News

IndianExpress: With the Federation of All Maharashtra Petrol Diesel Associations deciding to go on an indefinite ‘‘no purchase campaign’’ beginning Sunday midnight, there was a rush to fill oil in the city. Serpentine queues were witnessed at almost all the pumps throughout the night

The federation said at least 2,500 dealers in the State will stop purchasing stocks of petrol and diesel. Pune district has 170 pumps under the federation. The campaign is against the sales tax levied on transport fuel in the State. ‘‘The existing stock will exhaust by Monday evening,’’ they said. Pune branch president Baba Dhumal said the dealers had been paying 32 per cent sales tax.

IndianExpress: Finally, there seem to be some signs of improvement in the LPG cylinder supply in the city. For, the 28,000 cylinders or 400 tonnes of gas that was imported from the Gulf has arrived and found its way here.

‘‘We have received the consignment and have started distributing the cylinders to remove the backlog. We hope the demand-supply situation will stabilise soon due to this consignment,’’ district supply officer Apporva Wankhede said.

Failing to meet the heavy demand for the gas cylinders, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) decided to import 1,000 tonnes of gas from the Gulf, of which 400 tonnes or 28,000 cylinders were for Pune district. The district has over 3 lakh consumers with HPCL, BPCL and IOC being the

IndianExpress: For those who wish to combine a love for hardware and software with a flair for writing, the University of Pune’s Department of Communication and Journalism has launched a course in technical writing.

The Post Graduate Diploma in Technical Communication (PGDTC) will qualify students with writing skills and equip them to produce user’s manuals in industries like information and communication technology, automobile, engineering and pharmaceutical.

The University has tied up with technical writing consultancy company Technowrites Pvt Ltd for the course.

IndianExpress:  The State Government has issued a notification to the RTO in Pune, inviting suggestions and objections to install electronic meters in new autorickshaws.

The notification seeks to bring in an amendment making electronic meters mandatory. The digital meters cannot be tampered with. ‘‘While a mechanical meter costs up to Rs Rs 2,700, the electronic meter costs Rs 4,000,’’ said K D Dighe, whose firm launched electronic meters in Pune.

IndianExpress: The city that has been witnessing rain for the past three days, will continue to get strong spells of shower for the next 48 hours. ‘‘The current spells of rain are due to forming of low pressure area in central Bay of Bengal and also East-Central Arabian Sea off North Maharashtra,’’ India Meteorological Department (IMD) director (Weather Forecasting) R R Lele said.

However, she said it was too early to say whether the monsoon has started retreating. ‘‘Till Saturday, there were no signs. But on Sunday I saw some symptoms,’’ Lele said. Last year, the monsoon had started retreating from West Rajasthan on September 15.

IndianExpress:  The Vishrantwadi police arrested Ramesh Sampat Sathe (45), resident of Shantinagar, Yerawada for allegedly raping a 35-year-old woman. Police said Ramesh promised her a job. Later, he allegedly raped her on a number of occasions from November 2005 to April 2006

TechTree:  Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) is reportedly releasing the RoHS-compliant 945GTY-M microATX motherboard with embedded Intel 945GT Express chipset supporting the latest Intel Core Duo CPUs.

The 945GTY-M motherboard, which is Microsoft Vista-ready or Intel Viiv-capable, features PCI Express, SATAII, Hi-Speed USB 2.0, and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics controller.

The motherboard’s 945GT Express Northbridge chipset and Intel ICH7m-DH Southbridge I/O controller provide a platform that can drive a range of demanding home and business computing or entertainment solutions.

TechTree: SanDisk has announced the 4GB miniSDHC (high capacity) flash memory card for mobile phones, which the company claims is the highest capacity card in the industry today.

The 4GB miniSDHC card will provide faster speed and larger capacity that is required to support storage-intensive applications such as digital imaging, music and video record or playback functions, television and videogames.

In addition, the 4GB capacity can store more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures, more than 1,000 digital songs, or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video.