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TOI : PUNE: A gang of armed dacoits looted Rs 7.79 lakh from a BPCL-run petrol pump at Varve Budruck on Pune-Satara highway after confining seven people into a room on early Monday morning.

The Pune rural police have launched a massive nakabandi operation in the district and sent teams to neighbouring districts also to trace the culprits.

According to the police, a gang of seven-eight dacoits, armed with pistols, came in a white Tavera at 3.15 am, when pump attendants Umesh Chorge and Prashant Vichare were on duty. Noting that the other employees were asleep, the dacoits thrashed the two attendants and put then in a room where their five colleagues were sleeping. Hearing the commotion, the other employees got up. However, all of them, including a security guard, were beaten up and confined in the room.

The dacoits took Rs 7,79,417 kept at the counter and snatched some more cash from the attendants who had collected it from vehicle owners. After the dacoits left the scene, the petrol pump employees somehow opened the shutter of the room and informed the police.

Talking to TOI over phone on Monday, inspector Ganesh More, in-charge of the Rajgad police station, said that the vehicle used by the dacoits did not have any number plate. Security guard Maruti Rasal, who was armed with a single-bore rifle, was asleep when the dacoits struck. The incident happened because Rasal failed to remain alert, he added.

“Vichare was severely injured in the attack, while others sustained minor injuries. The police are preparing sketches of some of the dacoits. Based on the information received during the probe we are sending teams to other parts of the district as well as Ahmednagar and Solapur districts,” More said.

Meanwhile, BPCL operator Suresh Deshmukh of Varve Budruck, who supervises the functioning of the petrol pump, told TOI over…More

TOI : PUNE: Fearing backlash from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), North Indians in the city have cancelled the Chhath Puja celebrations on Tuesday, and are now going to Mumbai to attend the rituals.

Unlike last year when North Indians in the city got together to celebrate the occasion, this year, about 200 of them, all members of the Maharashtrian Uttar Bharatiya Ekta Manch, are travelling to Mumbai. There are about 4 lakh North Indians in the city.

“We decided not to celebrate the puja in the city this year solely because we wanted to avoid any kind of tensions of problems. Last year, the occasion was something not many were aware about. This year, however, it has become a subject of constant discussions. So, we do not want to take any risks,” Sangeeta Tiwari, president of the ekta manch, said. The association has about 3,000 active members.

Tiwari’s views are echoed by another member, Ravi Tiwari. “We want to keep the puja low profile. It’s a religious festival and we don’t want to politicise the issue. Hence, we are going to Mumbai,” he says. The authorities have promised protection during the puja in Mumbai, where the occasion is celebrated on a larger scale.

Calling himself a Maharashtrian at heart, Tiwari said his great grandfather had moved to Pune before Independence. “This association is only to bring Hindi speaking people together. We are all Maharashtrians since we have been living here for a long time. The name of the association only proves that,” he says.

Tiwari added that most members have travelled to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to celebrate the puja. Chhath Puja is a festival celebrated about six days after the Diwali mainly in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. “According to legends, Karna of the Mahabharata, who was sired by the sun…More

TOI : PUNE: Pune municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi has withdrawn the six-month-old decision to decentralise power to authorise ward offices to issue permissions for construction purposes. Despite the decision revoked, ward offices can still permit constructions up to 20,000 sq ft areas.

In a move to speed up development work and solve citizens’ problems at local level, the municipal commissioner had revamped the administrative set up by initiating the decentralisation process in May 2008. Under the new system, zonal commissioners and ward officers were given additional powers. More staff were transferred from the Pune Municipal Corporation headquarters to the ward offices. All rights to issue building permissions were given to ward offices.

However, after receiving complaints from builders and citizens groups, who wanted all building permissions to be issued from one place, Pardeshi had appointed a committee under additional commissioner to look into the matter.

The committee recommended the revival of the old system where all building permissions are issued from the city engineer’s office. Following the recommendation, Pardeshi recently issued a circular by which rights to issue build permission were handed over to the building permission department. However, the power to permit construction up to 20,000 sq ft has been retained with the ward offices.

Following the latest developments, the building permission department of the municipal corporation will now be well-equipped with officials handling four different zones, so that there is no unnecessary delay in issuing permissions.

“The decentralisation procedure did not work as citizens had to shunt between ward offices and the main building. Complains poured in from all quarters and the commissioner had to withdraw the decision,” an official from the civic building permission department said.
B…More

TOI : PUNE: Pune-based Rakesh Dhawade, arrested on Sunday by the state ATS investigating the Malegaon blast, is an arms and armour expert who has been collecting, studying, documenting and conserving historical Indian weapons.

