Pune News Blog
A blog about life in Pune and various news in Pune city

If you are planning to go to Sinhagad, rememeber that you may have to pay entry tax of Rs. 15 per head to enter. Forest minister Babanrao Pachpute and tourism minister Vijaysingh Monite Patil said that this entry tax would be similar to what people pay to enter hill stations like Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar.

Cars and light four wheelers have to pay tax of Rs. 50. If you are carrying plastic bottles and polythene bags with you, you have to make a deposit at the entrance. If you show the plastic bottles and polythene bags while coming back, you will be refunded, else the deposit is gone. I think this is really a good step to keep the place clean.

The amount collected will be used to maintain the area. To green it and for the maintainance of the fort.

There is a good news. There will be no load shedding in Pune city till May 2009. But this will not come free. You need to pay so called reliability charges from 47.80 paisa per unit.

If you are using less than 300 units in a month (very less chances), then you need not pay the new hiked charges. But if your monthly consumption is more than that, you have to pay the hiked charges.

Central Railways has announced two new trains. One of them is 2113/2114 Pune Nagpur Garib Rath, which will run three times a week from Pune-Nagpur-Pune.

2113 Pune-Nagpur Garib Rath will leave Pune on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 14:40 and will reach Nagpur at 9:25 in the morning next day.

Similarly 2114 Nagpur-Pune Garib Rath will leave Nagpur on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday at 18:35 and will reach Pune at 9:45 in the morning next day.

These trains are expected to start from July 1st, 2008.

College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) has introduced a web based info system which will display the real time data on allotment of seats during the admission rounds of the the all 6 engineering colleges in the state of Maharashtra. This will save a lot of time, travel and anxiety to students and their guardians.

All the information will be present at http://www.coep.org.in

Here are the details of admission rounds:
June 24^th, 2008 : Provisional merit list
June 28^th, 2008 : Final merit list
June 30^th, 2008 : First round of admissions for merit list of 1 - 1000
July 1^st, 2008 : Admissions for merit list of 1001 - 2000
July 2^nd, 2008 : Admissions for merit list of 2001 - 3500
July 3^rd, 2008 : Admissions for merit list of 3501 - 8000
July 4^th, 2008 : Admissions for merit list of 8001 - 12225

There are total of 12,225 applications for a total of 2,665 seats.

Railway ministry has invited tenders to conduct a pre-feasibility study for the corridor connecting Pune with Ahmedabad. If the things go well, a bullet train from Pune to Ahmedabad will be started.

This train will run on a dedicated fast track with a speed of 300 kmph covering the total distance of 660 kms in just overnight. The cost for this track would be at the rate of Rs 50,00,00,000 (Rs. 50 Crore) per kilometer.

Many other countries in the world have similar trains. The fastest one is Shinkansen trains in Japan running with the speed of 575 kmph.

Times is bring a franchise expo (Franchise Expo 2008) to Pune city. Here are some details:

Location:
Hotel Sun ‘n Sand

Date & Time
22^nd and 23^rd June 2008 (Sunday & Monday)
10:30 AM to 7:00 PM
Entry Free

Investment options ranging from 1 lakh to 300 lakhs.

Sale at Big B, Laxmi Road

FLAT 20% and 50% OFF ON ALL BRANDS

Big B is a showroom exclusively for men. Suiting, shirting, ethnic wear, readymakes and party wear.

Location:
Big B
Phadtare Chowk, Off Laxmi Road
Pune - 411030

Phone: 24452075

International Academy for Creative Arts & Design

PG / 3 Year / 1 Year British Programmes by Cavendish College London. Now in Pune

International Foundation Programme
Art and Design

One Year International Programme
Art & Design - Fashion Design - Fashion Marketing & Communication - Interior Design - Photography - film & Video - Hair & Makeup

Three Year International Programme
Fashion Design - Fine Arts

Post Graduate Programme
Fashion Marketing & Retail Merchandising - Fine Arts & Graphics Design

Course Highlights
Faculties from International Design Universities
International Guest Lectures
Europe Study Tour
Study in London and Milan

For further details on admission test:
FAD Campus, Plot No. 3 & 4. Opp. Army Sports Institute, Mundhwa Road
Koregaon Park Extension, Pune 411001, Maharashtra, India

Phone: +91-20-32548008, +91-9970158726
Email: fad@fadacademy.com

Inflation in India has risen up to 11.05%, which is the 13 years high. People were expecting the inflation to go up due to fuel price hike but nobody was expecting to cross 11%. That is really a surprise.

As per today’s newspapers, analysts expected it to rise to double digit. But even the worst expectation was at around 10.60%.

So, what is coming next?
I think following things are going to happen:

• Government is going to take some drastic measures, else they are surely going to lose the upcoming elections.
• RBI is going to hike CRR and Repo rates to suck the liquidity from the market.
• That will force the banks to increase the lending rates, which will make the interest rates for loans (including housing loans, car loans and business loans) go higher.
• This will surely hit the Sensex. Banking, housing and auto companies are going to get his worst.

So what do you think the government can do about it?
In the short term, FM and RBI will take steps like hike CRR, hike Repo rate, reduce import duty on few basic things, increase duty on others, reduce excise on some products etc.

But in the long term, I think the government need to think more about the ENERGY. It need to think how they can become independent (Ok, if not independent, then may be less dependent) from these fuel/energy situations. They should support alternative fuel projects like:

• Bio fuel projects
• Promoting electric cars by reducing (or even eliminating) taxes on them and providing various types of reservations for them. For example, 30% of all parking space will be reserved for electric cars only.
• Promoting the research in solar and wind energies. Also providing various types of subsidies on them.

What do you think? What can government can do about it?

Hello everybody!
Its been little more than a month since punesite.com was launched. Finally today I decided to launch the “Pune blog” as well. Pune blog will be part of Pune site but will be updated on daily basis with latest news and happenings in Pune city.

If you live in Pune and would like to contribute something to the Pune community, please join this blog. To create an account here, just contact us and let us know what would you like write about. You can write about anything on this blog, but it should be related to Pune city only.