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indianexpress:  Even as Pune Municipal Corporation is dragging its feet over completion of some of its arterial roads, Pimpri-Chinchwad has firmed up plans to tender out four ‘world class’ roads covering 52 kms at an estimated cost of Rs 800 crore in the coming fortnight. The four roads that will have 10 lanes and comprise six overbridges have been set a deadline of 24 months for completion.

Out of a total project cost of Rs 800 crore, PCMC will fork out Rs 160 crore as the project has been taken up under Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission.
 
Among the 26 companies that have purchased the pre-qualification bids are L&T, Shapoorji Pallonji, Reliance Energy, Nagarjuna Constructions, HCC, IL&FS and Gammon India Ltd.

Municipal Commissioner Dilip Band said on Friday the PCMC was looking for companies that would not only construct top quality roads, but also keep a hawk’s eye on the condition of the roads over a period of eight years. Payment will be performance-based, he said.

Of the 10 lanes, two lanes will be reserved for Bus Rapid Transit System, four for arterial traffic while the other four will serve as service roads. There will also be a cycle track and a footpath on both sides.

Mohan Sakhalkar, PCMC’s engineering consultant, said the financial capacity envisaged that the concerned party should have a minimum investment capacity of Rs 200 crore. While credit rating agency Crisil is the financial advisor to PCMC, a team of civic engineers will decide on the techno-feasibility issues of the participating companies.

“People of the twin industrial township deserve better connectivity and smooth roads. This project will help change the image of the town and push growth in all spheres,” Band said.

“All the 10 lanes should be in working condition during the initial eight years for the full payment to be made. If the lane is closed for a certain period, then the payment will be deducted for that period,” Sakhalkar said.

Band said that PCMC will not act as an employer: “We will treat it more like a business deal and we act like a buyer — if we like the product we buy it, otherwise we won’t.”

indianexpress: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday opposed the corporators’ Bogota tour to study the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale has however said that — even though no immediate tour was planned to Bogota — she was not averse to coughing up money from the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) coffers to fund foreign study tours.

Earlier, BJP leader Ujjwal Keskar at a press conference said PMC officials had already visited Bogota to study the BRT system, which did not warrant another tour. “Those willing to study the BRT should do so bearing their own expenses instead of squandering public money,” Keskar said.
 
He also said those officials who visited Bogota three months ago hadn’t even submitted their reports yet. “The report should be submitted to the general body and the standing committee. The BRT project has failed and the PMC should not waste any more money on it,” he said.

But Bhosale said there were no immediate plans to visit Bogota in the first place. “I don’t know how these discussions (of a second tour to Bogota) came up. No foreign tour is on cards for now,” she said, adding however that foreign tours helped to “broaden” the vision of corporators.

When asked whether corporators or PMC officials should squander public money on foreign tours, she said: “If the corporators or the mayor receive an invitation to attend a conference or workshop, there is no harm in using the PMC’s funds to go on tour,” she said. “For the development of our city, one needs to see how cities across the world are developing. I support such tours.”

indianexpress:  Sixteen schools — 8 in Hadapsar area, 1 each in Katraj and Bhavani Peth and 3 each in Bibvewadi and Phule Nagar-Vishrantwadi-Mundhwa division have no water for drinking and sanitation. The civic administration’s admitted this on Friday while answering Kothrud corporator Prithviraj Sutar.

The reasons cited by the administration for insufficient water supply was inadequate availability of water and in some areas low pressure. At Sant Ghadge Maharaj Primary School in Kondhwa the water tank is inadequate to cater to the needs of the students.
 
The PMC school board’s administration head Ashok Rajguru said those schools facing water problem have been reported to the ward offices. “We expect ward offices and the PMC’s building department to act swiftly so that students don’t face problems in the new academic year,” he said, adding that some schools needed new water tanks since the number of students had increased while in others the supply system needed a revamp.

Deputy administrative head Rajaram Magade said,

“The school board is pursuing the matter with the PMC administration. The insufficient water problem would be sorted out within the next few days”.

Not just water, there is a shortage of teachers too in many schools. In its 274 schools, the PMC has appointed 2,391 teachers for nearly 10,39,86 students. It is short by 110 teachers. Rajguru said the school board was addressing the problem by recruiting new teachers. “New appointments are being made and some teachers from Zilla Parishad schools have joined PMC schools after transfers,” he added.

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Transport-Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Transport (PMT-PMCT) merger notwithstanding, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Friday announced its intention to auction of some PMT routes. Incidentally, since its commencement in December 2006, buses on the BRT route are making profits.

