News

TOI : PUNE: Tension prevailed at Harjeevan Hospital, near Sarasbaug when 18-year-old Yogesh Rokde was declared dead, five minutes after he was admitted on Wednesday afternoon for restlessness.

The victim’s brother has held Dattawadi-based general practitioner Subhash Badhe responsible who allegedly administered him the wrong injection. However, the accused doctor has pleaded innocence.

After Yogesh’s death, Badhe was summoned to the hospital where the relatives of the dead manhandled him. Police was called who immediately took control of the situation.

“Yogesh was very health conscious. He used to hit the gym regularly and had no bad habits,” said Nitin Rokde, victim’s brother. He was feeling weak so he consulted general practitioner Subhash Badhe, who has a clinic near Dandekar bridge. “When Yogesh came back home, he started vomiting and became extremely restless,” said Nitin. We moved him to Harjeevan Hospital soon after where he was declared dead, he added.

“He was extremely restless and his pulse was sinking. We gave him cardiac massage and put him on a ventilator, but he died after five to ten minutes,” said anaesthetist Manohar Sheth, who is also a managing trustee of Harjeevan hospital.

Subhash Badhe, who is an ayurveda practitioner, said that Yogesh had complained of weakness and body ache. “I gave him some paracetamol tablets, electrol powder and administered a B-Complex injection to boost his energy level. There was no negligence on my part. I am sure the post-mortem report will prove me innocent,” he said.

Notably, the brother of the victim showed media an injection ampoule of Fenak- a sodium diclofenac injection IP manufactured by Delhi-based Ranbaxy Laboratories, which he claims was given by Badhe. But Badhe said that he gave him a B-complex injection. However when asked the brand name of that injection, he said he cannot recollect it. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: The much-talked about Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) Dilip Vengsarkar Cricket Academy in Thergaon is all set to start in the first week of October.

Veteran cricketer and chairman of national selection committee, Dilip Vengsarkar made this announcement during inspection of the academy site on Tuesday. “A Twenty-20 match between Mumbai and Rest of India will be held here most probably after the Australia series. I have spoken to the Indian cricket players. Sachin Tendulkar will captain the Mumbai team while Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead the Rest of India.”

Vengsarkar rued the fact that despite having abundant talent, Pune failed to produce international players because it has no full-fledged ground. “The academy ground will fulfil that need and will give exposure to raw talent,” he hoped.

It may be noted that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed in May 2007 between the PCMC and the Dilip Vengsarkar Cricket Academy (DVCA) to start the facility in Thergaon. Vengsarkar added that selection trials for boys and girls will be held in the age group of 10 to 17. There will be a separate net for girls. Each batch will have 30 kids and coaches will be from Pune. There would be two training sessions daily - from 7 am to 9.30 am and from 3.30 to 6 pm.

“Our aim is to provide coaching to youngsters up to 17 years of age. We will have two groups of students—under-14 and under-17 with 60 students in each group. They will be given free kits and clothing,” said Vengsarkar. The ground has a boundary of 70 yards and is being made as per international standards. The PCMC is preparing the ground and the pavilion. The pavilion has a capacity to accommodate 100 people.

“I will devote three days a week to the academy. Coaches from Mumbai and Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA)…More

TOI : PUNE: With the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) granting approval, construction of the much-awaited Nashik Phata flyover on the old Pune-Mumbai highway will begin in September, Pimpri Chinchwad municipal commissioner Ashish Sharma told TOI on Wednesday.

Sharma said this last major hurdle was crossed when, two days ago, the NHAI gave its approval. It may be noted that the railways and the defence authorities had already given their consent for the plan. He said that the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) would soon invite tenders for the project.

Meanwhile, the land acquisition office has sent notices to the owners of 48 shops and houses, which fall along the flyover route, to voluntarily remove their structures till August 7. “The land acquisition process will be over soon. But this is only a minor hurdle and will not hamper the flyover plan,” said Sharma.

Nashik Phata chowk is one of the busiest chowks on the Pune-Mumbai highway in the Pimpri-Chinchwad township. The Pune-Mumbai and the Pune-Nashik highways meet at this junction, which witnesses heavy traffic throughout the day. The civic body has widened the Pune-Mumbai highway from this chowk to Pimpri, while the widening of the highway from here to Kasarwadi is in progress.

A flyover was a long-pending requirement here to enable vehicles to pass through the chowk from Dapodi to Nigdi and vice-versa without having to stop anywhere.

Speaking to TOI, Sandeep Joglekar, a commuter from Chinchwad, said a flyover at this busy chowk would reduce the time wasted at the intersection waiting for the signal to turn green.

