News

IndianExpress: THE Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has woken up to a disturbing fact — over two dozen nursing homes and diagnostic centres under its jurisdiction had no registration certificates. Also, with no medical waste disposal system in place within the cantonment area, all these nursing homes need to tie up with their counterparts in the Pune Municipal Corporation limits for disposing of used needles, syringes, sanitary pads and bandages from the latter’s premises.

Though the PCB did initiate the process to get these nursing homes registered in January this year, most medical practitioners in the PCB area are clueless as to how to go about it.

‘‘There are around 25-30 nursing homes and diagnostic centres in the cantonment area. The hospital scrutiny committee will now inspect and conduct a review to check if the staff requirement, equipment, sanitation and other facilities are satisfactory,’’ says Mahajan.

IndianExpress: DEPOSITORS in hundreds stood in long queues outside several branches of United Western Bank Limited (UWBL) in the city on Sunday, a day after the country’s apex bank, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a moratorium on Saturday.The depositors clamoured for their turn to withdraw their earnings deposited in the various branches of the bank. Signs of anger and frustration was palpable among those who landed outside the branches early on Sunday.

Fourteen branches of the bank functioned across the city on Sunday, including two in Ahmednagar and two at Nashik. Zonal Manager, Pune Office, S V Joshi said all was well. ‘‘We have enough cash to disburse to the customers,’’ he said, adding that,‘‘We have been successful in convincing the people that they would all be able to withdraw their deposits. There was a minor problem related to cash since today is a Sunday and a holiday. From Monday, we will have enough cash to disburse to the customers’’.

IndianExpress: University of Pune would undergo a complete overhaul of infrastructure available to foreign students in the next few months, University Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Narendra Jadhav today said.

He was speaking in context with the problems faced by foreign students in visa and registration, which came to light at a national seminar organised at the University on September 1.

Asked about the possibility of establishing a single-window system at the University as suggested by Commissioner of Police Dhananjay Jadhav, the V-C said that the matter would be looked into on a priority basis.

IndianExpress: Five villages in snow desert Ladakh have been witnessing an unusual activity in their government schools for the past month. Amid laughter and fun games, students are being acquainted with novel concepts: Sea, underwater life and plateaus with buildings instead of mountains.

They are also learning about the bio-diversity unique to Ladakh, courtesy the Snow Leopard Conservation Education Programme (SLCEP), drafted right here in Pune.

The SLCEP is a community-based environmental education programme for children in Ladakh, with special focus on conservation of the snow leopard and other wildlife. Prepared by Pune-based environmentlists Sujata Padmanabhan and Sharmila Deo of environmental action group Kalpavriksh, SLCEP is an initiative of Ladakh-based wildlife conservation group Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC).

CNet: Commercial space entrepreneurs are developing rockets to take tourists to the moon someday. But a software maker has gotten a head start on the adventure by simulating a lunar ride for the PC user.

Virtue Arts, based in Los Angeles, has developed software that renders the exact physics and topology of the moon in a 3D game, letting players drive the lunar surface, gaze at the galaxy or study objects that were left by NASA astronauts on real missions.

The company showed off its application for the first time Thursday here at NASA Ames Research Center. NASA Ames plans to use the software to engineer space vehicles and train astronauts for future missions, and Virtue will sell lunar exploration software to schools and consumers beginning this fall.

CNet: Microsoft on Friday made available a nearly final version of Windows Vista, the long-awaited and often-delayed successor to Windows XP.

Availability of “Windows Vista Release Candidate 1″ was announced by Microsoft’s Jim Allchin in a note to participants in a special Vista beta test program, according to an e-mail sent by Microsoft’s public relations agency. Allchin, “Mr. Windows,” is Microsoft Windows Client group vice president.

In his note, which was also posted to the Windows Vista Team blog, Allchin said there are “a lot of improvements since Beta 2,” which was released in May. The changes primarily are tweaks in the user interface, more device drivers, and improved performance, Allchin wrote.