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TOI : PUNE: Playback singer Asha Bhosale will be presented with the first Vishwa Gaurav award’ during the 14th Brihan Maharashtra Mandal (BMM) convention to be held at the Pennsylvania convention centre in Philadelphia (USA) from July 2 to July 5.

The award comprises a memento and will be presented to her by actor Nana Patekar. Bhosale will also present a live performance on the occasion.

Addressing a news conference on Friday, Mandar Joglekar, chief organiser of the convention, said that eminent personalities will be attending this convention for ehich about 4,500 registrations have been received so far.

Joglekar said that the convention will be inuagurated by chief minister Ashok Chavan in the presence of social crusader Anna Hazare. Industrialist Baba Kalyani, chairman, Kalyani Group, will be the key note speaker. Spiritual speakers like Shankar Abhyankar and Swami Madhavanand will also be present.

Joglekar stated that about 100 Marathi artists and theatre personalities like Nana Patekar, Vikram Gokhale, Pradeep Patwardhan and Vandana Gupte will attend and performing at the event which will host 30 cultural programmes. An exhibition on aerial photography of forts by Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray will also be a highlight of the event.

Elaborating on the programmes lined up at the convention, Joglekar said that the event will kick off with a business conference where Sanjay Kirloskar, chairman, Kirloskar Brothers, will be the key note speaker. The Mumbai Dabbawala team will be invited to share this forum with business leaders from the US and to explain them the working of their flawless operations that benefit thousands of people every day. Key topics like green initiatives, international trade, export admin act will be covered by leading industrialists from India and the US.

Achanak, Gabhricha Paus, Tandala, Wavtal and Made in China are the five Marathi films that have been shortlisted for the festival. Live performances by renowned artists in music, dance…More

TOI : PUNE: A single round of pre-monsoon showers in the first week of June put the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) at the receiving end of the citizens’ and activists’ wrath, as they blame the civic administration, and rightly so, for its lack of pre-preparedness. But, the fact remains that water-logging and inundation in parts of the city are here to stay, at least for the next few years till the PMC completes the laying of stormwater drains across a network of 1,750 km of roads.

The absence of a proper stormwater drainage facility in the city is the primary reason why water-logging occurs frequently after heavy rains. Though the city has nearly 2,000 km of roads, it has only 250 km of stormwater drains.

“We have divided the city in 23 basins and have a detailed map for laying drainage lines. We are working on the first and the second phase with a budget of Rs 399 crores, sanctioned by the central government,” said city engineer Prashant Waghmare, who added that the civic administration has also proposed Rs 76 crore for the drainage work in its annual budget for 2009-10.

Discussing the basic problem faced while laying stormwater drains, a top civic officials said, “In the city’s Peth areas, majority of the roads do not have stormwater drains and even footpaths are missing. Early city planners neglected the basic infrastructure and lacked vision. The width of about 75 roads passing through the city is less then 24 meters. Central parts of Pune has roads with an average width of 8 to 12 meters. Majority of these roads are encroached upon and only 6 to 10 meters of the road is available for traffic.” He also admitted that the civic administration is facing the burden of creating basic infrastructure.

Last year, after the city experienced severe water logging in several pockets, members of the Architecture Engineering Division…More

TOI : PUNE: Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) has invited nominations for its National Right to Information (RTI) Awards, 2009. Instituted this year, the awards will be presented in November every year to those who have displayed exemplary commitment to RTI.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar said there were five awards in three different categories. One award would be given to an outstanding information commissioner, who enables access to correct and complete information to a maximum number of appellants. Two awards would be given to public information officers who provide comprehensive and accurate information to a maximum number of applicants within the prescribed time limit. The other two awards would be given to citizens who create a maximum impact by using the RTI Act, Kumbhar added.

PCRF intends to honour and recognise the contribution of the bureaucratic community as a whole to gather relevant data, which could go a long way in identifying the shortcomings in the current system of the RTI as well as suggesting possible reforms.

Each award carries a citation, a plaque and a prize money of Rs 2 lakh. Apart from the awards, at least a dozen citations would be given away to information commissioners, public information officers and citizens.

All information commissioners in the country are automatic nominees, Kumbhar said. However, nominations are being invited from public information officers and citizens. They can either nominate themselves or can be nominated by someone else. Nominations can be sent online at www.rtiawards.org or through forms obtained from National RTI Awards Secretariat, A-119, Kaushambi, Ghaziabad-201010, Uttar Pradesh, and forwarded by post. The last date for filing nominations is June 30. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: In major upgradation effort, the Pune railway division is augmenting the services for coach maintenance at Pune, Kolhapur and Miraj stations. A new coaching complex is under construction in Ghorpadi railway yard which will have five pit lines and five stabling lines for the coach maintenance. The commencement of new pit lines will double the existing capacity up to 1,400 coaches. Two pit lines are ready to commence while remaining will be functional by 2011.

