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indianexpress:  WHEN 45-year-old Someshwar Prabhakar Bhide made an application for assessment of his 2,000 sq feet property in Kondhwa Budruk in April 2006, he hardly expected to run into problems. Two months after he made his application, the Pune Municipal Corporation issued a notice asking him to pay backdated property tax from June 1, 2005.

As per the provisions of Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act, 1949, a civic body has to assess properties for the year during which the property owner makes the application. In Bhide’s case, the PMC found it fit to ask him to pay from April 1, 2005, instead of seeking the assessment fees for the financial year 2006-07.

Like Bhide, there are at least 350 others who have gone through a similar experience. Now, after realizing its mistake, the civic administration has ordered a probe to set things right.

“I refused to pay the assessment charges because it was unjust of the PMC to do a backdated assessment. I have given this in writing to the civic administration. Till date, they have not addressed the issue,” he said.

The civic administration is expected to hold a hearing to settle such disputes.

Meanwhile, Bhide cannot develop his plot. “I cannot even go ahead with the gunthewari procedure as my property assessment is pending,” he said.

Additional municipal commissioner Mohan Adtani said he had come across several such cases. “Deputy municipal commissioner Suraj Mandhare will investigate cases of backdated assessments and submit the report in two months,” he said.

A civic official said there were an estimated 350 such cases last year alone. “We know it was wrong to make a backdated assessment. However, in most cases it is done at the insistence of the seniors,” said a tax inspector attached to the Kothrud division. The Pune municipal limits are divided into seven divisions for collection and assessment of properties. “In each division there are at least 50 cases of backdated assessment,” he added

indianexpress: AFTER waiting decades for safe traffic crossings, Shanghai-dreaming Mumbai’s pedestrians will soon be able to use a state-of-the-art subway at the Metro Cinema, set to be inaugurated in October.

But five years after it was planned and two years since implementation began on the Rs 73-crore Pedestrian Grade Separation Scheme (PGSS) — a part of the showcase Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) underway with World Bank assistance, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has begun work on a mere four out of the 27 proposed sites.
 
The stated objective of PGSS was to provide “safe and exclusive pedestrian crossing” and fewer vehicular delays at major intersections by constructing exclusive transit routes for pedestrians — either subways or foot overbridges (FOBs).

Five years after MUTP was launched, of the 27 proposed PGSS locations in the island city and suburbs, four subways are under construction, all in the island city, at Metro Cinema, Siddhivinayak Temple, Shivaji Park and Mahim Church.

Two other subways have been proposed — at Gadkari Chowk in Dadar and Kataria Junction in Mahim. “The BMC is awaiting traffic police permission for Kataria Junction, while they’ve faced public protests for any construction at Gadkari Chowk,” says R Ramana, senior transport planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the nodal agency for MUTP implementation.

On its part, the BMC attributes the lengthy delay to utility services. “A chaos of various utilities — power cables, telephone cables, IT cables, water pipelines, sewer pipes, etc — is found underneath the road which causes difficulty in construction of subways,” says P V Desai, Deputy Chief Engineer (MUTP).

indianexpress: SHORTAGE of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) resulted in angry protests from drivers of Pune City Autorickshaw Union. They staged a dharna outside the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) office on Raja Bahadur Mills Road on Monday.

They were protesting against Modi petrol pump at Mangalwar Peth being unoperational for the last several days.

The union had threatened an agitation if the HPCL failed to commence LPG operations at the pump on Monday.

According to the union, Modi petrol pump has been non-operational for several days. Union member Bapu Bhave said in the absence of LPG at Modi petrol pump, the BPCL outlet at Pune Regional Transport Office was crowded. “Rickshaws from Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad come to the pump opposite RTO to fill LPG,” he said.

On Monday, protesting union members met HPCL officials.

“They have promised to look into matter,” said member Baba Shinde. The union also claimed that LPG was not available at the pumps at Hadapsar, Nagar Road and the near Rahul theatre on Monday. “The LPG supply at the pump near Rahul theatre resumed only in the afternoon,” said Bhave.

Meanwhile, HPCL officials declined to comment on reasons for not providing LPG to Modi petrol pump. “The pump does not have a technical fault. It is our internal matter,” said a senior HPCL official.

indianexpress: PUNE police commissioner Jayant Umranikar, to curb crime against senior citizens, has mooted a helpline. At a workshop organised by India Longevity Centre (ILC) at the commissionerate on Monday, Umranikar said the helpline could be accommodated in the premises. “We would like to start the service soon,”he said.

