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TOI : PUNE: The Bird Valley Park developed by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) in Chinchwad, which boasts of a large lake, boating facilities, jogging track and bird watching facilities, will be inaugurated on December 12.

Speaking to TOI on Monday, additional commissioner Subhash Dumbre said that the Bird Valley Park will be inaugurated by district guardian minister Ajit Pawar.

This park has been developed at an abandoned quarry along the Telco road on reserved land no 302, measuring 26 acres. It is being developed on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis at an expenditure of Rs 2.28 crore.

The park has a bamboo gate with models of birds parrots, an eagle and an owl perched on it. There is a deepmaal’, a tower with lamps and a pavilion that gives a view of the large lake formed in the abandoned quarry. There is a jetty for anchoring boats. A model of an eagle with a six-foot-wide wingspan adorns the top of a rocky outcrop near one end of the quarry.

“A floating / mist fountain has been created for the first time in Pimpri-Chinchwad township that has a nozzle with 450 holes. The water will be sprayed in the form of a mist up to a height of 15 metre and width of 7.5 metre. It also serves the purpose of aerating the lake water. There is one more fountain in the park,” said an official from PCMC’s engineering department, adding that visitors can enjoy boat rides in paddle boats having a seating capacity of four and six seats.

“Around 15 to 20 coconut trees have been transplanted along the lake in the quarry and an artificial beach spread over 3,500 sqm has been created in the park,” he said.

A children’s park, amphitheatre, skating ground and a 1.5-km-long jogging track are among the other attractions of the park. Migratory birds make a regular halt at…More

TOI : PUNE: Calling the terror attacks in Mumbai an “audacious assault on the prestige of India”, minister of state for external affairs Anand Sharma on Monday said India’s pluralist attitude was its biggest strength in these trying times.

Sharma was addressing the foreign students’ council at the Symbiosis International University. Sharma assured the students to look into their grievances of alleged harassment by police and corruption at the foreigners regional registration office (FRRO).

“Before I leave the city, I will summon the police commissioner and officials of FRRO and look into the issues. I will convene a joint meeting of the police and FRRO officials, and students’ representatives,” Sharma promised the students. “Corruption at the FRRO is embarrassing for us. We will take a serious note of it, and take appropriate action,” he added.

Sharma told the students that they would be granted visa for the entire duration of their course. Work permits would be issued after producing offer letters from companies.

“The government plans to strengthen the mechanism for addressing the problems faced by foreign students. The mechanism will be established under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. The Prime Minister is also concerned about the welfare of these students. We will see that the regional centres, which have major educational institutes, have a grievance redressal system at their level,” Sharma said.

Sharma said that he would also look into the issue of students from Bangladesh and Pakistan having to pay higher tuition fees as compared to other students from Saarc nations. “While students from Saarc countries are supposed to pay three times more than the regular fees, students from Pakistan and Bangladesh have to pay five times the amount. Why this discrimination? Aren’t we also a Saarc country?” a student asked the minister. Assuring the student to look into the matter, the minister said the practice was illegal, and assured action against the…More

TOI : Surrounded by three famous colleges, this verdant hill’s inviting flora has now found its protector in every nature-loving people, with college students joining hands in a big way to save its depleting green resources.

This is one of the reasons why the Environmental Studies (EVS) project was made compulsory for the second year students of the Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce. The idea was to sensitise the young minds, and not without success. From September to November this year, 300-odd students visited the tekdi three days a week for three to four hours in the morning and learnt everything from rainwater harvesting to soil conservation, value-added plantation to controlling forest fires.

The Green Hills Group, an organisation which has been working to preserve Hanuman tekdi for the last eight years, has been providing assistance to Symbiosis students for over five years now.

Armed with large brooms, buckets of water and gardening paraphernalia, the three-month-long project has led students to have a more respectable perception of Mother Nature.

Nirzara Awati, a second year commerce student, has developed a liking for gardening as a result of her weekly trips. “Right from senior citizens to children, every person is trying to save the hills. Now, I have developed a habit of watering the trees and cleaning up the tekdi even when I visit it casually for a quick hike,” says Nirzara.

The job of preserving the massive hill is tedious. But sweeping the tekdi, collecting dry waste and using it as a natural fertiliser, is a time-consuming yet fulfilling process. “However, this very dry waste has reduced forest fires,” says Ravindra Purandare, secretary, the Green Hills Group, who personally guides the students.

The students have certainly developed a respect for ecology and feel the need to save it from deteriorating. Purandare himself encourages every student to plan as many trees as possible. He appoints team…More

TOI :

CLEARED BY AJOY

HEAD: Performing arts for AIDS awareness

It was an HIV/AIDS awareness week celebrated with a difference. The Symbiosis College of Nursing (SCON) had organised skits, a street play and an exhibition on Saturday at the Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences on Senapati Bapat Road.

