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indianexpress:  Despite having lost his right hand, from wrist upwards and left hand stitched up and heavily bandaged, 35-year-old Shashikant Sudam Shitole shows no signs of pain. “I knew I won’t die. I come from a family of freedom fighters,” he says.

Sixteen days after he was attacked with sharp weapons in Navi Sangvi area of Pimpri-Chinchwad, Shitole, a BJP leader, returned home on Wednesday from Sancheti Hospital where he was operated upon for both his severed hands.

His miraculous recovery has surprised many, but not his family and close friends who had closed ranks behind him in his hour of trial. “We were shocked, but we knew he would return hale and hearty,” says mother Ratnaprabha Shitole.

Narrating events of the fateful day of March 5 when he was returning home, Shitole says a motorcyclist blocked his way and a man put a pistol to his head. “I was then taken to Sanskruti Lawn Mangal Karalaya where some people asked me to withdraw my election petition from the Shivajinagar court.”

Shitole alleges that the moment he said he won’t withdraw his petition, he was attacked brutally on the right forearm. He says his election petition was due to come up for hearing. “It’s about bogus voting, voting in the name of people who are dead, misuse of police and civic machinery.”

Alleging that the police have not filed a proper FIR, Shitole says, “The real culprits, two NCP men, are still not caught despite the fact that I have named them.”

BJP leaders Gopinath Munde, Nitin Gadkari and Vinod Taware who visited him in hospital, have taken up the issue in the State Assembly for a CID inquiry.

indianexpress: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education has decided to grant 15 marks to all the SSC students who appeared for the algebra and geometry examinations irrespective of whether they attempted question paper A, B, C or D. The students were foxed by the algebra and geometry question papers held on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

They will now get 30 marks, 15 for each subject. Parents and students had objected to the question papers, saying that the B question paper set was more difficult than the rest of the sets, since many of the questions were ‘out of the syllabus’. Parents had sent a letter to the State Board Chairman Vasant Kalpande, and also met Divisional Board chairman Digambar Deshmukh on Wednesday. Accordingly, the Board convened a meeting on Wednesday with all chief moderators of the eight divisional boards (Pune, Nagpur, Aurangabad, Mumbai, Kolhapur, Amravati and Nashik), and members of the board of studies for mathematics. Each of the four question papers of algebra and geometry were scanned by the panel, following which the decision to award 15 marks for each paper was taken.

In a statement by State Board secretary Vinay Dakshindas on Thursday, the Board clarified that none of the questions were out of the syllabus.

“However, while there was not much of a difference between each question paper set for both algebra and geometry, there was no overall uniformity among them,” the statement said. The panel’s decision will now be conveyed to all eight divisional boards, and due instructions will also be given to all examiners and moderators.

indianexpress:  The Pune University will prepare a comprehensive policy on regulation of technical education in affiliated institutes by June 2007. This decision was taken at the Senate meeting held on Thursday, where many members objected to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) going public with the names of institutes running courses without its approval. The senate members have demanded University intervention in this regard.

A seven-member committee headed by advocate Suresh Chandra Bhosale will consult with members of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) to prepare its report by June.
 
As per the Parliamentary Act of the Central Government, the AICTE is empowered to frame rules and regulations for technical education and grant approval to institutes provided that they adhere to the same. The university cannot grant affiliation to these institutes unless they are approved by the AICTE.

The university is also empowered to ensure that the AICTE norms are being met through local inquiry committees at the college level.

However, this was not being implemented. This issue will now be discussed by the committee and a concrete policy will be framed.
 

indianexpress:  The Pune Municipal Corporation’s headquarters at Shivajinagar and Sambhaji Park will go wireless by next week. Running the ‘Wi-Max’ project on the experimental basis, the PMC will implement the trial runs at the civic headquarters and Sambhaji Park. Micro Sense Private Limited is implementing the project for PMC.

Deputy municipal commissioner Ambrish Galinde said it is not decided whether any commercial rate will be charged for the users during the experiment. “ Users can log on to the internet directly without paying any charges. However this will be valid till the experiment is completed. Installation of equipment to make these two places wireless is in final stages. This project is part of the PMC’s Unwired Pune which aims to make Pune a wireless city,” he said. In the first phase, a 20 km area of Shivajinagar, Deccan Gymkhana, Baner and Aundh will be wireless by June. Users will have to pay Rs 250 for 100 hours.

indianexpress:  Taking a step ahead to check the pending dues that the Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) is awaiting, the administration has written to Union Ministry of Finance seeking an order to the city’s Income Tax department to clear their lease dues by March 31 failing which the undertaking will be forced to take action accordingly.

In the letter dispatched on March 17, former general manager C K Anil put the problem before the Department of Revenue. The letter states that the PMT had leased out 45,000 sq ft comprising the A and B wings of its building at Swargate to the Income Tax department. Similarly, 14,945 sq ft — including ground floor space in the B Wing and third and fourth floors in the C wing — was also leased out, bringing the total area to 59,945 sq ft since 1989.   
 
