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Indianexpress: Drawing a parallel between the software industry in the nineties and recent public pressure and focus on the need to develop infrastructure, Infosys CEO and managing director Nandan Nilekani said country’s spending in infrastructure might reach $1.6 trillion in 2015.

“The infrastructure is reaching golden age today. After liberalisation, people started spending to buy capital goods. Now they realise that it is not enough to have goods. They need better roads, better connectivity,” Nilekani said, while speaking on the occasion of 3rd convocation ceremony of National Institute of Construction Management and Research here on Wednesday.

With public demand for better infrastructure increasing thereby exerting pressure on the establishment, Nilekani said he was bullish about this sector. “After seeing quality roads, excellent transport facilities, state-of-the-art airports in developed countries, Indians feel the same infrastructure should be available here,” he said.

He said currently the passenger traffic at the four airports — Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad — was around 15 million passengers and by 2010, these four airports would have to handle at least 100 million passengers. “Everywhere you go, you hear about big projects in power, roads, ports and airports. Now, even the railways have opened freight for private companies. Amount of commercial space that is being built this year exceeds that of previous five years,” he said.

Indianexpress: Politicians beware. For, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is keenly monitoring the electioneering. With the bad condition of roads in mind, the civic body has cracked the whip on political parties by announcing on Wednesday for the first time that any party that digs up roads to erect stages will have to pay a fine of Rs 5,000.

That is not all, the PMC for the first time has also decided to take deposit and charge rent from the political parties for holding rallies on roads.

In addition, the civic body has also issued a stern warning to the parties that any damage to road surface will not be tolerated and they will have to forfeit the deposit money.

“Earlier, we used to charge the parties only for erection of stages, but henceforth they will be liable to pay for the road space they use for holding rallies,” PMC election officer Dnyandeo Thube said.

While the political parties will have to pay a deposit of Rs 5,000 for holding a rally on the road, another Rs 5,000 would be charged as rent for using main roads and Rs 2,000 for smaller roads.

The classification of main and small roads and the terms and conditions for holding rallies will be decided soon.

IndianExpress: When six boys from the city, with no other claim to fame, except their near-perfect asanas, go on to win 7 gold medals, 2 silver and 2 bronze at the Yoga World Cup held in New Delhi last Friday, it is time to roll out the red carpet. After all, the six city boys live in the slums and have overcome dire poverty to excel in yoga The boys — Nikhil Dixit (15), Krishna Kale (12), Krishna Palke (15), Sagar Nalawade (15), Kamlesh Jha (16) and Sunil Shivtare (15) —- competed with participants from over 15 countries to bring home the honour.

However, even as the congratulatory notes pour in, the boys and their coach, Avinash Ganpatrao Dhas, are unhappy at the alleged injustice meted out to them at the meet. “The boys were performing exceptionally well in all segments of the competition. And that’s exactly what worked against them,” he said. “We were shocked when some members from the organising committee told us the boys would not be allowed to participate in the artistic single category of the World Cup as well as the Invitation International Yoga Cup that was held a day before the Yoga World Cup and in the athletic yoga rounds in both the competitions,” explained Dhas.

According to them the authorities were uncomfortable with the fact that the team from Maharashtra was overshadowing all the other participants, including those from foreign countries. “We had an argument over the issue,” said Dhas.

IndianExpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation’s anti-encroachment department and Kasba Peth ward office on Wednesday took action against 118 hawkers, stall owners and vegetable vendors on roads near Shahu tank in Rasta Peth. Due to the action, 20 feet wide and 800 meter length space will be available to widen the road up to 80 feet.

To ensure encroachments do not take place on the road a separate squad will be appointed by the PMC. Of the 118 stallowners, 35 were illegal and they have been rehabilitated at Sant Gadgebaba Dharmashala and vegetable market in the area. Temporary arrangements have been made for the remaining 83 hawkers.

Zonal commissioner Dnyaneshwar Molak, Kasba Peth ward officer Madhav Jagtap, 40 labourers, 2 JCB, 2 police force and four trucks were involved during the drive.

TechTree: Extending the Cricket Craze to the virtual world, Zapak Digital Entertainment yesterday announced the launch of the world’s first full-feature online Multiplayer Cricket Game. Gracing the launch were none other than Kapil Dev and Navjyot Singh Sidhu, both fine Cricketers in their hey day.

With the MultiPlayer option, gamers can play Cricket with anyone across the globe, no matter wherever they are.

To play, a user needs to simply log in to Zapak.com and start playing the game free-of-charge. The game does not require any additional program installation.

Zapak says they have tried to keep the online game experience as close to the real game as possible.

For starters, there’s a toss, followed by the option to play in different weather conditions, choose field settings, try out all possible strokes and bowling techniques, and even face a no ball or get run out.

TechTree: Kingston Technology has announced immediate availability of its 1.150 GHz and 1.200 GHz DDR2 HyperX memory modules.

The company says it is the first to bring to market 100 percent production tested PC9600 HyperX memory, as also new high frequency PC9200 modules.

Speaking at the occasion, Rajesh Panicker, Country Manager (India) of Kingston Technology, said, “Kingston HyperX memory is 100 percent production tested at full frequency specifications.”

Adding to it, Raymond Chen, Vice President of Marketing, Asus Computer International, said, “The testing for Kingston’s new HyperX modules has been done on Asus motherboards with ATI Radeon chipsets, nForce 600 chipsets, and i965 chipsets. It is clear that these modules, paired with high performance Asus motherboards, bring the ultimate in high frequency gaming memory to PC enthusiasts.”

Chipping-in, Reuven Soraya, Director of Chipset Marketing, AMD, said, “Kingston’s new high frequency HyperX DDR2 9600s (1.200 GHz) and 9200s (1.150 GHz), in combination with AMD processors and chipsets take gaming to new levels of performance.”

BetaNews: German electronics company Siemens said Wednesday that it had set a new network speed record, achieving a speed of 107 gigabits — the equivalent of roughly two DVDs worth of data — per second, two and a half times faster than the previous record.

The test transmission was conducted on a 100-mile stretch of fiber-optic cable in the U.S. It also marks the first time such a test was performed outside of the laboratory. Siemens says the continuing surge in multimedia applications necessitates such high bandwidth needs.

At the core of the faster speeds is an entirely new transmission and reception system. This development allows the processing of data without the need to split the traffic into different channels to prevent bottlenecks.

Siemens’ developments are especially promising for those working on increasing the current network ceiling of 10 gigabits to 100 gigabits, although most residential-based deployments have transmission limits of one gigabyte or less.

“Ethernet has long been the data communication standard on corporate and home networks,” Siemens said.

TechTree: Polar Rose, a Swedish start-up, has unveiled a new technology that will allow users to search the Internet for images using facial recognition and 3D modeling.

The company said this new search plug-in, called Polar Rose, offers users an alternative approach to Google’s popular image search function, and combines facial recognition and 3D imaging software, along with user-input, to provide a unique method for Web-based image searches.

It is learnt that the technology will basically create 3D models of two-dimensional photographs, and then search for similar photographs on the Web and on public photo sites like Flickr. The 3D model helps the computer to disregard photo differences having to do with lighting, camera angles, and the position of the subject’s face in two or more pictures. A three-quarter shot can be produced from even a direct headshot.

Using the Polar Rose technology, users will be able to annotate photos with descriptive details, harnessing the collective intelligence of the Web to improve what can be done with computational searching alone on sites like Yahoo! and Google. Besides, users will be able to further improve the service’s search function by entering metadata such as names to the results.