THE TIMES OF INDIA, PUNE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2015 5TIMES CITY

Pune: After Chinchwad emergedamong the top five cities follow-ing Islamic State (IS) activities onthe internet, the Pune police havedecided to seek help from theMumbai police’s social media lab-oratory to identify such people es-pecially youths browsing thewebsite.

The Mumbai police startedthe laboratory two years ago tokeep an eye on issues discussedamong youths on the internet andto bridge the gap between the ex-pectations of the pubic and deliv-

ery of police services. A senior of-ficer from the Pune police crimebranch said the Union govern-ment also takes help from the lab.

The state anti-terrorismsquad (ATS), Pune has decided totrace persons following IS on theinternet from various sources. “Ifwe come across such persons, wewill keep a watch on their activ-ities. We will also counsel themand try to prevent them from fall-ing prey to the ideology of suchorganizations,” said Bhanupra-tap Barge, assistant commission-er of police (ATS, Pune).

A senior officer from thecrime branch told TOI that visit-ing the IS website is not a crime

are not technically competent toidentify such persons,” the offi-cer added.

The Pune police do not haveany input about the persons fol-lowing IS on the internet. “Wehave not received any com-plaints,” the officer added.

Additional commissioner ofpolice (crime) C H Wakade toldTOI that the crime branch of thePune police will seek help fromthe Mumbai police’s social medialaboratory to identify people fromthe city and Pimpri Chinchwadwho are using the internet to fol-low the IS.

any other agency to prevent peo-ple from visiting such sites. We

since people want to know aboutit. “It is not possible for police or

Cops to touch base with Mumbai police’s social media lab TIMES NEWS NETWORK

ME, 'ANTI-TERRORIST' INITIATIVE

Assistant commissioner of police (ATS, Pune) Bhanupratap Barge

told TOI that to prevent youths from being attracted to terrorism and to create a network of informers, the ATS has initiated a programme called ‘Me, Anti-Terrorist’.

Barge said the ATS has circulated a form in schools, colleges, hostels and madarasas. “Persons willing to

help us can fill the forms with their name, address, cellphone, email and occupation and contact us with any information about terrorist activities in their areas,” Barge said. In the last six days, about 3,500 people have completed the forms.

The ATS team also visits schools

and colleges and alerts the students. “We will meet students residing in hostels,” Barge added.

TOI Report on September 1, 2015

Pune: Highway robberies con-tinue unabated in the city. OnAugust 28, a 35-year-old manfrom Mumbai fell prey tostrangers who offered him a lifton Navale bridge on the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass and robbedhim midway before dumpinghim near Chandani chowk latein the night.

Yogesh Khaire, a business-man from Byculla in Mumbai,got down from a bus near theNavale bridge around 8.30 pmand was waiting for a transportto reach Satara. As he was talk-ing on his cellphone, a black carstopped in front of him. He toldthe driver that he wanted to goto Satara. Khaire hopped in.Besides, the driver, there weretwo men in the car seated be-hind. The car headed towardsKhed-Shivapur. On the way,they threatened Khaire with apistol and knife. “Theysnatched his gold ring, Rs 1,000and a cellphone. They also tookhis ATM card and asked for the

PIN,” said Shriniwas Mundhe,senior inspector of the Sinha-gad Road police station.

When Khaire refused to re-veal the PIN, they beat him andgot the three-digit number byforce. “The suspects then stop-ped at an ATM in Khed-Shiv-apur and withdrew Rs 95,000,”Mundhe said. They droveKhaire for about an hour anddumped him near Chandni

chowk around 10pm. Beforeleaving, they threatened himnot to inform the police. A terri-fied Khaire got himself admit-ted to a private hospital inWarje with the help of localpeople and called up his rela-tive in Pune. “After taking first-aid, Khaire and his relativewent to the ATM at Khed-Shiv-apur and found that Rs 95,000had been withdrawn from his

bank account,” said a police-man. Khaire first went to thePune rural police but they toldhim to approach the city police.“On August 29, Khaire reachedthe Sinhagad Road police sta-tion and narrated the incident.But he did not lodge a com-plaint that day. Taking seriousnote of the robbery, we immedi-ately began probe. Khairelodged a complaint on Mon-day,” said Mundhe.