His collection of historical arms and armour includes nearly 2,000 items.

Some of the rare articles forming part of Dhawade’s collection are a sword, approximately 300 years old, with the Devi Kavach ‘stotra’ inscribed on its hilt; a 700-year-old Nepali sword belonging to a royal family; a matchlock gun, over 300 years old; and spears and armour for women.

Dhawade’s ancestors were primarily engaged in the manufacture of weapons during the age of Chhatrapati Shivaji. The Dhawade clan also finds mention in the Shivcharitra, considered the most authentic document on the great Maratha king, as well as in the Peshwa archives. Fond of fashioning weapons from copper wires since childhood, Dhawade’s talent for making imitations of Indian weapons received support from his school teachers in Pune.

In an interview to TOI in 2005 about his collection of arms and armour, Dhawade had declared, “I was born to promote and propagate the richness of Indian historical arms to GenNext.”

According to him, he is the only Indian member of the Arms and Armour Society, London. He was also a consultant for the Aamir Khan-starrer ‘The Rising’, centred on the 1857 Uprising hero Mangal Pandey, where he had provided guidance on the weapons used in Pandey’s era.

“No other country has as much variety of weapons as India has had. Although these weapons are outdated today, they spell out the metallurgy, sociology, economy and even the psychology of their respective eras,” he had state.

Pursuing his passion, Dhawade has traversed India twice and visited the UK, Russia and Tajikistan in search of weapons.

On his way back to Pune after participating in an…More

TOI : PUNE: The city has always been known for its creative talent, and its famous twin Mumbai for the media and entertainment industry. However, NASSCOM’s Lavanya Jayaram feels the multimedia business is now shifting base from Mumbai to Pune, thanks to improved connectivity.

“It is now possible to provide better work environment to multimedia application developers in Pune and reduce the overheads as against the situation in Mumbai,” she said speaking exclusively with the TOI.

“Pune is fast progressing as a multimedia hub. The talent here is backed by necessary social infrastructure and the right training facilities. The city has already taken the lead in developing and promoting itself as an animation and gaming hub,” Lavanya added.

And the facts confirm the trend. In last two years, 4-5 animation giants have shifted base from Mumbai and Bangalore to Pune. Chetan Deshmukh, committee member of the Marhatta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture’s (MCCIA) animation company said, “Big Animation, Anibrain, Krayon pictures, Jump Games are just a few of the many biggies that have shifted to Pune. Besides, experts from international animation giants like Dreamworks regularly visit the city to conduct workshops and seminars. The township of Nanded city on the outskirts of Pune is coming up with a gaming park too. The acceptance that animation industry has received in the city has laid the platform to make Pune an animation hub in the country over the next few years,” Deshmukh said.

As per the NASSCOM 2007 report, the Indian animation industry was estimated at $354 mn in 2006 and is expected to reach $869 mn by 2010. Key findings of the report include an expected compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 per cent over 2006-2010, and a CAGR of 72 per cent for gaming. Animation and gaming represent at $80 billion market worldover, projected for reach $123 billion.

Commenting…More

TOI : PUNE: Taking a fresh swipe against the North Indian population in the state, Shiv Sena on Monday alleged that their burgeoning population in the metropolis was adding to the travel woes of ‘Marathi Manoos’

“It is an irony that the Marathi ‘manoos’ to whom Mumbai belongs, finds it hard to even enter the local train thanks to the North Indian commuters, who stand in the door blocking passage into the compartment. But broad-minded Maharashtrians tolerate all this,” the Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamna’ said on Monday in an editorial comment.

The paper decried the hue and cry raised over the mob lynching of Dharam Dev in a local train recently and said, “This episode had nothing to do with Marathi-Bihari divide as was projected by some elements. In Mumbai’s local trains hundreds of such incidents take place daily and even Marathi people too get beaten up.”

The paper also condemned the reported attack on a Marathi woman IAS officer named Ashvini Thakre in Poorniya district of Bihar and said not a single Bihari leader spoke against it.

It also criticised the reported refusal of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to attend an NDA Kisan rally organised in Haryana because Shiv Sena too had been invited for the same.

No Shiv Sena leader actually attended the rally called by Omprakash Chautala. But Nitish Kumar chose to make a political stunt, the editorial said.

“These pseudo secularists are comfortable in the company of Imam of Jama Masjid or Muslim league. But they hate the nationalist Shiv Sena,” it alleged.

“When Bihar was ravaged by the fury of Kosi in spate, help reached there from Mumbai. A medical team went to Bihar and one Dr Chandrakant Patil died there while discharging his duty towards the hapless Biharis,” it added. B…More