Archive for April 7, 2007
April 7, 2007 at 7:43 am
· City
indianexpress: THE Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is planning to raise a protective wall— a three-foot wall and five-foot mesh— along the 15-km Ambil Odha and six other streams and nallas in the next few months to protect them from dumping and encroachments.
The other streams where the walls will be raised are Bhairoba, Nagzari, and those flowing in Vishrantwadi, Senapati Bapat Road, Maharshinagar and the Alankar police chowki.
The civic administration plans to first desilt and clean the streams and follow it up by channelising, pitching, bunding and fencing the banks. Beautification will be the last step. Where there is enough width, the PMC will create small ‘social places’.
Chief garden superintendent Yashwant Khaire said the ground here will be covered with greenery. “We will plant trees, create walking tracks and make seating arrangements,” he added.
Over the years, the nallas have become the target of builders and developers even as the PMC turned a blind eye till the Ambil Odha flooded after 62 years and the water entered the slums.
As per the Development Control rule of the PMC, no piece of land shall be used as a site for the construction of building if the site is adjacent to any watercourse shown on the Development Plan. However, what makes it easier for the builders to construct buildings in nallas is the provision in the Development Control rules that allows diverting the streams.
The provision adds that where a watercourse passes through a low-lying land without a well-defined bank, the owner of the property may be permitted by the authority to restrict or divert the watercourse to an alignment and cross section as determined by the authority. Encroachments by slum dwellers on the sides of nallas also worsened the problem.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:43 am
· City
indianexpress: WITH the government working on upgrading food parks to Mega Food Parks with additional incentives to boost investments in the food processing industry, the Planning Commission is taking a close look at the model to find out if it works.
This brought Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, to Pune to take a look at the Chordia Food Park (CFP) at Shirwal, 55 km from here. The CFP is turning out to be a good example to showcase. Ahluwalia visited the park last week and met farmers who supply to the park to see if the benefits reached them.
A good example was that of the strawberry farmers in Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani who are in for a boom sale this year. Through the Chordia Food Park, strawberry growers exported their first consignment to the European markets. CFP has tied up with Jogrex of Belgium and the Ken-Agri Farmers Co-op of Panchgani for strawberry export.
“A trial order for 200 tonnes of frozen strawberries has been executed. We are planning to export around 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes next season, Pradeep Chordia, director of the Chordia Food Park said. The Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani region has 1,400 to 1,500 acres under strawberry and grows around 10,000 tonnes of strawberry every season. Most of it is used for domestic consumption, while some are sent for processing and exports which throw open new opportunities for them.
Apart from this, the park recently executed a processing order for ITC to export pomegranate kernels. “We have also started exporting frozen processed vegetables to United States of America,” he said.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:42 am
· City
indianexpress: :AFTER having failed to live up to its oft-repeated promise of providing 24×7 water, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has now decided to wriggle out of the situation by hiking rates for use of water beyond permitted norms.
Putting on a brave face, Municipal Commissioner Dilip Band on Thursday said the move would help stop wastage of water and ensure round the clock supply as promised.
Under his pay and use water plan, Band had announced that a family would have to pay Rs 2.50 for every 1,000 litres of water used. This is what the commissioner had been repeating for a year now.
Now his administration has done a sudden U-turn, declaring that the use of water beyond the laid-down norms would force the PCMC administration to levy commercial rates. In effect, it means instead of Rs 2.50 for every 1,000 litres of water used, a family will have to pay at the rate of Rs 30 for every 1,000 litres of water used. From Rs 2.50 to Rs 30, the hike in water rates is 12 times.
Additional city engineer (water) Vishwas Gaikwad said as per the government norms, a family of five is expected to get 145 litres of water per capita per day. “Every family is supposed to receive 725 litres of water per day. In two months, they should get 43,500 litres of water. If a family uses water beyond 43,500 litres, it will have to pay at commercial rates for every additional of water used,” he said.
Gaikwad said the new rates would be made applicable from April 1, basically in Pradhikaran first where the PCMC has first initiated the 24×7 water supply system. The bills would be sent every two months.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:40 am
· City · Health
indianexpress: WITH ‘Invest in health, build a safer future’ being the theme for World Health Day on April 7, it couldn’t be a more timely intervention taken by Symbiosis to initiate a pilot project on ‘Healthy Pune’.