Besides construction of pit lines, the coaching complex will also have modern facilities for rake maintenance including heavy trolleys, sub stations, proper and adequate lining, water storage and recycling tanks. All these faclities will be constructed in phases. The total budget sanctioned for the entire complex is over Rs 46 crore. The budget santioned for the first and second phase is Rs 8 crore and Rs. 38 crore respectively.

“The Pune station at present has five pit lines in which, only one pit line has capacity to undertake the maintenance of 24 coaches. The other four lines have a capacity of 15 to 16 coaches. Work gets delayed frequently as existing pit lines are too loaded to undertake maintenance of bigger rakes with more than 16 coaches. However, with the new five pit lines in place each with capacity of 26 coaches, the maintenance capacity is expected to go up to 1,400 coaches from the existing 780 coaches,” said P K Purohit, senior divisional mechanical engineer of Pune division.

The complex will have an advanced EOT crane, coach lifting jacks, air compressors, high pressure jet machine, test rigs and other tools. This would reduce the average time spent for maintenance work at pit lines and will offer quality services, said Purohit.

The public relations officer of Pune division Y K Singh said, “The division has been facing shortage of maintenance pit lines. The existing maintenance capacity is being utilised…More

TOI : PUNE: Buses make up less than 1 per cent of the country’s total vehicle numbers, while two-wheelers and cars comprise 71% and 13% respectively. Other vehicles (three-wheelers and tractors) form 9.4% and trucks 5% of the total.

These figures were revealed by former state principal secretary Ramanath Jha on the sidelines of the national seminar on road safety and best practices of the motor vehicle department organised by the Executive Officers’ Association, All-India Federation and the state transport department at the Yeshwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (Yashada) on Saturday.

Jha explained that if road safety is to be improved, more people will have to be moved by public transport than by private vehicles. For this, he said, importance should be given to the public transport system as much as to having a good road infrastructure.

“Maximum mobility with minimum vehicles need to be the hallmark of the transport policy. At the time of Independence, the percentage of buses was 11%, which has come down to nearly 0.9%. This shows that there has been proliferation of other vehicles and equal importance has not been given to public transport,” Jha said.

Speaking at the session on Public transport in India’, Jha listed three aspects of road transport mobility for vehicles to move faster, safety of the drivers and others travelling on the road and safety of the environment so as not to harm it while improving the other aspects.

“While the annual growth rate of vehicles is 11%, the figure for road networks is 4.3%. The land use and transport plans never gel. This is leading to density of vehicles, which is essentially causing road safety problems,” he stressed.

“While on the one hand, there is a safety audit of roads, quality road infrastructure and proper licensing, on the other, there is a need to promote public transport, where no one is concentrating,” Jha…More

TOI : PUNE: History-sheeter Gajanan Marne and his associates opened fire on arch-rival and criminal on police record Nilesh Ghaywal at Dahanukar colony in Kothrud late on Friday night. Ghaywal, who was with some of his accomplices, sustained a serious head injury from a sharp weapon but is reportedly out of danger.

This is the second time that Ghaywal has escaped an attack by the Marne gang. On May 13, Marne and six accomplices had attacked the vehicle of another criminal on police records, Sameer Patil of Sangli, suspecting that Ghaywal was travelling with him. Patil, his partner Rajshekhar Birajdar and driver Rahul Deokar, had escaped with minor injuries. The Kothurd police have arrested six persons in this regard, including Marne’s nephew Bapu Pawar. Marne, however, has been untraceable since.

Speaking to TOI, assistant commissioner of police (crime) Sangramsinh Nishandar said Ghaywal had gone to Sahakarnagar with his men in a jeep on Friday night. On his way back, he stopped at Dahanukar colony and shifted to a two-wheeler with an accomplice, Santosh Gadve. Near the second gate of the Cummins factory, Marne and 10 to 12 of his men, who were lying in wait, attacked Ghaywal. Marne shot at Ghaywal while a henchman, Pappu Kudle, attacked him with a sharp weapon, Nishandar said.

Nishandar added: “Ghaywal sustained a severe blow on his head from a sharp weapon and his accomplice Gavde suffered an injury to his finger. Meanwhile, the jeep carrying Ghaywal’s men reached the spot. On seeing them, Marne and his men attacked one person in the jeep and fled,” Nishandar said.

Nishandar said Ghaywal was immediately rushed to a private hospital in Deccan Gymkhana and his condition is stated to be out of danger, Nishandar said.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Anil Kumbhare said: “The attack is the result of a rivalry between the two. Ghaywal was earlier associated with Marne and had…More

TOI : PUNE: A 30-year-old painter was found murdered in an open ground near Khilarewadi off Karve road on Saturday morning. The victim’s throat was slit with a sharp weapon, police said.

The Deccan Gymkhana police have identified the deceased as Santosh Bhawar (30), a resident of Vivekshri society near Dandekar bridge, and have booked two suspects, including a minor, in the case. One of the suspects has been identified as Amol Tapkir, police said.