The objective of the day-long programme was to generate and spread awareness among the masses about the life-threatening disease HIV/AIDS. The event was appropriately themed Take The Lead, Keep The Promise’. The street play based on HIV/AIDS-prevention was performed in the Hanumannagar slum and Homi Bhabha Hospital in Hanumannagar. Students were also given prizes for their hard work.

Music aids architectural study

Marathwada Mitra Mandal’s College of Architecture had recently held a workshop for its students, which was conducted by well-known synthesiser player Amol Dongre, who was accompanied by Yatin Mokashi on the tabla, the session was aimed at developing sensitivity towards colour and its application in architecture design. Dongre drew parallels between architectural planning and structural engineering as sur’ and taal’ in music. He also presented a few ragas like Ahir Bhairavi, Todi, Bhinna Shadja and Pahadi. The workshop concluded with a Kathak performance by Surabhi Dhopeshwarkar, who performed on Rangoli’ in order to create a coherence between various art forms.

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TOI : PUNE: The widening of the 13-kilometre old Pune-Mumbai highway in Pimpri-Chinchwad, from Dapodi to Nigdi, has reduced the commuters’ travel time by less than half. However, the speed-happy motorists and absence of proper road safety measures have raised safety concerns on this stretch.

The civic authorities maintain that all works related to road safety will soon be completed.

Chandmal Parmar, the founder chairman of Kumari Rajshree Parmar Memorial Foundation which works for road safety, told TOI that few road safety measures have been taken on the highway. “Some works related to road safety have been completed but more needs to be done. There should be proper signs, direction boards, cat’s eyes, and speed limits boards should be put,” he said, adding, “The PCMC has not held its traffic mobility meeting for nearly three months now. Therefore, the road safety issues could not be discussed.”

On the 61-meter-wide busy highway stretch, there are as many as four overbridges, three vast stretches of underground roads (grade separators), two underground roads for vehicles. Service roads, footpaths and cycle tracks on either sides of the road.

Though it now takes motorists 20 minutes to go from Dapodi to Nigdi, vehicles moving at high speed have raised concern over the safety of pedestrians crossing the highway. School and college students often jump the central median to cross the highway.

The concretised road surface is scarred with black tyre marks, a result of breaking at high speed. While there have already been a few mishaps, these incidents not only highlight the absence of proper road safety measures, like speed limit signs, other traffic regulations and pedestrian crossings, they also underline the need for motorists and pedestrians to be more cautious.

When questioned about the road safety measures taken, a senior civic official in-charge of the highway works told TOI, “We opened the highway for traffic because commuters had been…More

TOI : PUNE: A lot of effort is needed in reducing emission of pollutants and greenhouses gases to improve the quality of air, said Shailesh Nayak, secretary, ministry of earth sciences.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of a workshop on Forecasting of air pollution’,

jointly organised by the IITM and the World Meteorological Organisation (United Nations nodal agency for weather climate and environment), at the Indian institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) here on Monday. During the event, 10 experts in the field of air pollution forecasting will train about 50 delegates from India and other South Asian countries. The workshop will conclude on December 12.

“Air quality forecast is required to provide information to the public to help them better manage their health and welfare (heat stress, comfort, pollen, flight operations, large scale pollution/fire, etc). World-wide efforts in this direction are on the go, but we are lagging behind,” Nayak said. “Emission of pollutants and greenhouse gases from sources like vehicular petrol and diesel, biomass burning, bio-fuel burning and coal burning are causing pollution problems. A lot of work is required for reducing this emission and increasing the quality of air.”

At the workshop, experts said that the problem of air pollution has attracted special attention in India due to the increase in population, industrialisation and urbanisation. The major air pollutants are identified as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxides, ozone, CO and suspended particulate matter such as dust, fumes, mist and smoke. Air pollution is a major environmental health problem affecting the country.

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TOI : PUNE: In 1996, Darewadi, a remote, drought-prone village in the rain-shadow region of Ahmednagar, was the picture of despair, depleted of the natural resources necessary for rural livelihood. Even drinking water was not assured.

Villagers had to migrate to resource-endowed areas to get sugarcane cutting work or toil in brick kilns. Some herded sheep, which further depleted the already fragile eco-system. Agricultural production, even in a year of reasonably good rain, was sufficient for only three to four months. Women had to work hard to fetch water and fuel and for their other basic needs.

Today, Darewadi is a model of self-sufficiency and has witnessed reverse migration. “Most of the villagers have returned and are engaged in farming. Where it was impossible to even reap a single crop a year, we are now harvesting twice a year and growing onions, tomatoes, bajra, jowar and even fruits,” says farmer Kondhaji Chimaji Avhad.