At a press conference on Friday, additional commissioner Neelima Mary Kerketta said the PMT plans to hire 150 buses to run on BRT and other routes in the city. “The PMT is conducting a study to look for profit and loss-making routes. Some will be auctioned so that private players can chip in to provide efficient services,” she said, adding that despite privatising the routes, the PMC will have complete control over the operations.

She added that 170 buses were plying in the BRT corridor — Swargate-Katraj- Hadapsar of which 10 were Volvo buses.

“The cost to run buses on BRT route was Rs 38 per km while the earning was Rs 40 per km. In the last five months buses on BRT route have earned profit of Rs 2 lakh. The total cost incurred by BRT route buses was Rs 34 lakh while the earning was Rs 36 lakh,” saidKerketta.

PMC traffic planner Srinivas Bonala said the civic body has appointed urban mass transit company to facilitate the BRT route. Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale said: “Though the merger process was on, the PMC will take the initiative to improve PMT’s service. We want to complete the BRT route.

“The frequency of buses will be increased once the new hired buses join the PMT fleet.”

indianexpress:  The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) on Friday decided to clean a clogged sewage channel from which two days of filth-filled water flowed out at the Moledina Road-M G Road junction.

According to V S Kulkarni, PCB’s Health Superintendent, they didn’t clean sewage channels on a regular basis unlike storm water drains. “We clean them only after they get clogged, especially by plastics. This particular sewage channel was cleaned for the first time in this year,” he said.

However, inconvenienced shopkeepers and office goers were not willing to buy Kulkarni’s logic. “If this is the case in such a vital point of the city, one can only imagine what happens in the other parts,” said Moloy Mondal, manager of the Nike store whose sales have gone down with people reluctant to “wade into” the store.

According to Mondal, it was the third time in the year that he had seen water overflowing from the sewage. Javed Sheikh and Shamsher Sheikh, workers at the Karachi Sweetshop, said they had earlier warned the PCB about the sewage, to no avail. Other shopkeepers in the area complained that the stench had driven a lot of people away from having cold drinks and nimbu paani.

One shopkeeper on the condition of anonymity even said that most of the roadside eateries had to throw garbage out on the sides because of a lack of garbage disposal arrangement. And it was this garbage that was clogging the drain. Meanwhile, the sewage continues to leave a stench.

indianexpress: They ensure our streets are clean, enter stinking sewers to remove blockages, remove rotting carcasses… and are largely ignored. A documentary film commissioned by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) seeks to set things right by throwing the spotlight on these faceless workers who risk their health and even their lives to keep our city clean.

Kachara Kondi (Garbage Block), a 50-minute Marathi documentary film directed and produced by Atul Pethe for the PMC depicts the plight of sweepers, garbage lifters, public toilet cleaners, unidentified dead body disposers and drainage workers.

Scripted by Mukta Manohar, leader of PMC Employees’ Union, the documentary has a noble aim. “We want to sensitise people and make them aware of the rights of these workers,” says Manohar.

Pethe, who cinematographed the film over the past seven months, adds, “Shooting the scenes was a shocking experience which gave me a different perspective about the garbage problems and the political and social injustice meted out to these workers.”

The over-8,000 strong PMC workforce of cleaners was established in 1943. Today, it’s the fourth generation of workers which carries on the work, says Manohar.

The film captures the dirty and dangerous tasks carried out by these cleaners. “Most citizens are unaware of the nature of these jobs,” says Pethe. “The PMC, by law, has to provide these workers with proper working gear like a mask, boots, a cap, gloves and enough water to clean themselves. But these rules are not followed. So workers, especially drainage cleaners, have to enter manholes without any protection. Even workers handling dead bodies are at risk of contracting diseases. This is simply horrendous,” he adds.

The film has its touching scenes. For instance, the pregnant sweeper who has to bear the brunt of traffic snarls and pollution everyday. “She complains of backaches, the pollution and fatigue, which can be dangerous, given her condition,” says Pethe.

Cleaners who serve for 10 years get a salary of only Rs 6,000 per month. But they have no choice. Pethe says,“Most of them are deprived of money and education and can’t move ahead in life. This job is their only support system.”

The film, to be released in June, appeals to citizens to change their attitude towards the workers. “They keep our city clean and make life liveable but we ignore their contribution and give them inhuman treatment,” says Pethe.

techtree: Samsung Electronics has announced developing a finger-nail sized 8GB microSD (Secure Digital) memory card, a size, which it says, is optimal for today’s multimedia mobile phones.

The company says that the new 8GB card, which features the highest capacity today for a microSD card, is capable of storing 2,000 MP3 music files, 4,000 digital photos, or approximately 5 DVD-quality movies.

