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TOI : PUNE: The Khadki police on Tuesday took custody of Sameer Kulkarni, arrested by the ATS probing the Malegaon bomb blast, from the Nashik jail for allegedly attacking pastor Peter David Silve at his residence at Shantiniketan society on Aundh road in 2007.

A police team led by inspector Pandurang Shahane (crime) took custody of Kulkarni. He is expected to be brought to Khadki on a transit warrant on Wednesday. Kulkarni will be produced before the Khadki cantonment court on Wednesday afternoon for obtaining police custody, Shahane said.

On June 7, 2008, three people went to Silve’s house on the pretext of felicitating him. They thrashed him with sticks and stumps. Silve had registered a case against unknown people under sections 323, 324 and 452 read with 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

Kulkarni went missing after police started to suspect him and efforts to trace him at his Bijaleenagar residence at Chinchwad and other places proved futile for over a year.

When asked how Kulkarni’s involvement in the case was revealed, the police said a sketch of one of the suspects, prepared on the basis of the description given by the pastor, matched with Kulkarni. The police claimed that the witnesses in the case have also identified the sketch as that of Kulkarni.

The investigations in the case was closed earlier with the police filing an ‘A’ summary before the court on the grounds that the suspects could not be traced. On November 10, the police obtained a copy of the summary report and a transit warrant for seeking Kulkarni’s custody.
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TOI : PUNE: The Indian Air Force’s (IAF) satellite to gather navigational information will be launched in July 2009. Describing the proposed satellite as “the IAF eye in the sky”, Air Chief Marshal F.H. Major said it would basically be used to gather navigational information.

Speaking after delivering the General B.C. Joshi memorial lecture at the University Pune on Tuesday, he said, “Our plans for future expansion have made it inevitable that we would have to utilise the realm of space.”

Asked how the world would react to this development, Major said many nations have already sent such satellites to collect necessary data. “It is the right time to send such a satellite,” he added. “The space traffic is increasing by the day and we will find it hard to get space if we delay things.”

He said, “While I am not a die-hard proponent of weaponisation of space, I am convinced that harnessing the capabilities that space provides, creates a force multiplier effect and increases effectiveness of our operations manifold.”

Noting that India has a well developed space programme, the Air Chief said it was his intention to harness the capability that space based assets provide and put in place structures and mechanisms to exploit enhanced capability.

About the usage of IAF airports for civilian aviation traffic and the traffic problem causing by that, Major said efforts are on to sort out these problems. Civilian air traffic problem can be sorted out by making some changes in the timings of these airports.

The IAF airports could be made available to civilian aircraft during the time when the IAF does not require them, he said.
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TOI : PUNE: The cross examination of 14 witnesses in the sensational murder case of orthopaedician Deepak Mahajan which has being referred to the district and sessions court here the Bombay high court has taken a new twist.

When the case came up for hearing before the district and sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi on Tuesday, defence lawyer Vidhyadhar Koshe moved two applications for including key prosecution witnesses Ketan Parekh and Rahul Bhosale among the accused in the case and for producing the accused before the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) for conducting an inquiry in respect of the properties owned by them which has being seized by the police.

Accused Leena Devasthali and her daughter Deepti Devasthali who were sentenced to death in the murder case by the former fast track court judge Vilas Patil in December, 2007 were produced before the court for hearing.

On an appeal filed by the mother-daughter duo to set aside the death sentence, a division bench of the high court headed by justice Bilal Nazki had referred the case back to the district and sessions court in Pune after it found that several witnesses were not cross examined because the accused had refused to engage the services of a lawyer for defending themselves. Koshe who is representing Deepti filed an application under section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to include Kale and Bhosale among the accused in the case on the grounds that there was direct evidence against them revealing their involvement in the commission of crime.

While relying on Kale’s testimony given earlier before judge Patil, Koshe said that he had admitted to his involvement in the murder which he had committed along with Bhosale.

Koshe said that the witnesses had caught hold of the hands and legs of Mahajan and the accused had administered sedatives to him before dismembering his body which…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will seek proposals from various banks and take a loan of Rs 76.465 crore from the bank which offers the lowest interest rates. Earlier, the civic body had decided to take the loan from the Bank of Maharashtra with an interest rate of 10 per cent.

Talking to reporters, standing committee chairman Sham Deshpande said, “We will float tenders and seek proposals from banks. We will take the loan at competitive rates for completion of development works.”

The civic body had got the green signal to take a loan from the Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) for completing important projects, including roads, that have come to a standstill due to lack of funds. The standing committee had last Tuesday unanimously approved the municipal commissioner’s proposal seeking permission for the loan at the rate of 10 per cent.

“But after deliberations we decided to go for competitive bidding. Soon we will start the process for the same,” said Deshpande.

Meanwhile, the civic administration completed the technicalities for the proposal of seeking loan by adding supplementary proposal to the original proposal. “The original proposal didn’t mentioned the word ‘loan’ and it created confusion in the minds of elected representatives. But now thing are clear and there would be no delay in the loan-seeking procedure,” said Deshpande.

According to the supplementary proposal by the civic administration, the road department needs Rs 26.40 crore, water supply department Rs 13 crore and the sewage treatment plan works need Rs 97.40 crore for speedy completion.

The civic administration has decided to make an internal provision of Rs 20.935 crore while the loan of Rs 76.465 will be taken from bank. The civic administration has said that major works like Mundhwa road, North Main, NDA-Bavdhan, Sinhagad and Paud road need to be completed soon. Besides, the work on Holkar…More

TOI : PUNE: In a significant development, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) on Tuesday gave its nod for starting power transactions on week/month ahead basis at the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX).

The CERC asked the IEX and the National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC), that ensures smooth operation of the national power grid, to work out the modalities to start week/month ahead transactions and come back to the regulator as soon as possible with suggested changes, if any, in the rules and regulations.

This is expected to help smooth implementation of experiments like the Pune model of zero load shedding as power will be available on long-term basis as against the existing practice of booking power just a day before actual use. Since additional power for Pune is procured on the ‘day ahead’ basis through IEX by franchise Tata Power Trading Company Ltd, the load-shedding schedule in the city changes every day.

Speaking to TOI, Jayant Deo, managing director and chief executive officer of IEX said the IEX will be in a position to introduce week/month ahead power transactions in about a month.

He said that when the matter came up for hearing, IEX submitted that CERC, as per its order dated January 18, 2008, had said that the decision for introduction of week/month ahead contracts has to be of the promoters of the exchange. “Accordingly, the IEX sought permission to introduce Term Ahead Contracts on its neutral and transparent platform,” he said.

Responding to IEX submissions, the NLDC commented that they felt the current open access regulations may have to be changed if Term Ahead Contracts are to be traded on IEX. The CERC instructed IEX and NLDC to mutually co-ordinate between themselves for introducing the Term Ahead Contracts. “CERC further said in case open access procedure has to be amended then the same may also be suggested,” he said….More