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TOI : PUNE: The Vishrambaug police on Monday told the court that they have recovered a revolver and mobile phone of PMC corporator Deepak Mankar. The police had recently arrested Mankar outside the Bombay High Court for forcibly acquiring the property of a bank in Sadashiv Peth.

Inspector Subhash Nikam (crime) of the Vishrambaug police station produced Mankar before judicial magistrate first class B B Pantawane, following expiry of his police custody.

The police prayed to extend Mankar’s police custody for 14 days.

Assistant public prosecutor Vinayak Musale prayed to give sufficient time to the police as Mankar’s custodial interrogation was required for recovering the sim card and documents of the deal and for finding out whether he had received any benefit in the transactions.

Opposing the prosecutions plea, Mankar’s lawyers Harshad Nimbalkar and Milind Pawar submitted that Mankar had surrendered his licensed revolver and keys of the flat in Narayan Peth where the complainant Shekhar Wambure was allegedly threatened by his client immediately after he was arrested.

Nimbalkar argued that the custodial interrogation of his client was not required as he was not the office-bearer of the Pune Municipal Corporation Servants’ Urban Co-operative Bank and the documents of the said deal was in possession of the bank.

According to Nimbalkar, the bank’s property was sold in an auction and his client had no connection with the deal. On the recovery of the sim car, he contended that the police can obtain the details from the mobile company and prayed to reject the prosecutions plea for extending Mankar’s police custody.

The magistrate upheld the defence lawyer’s plea and send Mankar to magisterial custody.

Meanwhile, the bail application of Mankar will heard on Tuesday. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Monday’s showers not only brought relief to the city, but also managed to show a startling difference in the rains recorded in two rainfall stations in the city, with the one in Lohegaon showing 30 mm more rainfall than in Pune.

While the city recorded 1.5 mm rainfall, Lohegaon saw 50.7 mm rains at the same time over a period of nine hours from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm.

“There is an absence of massive rain-bearing clouds over the city, so we are witnessing isolated rainfall activity. This resulted in the difference in quantum of rains recorded in the two stations here,” said A B Mazumdar, deputy director general meteorology, India Meteorological Department (IMD).

He said that improvement in the monsoon activity in the city could be expected over the next couple of days. The IMD has also forecast rain over the next 48 hours in the city and the region, he said.

J R Kulkarni, senior scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), said the clouds present on the city skyline were not typical monsoon-type clouds called the nimbostratus. Instead, the cloud type covering the city and the region at present was cumulonimbus clouds.

The nimbostratus clouds usually have a thickness of 2,000 metre and could be identified by its colour and make its presence felt by an almost uniformly dark grey cover.

“These clouds give widespread, less heavy rainfall that has continuity,” Kulkarni said. “On the other hand, cumulonimbus clouds give heavy shower in an isolated area.”

According to Kulkarni, if rainfall results because of nimbostratus clouds, then recorded rains could be around 10 to 20 mm. Cumulonimbus clouds on the other hand would given around 50 to 60 mm of rainfall and are dense and thick when compared to the nimbostratus type. Its bottom end is at a height of 2,000 metre from the earth surface,…More

TOI : Senior citizens are disappointed that the income exemption limit for them has been raised by just Rs 15,000 from Rs 2.25 lakh to Rs 2.40 lakh. The limit should have been raised to at least Rs 3 lakh, they said.

Pune, considered a pensioner’s paradise, has a sizeable number of elderly people.

A member of Central India Senior Citizens’ Association, Sharad Kulkarni said, “The finance minister’s move will help us save just Rs 1,000 per month, which is much below our expectations. We wanted more.”

“We were expecting income exemption limit to be raised up to Rs 3 lakh so that we can save a considerable amount every month. But, now it is not possible,” he added.

A retired officer of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Chandrakant Jadhav said, “I am not happy with the budget. I was expecting exemption limit up to Rs 3 lakh. But, the finance minister has increased it by mere Rs 15,000. This amount is very less.” Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Real estate players in the city are a disappointed lot as they feel the finance minister’s proposals for the sector have ignored the aspirations of the Indian middle class.

The Pune branch of the Confederation of Real Estate Associations of India (Credai) said the industry’s expectations to boost affordable housing and higher tax deduction for interest paid for home purchases were not met. “While the FM talks of a slum-free India in five years, he seems to have completely missed the opportunity to offer relief and incentive to middle-class home buyers,” Credai Pune president Satish Magar said in a statement.

