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IndianExpress: THE Pune Municipal Corporation has taken a big step towards women empowerment by forming the first federation of self-help groups (SHGs) — Savitri Women Self-Help Federation — that will benefit at least 70,000 women-members in the city. The reason: The success stories of the women SHGs in the city prompted the civic body to look for forming a regulatory body that will not only provide greater financial assistance, but also coordinate with the government to avail of various schemes and benefits.

‘‘With the setting up of the federation, business groups of SHGs can avail of loans and members can set up their own businesses,’’ additional municipal commissioner (Urban Community Development) A V Kalamkar said. Currently, loans are provided on an individual basis.

IndianExpress: FIVE days after orthopaedician Deepak Shridhar Mahajan (42) was kidnapped on July 2, the Pune police on Friday arrested a woman — Leena Anil Devasthali (50) — suspected to be involved in his abduction. The police also found some body parts from the Katraj Ghat area after the arrest of Leena, who they said claimed to be a distant relative of Mahajan.

Police commissioner D N Jadhav said though Leena confessed that Mahajan had been murdered on July 4 and his body parts were dumped at secluded spots around the Katraj Ghat area, the police were yet to verify
Giving details of the case, Jadhav said Mahajan had been approached by a woman claiming to be associated with the Mumbai-based Omkar Charitable Trust on July 1 and offered him a job at a hospital they were setting up at Nigdi. Though Mahajan initially turned it down, on July 2 he went to meet them.

IndianExpress: CHIKUNGUNYA, that has already infected 19 districts of Maharashtra, has now got a fresh entrant on its list: Pune.

The National Institute of Virology (NIV) has confirmed that there were a large number of cases of chikungunya in Pune.

At least 100 samples of the 250 sent from Sassoon, Ruby Hall Clinic, Deenanath Mangeshkar and Yashwantrao Chavan hospitals among others have tested positive for the viral fever.
Chikungunya is a viral fever that has dengue-like symptoms but there is no haemorrhagic tendency, he explained. The mosquito aedes aegypti transmits both dengue and chikungunya virus. But chikungunya is a milder disease and what sets it apart from dengue is severe joint pain, says Mishra

IndianExpress: SINCE June, the 96 km expressway has already seen 10 landslides. Now, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is exploring a radical solution to the problem.

‘‘We want to realign a 23-km stretch of the expressway where it meets the NH4 near Lonavala and Khandala. We will approach the Ministry of Environmemt and Forests (MoEF) for a go-ahead for this,’’ said Ramnath Jha, managing director of MSRDC, which is in charge of the six-lane expressway.

Three of the six lanes of the expressway were closed to traffic after a landslide last week. While none of the landslides this monsoon have caused any major loss, they have been a recurring problem since the road was opened to traffic in 2002.Last year, there were 47 minor landslides and a major one at Bhatan. In 2004 too, the number high at 17. Twelve spots including Amrutanjan bridge, Duke’s point, Adoshi tunnel, Bhatan tunnel and Kamshet tunnel are the most vulnerable

IndianExpress: ALLEGING irregularities in appointment of nominated members of various zonal committees of the Pune Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Nitin Bhujbal has demanded that the procedure to appoint committee members in Yerawada be cancelled.

In a letter to Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer, Bhujbal has pointed out that as per the rules, the nominated members are required to be members of NGOs.

IndianExpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has sent 391 notices to owners of crumbling and dilapidated wadas, stating that the structures are in a dangerous condition, 240 notices have been issued asking owners to verify the structural stability of their wadas and 129 notices for precautionary evacuation have been issued.
The building department has brought down 30 properties, including parts and portions of wadas. Deputy City Engineer Shyam Dhavale said that some parts of old structures could collapse anytime and therefore it was necessary to bring them down before further damage

TechTree.com: Hewlett-Packard (HP) India has tied-up with Rashi Peripherals, a leading distributor, for the distribution of HP TFT monitors in the country. Along with this announcement, the company has introduced nine new display options.

HP TFTs come with a slim-line look, and features such as height-adjustment, tilt, and swivel, at competitive prices. The monitors have a viewable image area varying from 15-inch to 24-inch, typical brightness level varying from 250 to 300 units, and graphics with a maximum 1280 X 1024 resolution. The TFT monitors also offer wide-viewing angles that enable monitor viewing from various positions, without compromising on image quality.

Rashi Peripherals will initially carry selected HP TFT displays that may be differentiated on account of their design, picture clarity, focus, higher brightness and contrast ratios, and pixel-by-pixel clarity.

TechTree.com: Microsoft has reportedly introduced Beta versions of the Windows Live Search service and the new search homepage, Live.com, across Asia-Pacific, as part of the company’s move to tap 33 new markets around-the-globe.

The service features an innovative new user-interface, and rich and powerful organizational tools designed “to place control firmly in the user’s hands”. The company says that with the new service, consumers across Asia-Pacific can enjoy Windows Live Search as part of the Live.com experience.

Speaking about the service, Alex Stewart, regional director - MSN and Windows Live business (Asia Pacific), Microsoft, said, “Outside of email, Search is the most popular online activity in Asia. It has become a universal part of the Web, and yet there is huge potential in terms of what it can deliver for Asia s netizens”.

DailyTech.com: VIA has announced a new single-chip chipset designed for UMPC systems. The new VX700 chipset is compatible with VIA’s C7-M processors. The single-chip VX700 manages to pack all north and south bridge features into a single 35×35mm chip package that makes it ideal for space conscious UMPC designs.

It features the UniChrome Pro II IGP graphics core with the Chromation Video Engine. The Chromation Video Engine features hardware acceleration for MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV9 video formats. An integrated LVDS/DVI transmitter provides flexible display configurations with LCD’s, CRT and HDTV displays. DDR and DDR2 memory is supported by the VX700. SATA II, PATA, USB 2.0 and PCI connectivity is supported too. Support for high definition audio is also integrated.

Availability of the VX700 chipset is expected towards the end of Q3’06.

ComputerWorld.com: Although widespread virus outbreaks may be a thing of the past, the total amount of malicious software being written is on the rise, according to McAfee Inc.

On Tuesday, McAfee added the 200,000th definition to its threat database, and the security vendor expects the total number of identified threats to double in another two years. McAfee’s antivirus products use these definitions as digital fingerprints to determine which software should not be allowed to run on a user’s PC.

After a lull in their efforts, virus writers have spent the past few years creating more of this software than ever before, said Jimmy Kuo, a research fellow at McAfee’s Avert Labs.

Between 1999 and 2002, McAfee’s database held steady at around 50,000 definitions, but since then, the number of different worms and viruses created has jumped, he said.