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IndianExpress: Two months ago, Hemant Singh came to Pune from Haryana for further studies. He was worried about getting the No Objection Certificate (NOC) for his vehicle from the Pune Regional Transport Office (RTO).

He was in for a pleasant surprise when the NOC department gave him a pamphlet in English describing in detail the certificates that were to be attached with the FT form required to obtain the NOC.

The pamphlets were introduced after the RTO officials became aware of the communication gap with new comers to the city. “Generally, people who visit our department to take NOC are not natives of Maharashtra. As they cannot understand Marathi, there are problems in communication. In the absence of proper guidance, they approach the wrong people,” points out NOC department in-charge R L Gute.

The pamphlet was introduced three years ago. “I tried to find out why so few people approached us. When I cross-checked, I realised that most of them fell into the trap of agents,” he says. Then the officials hit upon the idea of introducing the pamphlets, which has proved useful. The number of people visiting the department directly has increased by over 100 each month

Indianexpress: With the deadline for withdrawal of nominations just 24 hours away, party leaders spent Thursday working the telephones, calling on the homes of rebels and playing the carrot and stick game - balancing closed-door counselling with threatening disciplinary action.

Emotional blackmail vied for the day’s top honours as efforts were mounted to get rebels to withdraw their nominations. Of the 2,084 nominations filed, there are said to be 260 rebel candidates in fray for the polls.

The rebel bug is looming large as a spoilsport for many ‘sureshot’ seats. In some wards, it is threatening to confuse the electorate as to who is the official candidate. Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi, NCP leader Ajit Pawar, BJP city unit chief Girish Bapat and Shiv Sena city unit chief Nana Wadekar were busy on Thursday trying to pacify these rebels.

“We are the only party that can bring development in Pune. This is a crucial time for the city and party as the Youth Commonwealth Games is just a year away. The party has to win the polls,” was Kalmadi’s tone .

By afternoon the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee had issued a whip to rebels to withdraw before the deadline of 3 pm. on January 19 and declare their support to the official candidate. Those who failed to do so have been threatened with disciplinary action, said a statement issued by MPCC spokesman Hussein Dalwai.

Indianexpress: The State Government’s decision to conduct six-month internships for graduates of the D.Ed course has resulted in protests by the Students Federation of India (SFI), as well as the SFI-affiliated D.Ed Students Federation, who have now announced that a statewide protest rally will be held on Friday.

SFI Pune District President Samir Ahire said that while Maharashtra produced 50,000 D.Ed graduates every year, only 13,000 received jobs. “At a time like this, the government seems reluctant to fork out salaries for the graduates by giving them only temporary internships instead of full-fledged jobs,” said Ahire.

Ahire also said that there was no need to have additional internships for the students, as they already underwent one and a half months of internship during their D.Ed course itself.

The students have also objected to the “irregularity” in receiving scholarship money. “While many times scholarship money is received very late, the money that is received is often a reduced amount,” said Ahire.

The D.Ed Students Federation and SFI will also be conducting a D.Ed Educational Conference. The tentative date for this is February 8, which will be finalised at the SFI meeting on January 25.

BBCNews: More people than ever are becoming early adopters of technology, says research outlined in Las Vegas.

“Consumers get it; they understand technology and they are adopting it accordingly,” analyst Sean Wargo told the Consumer Electronics Show.

More than $155bn (£80bn) in consumer technologies is expected to be sold in the US in the next 12 months.

“Driving the industry is the transition to the new breed, the next generation of technologies,” Mr Wargo said.

More than 140,000 people are in Las Vegas for one of the world’s largest technology shows.

The industry says consumers’ love affair with gadgets will continue despite a global economic slowdown and a prediction that growth in the US market would halve in 2007 from last year’s figures.

Mr Wargo, director of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), said the industry would continue to grow faster than retail on average.

He said people were “not only upgrading what they have but acquiring new technologies every year

BBCNews: Microsoft and Ford have unveiled a system to enable voice-activated music and telephone calls for car drivers.
The “Sync” platform, introduced at the Detroit auto show, will be available in 12 Ford vehicles this year.

Drivers will be able to say contacts’ names in English, French or Spanish, or tell the car which song they want to hear from their MP3 player.

“The market potential is absolutely enormous,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president for the Americas.

‘Flourishing market’

In-car electronics are an increasingly important area in the battle for share in the US auto market.

Bill Gates says Sync will “enhance the pleasure and safety of driving”

More than 80% of US households use mobile phones and 60 million digital music devices have been sold there in what Ford called a “flourishing market”.

The agreement is part of a constant quest by Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, for fresh markets beyond the home and office computer ones which it dominates.

Ford, meanwhile, hopes that new technology will help it solve the problem of dwindling market share even in its home US market.