Senior inspector Jaywant Deshmukh of the Deccan Gymkhana police station, said that the suspects and the deceased knew each other. “Late on Friday night, Bhawar told his wife that he was going out with his friend Tapkir and left on his friend Chandrakant’s two-wheeler to reach Khilarewadi,” Deshmukh said.

“On Saturday morning, we found Bhawar’s body in an open ground near Khilarewadi. His throat had been slit with a sharp weapon. Both Tapkir and the suspected minor have been missing since last night,” Deshmukh said.

“We have booked Tapkir and the minor as Bhawar was last seen with the two. We suspect that the murder was pre-planned,” Deshmukh said, adding that the minor had been earlier detained by the Pune rural police in several cases of burglary.

The complaint in this regard has been lodged by the deceased’s brother Sanjay Bhawar (25) with the Deccan Gymkhana police station.

Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Stroke is the second most common cause of morbidity in the world. Unfortunately awareness about strokes is a lot less as compared to that on heart attacks, said neurosurgeon R S Wadia, organising chairman and head of neuroscience department of Ruby Hall Clinic. Wadia was speaking at the opening seminar of the two-day long national conference on neuroscience and neurocritical care that kick-started in the city on Saturday.

K. B. Grant, chairman and managing trustee of Ruby Hall Clinic, inaugurated the conference.

“Brain attack, is probably a more appropriate term for strokes. If these patients reach hospital early, then they can be offered treatment to dissolve the clot and the recovery can be dramatic. Though this kind of therapy is available for last 10 years, very few patients (less than 5%) actually avail of it,” Wadia added.

Neurological emergencies are common and are increasing rapidly. If these patients are treated early and properly, the morbidity reduces significantly. “Other neurological emergencies include epilepsy (fits), infection of the brain, acute neuropathies, intoxication etc. Patients of all these neurological disorders need specialised monitoring, the outcome definitely improves with treatment in neurocritical ICU,” he said. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has issued a notice to the consultant for Pimpri grade separator, seeking justification as to why the company recommended fixing of pavement blocks on alternate patches of the cement surface of the grade separator.

PCMC superintending engineer M M Savale said that the civic administration sought clarification from the consultant Technogem on Thursday. “The clarification has been sought as per the directives of municipal commissioner,” he said. The PCMC has currently taken up the task of removing the blocks and asphalting of the grade separator due to which it has been closed for traffic.

Fresh repairs were necessitated after the pavement blocks became loose, leading to formation of potholes as water seeped in from the pipeline of the Maharashtra Industries Development Corporation (MIDC).

“The blocks used to get damaged due to the water leakage. Now we are removing the blocks and asphalting the surface. We have repeatedly conveyed to MIDC that the grade separator faces problems due to leakage from its pipeline, ” Savale stated.

The PCMC has closed the grade separator in Pimpri for vehicular traffic from Chinchwad to Kharalwadi towards Pune since last two weeks. The vehicles have been diverted onto the service road resulting in long queues on traffic signal at Ahilyabai Holkar chowk in Morwadi and Ambedkar chowk in Pimpri, during peak hours.

People have had to suffer inconvenience on numerous occasions in the past two years when the grade separator had to be closed for some repair. “We have sought explanation from the consultant as to why it should not be held responsible for the inconvenience caused to the public due to the repeated closures”, Savale said .

The PCMC will have to spend Rs 30 lakh on removing the blocks and asphalting the road surface on the grade separator at Pimpri. “We will take a decision whether to recover the cost…More

TOI : PUNE: Flooding, water-logging and severe traffic jams are regular features in the city every monsoon, in spite of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) cleaning stormwater drains and declaring itself ready to face the rains every year.

The rapid growth of the city coupled with the lack of a vision to develop even the basic civic infrastructure has been at the heart of Pune’s problems during the monsoon.

The PMC’s environment status report for 2008 points to the city’s quick growth in a relatively short span. In the last 188 years (1818-2006), the Pune urban region has grown from a mere 5-sq km area to cover 809 sq km, a nearly 162-times growth. There has been a spurt in all areas: population, slums, pollution levels, industries, housing, garbage generation, number of vehicles and migration into the city.

The growth, say politicians and activists, has not been matched with the requisite development of infrastructure. “The civic administration has to be blamed for the deteriorating condition of the infrastructure as successive municipal commissioners and officers lacked the vision to develop even the basic infrastructure,” says BJP corporator Ujwal Keskar. Civic activist Vijay Kumbhar is of the view that the municipal administration functions according to the whims and fancies of the commissioners. “There is an absence of co-ordination and vision. The PMC does not have a concrete plan for the development of basic infrastructure,” Kumbhar says.

There are several cases in point, roads being a prime example. The city had faced a serious problem of potholes till around two years ago. Recently re-laid roads would be riddled with huge potholes after a few showers. After agitations by citizens, the civic body was forced to repair the roads and maintain the quality of road surfaces.

Another issue is the water-logging in different parts of the city which is common during the monsoon. This, despite the civic body claiming to…More