A quarter the size of an SD card, any microSD card is backward compatible with SD cards (using an extender), to allow multimedia files downloaded by mobile phones to be easily displayed on other media.

The 8GB microSD card has a read speed of 16MB per second, and a write speed of 6MB per second, exceeding the data write speed of 4MB per second of the Speed Class 4 Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) standard. Samsung says its new card sports speeds that are higher than those of most competing microSD cards available on the market.

According to market research firm Dataquest, the memory card market is predicted to have a 10 percent average annual growth between 2006 and 2010, while demand for high density 8GB cards is estimated to grow at an average of 2.6 times per year in the same period.

techtree:  A new ‘Hindi’ podcasting site called “podbharti.com” has been launched. Launched by two Maharashtra-based bloggers, Debashish Chakrabarty and Shashi Singh, the site will podcast news and views on Indic blogging, tools and technology, current affairs, and entertainment.

While the ‘Hindi’ section of the blogosphere has been toying with the idea for quite some time, the idea finally took wing in the form of “podbharti”.

“Podbharti is a tribute to the growing strength of Indian languages on the Net. Bringing a podcast in your own language not only gives a sense of empowerment, but also opens avenues for the spread of the language. Of late, ‘Hindi’ blogging has started getting the much needed attention from mainstream media. Through Podbharti, we hope to add another dimension to this phenomenon, and tell the world about this formidable force,” Chakrabarty and Singh said proudly.

Podbharti.com has also tied-up with popular English podcasting service, ‘Indicast,’ for sharing of ideas and content, in a bid to bring together the best of both worlds to listeners.

“It’s a great idea to produce a Hindi-centric podcast. There are lots of podcasts being done purely in French, Spanish, etc, but there has been none in an Indian language. Podbharti fills a huge gap,” said Aditya Mhatre and Abhishek Kumar, owners of Indicast.

Podbharti, with the tag line, ‘Apni boli, Apni baat,’ promises to be a breath of fresh air, and usher shows in a language that most of the audience ‘thinks’ in.

Regarding the quality of language, Chakrabarty said, “Our Hindi will be simple, but not flawed. Good Hindi is so much better for the ears!”

Podcasting is increasingly being seen as a corollary to blogging, and makes for an emerging trend in the country.

However, one hurdle continues to be ‘bandwidth’.

“We are aware that bandwidth is still an issue, and our aim is to reach an audience that may not have the best hardware available to listen to us, therefore we will strive towards crisp programming with minimal audio file sizes, while not compromising on quality and presentation style,” Singh explained.
 

tgdaily: Google’s core search engine has been walking down an evolutionary path, with new functionality being integrated almost silently over the course of the past years. At least for today, the perception of a gradually improving search engine has changed: Google announced a wave of new features that go well beyond integrated search: There is a new contextual search, access to experimental search features as well as an upcoming cross-language platform, which could bridge search results between different languages. 

There have been very few instances in the past, during which Google showed its determination to protect its core search product. The foundation of the company’s success, it appears, has been taken granted not only by users but also by Google’s marketing staff. Improvements to the basic search were quietly introduced, while the diversification of the company’s product portfolio received plenty of space for marketing and public relations.

Today’s search-ology event was different and seemed to reflect a more aggressive Google that wants to make sure that we do not forget Google Search and how much time and resources it takes to improve the market leading search engine.

Universal Search, announced today, may be the most obvious move for the company to defend itself against advances from Microsoft and Yahoo. But while the vertical integration of its separate search engines (books, local, images, news, video) show that Google apparently has found a solution to the monumental task of running multiple queries through multiple indices in the same time as running one query through one index, this move was really just a matter of time.

msnbc: Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster’s are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water — by using sugar-consuming bacteria.

The experimental technology was unveiled Wednesday by scientists at Australia’s University of Queensland, which was given a $115,000 state government grant to install a microbial fuel cell at a Foster’s Group brewery near Brisbane, the capital of Queensland state.

The fuel cell is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol.

The battery produces electricity plus clean water, said Prof. Jurg Keller, the university’s wastewater expert.

The complex technology harnesses the chemical energy that the bacteria releases from the organic material, converting it into electrical energy.

The 660-gallon fuel cell will be 250 times bigger than a prototype that has been operating effectively at the university laboratory for three months, Keller said.

“Brewery waste water is a particularly good source because it is very biodegradable … and is highly concentrated, which does help in improving the performance of the cell,” Keller said.

He expected the brewery cell would produce 2 kilowatts of power — enough to power a household — and the technology would eventually be applied in other breweries and wineries owned by Foster’s. The cell should be operating at the brewery by September.

“It’s not going to make an enormous amount of power — its primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity,” Keller said