Mundhe said the policehave formed teams to trace thesuspects. “We have got someclues and we are working onit,” he said. This is the sixthsuch robbery in the city sinceApril this year and second inlast 15 days in the jurisdictionof the Sinhagad Road policestation in the city.

On August 13, ChandanSharma, an MBA student wasrobbed in the same way. He wasoffered lift near Vadgaon andthen dumped at Dighi after tak-ing away his two cellphonesand withdrawing cash fromthree different ATM kiosks.

Sixth Robbery Of Its Kind In City Since April This Year

Mumbai bizman takes liftfrom strangers, robbed

POLICE GUIDELINESä Do not accept lift from strangers

ä Always travel by public transport or vehicles hired by companies

ä Always note down the vehicle number before getting in

ä Send the number to relatives and friends for safety

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pune: The Inter UniversityCentre for As-tronomy andAstrophysics(IUCAA) hasproposed toset up an AS-TROSAT data

centre where the details col-lected shall be made availa-ble in the public domain foranalysis and research by stu-dents. A proposal in this re-gard has been sent to the In-dian Space ResearchOrganisation.

Somak Raychaudhury,the new director of IUCAA,made the announcementwhile addressing a news con-ference on Tuesday. He tookover the charge after AjitKembhavi’s retirement.Raychaudhury was a facultymember of IUCAA in thelate 90’s.

“These are very excitingtimes to be an astronomer,mainly because of innova-tions in observation facili-ties such as India’s ASTRO-SAT and the upcomingThirty Meter Telescope atHawaii,” Raychaudhurysaid, adding, “We shall takeevery effort to encourageour associates in universi-ties across India to popular-ise astronomy among stu-dents and catch themyoung”.

Raychaudhury was par-ticularly upbeat about theimpending ASTROSATlaunch this month, wherethe IUCAA has taken a leadin designing a number ofpayloads.

“The Mangalyaan obvi-ously captured the publicimagination because it was amission to Mars, a constantsource of curiosity for hu-mans. But ASTROSAT isone-of-a-kind mission, asnever before has Indialaunched so many payloadsfor such a wide variety ofpurposes. I think this is a big-ger mission than the Manga-lyaan,” he said. On his asso-ciation with Kembhavi, hesaid, “I have been very fortu-nate to have been associatedwith Kembhavi from the in-ception of IUCAA in the late80’s. I know that I can counton him for any help I wantabout this institute.”

Raychaudhury previous-ly served as the head of thephysics department and thedean of faculty at the depart-ment of natural and mathe-matical sciences at Kolkata’scentury-old Presidency Uni-versity.

IUCAA to setup ASTROSAT

data centreTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pune: The state govern-ment’s decision to extend fullweightage to scores in theMHT-CET, a common en-trance test to be re-intro-duced from 2016 for admis-sions to first-yearengineering, pharmacy andhealth science courses in thestate, has been questioned byRTI activist Vivek Velankar.

In an email to the addi-tional chief secretary of thedepartment of higher andtechnical education in Mum-bai, Velankar has sought thepublication of reasons forsuch a decision since the newpolicy does not give anyweightage to the standard XIIstate board exam scores inthe physics, chemistry andmathematics (PCM) group.

“The Right to Information(RTI) Act, 2005 makes it man-

to the earlier scheme of MHT-CET from 2016-17 and issued adetailed notification on Au-gust 28. The government hasjustified the move on the ba-sis of popular demand frompeople who felt the JEE wasmuch too difficult to crackand was affecting the inter-ests of students from thestate.

However, there is a coun-ter view that frequent chang-es in the government’s admis-sion policy for professionalcourses affects students whoprepare for these exams.

“The government’s notifi-cation announcing the MHT-CET scheme from 2016-17 on-wards makes no mentionabout the reasons for thissudden change in admissionpolicy, nor does it speak aboutthe decision not to giveweightage to the standard XIIstate board exam score in thePCM group,” Velankar said.

Vishwas.Kothari@timesgroup.com GOING BY THE ACT

Sections 4 (1) (c) and (d) provide for proactive

disclosure by a public authority about decisions that affect the people at large. They provide that every public authority shall publish all relevant facts while formulating important policies or announcing decisions that affect the public. Every public authority shall provide reasons for is administrative or quasi-judicial decisions to the affected persons.

