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TOI : PUNE: With an aim to reduce losses caused by corrosion to infrastructure and the defence sector, an institute to study the phenomenon will be set up in the city in the coming year.

Manufacturing sector professionals, engineers and defence officials will benefit from the study of corrosion and it’s solutions undertaken at the institute, vice-chancellor of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) L.M. Patnaik said.

Patnaik was speaking at a press meet to announce an international workshop on corrosion. The workshop will be
organised by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) in association with the DIAT in November.

“Corrosion is one of the major problems affecting our infrastructure and causes losses of around Rs 1,15,000 crore annually. The problem should be given more consideration. The institute will play a major role in creating awareness about it,” Patnaik said.

The institute will come up at the DIAT campus in Girinagar, Khadakwasla, and will be jointly run by the DIAT and NACE.

Spelling out details about the institute, NACE officebearer Rajan Bahri said, “The institute, the first in the country for studying corrosion, is expected to come up in an year’s time at a cost of around Rs 4 crore, which includes Rs 2 crore for the laboratory. No government funds will be used and funds, instead, will be raised with the help of industries.”

“The current syllabi of educational institutes lay less stress on corrosion studies. The syllabus of the upcoming institute will give more emphasis to the manufacturing and defence sectors. There will be 30 seats for the course and it will be of 21 days’ duration,” Bahri said, adding that the a vocational course certificate will be awarded at the completion of the course. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: The University of Pune (UoP) launched an e-service for students and teachers on July 20, called ‘Sanshodhan Online’ to enable online filing of research proposals for the year 2008-09. The UoP, which has marked Rs 8 crore for funding college- and university-level research projects, announced August 16 as the deadline for filing these proposals.

For the newly introduced online service, a prospective researcher has to access either of the two websites: www.unipune.ernet.in or www.unipuneonline.in for filing their proposals.

Post-online submission, the candidate has to take a print of the same and get it duly signed by his/her department head or college principal. The signed hardcopy of the proposal should reach the BCUD office by August 16.

In a letter to the heads of university departments and principals of all affiliated colleges and recognised institutions, UoP’s board of college and university development (BCUD) chief Pandit Vidyasagar said that the e-service will also help create updated electronic data on various research projects in progress and publications in international and national journals.

Since 2006, the UoP introduced the scheme to encourage college and varsity-level research projects by teachers and students. The university provides Rs 50,000 to Rs 3.5 lakh for each project, depending upon the proposal.

Close to 5,000 teachers and students from the 50-odd UoP departments, 474 colleges and some 250 recognised institutions directly or indirectly benefit from the scheme, the letter stated. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: The search for unexplored business opportunities is leading shrewd businessmen to holy places nowadays. As if charging for vehicle parking or footwear keeping at temples were not enough, traders outside the Vitthal-Rukhmini mandir in Pandharpur have started charging money for keeping mobile phones ever since the shrine trust banned carrying the electronic gadget on temple premises.

Ever since the ban was put in place a few months ago, devotees found it difficult to get a safe place to keep their mobile phones when they go into the temple. Initially, the flower sellers and sweet vendors outside the premises offered the service in addition to keeping footwear. Later, around 200 shopkeepers plunged in to exploit the business opportunity and officially started keeping the mobile phones for a charge. Most of them give receipts also for the same.

“We charge Rs 5 for keeping the mobile safe and issue receipts to the devotee. For identification purpose, we wrap the counterfoil of the receipt around the mobile and keep another copy in our own records,” said Sanjay Atre, who started a mobile keeping unit outside the temple premises. The regular visitors to the temple are rendered the services free of cost, he added.

Since the business of mobile-keeping involves high risk, we take all possible precautions before providing the service, Atre said.

Uday Indapurkar, who runs a ‘mobile locker shoppe’, said he ensured that mobiles were switched off before they were accepted for safe-keeping. “Around 100 devotees use my locker unit daily.” Even if the receipt was lost, we don’t hassle the devotee. We hand over the hand set to him/her after necessary cross-checks, he added. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: Faculty members from engineering colleges in the city will participate in a unique training session on ‘Occupational safety and health’ (OSH), which begins at the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) from July 28.

Dilip T. Shah, an associate professor (OSH) at the North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, US, will conduct the six-day programme, which would focus on ‘training the trainers’ to incorporate OSH as an integral part of engineering studies.

