News

IndianExpress:  On October 16, Pune Municipal Corporation’s law committee proposed a two per cent cut in octroi on petrol that now stands at four per cent. And when it came up for vote, the general body on Monday decided to raise the cut to three per cent, effectively bringing down the octroi on petrol in the city limits to one per cent. The matter took all of five minutes to get cleared. The result — Puneites will get a reduction in their petrol bill to the tune of Rs 1.40 per litre, once the state government approves the cut.

Clearly, a move that had ‘woo the voters’ written all over it, PMC’s general body unanimously decided to forego annual revenue to the tune of Rs 24 crore. Although a special general body meeting was called to take the decision, no discussion was held.

IndianExpress: Agitated with the indifference shown by the District Collectorate in providing land to migrant stone quarry workers under the Maharashtra Land revenue Act, representatives of the Unorganised Stone Quarry Workers Parishad staged a dharna at the Collectorate on Monday.

The agitation was called off only after district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh assured the members of the parishad that he would look into the matter and take necessary action for resolution of the problem.

IndianExpress: A traffic policeman on duty rescued a girl from the clutches of a youth who intended to rape her. Police sub-inspector Vijay Shinde, who was on duty at Wakad traffic division, rushed to the spot after getting the news of the incident.

According to the traffic police, a 20-year-old student alighted near Wakad octroi post while travelling from Mumbai by a private bus on Sunday. While she was going towards Bhoomkarvasti, she was accosted by a person . The culprit, identified as Raju Shankar Gharge from Dhankawadi, forced the girl to go to a secluded place. However, her screams alerted a passer-by, Hemant Patil, who informed the traffic division. Shinde rushed to the spot and rescued the girl. Gharge was handed over to Wakad police.

IndianExpress:  Around 3,000 families from Khed Shivapur, a village 25 km away from Pune, will be getting abundant water supply from February 2007. The Rotary Club of Pune Ganeshkhind, in co-operation with the Shivapur Gram Panchayat and Prerna Rotary Samuday _ a women’s group _ will be pitching in for construction of a drinking water project.

The project work was inaugurated on October 19 by Rotary president Alka Pawar. The project will see installation of two RCC tanks of 30,000 litres each, besides pumps. The project will focus on repairing old pipes in the village for better supply of water and lay another 2 km of water pipeline.

IndianExpress: At 8.30 am on Monday, when former president of the US and Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter with wife Rosalynn by his side picked up cement blocks and placed it at Aziz and Sadhiya Sheikh’s plot — House No. 73 — at Malavali village, it was a gesture that the 100 families at this tiny hamlet will remember for the rest of their life. For, with 2,000 volunteers from all over the world, the Jimmy Carter Work Project began its weeklong activity of providing shelter to the homeless

BetaNews: After a brief delay, Microsoft on Monday made available Windows Media Player version 11. The update includes several enhancements, including a new user interface, improved syncing, and integration with the URGE music service.

Windows Media Player 11 has been publicly available as a beta download since May of this year. However, issues with the quality of the release caused Microsoft to delay the final product while last minute bugs are ironed out. WMP11 works on Windows XP is available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants.

TechTree: Apple Computer has reportedly released a firmware update for its MacBook, which was facing the problem of shutdown without prior warning.

According to Apple, MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.1 improves the internal monitoring system of MacBook, thus dealing with the shutdown problem.

The company said that only a small percentage of the notebooks are facing the shutdown problem, but that the number of affected users seems to be large, going by the fact that some of them have actually gone ahead and launched a Web site by the name, “Macbookrandomshutdown.com” which is entirely dedicated to this problem.

TechTree: According to reports, Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program for Microsoft Office, titled the ‘Office Genuine Advantage’ (OGA) program that has been in beta-testing for several months, has now become mandatory.

The company says that the OGA program will now be “switched on for all” with no choice to “opt out” of the validation process, the way it was all through the beta testing phase.

As of October 27 last week, anyone using a pirated version of Office will no longer be able to download Office templates or other Office downloads, while those using Office Online templates will now require validation.

IndianExpress: Pune’s reputation as a preferred business destination is all set to receive a massive boost with an estimated Rs 25,000 crore likely to find its way into the city’s upcoming special economic zones (SEZs) over the next five years, according to Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation chief executive officer Rajiv Jalota.

Jalota said the city is likely to attract massive amounts of investments in sectors like IT, biotechnology, research and development and design. “We have already set up a biotechnology fund with a corpus of Rs 500 crore to attract investment in this field. Provisions have also been made to earmark designated areas as biotechnology zones in Pune’s new Development Plan,” he said, adding the government would consider giving these clusters the kind of initiatives offered to IT parks in the city.

IndianExpress: On Sunday evening, when former president of the US and Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter with wife Rosalynn in tow set foot at Malavali village near Lonavla, nearly 45 km from Pune, it was a dream come true for the Carter family. For, 23 years after he had approached the then prime minister Indira Gandhi seeking permission for a global non-profit organisation Habitat for Humanity to work in Indian projects, on Monday, Carter and wife will work side by side with 2,000 volunteers to build 100 homes in this village.

“India has always played a big role in the life of the Carter family. Thirtyeight years ago my mother Lilian had come here to work in Vikhroli village as a volunteer for Peace Corps to improve the lives of people,” Carter recalled