FROM THE NEXT YEAR A single common entrance test conducted by the state government for engineering, pharmacy and medical admissions

ONE ADMISSION FORMä A 100-mark paper each for physics/chemistry (combined); mathematics and biology

ä Paper will be set on the state board’s standard XII syllabus

ä Admissions will be based on the merit list drawn from the CET score

ä Independent merits lists for engineering, pharmacy and health science courses

ä Engineering merit list will be based on physics, chemistry and mathematics score in CET

ä Health science merit list will consider physics, chemistry and biology scores in CET(Source: Notification issued by the state department of higher and technical education on August 28, 2015)

Pune: Union minister ofhealth and family welfare J PNadda has called the allo-pathic doctors’ community tobe more open to other formsof medication like ayurvedaand homoeopathy.

Nadda was speaking at asymposium organised by theVaidyakeeya Vikas Manch inthe city on Monday.

“We have to be broad-minded. The allopathic com-munity needs to be accommo-dating so that other systems(of medicine) can be includ-ed,” said Nadda at the sympo-sium titled ‘Vision Arogyam2020’, which aims to prepare aroadmap for the next fiveyears to develop medical edu-cation and healthcare systemin the country.

Minister of state (health)Ram Shinde, city MP AnilShirole, executive committeemember of Dental Council ofIndia Rahul Hegde, vice-chancellor of the Maharash-tra University of Health Sci-ences (MUHS) Arun Jamkar

were among others present atthe one-day symposium.

Deans of medical colleg-es, medical practitioners andacademicians from acrossthe state gave suggestions onhow to improve rural health-care and how to better thequality and quantity of doc-tors. “Like the UniversityGrants Commission (UGC),there should be a special bodyfor medical education. Be-sides, the Medical Council of

India needs to be restruc-tured completely. Instead ofinfrastructural norms, theemphasis should be on quali-ty of education. The system ofpart-time teachers should beencouraged with flexiblehours,” said Arun Jamkar.

Nadda listened to all thesuggestions but did not makeany specific announcement.“While allopathic treatmentis important, a follow up ofhomeopathic or ayurvedictreatment can also help pa-tients. We need to discuss howto increase the number of in-stitutes, seats among otherswithout compromising onspeed, scale and skill. Weneed to strike the right bal-ance between primary, sec-ondary and tertiary health-care,” said the minister.

He stressed on the need toimprove rural healthcare.“Certain benchmarks shouldbe set for how a primary orsecondary healthcare systemshould be. We need to discusshow to make rural postingsmore lucrative for young doc-tors,” Nadda said.

Allopaths should be open toother medications, says Nadda

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Conference onlearning disabilitiesThe Pune Learning withDisabilities Forum will hold atwo-day conference on ‘Livingwith learning disabilities:Finding solutions’ betweenOctober 24 and 25 at theYashwantrao Chavan Academyof DevelopmentAdministration in Baner. Themain aim of the conference isto create awareness aboutlearning disabilities and focuson solutions to help childrenachieve a definite structure tomake their lives academicallyand socially functional. InIndia, around 13-14% of allschool children suffer fromlearning disorders/disabilities.The conference will alsoadvocate a private-statepartnership to strengthen theinfrastructure needed to dealwith the challenges of learningdisabilities.

Course in astronomyAastronomica Club willorganize a certificate course inpractical astronomy at NMVGirls’ High School, near SPCollege, from September 7 to11. The course will beconducted between 6pm and8pm. For further details callAmit Purandare on9822393872.

MSEDCL pays interest: TheMaharashtra State ElectricityDistribution Company Ltd(MSEDCL) has paid Rs 34.47crore as interest on thesecurity deposit paid by 21.63lakh consumers in Pune zone.The interest amount has beenadjusted in installments. Thecompany pays 9.5% interest onthe deposit which is adjustedagainst the monthly bills.

PUNE DIGEST

‘Mission Indradhanush’, thenational-level immunizationprogramme launched forvaccinating newborn babiesand infants, has been a hugesuccess, said Nadda. “In thelast eight months sinceIndradhanush was launched,there has been a 3% increasein the total immunisationcover. From October, we areincreasing the types ofimmunisation to 12,” he said.

