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indianexpress: Eight teachers from the city are getting ready for a taste of American school life. Brinda Balasubramonian, Rashmi Makhija, Tara Thorat, Hemangini Inamdar, Kalyani Gokhale, Madhuri Godbole, Supriya Gadre and Smita Warpe — from different schools and junior colleges in the city are among the 24 chosen from across Western India for the prestigious Teaching Excellence and Achievement (TEA) Programme in the United States, administered by Fulbright and the United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI).

Of the 24 selected candidates, a total of 16 are from Maharashtra, with a majority from Pune as against seven from Mumbai and one from Nagpur
 
The programme offers all-expenses-paid fellowships to the teachers teaching English and Social Studies for classes IX to XII in Europe and Asia. They will spend six weeks at a university in the US. The fellows will attend seminars on educational leadership, curriculum development, teaching strategies for home environment and so on. They will also undergo a two to three-week internship to gain teaching experience in an American school.

After a rigorous application procedure that began in December, their teaching profiles were scrutinised, followed by verbal ability based on an entrance test and interview. The teachers were chosen from among 1,500 candidates across Eurasia.

“The fellowship will be an opportunity to exchange notes and learn from teachers all over the world,” says Balasubramonian. A total of 100 candidates have been chosen from 11 countries in Europe and Asia.

indianexpress: TPetonia Foods Pvt. Ltd, is bringing a range of frozen ‘dressed vegetables’ and fruits to the city under the brand name Mother’s Kitchenette. “Around 16 varieties such as baby okra, cut okra, drumstick, spinach, cauliflower florets, fruit slices, fruit pulps and wheat basics that include ready to cook parathas will be available through retail shops, malls and hypermarkets,” Mihir Parekh, CEO, Petonia Foods Pvt Ltd said.

Parekh added that the frozen food currently available in the market belongs to the ‘heat and eat’ category. “Instead of preservatives, the company will freeze the vegetables at -18 degrees Celsius promising a shelf life of 18 months,” he said.
 
The company will add another 28 products in the next 18 months to its existing range. Its current production capacity is five tonnes per eight hours for pulp and one tonne per eight hours for parathas.

“The products will be available in Mumbai, Nasik, Nagpur and Aurangabad at retail outlets,” Parekh said.

indianexpress: The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) is planning to crack down on pay-and-park contractors after receiving several complaints of overcharging, rude behaviour and non-compliance of tendering rules that the board received from citizens.

Revenue superintendent VS Satpute said strict action will be taken against those overcharging shoppers who park outside Fashion Street and others areas. “A comprehensive action plan is being readied to ensure that citizens do not have to face harassment from the parking attendants. The PCB has appointed officials as part of a grievance redressal mechanism where people can register their complaints,” he said.
 
Cantonment Executive Officer S K Sardana would be informed about the parking charges being collected from House No 229 MG Road to House No 326 MG Road (approximately 1,200 ft) for two-wheeler parking when the walking plaza is implemented on Saturdays and Sundays from 4 pm to 10 pm, Satpute said.

The PCB has been receiving complaints about parking areas not being cleaned and two-wheeler owners being charged for parking during walking plaza hours. Satpute said the health department has been entrusted the job of cleaning the parking lots.

“The PCB officials must ensure that vehicle owners are not unduly harassed when they park at Fashion Street or near JJ Garden. Moreover, we must get the services for what we are being charged. There is no cleanliness and no dress code observed by the attendants,” says Modikhana resident Ganesh Gaikwad

indianexpress: he Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is on a collision course with civic activists over the municipal commissioner’s proposal to lease out prime properties owned by the corporation to people and organisations recommended by corporators. Activists say the civic body has bypassed the Bombay High Court orders proposing a tender system. They are now planning to slap a legal notice on the PMC for breaching the HC order and provisions in the BPMC Act.

Municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi has tabled the controversial proposal before the standing committee last week. According to the proposal, the tendering process for leasing out municipal properties is compulsory but time-consuming. Hence, properties should be leased out to those recommended by local corporators. It proposes that properties be allotted to organisations and people working for social causes and the lease kept nominal.
 
The commissioner’s proposal has shocked civic activists who have already locked horns with the PMC for allotting more than 1,100 such properties, including open spaces, to organisations and people connected with corporators and politicians from all parties.

Civic activist Vijay Kumbhar, who had approached the Bombay HC against the PMC’s land allotment system, said a legal notice will be sent to the PMC on Monday for breaching the HC order and the BPMC Act.

indianexpress: Work on converting Direct Current (DC) into Alternating Current (AC) in the Pune-Vangani section of Central Railway will not only help in increasing speed, hauling of high capacity loco or rake but also reduce current loss.

Officials from Mumbai headquarters — who are checking the conversion — said the present 1,500 voltage in Overhead Equipment (OHE) wires is unable to haul a high capacity rake or loco. “With the conversion, the voltage will increase to 25 Kilovolt. It will help to run a high horse power loco or rake in the section,” they said.

Moreover, the voltage increase would reduce the current loss during transmission and distribution taking place in the seven sub-stations between Pune and Lonavla. According to officials, a large amount of current is lost when the current is given to the OHE wires from sub-stations.

Post conversion, safety is also estimated to increase as the insulators on OHE wires are estimated to enhance by 15 per cent. “The enhanced insulators will be able to absorb a bigger earthing value lightning discharge as compared to the earlier system,” the officials said.

