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IndianExpress:  A MOUNTAINEER must go there, soak in the beauty, push himself, stretch his limits, see the view from the top. It’s a risk, but a calculated one,’’ says Samarth Patwardhan, who along with Rakesh Thakare, climbed the highest peak in the US (barring Alaska and Hawaii) Mount Whitney (14,497 feet above sea level) recently. Whitney is half the Mount Everest (29,035 feet) climb.

Patwardhan, a former student of MIT, Pune said the Mountaineers trail, was fraught with danger at every step.

‘‘It is hard to do your everyday activity with crampons, ski-pants, inner thermals and gaiters,’’ says Rakesh.

IndianExpress: THE Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) will not take up any new projects under the Rs 260-crore Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP) for Pune. MSRDC managing director Ramanath Jha on Wednesday said the corporation’s participation in the project will be limited to two flyovers (at University and Agriculture College chowks) and one railway overbridge (at Udaybaug) that is expected to be completed by December 2006.

MSRDC has already finished work on two other flyovers, four railway overbridges, one bridge (across river Mula) and the widening of three roads. The financial participation of the corporation by December 2006 is estimated to touch Rs 100 crore. ‘‘We cannot divert funds to new projects and leave them midway,’’ he said. To begin with, MSRDC is looking to recover Rs 100 crore that it has already spent from the civic administration.

IndianExpress: HAVING already become the first city in the country to have successfully tried out a public-private partnership in solving the power situation, Pune will now make another attempt to try it out to become the first WiFi city. Giving the roadmap of ‘Unwired Pune’ project, municipal commissioner Nitin Kareer said the Pune Municipal Corporation will start implementing the project in a phased manner by this year-end.

‘‘The radio frequency study has been completed and Intel (technology advisor) will be submitting the report in the next four to five days. Then we will work on the partnership model that should be come in within the next 15 days and also the design parameters will be finalised by next week. We will start implementing it by year-end,’’ Kareer said at the plenary session of the first ‘Knowledge Management’ seminar organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry on Wednesday.

IndianExpress: A MAN was injured after getting trapped under the debris when the dilapidated compound wall of an old wada collapsed near Appa Balvant Chowk on Wednesday morning.

Fire Brigade officials said the identity of the injured has been ascertained as Pandurang Ramchandra Bhagvat (35). Bhagvat was walking down near Appa Balvant Chowk around 11 am when the 50-feet long stretch of the compound wall caved-in. He suffered minor injuries as the debris fell on him.

IndianExpress: RESIDENTS of Neeta Terrace Co-op Housing Society on Mangaldas Road are an enraged lot. The society, that boasts of a thick green cover, has been witness to what well amounts to an environmental carnage, with 25 of its huge trees having been recklessly chopped down. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that the move came from a government organisation itself — the Railways.

According to the society’s residents on June 26, nearly 25 Railways labourers, along with some five officials, entered the premises of the housing society and hacked nearly 25 trees in the society garden. While many of the residents present in the campus tried to stop them, it was to no avail.

IndianExpress: HERE’s some good news for the vultures. The forest department, Pune, has come up with a plan to monitor the vultures whose numbers are down to a few thousands from the estimated 50 million worldwide 10 years ago.

For starters, a vulture committee has been set up to keep an eye on the 100-odd birds left in Pune district. Chief conservator of forests Prakash Thosare, wildlife researcher Parag Khatavkar, Project Tiger expert committee member V Sawarkar, environmentalist Dr Erach Bharucha and several forest officials are members of the committee.

IndianExpress: ANOTHER landslide occurred on the expressway at the same spot in the Khandala ghat section on Wednesday at 6. 30 pm. Deputy Superintendent of state highway police Sunil Sonawane said it was not as big as Monday’s.

Traffic on the 500-metre stretch at Duke’s Retreat near Anda’s point will be diverted to the Mumbai-Pune corridor and then back to the Pune-Mumbai corridor at Adoshi tunnel. Similarly, the 800-metre stretch near Adoshi on the Pune-Mumbai corridor will also be diverted. Heavy vehicles diverted from Lonavla exit point to old Mumbai-Pune highway will take the expressway at Dasturi.

TechTree.com: Gigabyte Technology has launched two new “S” series motherboards; the GA-M51GM-S2G, and the GA-M59SLI-S5, designed for the AMD socket AM2 platform.

The new motherboards feature support for AMD AM2 processors and high-frequency dual-channel DDR2 800MHz memory, and are said to offer user-friendly platforms for maximum system performance.

The specifications of the GA-M51GM-S2G are AMD Athlon 64/ Sempron socket AM2 platform; support for dual-channel DDR2 800 memory; integrated Nvidia CineFX 3.0 Graphics Engine; support for Nvidia SATA 3Gb/s and RAID 0,1,0+1,5 function; integrated Gigabit Ethernet solution with Nvidia TCP/IP Acceleration technology; integrated IEEE1394 FireWire interface; eight-channel high-definition audio; and RoHS-compliant motherboard for green computing.

TechTree.com: Rounding-off its line of Latitude notebooks that promise enhanced security, connectivity, and durability, Dell has announced the sleek, ultra-portable Latitude D420 notebook.

With weight starting at just 1.36kg, and the capacity to deliver over seven hours of battery life, Dell says its new notebook is significant because of its light-weight design, enhanced features, and biometric security, all - the result of extensive consumer research.

According to Dell, the Latitude D420 qualifies as the lightest in the D-family, while being fully-compatible with standard docking options, power supplies, and peripherals. Customers can also add the optional, light-weight MediaBase with choice of optical drive that attaches to the bottom of the system.

The RoHS-compliant D420 is powered by Intel Core Solo processors, and features a 12.1-inch wide-aspect display, full-sized keyboard, and dual-pointing capability. The notebook can be configured with either Wi-Fi 802.11g or 802.11a/g; is 802.11n-ready; and features the Wi-Fi Catcher, a switch that helps find wireless connections sans having to turn on or off the wireless device.

News.com: Apple Computer today announced the release of an iMac desktop computer specifically designed for educational clients, hoping that its compact, 2-inch-thick frame will appeal to students in space-constrained classrooms and dorms. The desktop computer, featuring a 17-inch screen, will retail for $899.

With the release of the iMac for education, Apple will discontinue production of the eMac desktop, the last Mac to come with a CRT monitor. The new iMac will be available only through the Apple Store for Education, which offers discounted products specifically for academic clients. Educational customers will be saving $400 off the $1,299 price for a standard 17-inch iMac, but the new machine comes with a weaker graphics card and half the hard drive space, making it potentially less attractive to digital media enthusiasts and “World of Warcraft”-addicted college students.