‘3% increase inimmunisation’

WEATHER

Sunset:Wednesday 1849Sunrise:Thursday 0620Moonrise:Wednesday 2148Moonset:Wednesday 0945Forecast: One or two spells of rainwould occur. Maximum and minimumtemperatures will be around 30 and 21degrees Celsius resp.Humidity: Max: 82% Min: 65%

Max30.3°C(+2.7)

Min21.6°C(+0.6)

Mumbai: A 30-day parole foractor Sanjay Dutt, grantedmonths after the purpose forwhich it was sought ceased tobe relevant, and coming daysafter furlough-jumping ter-rorists from Nashik jail werere-arrested, have left legal ex-perts questioning whetherprison authorities are apply-ing their mind and keeping de-cisions time-bound as re-quired by law.

Dutt, in Pune’s Yerawadajail, had applied for parole onMarch 26 for his daughter’ssurgery in April, but finallygot out of prison on parole onAugust 26 (the surgery hadtaken place as scheduled).

On August 17, news re-ports said that a terror-financ-ing convict, who was abscond-ing after securing furloughfrom Nashik Central Jail, wasarrested by the National In-vestigation Agency (NIA).Furlough is not allowed in ter-ror cases (tried in Tada courts)and for hardcore convicts. Theconvict concerned was grant-ed furlough seven months af-ter his associate absconded.

Furlough is discretionaryleave that convicts are allowedto enable re-integration withsociety upon their final re-lease.

It requires no specific rea-son and is meant to allow con-victs to be in touch with theirfamily and society. But paroleis leave granted to a convict fora specific reason. It is notcounted towards days served

in prison, unlike furlough.The jail manual requires a

plea for parole to be processedwithin 45 days after it is made.The convict files and sends a

parole plea to the jail superin-tendent, who forwards it to thedivisional commissioner(Pune’s divisional commis-sioner is S Chockalingam).The decision includes seekinga police report and communi-cating approval or rejection tothe convict.

Delay in decision-makingraises pertinent questionsabout whether prison author-ities apply their mind, said alawyer. Many lawyers say thatwhile in Dutt’s case, the delayhas come to light, many appli-cations remain pending formonths, unnoticed and forgot-ten. “The rule book must befollowed strictly as even thehigh court has ruled in severalcases,” said advocate FarhanaShah, who has representedmany convicts whose parolepleas were not decided formonths.

She said that while Dutt’sleave was “rightly granted”,though delayed, the “sameconsideration” should be forother inmates whose pleas arelater rejected on the groundsthat the reasons no longer sur-vive. “If a parole plea is decid-ed, for instance, after the mar-riage of the child of aconvicted prisoner (for whichleave was sought), it would de-feat the very purpose ofleave,” she said. “If a paroleplea is not decided in time, anextension plea would be ren-dered meaningless,” said an-other lawyer, adding that evenfor furlough, the authoritiesare expected to verify the con-vict’s conduct and record andonly then grant leave.

‘Why grant parole afterreason becomes invalid?’

Application for parole

Release on paroleAugust 26

Parole duration 30 days

Grant of paroleAugust third week

DUTT’S PAROLE PROCESS DATES

Surgery on daughter

March 26April 24/25

The time hascome to take a closer look at howparole and furlough are given. Adad asks for parole so that he canbe with his daughter when she isundergoing a medical procedurebut his parole is granted after hisdaughter is back home! Twoquestions arise. One, why was thepermission delayed? And, two,should it have been given at allwhen incidents have overtakenthe reason for the application?This case, coming so soon afterthe controversial furlough grantto two convicts, demands animmediate overhaul of theprocedures and the system.

TIMES VIEW:

Experts: Prison Officials May Not Be Applying MindSwati.Deshpande@timesgroup.com

RTI query on state’s CET decision

datory for every public au-thority to publish all relevantreasons while formulatingimportant policies or an-nouncing decisions that af-fect public at large,” Velan-kar told TOI while citingSections 4 (1) (c) and 4 (1) (d) ofthe Act. “Every public au-thority shall also provide rea-

neering courses. The state government

then decided to give 50%weightage each to the JEEscore and the PCM score inthe state board exam whileadmitting students to engi-neering courses.

However, the new BJP-ledgovernment decided to revert

sons for its administrative orquasi-judicial decisions tothe affected persons,” he said.

Three years ago, the Con-gress-led state governmenthad decided to join the HRDministry’s scheme of a singlenational entrance test calledthe Joint Entrance Exam(JEE) for admissions to engi-

Times of India, Pune, September 2, 2015. Pp.5