“It is well established that housing/construction is an engine that can propel growth in the economy the linkages to hundreds of industries as well as employment to millions of workers seems to have not found any priority in the FM’s budget. Overall, the budget doesn’t address the needs of the housing industry at all,” the statement read.

Anurag Mathur, managing director of real estate research company Cushman & Wakefield India, said, “Though there is no immediate impact on the real estate industry in the Budget, the finance minister has incorporated measures that have a mid- to long-term impact on urbanisation and hence on the real estate industry.”

“While the budget is good under the circumstances, what has been left out is a policy level pronouncement for the sector. These announcements could have gone a long way not merely in standardisation, but also in bringing transparency for the real estate sector,” he felt.

Anuj Puri, chairman and country head for real estate management company Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, said the fact that India Infrastructure Finance Company will be given more flexibility and has been authorised to raise Rs 1,00,000 crore for the development of the infrastructure sector is an indirect boon to the real estate industry.

“Of late, an increasing number of infrastructure…More

TOI : PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday fixed the rates for water tankers following allegations that they were charging the citizens exorbitantly.

“Following complaints, we have fixed the rates for tankers that purchase water from the PMC. They should charge Rs 600 for 10,000 litres of water, Rs 700 for 15,000 litres and Rs 800 for 20,000 litres. If any tanker operator is found charging more than this, citizens should contact the PMC’s ward office and register a complaint,” said municipal commissioner Mahesh Zagade.

The civic chief told reporters that the PMC was plying 23 tankers in the city, including six for Urali Devachi and Phursungi. “The PMC has hired 47 tankers on contract and they make 300-350 trips in various parts.

Additional municipal commissioner M S Devnikar said a survey for digging of borewells was being conducted. “The PMC has decided to acquire borewells in public places so that their ownership remains with the civic body.”

The BJP had alleged that tankers were selling water at almost six to seven times the cost at which they were getting it from the PMC. Citizens also complained that the PMC provided water at Rs 200 per tanker of 10,000 litres, but the tanker owners sold it for Rs 800-900 per tanker. In many places, the rate was still higher, the citizens have alleged. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Even as the Bombay High Court on Monday scrapped the state government’s controversial 90:10 quota policy for SSC and non-SSC students, the std XI centralised admission process (CAP) in the city and Pimpri-Chinchwad may take some time to resume.

Deputy director of education Sunil Magar, who heads the CAP committee, said, “We have not yet received a certified copy of the high court ruling. We hope to get the same tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.”

He said the committee members will meet at 11 am on Tuesday to decide the future course of the admission process.

In the meantime, Magar said, a fresh time-table will be released for the bi-focal science stream admissions, which normally precede the conventional arts, science and commerce admissions.

He ruled out the possibility of the CAP committee releasing the provisional merit list for bi-focal courses on Tuesday. “We cannot release the list without giving an advance intimation to the parents about when and where the list is to be displayed. That’s the first thing we will do on Tuesday by releasing the revised time-table.”

The std XI CAP was put on hold in view of the legal tussle in the high court over the 90:10 quota policy. A group of aggrieved non-SSC board students and parents had moved the court, challenging the policy that had earmarked 90 per cent std XI seats for SSC board students and 10 per cent for non-SSC board students from ICSE, CBSE and IB schools.

In Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, the quota was not expected to make an impact on the prospects of students seeking admission to first-year junior colleges. However, in view of the government’s stance in the high court that no admission would be effected unless the high court settled the quota issue, the CAP committee had decided to hold back the process.

Meanwhile, the rejection of 90:10 quota has been welcomed…More

TOI : PUNE: It was a cloudy Monday morning when Team TOI sat down with three generations of the Mandhares at their residence in Kalyaninagar to watch the Union Budget for the year 2009-10.

All five members senior citizens Ganpat and Kanta Mandhare, paediatrician Kumar Mandhare, his professor wife, Anusha, and his son, Ajinkya a business administration student and sportsperson waited expectantly for something “to counter the gloom of the economic slowdown,” as they called it.

Asked what they were looking for, the Mandhares were unanimous in their viewpoint “Something for the average middle class in the cities and also something for the farmers in villages.” Not surprising, since the Mandhares are a middle-class family with farming interests in Shikrapur.

For pensioner Ganpat (72), retired government employee and part-time farmer, decrease in prices of basic inputs required in agriculture like machinery, seeds and fertilisers were welcome. Wife Kanta (68), on the other hand, was only concerned about daily commodities.

“Providing a six-month extension for farmers to pay their overdue (loan) is a great move and so is the plan to provide low-interest loans to farmer. But they should have done something about the inputs I mentioned,” says Ganpat.