The objective is to pass on the knowhow and make engineering students adept with OSH issues to check instances of onsite accidents or harmful exposure at actual work sites.

Cities like Pune have a thriving network of industry, especially the construction segment, which is going through a boom phase. At the same time, instances of accidents like construction workers falling to their death from heights have been on the rise in the recent past.

Shah told TOI on Sunday that the Factories Act of 1948 in India provides for enough OSH standards but, few employers seem to follow them for varied reasons. “In a profit-driven environ, there is a lack of apt expertise needed for ensuring enforcement of these standards,” said Shah.

For instance, he said, in case of a chemical unit, the employer is required to provide adequate information on factors like exposure evaluation.

Shah said the meet would enable the faculty to understand the importance of incorporating safety issues in their lectures. For example, a mechanical engineering faculty would lay stress on building safer machinery where worker can not reach hazardous areas.

Similarly, he said, an electrical engineering faculty would emphasise the importance of following the government established guidelines in design and installation of electrical machinery or powerlines; or the construction faculty would emphasis proper use of scaffolding to avoid fall from heights.

The meet will cover a…More

TOI : PUNE: The Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences (SIHS) organised an awareness workshop on accreditation standards for small hospitals, nursing homes and blood banks in association with the National Accreditation Board of Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH) and Quality Council of India (QCI) on July 27. The workshop was attended by 250 delegates, from private and the public sector hospitals, nursing homes and blood blanks.

The benefits of accreditation for the common man are obvious. The standards of operations at all levels are set, so the hospital staff is motivated and more satisfied which translates into better patient care. Accreditation also provides an objective system of empanelment by insurance and other third parties, observed Rajiv Yervadekar, director of SIHS.

Some of the components discussed for individual nursing homes included access assessment and continuity of care, care of patients, management of medication, patient rights and education, hospital infection control, continuous quality improvement, responsibilities of management, etc.

Rajiv Yeravdekar, director, SIHS, highlighted the importance of standardisation and accreditation of healthcare organisations.
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TOI : PUNE: In this day of e-mail, faxes, mobile phones and other forms of instantaneous communication, there’s not much room left for the humble telegram. What once was a quick, cheap and efficient way of sending messages to remote corners of the country is today rapidly running out of time.

According to the Pune telegraph office, only 350 to 400 telegrams are sent each day. Over the last 5 or 6 years, the office has registered a decrease of 15 per cent in the number of telegrams sent. With this reduction, the number of offices in the city has also decreased. There are merely three offices which offer the service, the central telegraph office and sub-telegraph offices at Shivajinagar and Pimpri. These offices deal with over 8,000 telegrams a month.

According to an official, the demand for telegrams in the city has gone down drastically in the last five years. The service has been hit hard by the increasing use of advanced communication devices.

Apart from the state government offices and defence services, no other sector has much use for telegraph services, says the official. State government offices make use of telegraph services primarily to send issued orders and circulars. Government offices, together with the military services, share over 90% of the total volume of telegraph business.

“These days, private players no longer do bulk bookings for telegraph services like they used to,” says an official. “In the last two years, not a single tie-up for bulk booking has taken place.” Individuals who send telegrams are also few and far between.

The official said that the telegraph department has made available a phonograph service in addition to counter booking. A phonograph service allows the booking of a telegram to be made via telephone call. With over 60% share of the total number of telegrams sent, the phonograph service has registered…More

TOI : PUNE: A ban on covering faces by women while driving motorbikes has irked several women’s organisations in the city.

Satyapal Singh, who took charge of the City Police Commissioner last week has disapproved women covering their faces while driving.

The contention of Singh is that terrorists can take advantage of the practice to disguise themselves.

Many college girls and office-going women here cover their faces from head to chin to protect themselves from heat and dust while riding bikes.

A large number of women, including mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale and several Women’s organisations have opposed the police ban.

The controversy also hit the blogosphere with girls protesting the ban on blogs and social networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook.

Bloggers said that the practice was important to protect themselves from the rising pollution in the city.

Pune, which reportedly has the maximum number of two wheelers on the roads, is listed among the most polluted cities in the country.

A netizen on her post has ridiculed the assumption that terrorist commits crime by wearing scarves.

On his previous posting in Nagpur, the police commissioner had carried out a public campaign against female bikers covering their faces. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More