotographer Vikas Khot and his wife Renuka discovered last week when they left their bag in his rickshaw. Nivangune not only returned the bag, containing cash and jewellery totalling around Rs 50,000, but also firmly refused the Rs 500 award that the Khots offered him after that.

An auto driver for the past 25 years, Nivangune ferries children to and from school and caters to other passengers only when the schools close for vacations.

This is not the first time that he has done something like this. Nivangune reportedly returned a bag containing nearly Rs 85,000 that a passenger had left behind in his auto last Diwali.

It was on May 5 that the Khots came to Pune for some personal work after attending a function in Ahmednagar. They boarded Nivangune’s auto at to go to a hotel near Sambhaji chowk.

“We had five bags with us and that did not make things easy, apart from the fact that we were also not sure about the address of the hotel,” says Vikas.

While alighting from the auto, Renuka forgot to take a bag she had kept in the back-seat. It was only after a good 45 minutes that they realised that the bag was missing.

They then rushed to the nearest police station, the Balgandharva police chowky. The havaldar-in-charge there, Anil Chopade, asked them to wait for some time before registering a complaint.

“I asked them to hold on for about 5-10 minutes before filing a complaint, hoping that the auto driver would return the valuables before that,” says Chopade. “But at the same time, I knew that such…More

TOI : PUNE: Startling this may sound for a university that is often referred as the ‘Oxford of the East’, but over 70 per cent of the 474 colleges under the University of Pune (UoP) lack the requisite infrastructure and academic standards to qualify for a permanent affiliation to the university.

Permanent affiliation to a university is crucial for a college to establish physical (infrastructure), academic and financial stability -prime concerns for students seeking admissions to higher studies.

Such affiliation not only sets the college free of the annual time-consuming ritual of visits by the university’s local inquiry committee (for renewal of temporary affiliations) but also enables the college to draw funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC). It also qualifies the college for an autonomous status.

Permanent affiliation ensures that the college concerned has at least 50 per cent of its teaching staff as permanent employees - meaning academic stability.

Last week, the UoP academic council gave its nod for permanent affiliation to 23 colleges. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More

TOI : (From left) Savita, Manisha and Savitri SANGLI: Savita (22) doesn’t remember when she last stepped out of the house. She says she is ashamed to face the world - ashamed for no fault of hers. Savita and her two sisters, Manisha (13) and Savitri (11), are suffering from an extremely rare genetic disorder, which has seen a profusion of thick black hair on their face and body. Only 60 such cases have been detected worldwide and four of them are from Sangli.

“I have six girls, of which these three suffer from this disorder,” says mother Anita Raut, whose husband Sambhaji passed away last year. “Life is hell for my girls as they can’t go out and lead a normal life.” Anita is the only breadwinner of the family, earning Rs 50 a day as a farm labourer. Clearly, she is finding it difficult to cope with the situation.

“We had to request the teachers and parents to allow our girls to attend the village school. But children teased them, labelling them bhoot (ghost) and monkey,” says mother Anita. While Savita managed to appear for the tenth standard exams, Manisha and Savitri are unwilling to go to school. However, their mother insists on educating them.

Savita decided not to continue her education as that would mean stepping out of the village to attend college. Her little experience of facing the outside world was shocking. “I had to go to Tasgaon to give my tenth standard exams as my village, Kavthekand, has no exam centre. Everywhere I went, people either cringed in fear or laughed, jeered and taunted me. I got so depressed that I coudn’t write my papers and failed. Now I don’t want to step out of house,” she says. Print Save EMail Write to Editor Get personalised news s…More