The Healthy Pune campaign is a continuation of the activities undertaken by the Symbiosis Centre for Health Care (SCHC) and the focus will be on school health education. Says SCHC Director Dr Rajeev Yeravadekar, “We want to raise a healthy generation and the beginning has to be made at the school level.” A meeting has been planned on April 10 among principals of some schools, doctors, Zilla Parishad officers and parents among others.
The SCHC has already gathered data for the last 10 years and created a health profile of its students from kindergarten till post graduate level education. “We are in the process of analysing the data, but initial findings show that even if the students may apparently be in good health, there are a few underlying problems that were undetected. These could include refractive errors, allergic disorders, psychosomatic disorders and others.”
Hence as part of the continuation of the Healthy Pune campaign, the SCHC has proposed a common forum with the participation of schools and parents. This would focus on issues specific to students’ health through school-based activities with special emphasis on health education. The SCHC has also submitted its proposal for being a regional centre for the national project for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
“At this inaugural meet on April 10, we hope to evolve a common consensus regarding how the city can develop a model to contribute to this national programme with specific emphasis on health education and lifestyle management education to the student community by way of advice on diet, exercise, rest, sleep recreation and relaxation.”
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April 7, 2007 at 7:39 am
· City · Environment
indianexpress: HERE is an attempt, at last, to revive the dwindling populations of birds, whose habitats have been destroyed by the ceaseless construction activity in the city.
Conservationist Satish Pande, whose suggestion of constructing artificial nest boxes in the gardens of the PMC stems from a five-year old study on the declining numbers of birds, says: “Unchecked urbanization, landuse modification and rampant tree-felling are causing problems to tree hollow nesting birds more than any other, since trees require some years to mature and offer the required nest-cavities.”
A radiologist by profession, Pande nevertheless says he is a bird lover “by instinct.” Author of various publications on birds, including the recent book The Birds of the Western Ghats- Konkan and Malabar, Pande is also founder-president of the Ela Foundation, an NGO devoted to nature conservation and education.
Of his recent endeavour, he says that though innovative, it is only a throwback to our age-old tradition. “We are essentially a culture that respects our biodiversity. In the old wadas of Pune, for instance, there used to be this niche corner for birds, which no one ever disturbed.”
However, he points out that though these boxes can provide some succour to birds, “They are not a substitute for trees. We have to put in a determined effort to plant new trees, as well as check their felling.”
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April 7, 2007 at 7:38 am
· City · Current Affairs
indianexpress: FUNCTIONING at the Tech Mahindra and a number of other companies located at Sharda Centre in Erandavane was thrown out of gear for over three hours on Friday due to a bomb hoax.
The incident follows the bomb hoax at the office of The Indian Express on Thursday.
Inspector in-charge of Deccan Gymkhana police station B D Patil said the securitymen at the eight storied commercial complex had received an anonymous telephone call around 1.30 pm saying a bomb had been planted on the fifth floor of the company, where the office of Tech Mahindra is located.
The security in-charge promptly alerted the officials at the police control room, who in turn alerted the Deccan Gymkhana police station and the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad.
A seven-member team of the Deccan Gymkhana police led by Inspector Patil, which rushed to the spot after receiving the alert, vacated the entire building with the help of the securitymen and carried out a check on the fifth floor. All they found was a paper with ‘Bomb! Do not touch’ written on it. Later, two teams of BDDS gave a through anti-sabotage search on all the eight floors and terrace of the commercial complex. However, no suspicious object was found. The search went on till 5 pm.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:35 am
· Technology
cnet: Google has quietly launched Google Voice Local Search, an experimental service that allows people to search for local businesses over the phone. There are no ads on the service, which is available only in the U.S. To use it people can dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone and search for a business by name or category and be connected to the business at no charge. Users can also get the search results and additional details over SMS if they are on a mobile phone.
