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indianexpress: While farmers in Wagholi on Tuesday decided against yielding ‘even an inch of land’ for the 1,880-hectare Special Economic Zone (SEZ) jointly developed by the Videocon group and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation Limited (MIDC), district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh said that the administration was ready to go in for ‘re-verification’ of the land proposed for the SEZ so that irrigated land is left out.

Deshmukh, after a heated argument with the farmers, said the land acquisition proposal was being opposed because some builders were interested in the land at Wagholi.

“Already some farmers have given their power of attorney to the builders. Also, real estate agents are purchasing land from the farmers. The district administration is ready to conduct a survey to find out how many farmers actually cultivate land in Wagholi,” he said. The administration had detailed information as to who was interested in the land and who all are holding power of attorney, he added.

Today’s meeting witnessed heated arguments with the farmers saying that the State government should not bother about their land. “We are the land owners and the government should not force any decision on us,” they said. “Why is the State government interested in developing the SEZ in Pune when relatively backward regions are starving for the industrial development,” they asked Deshmukh.

The administration is now saying that the farmers are free to decide about the land. “If the farmers get better offer compared to the package being offered by the State government, it’s up to them to decide what to do. But farmers should think of long term benefits before taking any decision,” Deshmukh said. He pointed out that the MIDC was committed to pay the entire amount for the land within a month after acquisition.

Earlier, during a meeting at Wagholi farmers unanimously decided that no land will be given for the SEZ. “ We are ready to face bullets and lathis to save our land. We will take any step to stop acquisition,” said Yogesh Satav, a local farmer.

indianexpress:   CID Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), an assistant police inspector (API) and a constable attached to the city police were booked by the Nashik Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths on Wednesday on charges of accepting bribe. DySP Vithal Ambadas Shinde, assistant police inspector Ghanshyam Palange and constable Daniel Ashru Salvi have been booked by a team of ACB officials led by Bheema Shankar Rambhau Dhole of Nashik for indulging in corruption from June 26, 2005.

Superintendent of ACB, Nashik, Balasaheb Shegar said, “Criminal cases have been registered against the trio. Our investigations have revealed that DySP Vithal Shinde has a direct role to play. He is undergoing medical treatment for critical cardiac variation and we will arrest him after he is discharged.”

The ACB officials acted upon a complaint lodged by Thomas Joseph Tawaris, a Cantonment resident and a travel agent at Chatuhshrungi police station. Shinde had promised Thomas, an accused in the illegal tourist visa scam, that his name would be deleted from the chargesheet and he would be consequently released under section 161 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if he paid them money.

Accordingly, Shinde gave him a bank account number and asked Thomas to deposit Rs 1 lakh. Thomas deposited three cheques totalling to Rs 1 lakh.

However, Shinde could not delete Thomas’ name and returned Rs 40,000 through two cheques.

At this point, Palange and Shinde threatened Thomas and told him he would not get the remaining Rs 60,000 from Shinde, ACB officials said.

indianexpress:   CID Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), an assistant police inspector (API) and a constable attached to the city police were booked by the Nashik Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths on Wednesday on charges of accepting bribe. DySP Vithal Ambadas Shinde, assistant police inspector Ghanshyam Palange and constable Daniel Ashru Salvi have been booked by a team of ACB officials led by Bheema Shankar Rambhau Dhole of Nashik for indulging in corruption from June 26, 2005.

Superintendent of ACB, Nashik, Balasaheb Shegar said, “Criminal cases have been registered against the trio. Our investigations have revealed that DySP Vithal Shinde has a direct role to play. He is undergoing medical treatment for critical cardiac variation and we will arrest him after he is discharged.”

The ACB officials acted upon a complaint lodged by Thomas Joseph Tawaris, a Cantonment resident and a travel agent at Chatuhshrungi police station. Shinde had promised Thomas, an accused in the illegal tourist visa scam, that his name would be deleted from the chargesheet and he would be consequently released under section 161 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) if he paid them money.

Accordingly, Shinde gave him a bank account number and asked Thomas to deposit Rs 1 lakh. Thomas deposited three cheques totalling to Rs 1 lakh.

However, Shinde could not delete Thomas’ name and returned Rs 40,000 through two cheques.

At this point, Palange and Shinde threatened Thomas and told him he would not get the remaining Rs 60,000 from Shinde, ACB officials said.

indianexpress: TO put a stop on the annual loss of fruits, vegetable and other agricultural produce, the Maharashtra government has forwarded a plan to the Ministry of Agriculture to establish mass collection centres, cold chains, storage facilities and even centres giving information on weather conditions at the district headquarters. The plan was forwarded by the state chief secretary four months ago.

“The idea is to create facility centres. So in case of voluminous production, there is no wastage; prices are kept under control and food processing units gain acess to the raw material.

