With theatres reopening today, a man writes details about a play that will be performed at Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in Pune. (Express Photo: Pavan Khengre)Pune News Live Updates: Pune district recorded 380 new covid-19 cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday, taking the total to over 1.14 lakh cases. With 3 new deaths, the toll now stands at 19,064. Currently, 3,941 cases are active while a total of 1.12 lakh people have recovered till now.
With India touching the 100-crore vaccination mark, Maharashtra has so far undertaken 9.3 crore inoculations which contribute to 9.3 per cent of the country’s total vaccine doses. In Pune, of the 1.17 crore vaccinations, 92 per cent have got their first dose, while 54 per cent are fully vaccinated. There have been 49.37 lakh vaccine doses administered in Pune city, 21.87 lakh in Pimpri Chinchwad and 46.33 lakh in Pune Rural.
The Pune Municipal Corporation has decided to take the vaccination drive to different housing societies to ensure no eligible citizen remains unvaccinated.
Maharashtra will further ease Covid-19 guidelines from Friday. In Pune, shops will be allowed to remain open till 11 pm and eateries till midnight in the jurisdictions of PMC, Pune Cantonment Board and Kirkee Cantonment Board. Museums and amusement parks will also reopen, but water rides and swimming pools won’t be allowed. Theatres, cinemas, multiplexes and auditoriums are also set to reopen.
Three people were killed and 11 injured after a tanker scraped past a seven-seater vehicle, which went off the road, and then rammed into an empty container near Navle bridge on Katraj-Mumbai road on Friday evening, a police official said. The tanker, containing thinner used in the paint industry, was headed towards Mumbai when the accident happened, said Senior Inspector Devidas Gheware of Singhad Road police station.
Forest Department officials and Wildlife SOS jointly rescued a male leopard which fell into an open well at Belsar village in Pune district’s Junnar tehsil. The animal is currently under observation at the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre.
The approximately seven-year-old leopard was found trapped in the open well on Thursday. The incident comes just weeks after another leopard was rescued from a 35-foot-deep well in Junnar’s Narayanwadi village.
The animal was paddling to stay afloat and was at risk of drowning in the 10-foot-deep water. Concerned, a local farmer immediately alerted the Forest Department. Non-profit organisation Wildlife SOS, operating out of the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre, was also called in for reinforcements.
The Pune district administration has decided to allow ‘Diwali Pahat’, a popular musical event which is held in the morning during the festival, as cases of Covid-19 are falling in the district. The event was cancelled last year as the pandemic’s first wave was nearing its peak at the time.
Deputy Chief Minister and Pune District Guardian Minister Ajjt Pawar said a proposal to allow the event was discussed in Friday’s Covid-19 review meeting. “We have decided to allow Diwali Pahat events in Pune. This has been decided considering the falling number of Covid-19 cases. There have been days when there were no deaths due to Covid-19 in Pune. People have been asked to take precautions,” said Pawar.
The Pune district currently has 3,941 cases are active while a total of 1.12 lakh people have recovered till now.
Pune district recorded 380 new covid-19 cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday, taking the total to over 1.14 lakh cases. With 3 new deaths, the toll now stands at 19,064.
Pune district recorded 206 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, taking its overall tally of infections to 11, 52,592, according to a media bulletin released by the state health department
Despite fewer strikes in a year, the mortality due to lightning in Maharashtra is much higher than the most lightning-prone areas in India, according to a scientist who studies lightning at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune. Sunil Pawar was speaking at a lecture organised by the Ministry of Earth Sciences on Friday as part of the ongoing Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav campaign.
In India, the highest lightning strikes are reported over Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and the northeastern states. But deaths are relatively fewer in the northeast, Pawar noted. “This is mainly due to the topography, that is, along the hilly regions the lightning strikes get trapped and do not hit the land, and thereby fewer people are affected,” he said, adding that increasing events of lightning strikes have been observed over India in recent years as revealed by satellite data since 1995. Read full report
PMC region reported 91 fresh Covid cases today, data release by the civic body showed. Among wards, Dhankawadi-Saharkarnagar reported highest Covid cases (15).
Two men were killed and two others injured in a shootout between rival gangs in Uruli Kanchan area of Maharashtra's Pune district on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the incident took place at Uruli Kanchan Chowk around 2.30 pm, when one of the deceased men, identified as Santosh Jagtap, was coming out of a restaurant with two of his aides
"Four people opened fire at Jagtap. One of his aides, who was armed, fired in retaliation, shooting a person from the rival gang," said Namrata Patil, deputy commissioner of police (Zone V). (PTI)
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Friday refuted the allegations levelled against him in connection with Jarandeshwar Sahkari Sugar Karkhana, and said the ED is investigating the matter and the "facts" will come out.
Pawar said the auction of Jarandeshwar Sugar Mill was carried out by adhering to all the rules and regulations.
