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indianexpress:  Aditya Wadaskar from Hutchings High School has topped the 9th National Science Olympiad (NSO) examination for standard IV conducted by New Delhi-based Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF). The results were announced on Thursday.

The SOF is popularising information technolgy and science education in India and abroad. The examination is for students from standard III to XII in two levels.
 
SOF city co-ordinator S D Taware said Aditya had topped the country-wide merit list. “The examination held by the SOF prepares students for the IIT exams. Around 2.5 lakh students appeared for the science exam while 2 lakh students appeared for the IT exams this year,” he said.

“I had to answer from what I had learned from my textbooks. I am interested in scientific experiments,” said Aditya. His mother Surekha is a scientist at National Informatics Centre (NIC) while his father Yogendra is a businessman. “We could not believe he had topped. We will support in the next level examination,” he added.

indianexpress: Barely a few days after it was launched, the much tom-tommed 24×7 drinking water plan of the Dilip Band-led Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has come a cropper. On February 28, the PCMC had begun supplying round the clock water to residents of the upmarket Pradhikaran area. Three weeks later, it is back to square one as the PCMC has stopped supplying drinking water round the clock, citing technical problems.

Additional city engineer (water supply) Vishwas Gaikwad confirmed that 24×7 water supply plan in Pradhikaran has ground to a halt. He, however, said the PCMC would re-start the plan from April 1. “In the last three weeks, we could supply drinking water round-the-clock in Pradhikaran area for only five days,” Gaikwad said.

Blaming the irrigation department for failure of the plan, Gaikwad said on two days this month the irrigation department released “very little” water from Pavana dam, which affected PCMC’s distribution network. “We have taken up the matter with the irrigation department. The commissioner has also written to the irrigation department to ensure proper water supply,” Gaikwad said, adding that they have been assured of a continuous supply. On Wednesday, local corporators R S Kumar and Raju Misal met the commissioner and complained about the poor supply condition in the suburb.

Three years ago, when Dilip Band took over as municipal commissioner, he had promised to spread the concept of water harvesting and introduce round the clock water supply across the town. Due to failure of the third phase of water project, the 24×7 supply could not take off. Early this year, Band promised that he would keep his word under his “pay and use” water plan. He had said compulsory water meters was the only solution to reduce water wastage and ensure equitable distribution to the town.

indianexpress:  Fed up of waiting for the food and supplies department officials to attend a public hearing on the ‘Right to Food,’ some 200 women staged a rasta roko agitation near the Khadakvasla dam on Friday morning.

The Mahila Bal Hakk Andolan organised a public hearing at Kudje village, Haveli taluka to address the grievances of women about the rationing system.

“We waited for the officials who did not turn up the entire morning,” laments Shripal Konde, member of the Mahila Bal Hakk Andolan. Finally after no one turned up from the district food and supplies office, the women staged a rasta roko near the Khadakwasla dam. The public hearing was part of the right to food campaign and the demands ranged from procuring receipts for the food items delivered on the ration system to availing of the supplies on time.

An official team from the food and supplies department was sent late in the afternoon. They assured the agitators that their demands would be heard on Saturday.

indianexpress: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) Pune has received complaints from its landline customers that an unknown person, claiming to be a vigilance officer of MTNL and BSNL, has been calling them repeatedly for the past month and threatening to tap phones and get them arrested.

“The person claims to be AK Sharma and uses abusive language. He is using a mobile (9967141222) and a Mumbai landline of a private operator,” an official BSNL press note said.
 
The BSNL has sought to clarify that no person named AK Sharma is employed with it and has requested the customers to report the matter to the local police in case they get such threatening calls. Customers have been further warned that this person may also come visiting as such incidents occurred last year.

The BSNL authorities are taking necessary action in the case but has called upon its customers, especially women, not to divulge unnecessary information about themselves or their families to such an unknown person on the phone. In case of any difficulty in such matters, customers are requested to contact the BSNL Pune vigilance section on 24451044 or 24484800.

techtree: Abacus Peripherals has announced the launch of three Intel-based Biostar Motherboards in the country.

These include: Biostar 865GV Micro 775, 945GZ Micro 775SE, and P4M800 Pro-M7.