This will also facilitate grading of products based on quality, which will help increase exports,” said Uday Borawake, chairman, agriculture and agri-business sub-committee of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) on Tuesday. According to a recent discussion in the Parliament, agriculture produce worth Rs 38,000 crore gets destroyed in the country every year due to lack of proper storage facilities, which can to a certain extent plug the wavering prices of commodities and vegetables.

According to the plan devised by the state government, around Rs 2 crore will be allotted to each district in the initial phase to provide the facilities to be set up at the district level. The land requirement would be around 15 acres for each district. The next level will be to take these facilities to the taluka and village cluster level. “Clusters of 15 villages can be formed for administrative purposes,” said Borawake.

The state plans to set up such centres at all 33 districts in Maharashtra, to be managed by villagers who are graduates. Borawake said he had discussed the plan with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who promised to look into it.

However, he could not say how soon the plan would be implemented.

indianexpress: IN a discussion on consumer’s grievances related to power situation recently held in the city by Janata Dal (Secular) and Maharashtra Electricity Consumer Union, dal’s secretary Sanjay Khandalkar said that almost 80 per cent decisions taken by Maharashtra Electricity Regulation Commission (MERC) has helped electricity consumers across the state in the last year.

He said in a joint effort undertaken by the party and the union, cess on pilferage of electricity was lifted up in 11 districts by the MERC. The move has helped around 40 lakh people in the last year saving around Rs 360 crore of the electricity users.

The discussion also stated that the union had played a vital role in scrapping of single phasing scheme after they highlighted technical problems in the scheme. Khandalkar claimed that Rs 500 crore of the users was saved, as the electricity rates would have gone up had the scheme been implemented.

The Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) had increased cess on small-scale industries by 25 per cent. The union claimed that the hike was scrapped after the union approached MERC which helped 3 lakh small scale industries thereby saving around Rs 100 crore.

Even a hike of 47 per cent in tariff suggested by MSEB was reduced after more than 1 lakh notices were submitted to the MERC. The small-scale electricity rates were revised to Rs 3 per unit, which use electricity less than 27 horsepower.

Khandalkar blamed the zero planning and mismanagement of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Ltd for the power crisis in the state.

indianexpress: GUESS, where Pimpri-Chinchwad is getting its golden coloured fruit from these days — straight from the land of mangoes, the Konkan belt. No intermediaries, no middlemen, a sale as direct as it could get. A clutch of mango producing farmers from Ratnagiri have descended in Pimpri-Chinchwad to hold a ‘Mango festival’ which is drawing huge crowds.

Organised by the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee, Ratnagiri in association with the PCMC and the State Agricultural Marketing Board, the four- day festival that began at Prof Ramkrishna More auditorium, Chinchwad on May 13 has witnessed brisk sale of Ratnagiri Hapus (Alphonso) and Payari varieties. In three days, mangoes worth Rs 15 lakh have been lapped up Pimpri-Chinchwad residents.
 
The group of farmers, who plan to hold a similar festival in Ahmednagar from May 18, have come down to Pimpri-Chinchwad with as many as 5000 boxes of mangoes. “Each box contains over 5 dozen mangoes — nearly 25,000 dozen mangoes have been up for grabs,” said festival in-charge Yeshwant Bane. The fruit is being offered at prices ranging from Rs 80 a dozen to Rs 350 a dozen. “The objective is to eliminate role of middlemen, ensure good quality fruit and a decent return for farmers,” said Bane, president of samiti.

The most popular variety at the festival is the organic Ratnagiri Alphonso sold by brothers Ashok and Sudhir Ranade, who hail from Nate village in Rajapur taluka of Ratnagiri district. It is also the costliest at Rs 350 a dozen. “I came here with 35 boxes of mangoes. More than half of the boxes have been sold out,” he said. “We use cow dung, cow urine, mixture of grass and other natural waste vermi soil for producing mangoes. We have our own goshala consisting of 25 cows of Indian breed,” points out Sudhir Ranade.

That’s not all. Ranade says they use organic fertilisers and Japanese technique of effective micro organism. Bane emphasises that all farmers who are at the festival ripen their mangoes using grass. “Neither pesticides, chemicals nor calcium carbide is used. Ours are naturally grown mangoes,” he says.

“The response has been overwhelming ,” said samiti secretary Kiran Mahajan. Meanwhile, Yogini Barate, a homemaker from Rahatni, enthused, “I had purchased five dozen mangoes a couple of days back. They taste so good that I have come here for more.”

techtree: The downloadable version of one of the world’s most popular games, ‘Zuma’ is now available on Zapak. Earlier on, only a trial version of the game was available on the Web site.

According to Zapak, the move has been made possible by its partnership with PopCap Games, a leading publisher of casual games.

