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TOI : PUNE: Upping the culinary dimension of its politics, the Shiv Sena has roped in McDonald’s to sponsor a convention of prospective ‘Shiv Vada pav’ vendors in Mumbai, the party mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ announced on Sunday.

“An organization of vada pav vendors in Mumbai is being floated under the auspices of the Shiv Sena and the interested people should enroll their names at Sena Bhavan starting next week,” the paper said in the front page lead story.

“The convention, to be held next month in the metropolis, will deliberate on the standard formula to make the ‘Shiv vada pav’ before it hits the stalls and the salient feature of the gathering is the sponsorship of McDonald’s,” it said.

When the working president of the Sena Uddhav Thackeray came out with the plan to vend ‘Shiv vada pav’ some time back, the move drew flak from the state deputy chief minister and NCP leader R R Patil who said it would belittle the name and image of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji, the pride of Maharashtra.

The Sena had countered the criticism saying its Supremo Bal Thackeray had encouraged the sale of the snack.
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TOI : PUNE: With rains making a comeback, the number of people visiting the hill stations of Lonavla and Khandala has also increased. More than 3,000 tourists from Pune and Mumbai thronged Lonavla on Sunday.

The Lonavla city police had made elaborate arrangements to regulate traffic on the highway stretch as well as the road going towards Bhushi dam. Police authorities told TOI that due to the absence of rains in the past two to three weeks, the number of tourists visiting Lonavla had reduced.

However, after the arrival of rains once again, there has now been an increase in the number of tourists. The local trains coming from Pune to Lonavla were packed with hundreds of youth in the morning hours. This Sunday was a special day for them as it was also ‘friendship day’.

As part of the safety measure for tourists, the city police have been asking them to leave the Bhushi dam area by 6 pm. The police have been using loudspeakers to convey to the tourists that they should leave the area before it starts getting dark. Similarly, a steel net fence has also been installed on one side of the dam to prevent incidents of drowning.
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TOI : PUNE: For all the ten depot managers of the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML), August 1 was the deadline given to achieve the break-even point. Except for one depot, however, which claims to have achieved the task, all other depots are far behind their objective. All the depots have come out with their financial statements but the PMPML authorities are in no hurry to announce the results.

Apparently, on one hand, the task of achieving the break-even point appears to be too huge for the depots, and on the other, the depot managers are demanding that first, there should be standard rules and procedures to determine the income, expenditure and lose, so that the performance of each depot can be evaluated in a better way.

The financial statements of each depot are currently under scrutiny and the results are expected to be announced by August 15. “We do not want to announce any fake results,” PMPML chairman and managing director Subrao Patil said. But more than the results, Patil is happy that the efforts have started. At a meeting held on Friday, Patil told his depot managers to ensure that performance levels which have improved should not come down for any reasons.

Patil said the average earning per kilometre has increased from Rs 20 to nearly Rs 26. “We have reduced the dead mileage of buses, reduced trips on loss-making routes, and tried to increase earning on other routes by making changes in the routes,” he said.

Two months back, Patil had issued a hard-hitting letter to all depot managers, maintenance engineers and supervisors to start implementing measures for achieving the break-even point by August 1. He had asked the officers to start implementing innovative ideas to improve efficiency and services, and take daily reviews of works done.

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TOI : PUNE: A common modus operandi was employed to loot two people on consecutive days in the city recently.

In the first instance, Shivaji Ramayya, a businessman from Karnataka, was relieved of Rs 2.50 lakh by two unidentified persons who threw dirt on his shirt and while he was cleaning the filth, ran away with his money. The incident occurred near Panchali restaurant on J M road on Saturday morning.

Ramayya has a tiles manufacturing unit at Davangiri in Karnataka. He used to supply tiles to the traders in the city. On Friday, he came to Pune to collect his dues. The incident occurred on Saturday when he was on his way to Shivajinagar ST stand to catch a bus back home.

Ramayya went into the Pancahmi restaurant to clean his shirt. While he was cleaning, the duo decamped with his bag containing the cash. Sub-inspector Pramod Waghmare of Shivajinagar police station is investigating the case.

In another incident, Sangita Dhavale, a resident of Upper Bibvewadi, was looted in the same manner on Tilak road on Friday morning.

According to police, Dhavale withdrew Rs 50,000 from the Tilak road branch of Bank of India on Friday morning and was on her way home when mud was hurled at her. A boy gave her water to clean and while she was cleansing, he fled with her purse containing Rs 50,000. Assistant sub-inspector B Y Holkar is investigating the case.
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TOI : MUMBAI: The DGQA (Director General of Quality Assurance) at Pune, responsible for quality assurance of stores supplied to the Army, had placed 15 orders for supply of over 4,000 mudguards with Pune-based Sharma Enterprises. The mudguards were meant for BMPs (Russian origin Infantry Combat Vehicles).

The CBI has registered cases against junior technical officers (JTOs) B R Mehra and L S Sahane and a lower rung official, H P Khairnar. A case has also been registered against Sunil Sharma, proprietor of Sharma Enterprises and N Kalyan, director of Pune-based ELCA Quality Systems and Calibrations, which certified the quality of the mudguards.

The CBI acted on the information provided by Lt Col Akash Sachan, earlier posted with the DGQA’s Mumbai office. The CBI had earlier registered a case against the same firm based on Sachan’s complaint for supply of spurious non-skid chains, used in vehicles that operate in high altitude snow-bound areas.

Lt Col Sachan has been transferred to Jabalpur. He had challenged his transfer in the Bombay high court saying he was being punished for exposing the scam. He claimed in the petition that DGQA did not act despite having been informed about the substandard mudguards. The court has issued notices to the government asking to file a reply. The matter will come up for hearing on August 13.

BMPs are infantry combat vehicles used for ferrying troops into the battle field. These vehicles operate in conjunction with tanks and provide mobility to the infantry. The mudguards are made of aluminium sheets and filled with polyurethane foam to increase the buoyancy of these amphibious vehicles.
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