Pune: Sharad Pawar, Adani meet for two hours, discuss technology

NCP leaders said the meeting had nothing to do with politics and both of them wanted a first-hand experience of the working of the Science and Technology Park

Sharad Pawar and Gautam Adani, among others, at the Science and Technology Park in Pune on Friday (Express Photo)

GAUTAM ADANI, the country’s top industrialist and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar met on the premises of Science and Technology Park, an initiative of the Union government, on Friday. Both of them were together for more than two hours. Adani was “mighty impressed” by the activities being undertaken by the Science and Technology Park to improve the lives of people by using technology and showed readiness work together.

NCP leaders said the meeting had nothing to do with politics and both of them wanted a first-hand experience of the working of the Science and Technology Park. When contacted, Baramati MP Supriya Sule confirmed that Pawar and Adani met in Pune on Friday. “I think they met during Gautam Adani’s visit to Science and Technology Park… I have no clue what they discussed,” she said.

Speaking to this newspaper, Rajendra Jagdale, director-general and CEO of Science and Technology Park said, “We had in the past twice invited Gautam Adaniji to visit our Science and Technology Park to have a first-hand experience of what it does. However, he could not make it then. Yesterday, he turned up…We had also invited Pawar saheb. It was a sort of an exploratory visit. Both of them were on our premises for more than two hours.”

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As soon as they arrived, both of them were briefed about the working of the Science and Technology Park. “It was a courtesy visit, an exploratory visit. We shared with them the information about our functioning. How we fund the start-ups, how we are ensuring their growth. So far, we have helped set up 1,369 start-ups and provided funding to 260 start-ups. Of the 260 start-ups, we have not written off the investment of even one single start-up,” Dr Jagdale said, adding they have also undertaken activities under CSR.

The technology that Science and Technology Park has developed, said Dr Jagdale, is being used to improve the life of the people. “The technology is being used to uplift the lives of rural folks, the urban poor, the farmers, the physically challenged, the transgenders…it is being used in health and hygiene field too besides in several other areas. We have taken up the mission of giving hi-tech jobs to transgenders,” he said.

Representatives of various start-ups were also present. Dilip Band, president of Science and Technology Park and Prataprao Pawar, vice-president were also present. The Science and Technology Park is located within the campus of Pune university.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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