Microsoft also has local voice search through the TellMe service it bought last month, notes Search Engine Land, which broke the Google Voice Local Search news on Friday. “Google’s experimental entry into voice-based mobile search (free directory assistance [DA]) establishes a clear competitive landscape, which will likely mean a further decline in call volumes and revenues for traditional mobile directory assistance, as consumers become more aware of the availability of these free services,” notes Greg Sterling, principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, in the post.
I just tried the Google service from my office phone and a pleasant male voice gave me the top eight results from my search (massage therapist in San Francisco). I was given the option of pressing or saying the appropriate number for the listing I wanted and it connected me. But when I tried saying a specific business name (Oxygen Massage Therapy) it failed to recognize what I was asking for.
It’s nice that Google can provide a functional service that also has an element of whimsy: Rather than an automated electronic sound when waiting for the system to understand and come back with a result, a male voice simulates that noise saying something like “Biddy biddy biddy bop.” Listen closely.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:33 am
· Technology
tgdaily: Scientists at the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated a nano-scale generating that could provide electricity to microscopic machines by harvesting different types of energy from their environment.
According to Zhong Lin Wang, professor at Georgia Tech, the generator can convert mechanical energy from environmental sources such as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow into continuous direct-current electricity. The device could enable nano-machines that are integrated into silicon or even into the human body without requiring batteries or external power sources.
Details about the nanogenerator, which is constructed fabricated using an array of zinc oxide nanowires, will be released in the April 6 issue of the journal Science.
“This is a major step toward a portable, adaptable and cost-effective technology for powering nanoscale devices,” said Zhong Lin Wang in a prepared statement. “There has been a lot of interest in making nanodevices, but we have tended not to think about how to power them. Our nanogenerator allows us to harvest or recycle energy from many sources to power these devices.”
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April 7, 2007 at 7:31 am
· Technology
cnet: Why listen to your voice mail messages when you can read them? That’s what a new crop of companies is asking–they’re developing software that turns voice mail messages into transcribed e-mail or text messages.
We’ve all gotten those long voice mail messages from a friend, relative, business associate–or in this reporter’s case a PR person pitching a story idea–that seem to drag on forever. New companies, such as Simulscribe, SpinVox and now Callwave, are emerging to provide a fix for busy people who don’t want to listen to long messages anymore.
Several companies are emerging with services that use voice-recognition technology to transcribe voice mail messages into e-mail or text messages.
Experts agree that such services are up and coming, but lingering concerns include the accuracy of transcribed messages and whether users will be willing to pay for yet another phone service.
Even though cell phones are increasingly being used to do everything from sending text messages to surfing the Web to playing music, the main reason to use a phone is voice communication. New applications, such as voice-to-text, could be part of a growing trend of new services based on voice-recognition technology.
One indication that voice-recognition technology is getting hot is the recent Microsoft/Tellme deal. In March, Microsoft said it would buy privately held speech-recognition maker Tellme Networks in a deal believed to be in the range of $800 million. Tellme recently started testing a cell phone application that allows people to say out loud the information they are looking for and have data sent to their phone.
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April 7, 2007 at 7:29 am
· Technology
msnbc: “Electronic paper” has long been hyped as the future of newspapers and books, but products like e-books have been slow to take off. That may soon change, say executives involved in the pioneering technology.
While Internet companies are scanning libraries of books and making them available online, E Ink Corp., which emerged out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a decade ago, is seeing a surge in orders for its portable, foldable displays that mimic conventional paper to carry such books.
“Nine different companies launched products last year based on the technology,” said Russell Wilcox, E Ink president. “In the last nine months we’ve gone from manufacturing tens of thousands of parts to millions of parts.”
Among those products are Sony’s Reader tablet, whose black-and-white displays can be read in bright sunlight or a dimly lit room from almost any angle — just like paper — without traditional back-lit screens that chew up power.
While the displays are becoming more flexible and conserve power, they face other limitations such as working only in monochrome and failing to display video — areas critical to attracting advertisers and consumers to the technology.
Wilcox said E Ink, whose revenues have grown at a rate of 200 to 300 percent annually in the last three years, is testing a color prototype that could be launched next year, potentially opening the technology to e-magazines and e-newspapers.
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