A commuter from Bhosari, Anil Naik, said that some motorists jump traffic signals increasing the risk of accidents at the Nashik Phata chowk. Sangeeta Bhalerao, a resident of the area, said the chowk was too wide and difficult to cross on foot. The flyover would reduce the…More

TOI : PUNE: A youth who was picked up by sleuths of the Mumbai crime branch recently, attempted suicide by drinking pesticide on Saturday morning.

Ayaz Khan (24), regained consciousness at the KEM Hospital on Wednesday. His family fears that Mumbai Police want to implicate him in the recent Ahmedabad blasts case.

In fact, Ayaz’s mother, Saira, has written to both Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) claiming that her son was picked up by Mumbai encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar and Sub-Inspector Praful Phadke from their Bhimpura residence on July 31 without any intimation to the Pune police.

“The Mumbai Police had no evidence against my son. Neither did they inform the Pune police nor did they make an entry in the station diary here,” she claimed in her letter to Patil and the NHRC.

Saira has further claimed that Ayaz was subjected to third-degree treatment in a Mumbai lock-up. She said he was told he would be killed in an encounter if he complained to anyone.

Ayaz’s elder brother, Feroz, was killed in an encounter by the Mumbai police in March this year. Saira said the Mumbai police have been gunning for Ayaz since then. Though Ayaz was picked up from his residence, his family was not officially informed about the arrest, the letter states.

Ayaz’s other brother, Fayaz, said he and his mother had gone to Mumbai to get Ayaz released. “Our lawyer represented Ayaz, following which he was released by the police on August 1. We were told by the police that they wanted to take Ayaz to Gujarat for investigations. We could only relate this to the recent Ahmedabad blasts,” he added.

However, Ayaz was again picked up by the Pune anti-terrorist squad (ATS) on the evening of August 3 from a cellphone shop in the Pune…More

TOI : PUNE: In a unique initiative to ensure that babies of working women are not deprived of breast milk, the Breastfeeding Promotion Network Council of Maharashtra, an organisation affiliated to the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI), is making efforts to start store rooms at working places where mothers could express and store milk for their babies.

The first such storage room is expected to be set up in Alibaug next week. The BPNI is also in discussions with corporate and private companies in other parts of the state, including Pune, to establish milk storage rooms.

Prashant Gangal of BPNI, Maharashtra told TOI that the idea was mooted by its members after rounds of discussions with working women. “Newborns of working women should not be deprived of mother’s milk. The idea of introducing crèches in offices is attractive but before that it is better to start with a storage room. If government and private offices and firms could provide a small room and storage facility like refrigerator, it would help mothers to express milk and store the same for their babies,” said Gangal who is a medical practitioner.

He added that expressing milk is also a great way to relieve engorged breasts. The idea is that mothers could take this milk back home or if possible some one from the family or a care-taker could feed this milk to the baby bringing them to the room whenever needed.

The first such storage room to come up in Alibaug (Raigad district) will be in the premises of the civil hospital and is expected to benefit women working at the Zilla Parishad and other government establishments in the locality. “We want more corporate offices in cities like Pune to come forward and accept the concept. This will represent the employers’ commitment to the well-being of their employees,” said Gangal. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : MUMBAI: Learning a lesson from the temple disaster three years ago at Mandhardevi Kalubai hill temple, Maharashtra’s civil administration decided to make use of information technology to manage the movements of millions of pilgrims who congregate each year in the temple town of Pandharpur.

As a part of the disaster management plan a Pune-based software company, Neeti Solutions, was recruited to monitor the pilgrims’ progress on real time basis, thereby protecting and guiding the pilgrims through their 240 km trek, spread over 20 days from Alandi (near Pune) to Pandharpur.

The Naina Devi Temple stampede in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday that killed 145 people has served as an eye opener for the local administration. It is looking for ways to eliminate or reduce such accidents by using the best possible methods.

Integrating IT in the disaster management plan is one way to mitigate accidents. However, apart from the modern technologies, one component that helps in the smooth flow of the pilgrims (or waarkaris) to Pandharpur is the organisation, management and administration of the groups during the pilgrimage.

Every year in the month of July people in Maharashtra undertake a holy pilgrimage called Waari where millions of people walk to Pandharpur to pay their respects to the deity Lord Vithal. It is one of the longest pilgrimages in India, and remarkably, in over 700 years of Waari (pilgrimage) tradition, no major chaos has ever been reported.

However, the people to be trained are the administrative officials, NGOs and government personnel who interact with the pilgrims. Disaster management experts think the system failed in Naina Devi because the people in charge were not adequately trained in crowd management.

Explaining how IT is used in crowd management Dr Parag Mankeekar, MD and CEO of Neeti Solutions said the software used by his organisation designs the entire disaster management protocol.
…More