Umranikar, who wants to bring down the crime rate against the elderly, said the helpline could function like the ILC helpline. In addition, constables will visit senior citizens and other vulnerable people at home, to ensure their safety. A study on crime against elderly comparing Pune and Delhi conducted by the ILC along with the police department showed Pune was on par with Delhi especially in the area of property crimes.

There are over 600 senior citizens in the city, most of them staying alone, who have registered with several police stations as a safety precaution.

Additional commissioner of police Rajendra Singh, who gave an overview of the property related crimes in the city against the elderly in the last three years, also highlighted the department’s efforts to detect such crime.

The ILC is planning to bring out a booklet on the rights of senior citizens. “We have approached the Human Rights Commission to have a separate cell to address issues of the elderly,” said ILC president Sharadchandra Gokhale, adding that the new bill on the protection of senior citizens to be introduced in Parliament, will depend on society and effective media advocacy.

Monday’s workshop was attended by 100 senior citizens from various organisations who stressed on neighbourhood bonding and working as a community group.

indianexpress: THE Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) Executive Officer SK Sardana is a confused man. In March, when the PCB completed its delimitation exercise, Sardana was unsure of whether to follow the new cantonment act or the directives issued by the Director General of Defence Estates (DGDE), New Delhi for the exercise.

The new cantonment act states that Pune cantonment will be classified into category I cantonment where population exceeds 50,000. However, directives given by the DGDE at point number 10 stipulates classification to be done as per voters list. Therefore, if the DG directives are followed, the PCB falls under category II.
 
PCB CEO on Monday admitted that he had gone ahead with the delimitation exercise as per the directives of DGDE.

Confusion in the PCB ranks came to the fore during the PCB’s special meeting on Monday for hearing suggestions and objections with reference to the delimitation exercise carried.

Sardana drew flak from the residents for showing undue haste in carrying out the delimitation exercise without publishing any notification in the official gazette.

Advocate Asif Shaikh in his objection termed the delimitation exercise of the board as arbitrary, against the law and requested the board to write to the union government to expedite framing the rules and publishing notification in the official gazette.

Lambasting the board for its failure to carry out a door-to-door awareness drive pertaining to delimitation exercise, Asif Shaikh said that the existing electoral roll showed fictitious figures where voter distribution was unrealistic.

indianexpress: THE Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has done away with khaki uniforms and introduced light blue shirts, black trousers and dark blue ties for its department heads.

It was introduced following recent directives by PCB president Brigadier RJ Sharma who had asked the Cantonment Executive Officer S K Sardana to ready a new dress code that would make department heads more visible.

On the need to change from khaki to corporate style looks, Brigadier Sharma said the officials should look good in the public that would make enforcement easier. “Apart from looking smart and stylish, their visibility will increase making it easy for the public to identify them,” he said. The PCB will begin a dress maintenance allowance for the officials from next month.

On Monday, heads of engineering, health, administration, vehicle workshop, fire brigade and revenue departments turned up in the new uniforms. However, the dress code for the field staff will continue to be khaki.

Revenue superintendent Ramesh Kumar Satpute said they now looked like executives. “This new dress code will help the public recognise us. And it feels good to wear something different after wearing khaki for two decades.”

Health superintendent Vijaykumar Kulkarni is all praise for Sharma. “ All these years we have been wearing khaki The new uniform is a perfect combination,” he said.

Cantonment nominated member Vinod Mathurawala said the PCB president had proposed a new dress for the departmental heads and sought their views on the colour combination. “Accordingly, the officials selected the colours of their choice and have begun wearing them. It has given them a new look and instant recognition among the cantonment residents,” he added

techtree: In the most significant upgrade to MSN Hotmail since its debut in 1996, Microsoft has launched Windows Live Hotmail globally in 36 languages.

Microsoft said the new service is a vast improvement over its predecessor, with inputs/feedback from over 20 million beta testers.

The new service, according to Microsoft, promises a safer, more powerful, and productive e-mail experience, with flexible access via the Web, on a mobile phone, or with an e-mail client.