‘Zuma’ was launched by PopCap in 2003, and is a fast-paced puzzle game wherein players have to unearth the ancient secrets of Zuma.

In ‘Zuma,’ players have to survive hidden jungle temples, shoot magical balls to clear a deadly chain, avoid dangerous traps, and what adds to the excitement is that they have to do all of this before the chain reaches the golden skull. All the balls rolling on-screen need to be eliminated for players to reach the skull. If at all a ball reaches the skull, players lose their lives.

Launching the game, Rohit Sharma, Chief Operating Officer of Zapak, said, “Zuma has been an enormous blockbuster in the casual gaming segment, as it is one of the most engaging games. ‘Zuma’ appeals to the broadest possible audience - it is as addictive for a 5 year old as for a 70 year old. ‘Zuma’ is now available on Zapak, and at one-tenth of the international pricing.”

While ‘Zuma’ has been around for a long time, this is the first time the game is being made available on an Indian Web site.

The downloadable deluxe version of ‘Zuma’ is available for Rs 149.

Under the partnership with PopCap Games, Zapak will make 16 more games available to players in the country. These games will include worldwide hits like ‘Bejeweled’, ‘Big Money’, ‘AstroPop’, and ‘Bookworm’.

These games too will be made available both as free Web versions and downloadable deluxe versions.

techtree: Biostar is expanding its T Series motherboards with the new “TF 7050-M2″ being launched in the third week of May.

The “TF7050-M2″ is based on the new Nvidia GeForce7050PV/nForce630a chipset. It comes with an integrated HDMI with on-chip HDCP and High Definition Audio (HDA).

According to the company, the on-board HDMI connector is designed to meet output protection management (HDCP) and security specification of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats. This would allow playback of encrypted movie content on PCs when connected to HDCP-compliant displays.

In addition, the High Definition Audio (HDA) promises to deliver 192kHz/32bit quality from eight channel, supporting the latest audio formats. It offers both HDMI and TV-out ports to support HDMI and HDA function.

Through the Aero user interface, the “TF7050-M2″ promises to deliver a stable and visually stunning Windows Vista experience. It supports AMD Athlon 64 X2/64/Sempron processors, and integrates 2 PCI slots. Moreover, it comes with 10 USB2.0 (6 Front and 4 rear) ports.

The Biostar “TF 7050-M2″ motherboard will be available in the third week of May at an approximate price of Rs 4,800 through Abacus Peripherals.

techtree: AMD has introduced a quad-core family of chips for desktop PCs, called ‘Phenom’, which is based on the “Barcelona” quad-core Opteron server chip technology that the company is planning to launch in the middle of this year.

The company said that the ‘Phenom’ line, which will include single-die quad-core and double quad-core segments, is both energy efficient as well as virtualization-ready.

In a statement, Bob Brewer, General Manager of Desktop Division, AMD, said that AMD has always enjoyed a great bond with the enthusiast community, and the introduction of the AMD ‘Phenom’ processor family will take their relationship to new heights.

Besides improved performance, the ‘Phenom’ line boasts of integrated DDR2 memory controller, HyperTransport technology links, and 128-bit Floating Point Units.

Ian McNaughton, AMD’s Product Manager for Athlon 64 FX products, explained that adding the ‘Phenom’ chip to the company’s line of desktop processors would allow AMD to push dual-core processing from top-of-the-shelf desktops to the entire mainstream product family. McNaughton revealed this is a key strategy at a time when users are looking for better results from running Windows Vista, doing complex media creation, and multi-tasking.

Under the Phenom family, AMD will now offer desktop chips, including ‘Phenom FX’ (in one or two quad-core chips), ‘Phenom X4′ and ‘Phenom X2′ (in quad-core and dual-core), ‘Athlon X2′, and ‘Sempron’.

While the ‘Phenom FX’ and the ‘Phenom X4′ will be available in the second half of this year, the ‘Phenom X2′ will start shipping at the end of this year.
 

techtree: Microsoft, along with nine others, is planning to introduce around 15 phones and devices to connect with its unified communications beta program.

The new devices will be usable with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. They will connect the workplace phone to e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and mobile communications.

Jeff Raikes, President of the Microsoft Business Division, said, “By weaving the business phone together with e-mail, instant messaging, presence, conferencing, and the productivity software people use most, we are putting voice communications back into business.”

The companies involved in this project include: Asus, LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Polycom, Sansung, Tatung, ViTELiX, etc.

These new generation devices will include Internet Protocol (IP) phones, Universal Serial Bus (USB) phones, conferencing phones, wired and wireless headsets, laptops, and LCD monitors.

According to Microsoft, the new devices and phones will be simple plug-and-play, with a wide variety of choice as regards designs, cost, and feature innovations.

Microsoft says it has provided design specification to manufacturers to ensure easy compatibility with its Office Communications Server and Office Communicator.