News

IndianExpress: IN a survey conducted amongst the residents of the city, 68 per cent of the people put congestion as the biggest problem of the city. With more and more jobs being generated, residents and authorities are extremely worried about how the city will cater to the increased demand on its already over stressed streets and transport system.

An environment survey trying to find out the loss in productivity due to traffic congestion put the damages at an estimated $2 billion per year.

IndianExpress:  Right to Information (RTI) has been a big draw in Maharashtra, with the state boasting of the largest number of users in the country till date. Now, it gaining further momentum as an effort is on to catch them young - the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education will become first education board to include data on RTI in the school curriculum.

Come June 2007, the Civics textbooks for class VI will include a section on the Right to Information Act, its uses and benefits. That is not all as class X students will get to familiarise themselves with the practical side of things such as preparation of RTI applications - this, they will do as part of their annual project work.

IndianExpress: THE Pune Municipal Corporation’s plans for developing a truck terminus at Dhankawadi received a major setback on Thursday with the general body ratifying the move of rehabilitating the stalls. The stalls had been shifted from Sarasbaug area to facilitate projects of a hanging garden and a parking lot.

The money for the project in the civic budget for the current fiscal was reallocated for sundry works last month. Pune Newsline had highlighted the use of the Dhankawadi truck terminus for purposes other than parking.

IndianExpress:  DENGUE and chikungunya cases continue to be on the rise in Pimpri-Chinchwad. While one person has died of chikungunya, four new dengue cases have been reported from various places in the town.

“We have received information from a private hospital that four new cases have been admitted there,” PCMC health officer Kamal Yadav said. With the four new dengue cases, the total number of
persons affected with dengue since January in Pimpri-Chinchwad has gone up

TechTree: Microsoft Corp has released Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) for Windows XP, which comes with significant security enhancements, making everyday tasks easier.

Talking about IE 7, Dean Hachamovitch, general manager - Internet Explorer team, Microsoft, said, “We listened carefully to our customers, and are delivering a safer browser that makes the tasks they do every day much easier.”

News.com: Adobe Systems has released a beta of a Flash Player 9 for Linux and said that it is working on 64-bit editions of Flash.

The final Flash Player 9 on Linux is due early next year. According to an FAQ put out by Adobe, the Linux version will support the same features as Flash on Macintosh and Windows.

The beta of Flash Player 9 for Linux, released Wednesday, supports most of the features except a full-screen mode and support for SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption.

BBCNews: Services developed by UK organisations will help some hearing-impaired people to participate more fully in phone calls and meetings.

A Bedfordshire company will soon start two new services using internet devices and voice recognition technology.

And the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) is launching the ScreenPhone.