Steve Berkowitz, Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Online Services Group, said, “We’re thrilled to deliver Windows Live Hotmail to the more than 280 million active MSN Hotmail accounts around the world. Windows Live Hotmail represents an extremely compelling end-to-end e-mail experience that makes it easy for customers to get best-of-breed e-mail access across PCs, mobile devices, and the Web.”

Windows Live Hotmail gives consumers the flexibility to access accounts where ever and when ever they want.

Using ‘Outlook Connector,’ scheduled to be available worldwide later this month in 11 languages, consumers can view and manage their accounts from Outlook for free, with full contact, e-mail, and e-mail folder synchronization.

While using Windows Live Hotmail for mobile (http://mobile.live.com/), customers can access e-mails on the go on Web-enabled mobile phones.

In the coming weeks, Microsoft will introduce an additional e-mail client option for Windows Live Hotmail with the release of Windows Live Mail beta, a free consumer e-mail client available via download.

techtree: For PC gamers desirous of high performance graphics solutions, Asus has introduced the new EN8800 ULTRA/HTDP/768M.

The EN8800 Ultra features the Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX GPU and 768 MB of DRAM memory, a combination considered ideal for extreme HD (high definition) gaming with full DirectX 10 and Windows Vista support.

Further, Asus has bundled the release of the card with THQ’s and GSC Game World’s much awaited first-person shooter (FPS) game ‘STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl’.

According to Ian Curran, Senior Vice President of International Publishing, THQ, “STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl is a very atmospheric and immersive open-ended FPS, so the graphical portions of the game are very detailed, and it takes a card with powerful performance and high quality to bring out the best of this game, graphically speaking.”

The new EN8800 ULTRA/HTDP/768M series incorporates Asus’ Splendid Video Intelligence Technology for fine-tuned images/visual representations. Sharp decoded videos are delivered together with AMD’s Avivo HD technology.

The card not only bundles STALKER, but also comes with Asus Gamer OSD that enables overclocking and chat options during game play, thus giving users access to real-time performance upgrades when required.

techtree: Dell has joined an alliance between rival software makers, Microsoft and Novell, further making it easier for Windows and Linux operating systems to work together.

It was in November last year that Microsoft and Novell forged a partnership, wherein the former offers corporate customers a chance to license it’s Windows operating system as part of a package that includes maintenance and support for Novell’s Suse Linux platform.

With Dell joining in, the computer maker has agreed to buying Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft, as also setting-up a services and marketing program to get users of open-source platforms to switch to the new Suse Linux offering.

In a statement, Rick Becker, Vice President in Dell’s Product Group, said Dell is the first major systems provider to align with Microsoft and Novell in this collaboration, and that they intend to lead in this space.

The Microsoft-Novell pact is targeted at all those companies and government agencies that depend on both Microsoft’s Windows and Novell’s open-source Linux platform for running their computers.

As concession for corporate users reluctant to use Linux for fear of patent infringement claims by Microsoft, the Redmond giant has promised not to file patent rights lawsuits over any of its technology that comes blended with Suse Linux.

Meanwhile, Susan Heystee, Vice President and General Manager of Global Strategic Alliances at Novell, said Dell’s embrace of the Novell-Microsoft agreement reflects a growing market reality - that the two platforms of the future are Linux and Windows, and that customers want them to work better together.

bbc: A new web-based television service, or IPTV, for British Sign Language (BSL) users has recently launched in the UK.

VeeSee TV airs news and other programmes in BSL and is available 24 hours a day.

The channel can be viewed on a computer or via a set-top box and is the brainchild of BSL interpreter Susie Grant.

She said she launched VeeSee TV in frustration at mainstream TV’s inability to cater for deaf viewers.

VeeSee is the first dedicated channel for BSL users which also includes an interactive forum and user-generated content.

“My original motivation for creating VeeSee was seeing so many talented and gifted deaf people encounter barriers in showing what they were capable of,” said Ms Grant.

“These barriers exist purely because of communication issues - I also got frustrated waiting for the mainstream channels to cater for deaf audiences at reasonable times in their scheduling.”

Ms Grant says VeeSee will provide an outlet for deaf film-makers to show off their own work.

The service is part of ViewTV - a portal of 900 streaming channels.

“VeeSee is another example of how IPTV can cater for a market that traditional cable and satellite broadcasters have been unable to accommodate effectively,” said ViewTV director Jamie Branson.

‘Great bonus’

The new channel will soon have three to four hours of programming available, sorted into different genres.