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TOI : PUNE: The residents of a locality in Nigdi have come up with a cheap-and-best anti-theft mechanism. Each of the 100 residences in the all-bungalow colony on the fringe of Pimpri-Chinchwad township is equipped with a whistle to thwart thefts.

Anyone spotting a suspicious element is simply required to blow the whistle to alert neighbours. And the idea has been a major hit as incidents of thefts and burglaries have come down considerably, claim residents. The whistles were distributed among every household about two months ago along with instructions on how to use it!

Nandakishor Mhalas, who took the initiative in this regard, said, “We were fed up with continuous thefts and burglaries. We had to find some cheap and effective way to combat the menace. When someone proposed the idea of distributing whistles with a token contribution of Rs 10, everyone took to it wholeheartedly.”

“Before the distribution of whistles, the locality witnessed at least one big burglary and several petty thefts every month. But in the last two months, three attempts to break into closed houses have been foiled,” he added.

The locality has been a target of petty thefts as well as big burglaries for years now. “It is commonplace to wake up in the morning and find that the drainage cover is missing. Sometimes, taps also get stolen in the night,” said Prakash Deshpande, a resident of the area. His family recently lost utensils kept outside the house for drying.

The initiative has come as a big boon, particularly for elderly couples. Dnyaneshwar Utpat (81) lives with his wife in a two-storey bungalow. “There have been two attempts to break into the house already, and one big burglary in the last few years. Waking up to missing water metres and electricity metres does not even qualify as a ‘theft’ any longer,” he rued. The whistles have…More

TOI : BARAMATI: Even after a policy change in November 2006 by the government to allow non-governmental organisations (NGO) and voluntary organisations to set up community radios stations (CRS), there has been a lukewarm response to the concept in the state. Of the 34 CRSs operational in the country, only three are in the state, including two in Pune and one in Baramati.

The Supreme Court of India ruled in 1995 that “airwaves are public property”. But initially, only educational (campus) radio stations were allowed, under somewhat stringent conditions. Following the judgement, in 2004, India’s first community radio station, Anna FM, was launched. It is run by the Education and Multimedia Research Centre (EM²RC) and all programmes are produced by the students of media sciences at Anna University.

However, only three CRS in the state have been operational as against eight in Tamil Nadu, the highest in the country. This was highlighted at the regional two-day western region consultation on CRS organised by the Vidya Pratishthan’s Institute of Information Technology in Baramati on Monday. Various officials of the Union ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) were present for the workshop. The workshop was also attended by individuals, NGOs and educational institutions from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

According to B. Brahma of the MIB, “The awareness among people about CRS is very low. Most NGOs are ill-equipped and uninformed about community radio.”

All the community radio projects in India have been grant-driven and locally broadcast. The greatest challenge will be for the NGOs running these stations to make them viable, rather than leaning on endless grants. The radio policy allows five minutes of advertisements for every hour of programming, barely enough to cover costs.

P.K. Bisnoi, director, broadcasting, who was also present at the workshop said, “After the government revised the policy, we received only 206 applications from across the country….More

TOI :
PUNE: Members of the Muslim and Christian communities residing at Vishrantwadi have threatened to launch an agitation if the state government delays its decision to provide a burial ground at Vishrantwadi any further.

Addressing a press conference recently, former Congress corporator Madhukar Jakkal said in 2004, the proposal for a burial ground for Muslim and Christian communities was proposed. However, since then the file has got stuck in red tape.

“Of the two acre reserved land at Vishrantwadi, one acre each was proposed for burial ground for Muslim and Christian communities. All formalities were completed at the civic and divisional commissioner level and the file was forwarded to the state. The file has since been struck at the revenue department.” Jakkal said.

He added that the Muslim community members in the area have to go to Jai Jawannagar, Yerawada and Khadki Bazaar for burial, while Christian community members have to go to as far as Hadapsar, Dapodi or Yerawada. Population of both the communities is on rise in the areas and community members are suffering due to red tapism.

“Despite completing the formalities, the proposal file is making rounds in mantralaya. If the state fails to move the file and make decision on the ground, the Muslim and Christian communities will launch an agitation,” said Jakkal. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: The crime branch sleuths on Monday recovered three guns and 12 live cartridges after arresting three persons of a private security agency. Investigations have revealed that the suspects allegedly prepared fake licences in the name of district magistrate of Ramban in Jammu & Kashmir and purchased three guns worth Rs 58,200.

The suspects were identified as Lal Shambhu Pande (30), Manojkumar Rajendrasingh Gupta (30) and Sanjaykumar Shribhagwan Shah (28), all from Bihar and residents of Koregaon Park in the city.

Talking to TOI , inspector Ram Pathare of the crime branch (unit II) said the police got a tip-off that three security men of a private agency had purchased guns by submitting fake licences. “We nabbed them and inquired about their licences.

They showed us the firearm licences issued by the district magistrate of Ramban in Jammu & Kashmir. We immediately sent a fax to Ramban and found that the licences were fake,” Pathare said. They were later arrested for possessing illegal weapons, Pathare added. Print EMail DiscussNew B…More

TOI : PUNE: Software services major Infosys will take the count of its employees at Pune campus to 38,700 in the next two years, an addition of 13,000 to its present strenght of 25,700. The company is in the midst of completing the construction of its second campus at Rajeev Gandhi Information Technology Park, Hinjewadi, at a capital outlay of Rs 1500 crore.

T.V. Mohandas Pai, director and head of human resources function at Infosys told media persons on Monday that the Pune development centre has now left behind the company’s Bangalore headquarters in terms of employees engaged. “Next major growth is expected in centres such as Pune, Chennai or Hyderabad,” Pai said.

Infosys has two locations within Hinjewadi Park. The first one is a 25 acre campus, where the company employs 4321 people out which 1046 are in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) segment. In the second phase, the company has planned 21400 seats, whereas the number of employees is 19000 out of which 5000 are in the BPO operations, Pai informed, adding that the investment level is at Rs 1052 crore.

Infosys will invest another Rs 500 crore over the next two years to create additional 13000 seats in the Special Economic Zone in the second phase, Pai said. the entire investment and expansion will be complete in the next 24 months he said.

The company is looking at Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) and Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) as new areas of business opportunity, as the law firms as well as corporates, mainly in the United States, have begun outsourcing of legal documentation work to India. “We estimate the current market size of LPO segment at $ 200 million and expect it to rise to $ 2 billion in four years’ time,” Pai added.

Pai said Pune centre has been contributing strongly in terms of company’s exports and exports…More

TOI :
PUNE: A Sessions court on Monday granted bail to former Maharashtra minister Dharmarao Baba Atram, charged with killing a ‘Chinkara’ deer under the Wildlife Act.

Pronouncing his order Additional Sessions judge Sanjay Patil directed the accused not to leave the country without permission of the court and not to tamper with evidence and witnesses in the case.

Atram and five other accused, who too were granted bail, were asked to furnish surety of Rs 20,000.

The judge who heard arguments of defence counsel and public prosecutor for and against the grant of bail on Saturday had deferred the order till today.

The judge also instructed the accused to report regularly at the Magistrate’s court at Saswad where he was first produced after being arrested on August 30 by Forest Department officials and remanded to judicial custody.

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