News

IndianExpress: In a high voltage drama that unfolded at the Pune Municipal Corporation building for over two hours on Friday, the Republican Party of India brought 200-odd schoolgirls on the road and blocked all entries and exits of the civic headquarters.

The demonstrations, organised in such a manner that they would coincide with the civic general body meeting, made it impossible for Mayor Rajani Tribhuvan and atleast 15 corporators to enter the building and participate in a special meeting over the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission programme.

With rains pouring in, Tribhuvan and other corporators had to take shelter in a nearby pandal erected for Ganeshotsav. While the girls were getting drenched, the mayor and corporators sipped tea.

IndianExpress: Consider this: India produces approximately 5 lakh engineering graduates annually from over 1,400 engineering colleges. Of these, a mere 25 per cent are considered employable by multinational companies, according to a survey conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute. Such statistics indicate the gap between theoretical knowledge provided by engineering colleges and the practical skills required by companies.

Doing its bit to bridge this gap is the Cummins College of Engineering for Women, with its unique two-day event ‘Technotryst’, which will provide a platform for students to interact with experts from various fields.

IndianExpress: The traffic police will impose curbs on the parking of vehicles in the vicinity of Mangala theatre near the Pune Municipal Corporation building on Sunday. This is to avoid snarls due to the large number of people purchasing Ganesh idols at stalls permitted there.

The curbs would be enforced between 6 am and midnight, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Mahesh Ghurye said. People going to purchase the idols would be allowed to park vehicles on the road from Kamgar Putala Chowk to Shri Shivaji Preparatory Military School as well as part of Veer Santaji Ghorpade Path between Dengale Bridge and Shaniwarwada Chowk

IndianExpress: The road-fixing job undertaken by the Pune Municipal Corporation is not exactly what citizens had demanded. Though most of the city roads have been resurfaced, bits and parts are already being washed out. This brings the condition of the city roads back to where they were, if not worse. However, Mayor Rajani Tribhuvan, who had threatened to resign if roads were not repaired by Saturday, finds the work ‘‘satisfactory’’.

Till now the road department has repaired 38,804 sq metre stretches of 60,000 sq metre. The asphalt and mettle has come up on on many roads. This was seen at stretches fixed at Shaniwar Peth, Alpana theatre, Laxmi Road, Kothrud, Karve Road and near Engineering College. At a few places, the patch work was incomplete and at others the material has resurfaced.

IndianExpress:  Some 40 students of a PCMC-run special school for aspiring sportspersons in Nehrunagar of Pimpri took ill after eating breakfast on Friday. Nineteen students of Krida Gurukul started vomitting while several others complained of stomachache and headache after eating idli, kheer, milk and eggs. The school has 241 students who are served breakfast everyday. The sick students were taken to Yashvantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital and discharged on Friday afternoon. Additional Commissioner Dilip Gawade said some part of the food could have gone bad. ‘‘Samples will be sent for testing,’’ he said.
 

IndianExpress: There’s a twist to the all-important photo passes issued to the slum dwellers in the city. The list of 97,000 slum dwellers who have been issued photo passes includes names of some 40,000 people who were not found eligible by the respective ward offices.

This information came to the fore when corporator Nitin Jagtap, in a press conference on Friday, said he had asked the civic administration for it under the Right to Information Act.

Hours later the issue was raised in the General Body meeting of the Pune Municipal Corporation where corporators demanded a through probe into the matter. Additional Municipal Commissioner (Special) Mohan Adtani said an inquiry would be initiated and the probe would be completed in a month.

TechTree: Logitech has launched two advanced mice; “MX Revolution” and “VX Revolution” that the company claims will help them bring about a revolution in PC navigation.

These cordless laser mice promise to enable users move quickly and intuitively through multiple Web pages, large spreadsheet files, digital photos, playlists, or any other rich, abundant digital content.

Both mice feature the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel that spins freely for up to seven seconds, spanning hundreds of pages, yielding as many as 10,000 lines of a Microsoft Excel document with a single flick of the finger, while a traditional scroll wheel would take 500 spins and seven minutes to cover the same territory.

Reuters: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Friday that Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, NEWS, Research) will manufacture its upcoming “Zune” portable media player, the software giant’s answer to Apple Computer Inc.’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) market-leading iPod.

A company spokeswoman confirmed that a filing made by Toshiba for a portable audio player to the Federal Communications Commission is for Zune, due out later this year.

The filing reveals that the device will come with a 3-inch liquid crystal display screen and a 30-gigabyte hard-disk drive and have wireless connectivity.

BBCNews: A car built by JCB has broken the diesel engine land speed record after reaching 328.767mph (529km/h).
A JCB Dieselmax spokesman said the vehicle attained the average speed during two runs in Utah, USA.

Confirmation was given on Tuesday by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile. An attempt to better the record will be made on Wednes

The Dieselmax car is powered by two turbo-charged JCB engines built at the company’s plant at Rocester