The letter further elaborates that the Income Tax department was being intimated to regarding the revision of rent and arrears to be paid for the leased out premises. “However, there has been no revision or enhancement in the rent till today,” the letter says. An annexure showing the details of rents and arrears was also enclosed with the letter.

The letter mentions that PMT’s undertaking — catering to the commuters of Pune city — is running into losses. “Its earnings from the other sources are very much essential to run the transport business smoothly. Moreover, the PMT undertaking is required to pay the arrears and other dues to their employees. Because of shortage of funds, the PMT is not in a position to make the payments,” the letter says.

indianexpress: A campaign to install artificial nests for birds was carried out recently in various parts of city by Kishor Rajput, member of the PMC tree authority.

Rajput said the birds were being increasingly driven out of the city due to rapid urbanisation, and senseless cutting. He said he had sought approval of tree authority to install artificial wooden nests atop trees and buildings. The campaign saw participation of some 50 young activists.

techtree: HCL Infosystems has launched eco-efficient consumer and business notebooks, compliant with the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive.

The new notebooks feature HCL’s EC2 technology, an instant self-healing technology that can restore a PC, and recover lost data in less than a minute.

The notebooks include: Leaptop Z and U Series based on Intel Core2 Duo processors; Leaptop X and D Series based on Intel Centrino Duo technology; Dual Core notebooks K and P series based on Intel Pentium Dual Core; and notebooks S and L Series based on Intel Celeron processors.

The two new models are: Leaptop Z9912-AX9012 and Leaptop D9912-AX8008.

The specifications of the Z9912-AX9012 are: Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology; Intel Core2 Duo Processor T5200 with Intel 64 Architecture; 2 MB Cache, 1.6 GHz, 633 MHz FSB; Intel 945GM Chipset; Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Network 802.11b/g; Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic Edition; 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM upgradeable upto 2 GB; 120 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive; 14.1-inch WXGA Wide Screen TFT (1280X768); Bluetooth integrated; and Intel SpeedStep technology.

This notebook is available for Rs 43,990 plus taxes.

The specifications of the D9912- AX8008 include: Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology; Intel Core Duo Processor T2250; 2 MB Cache, 1.73 GHz, 533 MHz FSB; Intel 945GM Chipset; Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Network 802.11b/g; Linux preloaded; 512MB DDR2 SDRAM upgradeable upto 2 GB; 120 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive; 14.1-inch WXGA Wide Screen TFT (1280X768); 4 in 1 Card Reader, Express Card Slot; 86 Keys + 5 Hot Keys Keyboard; Li-ion Battery (6 cells) approx 3 hrs 10 min; approx 2.5 kg weight without adaptor; 100 Hours Sify Internet Pack; 10/100/1000 mbps Ethernet on Board, 56K Modem; Inbuilt Speaker System; ACPI 2.0 Power Management with Intel SpeedStep technology; Ports: 3 USB, 1 IEEE1394, 1 External MIC Input, 1 External Audio Out, 1 External SPDIF Out; one year warranty; Bluetooth Dongle; and Leaptop Bag.

techtree: Epson has launched two new professional photo viewers; Epson P-3000 and P-5000 in the country, the first to feature a 4 color filter LCD, according to Epson.

Instead of traditional RGB color filters (Red, Green, and Blue), these photo viewers have four colors - Red, Blue, Yellow Green, and Emerald Green, which give users a wider color gamut of up to 88 percent of Adobe RGB Color Space, which results in clear, razor-sharp image quality.

The Epson P-3000 and P-5000 feature a 24-bit full color on 4-inch proprietary Epson Photo Fine Ultra LCD screen. They support most RAW formats, and can detail information such as camera settings and histograms.

Both viewers have three viewing modes such as 12 images (4 X 3 mode), 64 images (8 X 8 mode), and List (one-by-one mode). The viewers allow highlighting of shadow areas for editing purposes. Images can also be rated for easy sorting and categorisation. Furthermore, the intuitively placed One-Touch zoom (up to 400 percent) and 4-Way keys eliminate the need to fumble across numerous sub-menus.

The P-3000 and P-5000 have an Image Detection feature, which allows the user to categorise and enhance the type of photo currently on display. For example, when ‘Landscape’ is selected, the photo viewer optimises landscape characteristics and provides a range of clearer colors. If ‘Portrait’ is selected, it will automatically provide the preferred skin tone, and also correct any fogging or backlight scatter.

The P-3000 offers a storage capacity of 40GB (gigabytes), while the P-5000 offers 80GB of storage capacity. Both viewers come with built-in memory card slots. The supported storage types include CompactFlash Type I and II and Secure Digital memory cards. In addition, they can also be connected to an external USB storage and PictBridge device for seamless file transfers.