News

IndianExpress: Now that some 4,600, 15-year-old autorickshaws have converted to run on Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) before the June 30 deadline set by the Bhure Lal committee, another 4,500 will have to undergo the exercise by December. The effort is expected to reduce the pollution in Pune and fits with the directives issued by the Bhurelal committee on Pune’s environmental pollution.

At present, around 15,380 vehicles ply on LPG in the city. Of these, 3,280 are pre-1991 autos, 2,000 are post-1991 autos and 10,000 four-wheelers. An additional 4,397 auto-rickshaws will be added by December 2006.

There are already 4,000 autorickshaws plying on LPG everyday and by December another 4,000 will be on the roads. These rickshaws alone will need 80,000 litres of LPG each day,’’said Bapu Bhave from Pune Shahar Autorickshaw Federation

IndianExpress: Property owners can now get the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) for land acquired by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) as quickly as in two months thanks to a fast-track system introduced by the civic body.

The revised guidelines for granting TDR were announced by municipal commissioner Nitin Kareer who said property owners can now get TDR in two months’ time provided the measurement of the land was done and it has cleared the title search report.

 The new guidelines were framed after the PMC faced flak for the Kothrud TDR scam where the civic body paid cash compensation and granted TDR for the same piece of land in Kothrud amounting to Rs 14 crores.

IndianExpress:  Citizens patience is running thin, politicians are taking to the street, two-wheeler riders are having a harrowing time, cyclists are going through a nightmare, light and heavy vehicles are suffering daily damages… All the collective pain has clearly failed to move the Khadki Cantonment Board (KCB) and its headquarters, the Southern Command. Both of them have remained as unconcerned as ever while travellers are fighting hard to keep life and limb intact.

A month ago, the two-kilometre stretch of the Pune-Mumbai highway at Khadki had developed about 200 potholes. Three days of incessant rains and the road has now become completely unmotorable, with deep potholes and ever-widening craters having put the life of two-wheeler riders and cyclists under threat.

Before June, motorists took less than 5 minutes to travel through the two-km stretch. Now, 10-15 minutes of bump and grind has become the order of the day. In last two years, the same stretch has claimed as many as 18 lives, say the police.

IndianExpress: The anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) will now be available to residents of Pimpri-Chinchwad free of cost in all the 10 hospitals run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC). The decision was taken at the civic general body meeting held on Monday. A Rs 1-crore annual provision has been made for the purpose.

The Dilip Band-led administration had placed the proposal for 50 per cent concession to patients for every anti-rabies vaccine. But corporators, led by NCP House leader Yogesh Behl, vociferously argued that local residents should get the vaccine for free while those residing outside PCMC limits should be charged 50 per cent of the cost. Rubbishing the current system, Behl said that Rs 25 lakh was spent for maintaining the dog-catching squad which did not make any sense. ‘‘Providing free medicine to residents will not put any extra burden on the PCMC treasury,’’ he contended, supported by corporators cutting across party lines.

IndianExpress: Saturday was Pune boy Kaustubh Vemuri’s big day. He had just finished swimming the Gulf of Toroneos in the Aegean Sea in Greece. The feat was creditable considering Kaustubh is just 9 years and 8 months old, but the young boy is all agog and in complete awe of a fellow participant, 65-year-old Mike Read.

Read, who already has earned a reputation as the King of the English Channel in 2005 for 33 crossings of the Dover-Calais stretch, also managed to complete the feat in the Aegean Sea. “At his age, it’s amazing,” says Kaustubh, a standard V Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan student, adding, “it shows age does not matter when one is in the sea.”

IndianExpress: Citizens may soon be required to pay more when they buy cashew nuts, almonds, dried dates, pistachio, walnuts, raisins, dry figs, dates, dry coconut, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, cardamom, poppy seeds, turmeric powder, white flour, edible oil, vegetable oil, sugar, coconut, tea, and wheat flour. This will come by way of a one per cent cess that the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee is planning to impose on sales of 26 items, mostly spices and dry fruits in the city.

These 26 items, that the local grocers were hitherto sourcing freely, will come under the net of the APMC, which has been given the mandate to regulate their trade in the city. In return, the APMC will charge one per cent cess on their sale

TechTree.com: Adobe has announced the public beta of the Adobe Lightroom software for the Windows platform, a digital imaging workflow solution for professional photographers.

Now available for both the Windows and Macintosh platforms,
Adobe Lightroom beta is claimed to be the efficient new way for
professional photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images.

According to Adobe, the Windows and Macintosh versions of Lightroom
currently contain different feature sets, but the core of Lightroom
remains consistent across platforms. The company says that as the beta for each platform evolves, the features will converge and the final released versions will be likely the same.

Reportedly, Lightroom beta cross-platform support allows photographers to effortlessly work on projects from any Windows or Macintosh computer on-location, in the studio, or in the office. When combined with the editing power in Adobe Photoshop software, Lightroom provides one clear path for taking images all the way from processing to final presentation.

TechTree.com: PayMate India has announced a collaboration with Citibank and Euronet to launch a unique mobile payment solution called “PayMate” that promises to offer customers an easy, efficient, and secure method of payment.

Citibank customers can sign-up for this service, by sending “PayMate” as an SMS to 2484. They will be called back and registered for the service, following which they can shop for products at Rediff, Naukri, Cleartrip, Jeevansaathi, and 99 Acres.

Once a product is selected, customers need to send a single SMS with pin (provided by the bank) to confirm the transaction. The bank will then proceed to verify the user’s mobile number with his/her account. Upon confirmation, the user’s account will be debited accordingly.

Besides, PayMate does not require any additional software or mobile SIM upgrade; all it requires is a basic entry-level phone with SMS enabled to transact.

TechTree.com: SMC Networks today announced the general availability of what the company calls - its first Wireless Internet Mobile Phone  (SMCWSKP100) for Skype software.

The SMC WiFi phone incorporates Skype software, which allows calling Skype users across-the-globe for free, as also calling ordinary landlines and mobile phones at very low cost using SkypeOut.

“The new phone gives the user great flexibility and mobility, if you have access to one of the rapidly growing number of free wireless access points that support browser-less authentication, like university campuses, offices, airports, hotels, etc,” Goh said.

The new phone connects to Skype through any free WiFi connection, and does not require browser authentication using 802.11 standards. The phone is very easy to set-up and use thanks to automatic registration to a Skype account and contacts.