After the conversion, the seven sub-stations will be converted in only two — at Khadki and Talegaon. Recently, the railway authorities shifted a 45-tonne transformer — 4.5 metre high and 3.5 metre wide — to the Talegaon sub-station in two-and-a-half hours. “We could not get a permission of a day. We completed it in shifts and only had two-and-a-half hours,” the authorities said. The transformer was lifted and place by using pulleys.

indianexpress: Seven shops and offices on the first floor of Grafikon Arcade opposite Jehangir Hospital were found burgled on Sunday morning. Cash amounting to a total of over Rs 1 lakh was stolen.

The thieves appeared to have targeted only cash, according to the owners. Hence no equipment or goods were stolen. The owners blamed the builder for not providing proper security.

The furniture, telecom, pharmaceutical, hardware shops, a godown and training institute office are all located on the first floor.

reuters: Office furniture maker Herman Miller Inc. wants to let cooler heads prevail when it comes to the often-heated issue of how hot or cold offices should be.

Herman Miller is launching a $300 desktop heating and cooling device that it hopes will become as much a part of office life as the desks, chairs and other office wares it has long been known for.

The company is set to unveil the “C2″ this weekend in Chicago for NeoCon, the office furniture industry trade show.

At 2.5 pounds (1.1 kg) and 10 inches high, it looks like a small humidifier. In company tests, starting with a surrounding air temperature of 72 degrees, the C2 raised the temperature within six inches by 40 degrees, and was able to cool it by eight degrees, company spokesman Wayne Baxter said.

It could open doors for Herman Miller with retailers that would not otherwise stock its products, said Robyn Hofmeyer, who manages the company’s accessory collection, including C2.

The company expects the C2 to be profitable in its first year, and aims to produce at least 10,000 in that period. It is part of a strategy to generate revenue from customers who, for example, aren’t buying a full desk or cubicle, Baxter said.

“They’re trying to focus on the entire working environment, whether it’s at an individual desk or a group outside the office,” said Sabrina Carollo of Ariel Capital, which owns Herman Miller shares. “Any complementary product makes sense.”

techtree: Intex Technologies has unveiled a range of tubular batteries for inverters, adding a new product line to its Power Electronics division.

Company sources say this is the second important expansion after the recent launch of the DSP Sine Wave range of Home UPS.

The tubular inverter batteries are named Classic 15000 and Platinum 20000, and according to Intex, score high on efficiency and maintainence, recharge times and life span, and generally occupy less space due to their compact design.

Classic 15000 has a 135 Ah rated capacity, and a life span of about three to four years. Whereas, Platinum 20000 is classified as a 160 h ‘tower tubular’ battery, and can last longer for around five to seven years.

Both inverter batteries sport imported glass mat separators, and thick, tubular, pasted flat plates to keep them safe and secure.

Shio Thakur, National Product Group Head of Power Electronics, said, “A battery plays a very important role in the overall performance of a home UPS/inverter. Keeping this in mind, Intex has tried to widen the sphere of its power electronics products with the inclusion of tubular batteries.”

itwire: Yahoo has issued fixes for a critical bug in its Yahoo Messenger IM client which if exploited could hand control of a user’s computer to a remote attacker.

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The bug in the ActiveX controls of the webcam feature of Yahoo Messenger 8.x enabled buffer overflows to occur when using a webcam to view or stream images. This in turn created conditions for a remote attack to occur if a user visited a maicious website that exploited the flaw.

Yahoo Messenger has an estimated user base of about 100 million and is interoperable with Microsoft Live Messenger.

Security firm, eEye Digital Security, which reported the bug to Yahoo on June 5, stated in an advisory:

“eEye Digital Security has discovered two critical vulnerabilities in ywcupl.dll (version 2.0.1.4) and ywcvwr.dll (version 2.0.1.4) included by default in all releases of Yahoo! Messenger 8.x. Ywcupl.dll is Yahoo’s Webcam Upload ActiveX Control used by Yahoo! Messenger to stream content from a user’s webcam to other users. Ywcvwr.dll is Yahoo! Messenger’s Webcam Viewer ActiveX Control used to view any streamed content. These files are normally used only when viewing or streaming webcam content to and from Yahoo Messenger, but they are incorrectly marked safe for scripting and can be instantiated by any website. Furthermore they both fail to perform bounds checking on variables resulting in 2 stack-based buffer overflow conditions that could allow arbitrary code to execute in the context of the logged-in user.”
 

techtree: Recently, ViewSonic announced the launch of its 22-inch VX2255wmb and VX2255wmh LCD monitors that come with bezel-mounted 1.3 megapixel Webcam and microphone. Both new monitors are built on the Windows Vista platform.

Alan Chang, General Manager of ViewSonic Asia Pacific, said, “ViewSonic introduced several monitor industry firsts in 2006. We are once again leading the path of innovation by integrating features such as easily accessible USB ports and webcams, and voice and video recording with our display offerings.”

The new monitors carry ergonomic benefits including best-in-class 3.2-inches height adjustment, and full 360-degree swivel, among others.

Additionally, they promise to be less of a strain on the eyes with their 300 nits of brightness (typ) and 1000:1 contrast ratio (typ). The monitors sport the Windows Vista Premium logo, ensuring reliability and security, and the ability to benefit from the latest Windows functionalities.

The monitors are available in Glossy Piano Black (VX2255wmb) or Piano White (VX2255wmh) at a price of Rs 29,900 (inclusive of taxes) each, along with three-year warranty .