The deputy chief minister gave a list of 65 sugar mills that were either sold through auctions, or given on contract to run, and claimed that some cooperative mills were sold in the range of Rs 3 crore to Rs 10 crore, but nobody was talking about them. (PTI)
The Koregaon Bhima Commission of Inquiry on Friday passed an order for issuing summons to IPS officers Param Bir Singh and Rashmi Shukla to appear as witnesses in the ongoing probe regarding the circumstances related to the violence on January 1, 2018. The order was passed by Justice (retd) J N Patel, who heads the two-member commission.
Singh and Shukla are required to respond to the summons by November 8. Singh, who is currently untraceable, was the Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) when the Koregaon Bhima violence took place. Shukla was the Pune Police Commissioner and is currently posted in Hyderabad as the Additional Director General of CRPF (South Zone). Read More
Forest Department officials and Wildlife SOS jointly rescued a male leopard which fell into an open well at Belsar village in Pune district’s Junnar tehsil. The animal is currently under observation at the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre.
The approximately seven-year-old leopard was found trapped in the open well on Thursday. The incident comes just weeks after another leopard was rescued from a 35-foot-deep well in Junnar’s Narayanwadi village.
The animal was paddling to stay afloat and was at risk of drowning in the 10-foot-deep water. Concerned, a local farmer immediately alerted the Forest Department. Non-profit organisation Wildlife SOS, operating out of the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre, was also called in for reinforcements. Read More
The Pune district administration has decided to allow ‘Diwali Pahat’, the popular morning musical events that are held during the festival, considering the dip in Covid-19 cases and an uptick in the number of vaccinations.
Last year, the pandemic’s first wave was around its peak during Diwali and the administration did not allow the events. Deputy Chief Minister and Pune District Guardian Minister Ajjt Pawar said a proposal was discussed in Friday’s Covid-19 review meeting and it was decided that the events will be allowed. Read More
Theatres reopened in Pune today, as the Maharashtra government relaxed Covid-19 guidelines. Here are some pictures by our photojournalist Arul Horizon, of people watching the James Bond movie “No Time to Die” this morning at Mangala talkies.
Of the 1.17 crore vaccinations in Pune district, 92 per cent have got first dose while 54 per cent are fully vaccinated. At least 49.37 lakh vaccine doses have been administered in Pune city so far, 21.87 lakh in Pimpri Chinchwad and 46.33 lakh in Pune Rural.(Anuradha Mascarenhas reports)
Pune ZP and Noble hospital to organise a joint Covid vaccination drive on October 22 and 23 at Haveli and Junnar tehsil in Pune district. Dr Amol Kolhe, Lok Sabha MP, has taken the initiative for this drive. Around 60,000 Covid vaccine doses are expected to be administered.
Meanwhile, Mission Yuva Swasthya Covid vaccination drive has been organised from October 25 to November 2, under which there will be special sessions for youth at colleges for both first and second doses. (Anuradha Mascarenhas reports)
The minimum temperature at Shivajinagar was 17 degrees and at Pashan it was 17.8 degrees Celsius. The IMD's forecast states the day ahead to see clear sky along with windy conditions over Pune. The day temperature is expected to be around 32 degrees. SAFAR has forecast the day's air quality over Pune to be 82 with areas around Shivajinagar, Bhumkar chowk and Katraj to be relatively poorer. (Reported by Anjali Marar)
Ahead of the corporation election, the Pune wing of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to launch its LGBTIAQ cell. Mukund Kirdat, Pune district head of the party, said the decision is in line with the party’s ideology towards equality and upholding constitutional values.
Kirdat said the decision to form the body was taken after the party decided to contest the upcoming civic polls. “We are a new party here and the cells of various organisations to represent all sections of society are now being formed,” he said. The cell, he said, would help in inclusion of issues of the community in their manifesto. “During the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, the community faced hardships. None of the parties went ahead to find holistic solutions for the community,” he said. (Parthasarathi Biswas reports)
Improved vaccination rate and general flattening of the Covid-19 curve has seen offices gearing up to resume a near-normal pace of work. With major IT companies leading in getting their employees back to the workplace, office space rentals in Pune have seen a huge jump as compared to last year.
During the third quarter of present calendar year, Pune had seen rental of 1 million square feet. This, a report by property consultant Knight Frank said, was 549 per cent increase on a year-on-year basis, given that last year was a wash out due to the pandemic and related restrictions. This year’s transaction is 63 per cent of what was carried out during the third quarter of 2019. Read more here
From today, Pune will see more relaxations to the Covid-19 guidelines in place. The timings for all shops will be extended till 11 pm, while eateries -- restaurants, bars and food courts -- will be allowed to remain open till midnight. Amusement parks, museums, theatres, cinemas, multiplexes and auditoriums will also open from today. (Ajay Jadhav reports)