The change can be attributed to the proper use of available water through watershed development activities initiated by German Jesuit Fr Hermann Bacher and his NGO Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) during the late nineties. “He convinced us to collectively participate in digging trenches and building bunds to stop the scarce rainwater from rapidly flowing down the hills and bringing down the soil cover with it. After we undertook watershed development, water started collecting in a resource pool and this increased the underground water level. Farming became possible once again,” Avhad explains.

It wasn’t just watershed development that worked wonders. “We also initiated a holistic approach that took into account empowerment of women and the enforcement of a ban on grazing. Certain decisions taken then were met with stiff opposition. For example, it wasn’t easy to convince Darewadi’s residents to agree to shramdaan (voluntary labour) and initially some of the villagers thought that Fr Bacher was a missionary who would try to convert them to…More

TOI : His guru holds the distinction of having invented the world’s longest bamboo flute that can play over 3.5 octaves. So, perhaps it was a deliberate attempt on Sameer Inamdar’s part to come up with the smallest?

“No such thing,” grins the 21-year-old student of Pandit Keshav Ginde. “It’s just that since I’m good with my hands, flautists would often ask me to make them different flutes. One thing led to another, and a determined effort of two years brought forth the Pavan Venu,” he elaborates.

At 3.5 inches in length, it is less than half the size of a regular flute, which may start anywhere upwards of 8 inches. The holes have to be strategically placed, as per the fall of an individual flautist’s fingers.

Amongst other things, Inamdar believes the instrument holds immense potential for both filmi and light music. “That’s because, for the first time ever, the higher of higher twitter octave’ is possible on the Pavan Venu. And filmi music does use a lot of the higher twitter octave,” he says.

A BCS student at the Garware College, Inamdar, nevertheless does manage to make time for the flute. “The flute is Lord Krishna’s instrument. Whenever I hold it, I feel as though I’m worshipping the Lord himself,” he says. Apart from that he also heads the college orchestra and teaches flutes to young hopefuls. On the anvil, he says, are plans to come with his own flute manufacturing company. But that’s for later.

At the moment he has approached the Limca Book of Records for an entry and is planning to do the same with the Guinness Book. “The Limca Book responded positively. I had just missed the entries for 2009 by a month, but I’m optimistic about being listed in 2010,” he says.

For his part, here’s what Pandit Ginde has to say about his pupil. “Being a student…More

TOI : A dainty package for a dowdy parcel that best describes the present condition of the City Post Office on Laxmi Road. For, its fa?ade is all there is to remind us of its heritage value.

This neo-classical building was built in 1923-25, almost 97 years after the launch of postal services in the region and 51 years after the establishment of the General Post Office in Pune under the British. The lower floor of the two-storeyed structure is a rectangle measuring over 600 sq mt and oriented east-west, with the entrance facing the north. The upper floor is broadly shaped like the letter H’ with the connecting arm located off-centre between the terminal arms and oriented east-west, such that a veranda and a terrace are formed on the northern and the southern sides respectively. The terminal arms are capped with hipped roofs, while the connecting arm has a pitched roof in flat tiles.

Surface decoration is subdued. A set of five semi-circular arches spring from unembellished column shafts at both the front and the rear of the building. The three central arches define the entrance to the building, while those flanking them are blind arches, forming a recessed wall with smaller windows and a semi-circular ornamental screen on top. Apart from these, rectangular timber-framed windows slender and verticated on the lower floor and much smaller on the upper one are set in slight recesses in the wall.

There is a prominent use of cornices and brackets, first used in Hindu temples, later in Islamic buildings and subsequently absorbed into colonial architecture. A rectangular portion in the centre rises into a skylight feeding light into the heart of the building. There is a secondary entrance to the building from the west through a porch.

The civil engineering wing of the postal department looks after the building. Although the originality of the structure has been preserved to…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s standing committee may giving permission to Prayas, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), to conduct free HIV tests and counselling at four civic hospitals. A proposal in this regard will be tabled at the standing committee meeting on Tuesday.

The PCMC had started an anti-retroviral therapy (ART) centre at Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital (YCMH) with the help of Bajaj Auto Ltd and National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) on public-private-partnership basis to provide free AIDS tests and guidance. However, there are no such facilities at the hospitals in Akurdi, Indira Gandhi, Sangvi, Khinvsara Patil, Thergaon and Yamunanagar. Prayas has sought permission from the civic body to conduct free analysis, advisory and treatment centre for AIDS patients at these hospitals.

As per the proposal, the anti-natal care (ANC) centre in these hospitals will assist Prayas. The NGO will provide AIDS analysis kits, information booklets and free medicines to AIDS patients. It will also provide free training to the hospital staff. The AIDS patients, especially mothers and children, will benefit from the scheme.

R R Iyer, medical director, PCMC, said, “Prayas had approached him to provide free AIDS analysis and treatment at the civic hospitals.”

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