The Biostar 865GV Micro 775 model supports Intel Pentium 4 processor and Celeron D Processor, and comes with Intel 865GV/ICH5 chipset. It has a 2X DDR 400 SDRAM DIMM slot, and supports up to 2 GB. It has 3 X PCI, 1 X AGP, and also supports Intel Hyper- threading technology. The board has 8 X USB 2.0 ports.

Supporting Dual Channel, this model includes integrated video and audio; video powered by Intel Extreme Graphics 2, while audio is powered by Realtek ALC655 6-Channel AC97 Codec, and Lan 10/100 Mbps. It has a Micro ATX form factor dimension of 23.5cm (W) X 24.4cm (L).

The Biostar 945GZ Micro 775SE is an Intel Socket LGA 775, supports Intel Pentium D/Pentium4 /Celeron D processor, Core 2 Duo CPU, and 800/533 Mhz FSB. It has 2 X Dual Channel DDR2 (533/400) SDRAM DIMMs slot with maximum memory up to 2 Gb. It has a 945GZ/ ICH7 Chipset. It has a 3 X PCI, 1 X PCI-Ex 16 slot. The board has 8 X USB 2.0 ports.

The integrated video on this model is powered by Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, while the integrated audio is powered by Realtek ALC861VD 6-Channel HD Audio. It has a Micro ATX form factor dimension of 21.9cm (W) X 23.6cm (L), and features LAN connectivity with Realtek RTL8100C supporting 10/100 Mbps.

The third board is Biostar P4M800 Pro-M7. It supports Intel Pentium 4 processor/Celeron D up to 3.8 GHz. The board has VIA P4M800 Pro + VT8237R+ chipset. It supports 2 X DDR2 Dual Channel 533/400 SDRAM DIMMS slot with maximum memory of 2GB. It also has 8X USB 2.0 ports, and comes with 3 X PCI, 1 X AGP, and 1 X CNR slot.

techtree: Smart Technologies has announced that it is now accepting entries for its second annual World Teachers’ Day (WTD) Video Contest 2007.

Under this contest, teachers across the globe are invited to submit videos that demonstrate how ‘Smart Board interactive whiteboards’ are improving student-learning outcomes.

The contest, which closes on June 21, is open to K-12, and primary and secondary teachers worldwide, in both public and private educational institutions. Winners will be announced on WTD, on the 5th of October, 2007. And prizes will be distributed to winners from five global regions comprising: Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and North America.

Seventy-five winners, selected from these five global regions, will win iPod shuffles. The top regional winners will each receive a ‘Smart Board interactive whiteboard’, and the overall winner will receive the grand prize, an all-inclusive trip to London, for BETT 2008, a leading education technology tradeshow.

Nancy Knowlton, Chief Executive Officer, Smart, said, “World Teachers’ Day focuses our attention on teachers everywhere who devote themselves to developing the minds of the next generation. The entries we received in our first video contest last year demonstrated the desire of the teachers to share their experiences of teaching with ‘Smart Board interactive whiteboards’ and showcased the improvement Smart products are making in teaching and learning in classrooms around the world.”

According to company sources, the goal of Smart’s World Teachers’ Day Video Contest is to showcase teachers’ efforts to improve student learning outcomes and engagement. As a global market segment leader in interactive whiteboards and other group collaboration tools, Smart continues to support initiatives that inspire teaching excellence and have a positive impact on every child in the classroom.

techtree: According to a report carried in ‘Hindustan Times,’ Doordarshan will provide four of its channels, including Sports and News channels, to Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) mobile phone users in Delhi from May this year.

Announcing this initiative, B S Lalli, Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati, said that test runs for the broadcasting TV channels on dedicated cell phones in Delhi has been successful, and that the commercial launch is likely to be in May this year. Subsequently, in the coming months, the number of channels will be increased first to 10, and then to 15.

Lalli also said that DD’s foray into this hi-tech field is completely vendor-neutral, and has no commercial tie-up with any mobile manufacturer. A DVB-H compatible handset made by any mobile manufacturer can receive mobile TV broadcast.

According to Lalli, the initial cost of the TV compatible handset was Rs 32,000. However, it has now been brought down to Rs 18,000, and they hope it will be about Rs 6,000 in a year when sales of such handsets increase. After the launch of this service in Delhi, the system will be replicated in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai.

In another move, DD’s project for Direct Terrestrial Telecast (DTT) for those wanting to watch television in their cars in Delhi has been dropped after poor response and objections from traffic police.