Kumar (48) agrees with his father. “If not a direct cut in prices of these inputs, they could have at least provided something for companies manufacturing them,” he says. Kumar, Anusha (43) and Ajinkya (18) also kept a close watch on allocations to health, education and agriculture. “The hike in allocation (Rs 2,057 crore) for the National Rural Health Mission is a good move and it’s the same with the plan to launch a literacy mission for women,” say Kumar and Anusha.

The raise in the tax slabs brought smiles to everyone’s faces, as did the move to abolish fringe benefit tax (FBT). “But there is nothing for investors. Today’s India has everyone, from auto drivers to…More

TOI : PUNE: With 45 per cent of ex-servicemen of Maharashtra settled in the Pune region, the Union Budget’s one-rank-one-pension’ announcement spelt good cheer. However, most of beneficiaries now await the actualities of how they stand to benefit from the move.

Under the Union Budget for 2009-10, the government has increased the pension of ex-servicemen. The new and revised pension will be implemented beginning this month, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha while presenting the Budget.

“Based on the recommendation of a committee on one-rank-one-pension’, the government has decided to substantially improve the pension of the pre-January 1, 2006, defence pensioners below officer rank and bring pre-October 10, 1997, pensioners on par with post-October 10, 1997, pensioners,” Mukherjee said during the presentation.

It may be noted that the pre-January 1, 2006, pensioners were affected following implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations last October, while the pre- and post-October 10, 1997, pensioners were impacted by the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations.

For long, organisations of ex-servicemen had been demanding that the disparity in pension to personnel holding the same rank and service record, but retiring at different points of time, be removed.

“The decision will benefit a large number of soldiers, especially those who retired before 1996,” said Bhagatsinh Deshmukh, former director of Maharashtra State Sainik Welfare Board. “Still, this is just an announcement. The realities will show after the full details are revealed.”

According to Deshmukh, nearly 60,000 defence personnel retire in our country every year. Out of this, 10 per cent are from Maharashtra. There are around two lakh ex-servicemen in the state at present. Most of them are settled in the Pune region, which has five districts including Pune, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara.

“We are happy that our pensions have been increased,” Maruti Lawate, a retired solider told TOI. He also said that he and his other colleagues are…More

TOI : PUNE: Women members of self-help groups (SHG) are upbeat after the finance minister announced that he would bring 50 per cent rural women under the SHG cover in the next five years and also link these SHGs to banks.

While some SHGs say that it would do wonders to empower rural women, others say that the government should instead focus on capacity-building for SHGs.

Sudha Kothari of Chaitanya, an NGO which is working in rural areas with over 900 SHGs, said the announcement was good but the focus should not only be on meeting targets.

“The demand for group formation should come from the grassroots level,” Kothari said. “Forming SHGs is one thing and linking them to banks is a different ballgame altogether. The focus should first be on creating awareness, building skills and imparting training. Sideway linkages are important to increase the strength.”

Kothari said that by setting targets of forming a certain number of SHGs, the plan remains on paper and not many SHGs are formed.

SHG member Ragini Kamble said that setting such a goal would certainly help improve the lives of rural women. “Being part of an SHG reduces a woman’s dependence on her husband and gives her an identity. It may not help in income generation in a big way but it is still a major tool in poverty eradication,” she added.

Meanwhile, other announcements of increasing the income-tax exemption limit for women to Rs 1.9 lakh and plans to increase female literacy levels were also welcomed.

Bhavana Gupta, an IT professional, said any increase in the income-tax exemption limit was welcome. “However, this time it has increased from Rs 1.8 lakh to only Rs 1.9 lakh. I had expected it to increase to at least Rs 2 lakh,” she added. Print Emai…More

TOI : PUNE: Books on wildlife sanctuaries and national parks of the western region, which are in the pipeline, should now come out soon, says Botanical Survey of India joint director P G Divakar.

Divakar was reacting to the Rs 15-crore allocation each made in the Union Budget presented on Monday to the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the Geological Survey of India (GSI).

Elaborating further, Divakar said that Pune is the BSI headquarters for the western region including Maharashtra, Daman and Diu, Goa and Karnataka. “We have already completed work on the flora of the districts and states of the western region. In the pipeline are books on the wildlife sanctuaries and national parks of the western circle. I think this allocation will help this project.”

On the other hand, scientists at the ZSI and the GSI declined to comment as they needed to reflect on the specifics of the budgetary allocation. Print Emai…More