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indianexpress: THE Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has decided to hand over the walking plaza to private players. “We have called for bids from private parties to run the walking plaza. The response so far has been good,” said Cantonment Executive Officer S K Sardana on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, four bidders have submitted their tenders to the board which will be opened on June 29 in a meeting. “We are looking for private players with good experience in event management,” said Sardana, adding that technical and financial aspects will also been considered.
 
He said the sole aim to give the plaza to private parties is to share the revenue. “We have incurred losses and this is one way to make up the losses,” said Sardana.

The PCB will allow private owners rights to advertise and open eateries. Plans are to reintroduce Wi-Fi on a three-month trial. “Some bidders suggested having Wi-Fi in other Cantonment areas too,” said Sardana.

The plaza is currently closed till August. PCB chief S K Sardana said the suspension of the walking plaza was only a temporary phenomenon and denied there was any pressure from the merchants’ lobby to discontinue the concept.

“Last year, the private event management company that was running the plaza had said rains create problems for those who enjoy the walk thereby decreasing their number. So we have decided to discontinue it this year,” Sardana had said.

Though last year PCB had made a profit of Rs 6 lakh, Sardana said the board was willing to work on a no-loss no-profit basis if the event management company provides entertainment and chairs on the sideways for senior citizens and trolleys to carry shopping goods to cars parked some distance away.

The plaza was started in 2006 to provide Puneites a pollution-free experience. After the initial success in the first three months, the walking plaza was handed over to a private contractor for conducting business. However, unable to cope with shrinking margins on the earnings, the contractor made a silent exit. Despite this, the walking plaza continued to attract an unusually high number of shoppers.

indianexpress: STUDENTS of 89 villages in the district will soon get to learn some important lessons on disaster management. Under the new disaster management project of the district collectorate, simple dos and donts to be followed in case of natural as well as man-made calamities will be imparted to young minds through special three hour sessions that will also include the screening of a film.

Beginning July 15, the project will be implemented in 14,000 schools across the district.

District Collector Prabhakar Deshmukh said that this is the first time students will be told about disaster management in such a manner. “Although the subject is already a part of the curriculum, these sessions will be made interesting through a film, posters and even demonstrations on how to act during such situations.”

A minimum of 100 schools from each taluka will be aimed at for the drive which will see resource persons chosen by the collectorate conducting the sessions.

While the sessions will stress on what students are supposed to do incase a calamity strikes, they will also lay stress on the role of the school staff during the times.

Said Ganesh Sonune, district project officer, “The staff could be trained persons for disaster management in future. It is important that they are aware of how to react in such times.” Meanwhile the district collectorate is busy readying up for the project. Special CDs are being prepared which would be circulated among the resource persons for the screenings, said Sonune. Plans are also on cards to extend the project to schools in the city once it is implemented in the rural schools.

indianexpress: The sale of application forms and college brochures for admission to standard XI commenced on Wednesday, with students visiting the form sale centres at various colleges across the city.

The admissions, which will be through the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) are being coordinated by the SP College. Admission forms will be available from Wednesday to Saturday at all government-recognised colleges from 10 am to 5 pm, and till July 3 at SP College.
 
The last date for submitting the forms will be July 3. Forms will be accepted at 19 centres in the Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad region. These are as follows: Abasaheb Garware College, Shankarrao More Vidyalaya, and MES Bhave High School for the Kothrud region, SP College, Acharya DB Dadawala Junior College, and Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil Junior College for the Parvati and Dhankawadi region.

For Shivajinagar and Aundh areas, forms can be submitted at Fergusson College, Marathwada Mitra Mandal’s Commerce College (MMCC), Modern College, BR Gholap College, and Alegaonkar Junior College. In Camp-Yerawada-Hadapsar, form receipt centers will be RR Shinde Sadhana Girls School, Poona College, Nowrosjee Wadia College and Netaji Subhashchandra Bose College.

Pimpri-Chinchwad students can submit their forms at the Mhalsakant Junior College, Jain Kanya Prashala, Navmaharashtra Vidyalaya, and Bhairavnath Vidyalaya. Since admission procedure is computerised, students need not collect and submit their forms at the same specific center.

indianexpress:  WITH global concern for climate change finding an echo in the city in recent times, here’s an initiative that can set an example for efforts to reduce carbon emissions to slow down global warming. Software firm Ness Technologies, which recently inaugurated its new facility in the city, has launched a unique environmental campaign - Ness Sense - aimed at checking carbon emissions through eco-friendly company policies, and encouraging employees and the community at large to do the same in their daily lives.

The campaign, with its slogan ‘Be Part of the Solution, Not the Pollution’, will run in all the Ness Branches across the country, and will include initiatives like education and awareness drives, periodic internal carbon audits and outreach programmes starting with the employees, their families and communities.

As part of Ness Sense, the company will audit its generation of carbon emissions, and make efforts to keep this in check. Courses will also be conducted for the employees, wherein they will have the opportunity to use basic carbon audit resources to start implementing the programme. Once they have completed this course, employees will review it by filling out a scorecard. Completed scorecards can be submitted for a chance to win prizes as part of the Ness Sense reward programme.

“Ness Sense will instill awareness among employees about how they too can reduce carbon emissions on a daily basis, working towards being conservationists in their own way,” said Ness president and CEO Sachi Gerlitz, speaking at the recent launch of Ness Sense.

indianexpress: THE State government is exploring the possibility of introducing account-based octroi in all municipal corporations to ensure that the civic bodies do not face financial crunch after the abolition of octroi, said municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi.

Speaking in the General Body (GB) meeting Pardeshi said the State government has set-up a committee to decide on the abolition of octroi and suggest alternate mode of revenue generation for the municipal corporations. The State government will take a final decision, said Pardeshi. He is one of he committee members.

If the State government decides to have account-based octroi, corporations will start collecting octroi based on the account books of the traders instead of collecting it at the octroi posts.

The PMC GB passed the civic administration proposal to continue the octroi charges of 2006-07 for 2007-08.

indianexpress: THE Special Economic Zone proposed by city-based D S Kulkarni Developers Ltd at Fursungi has received the recommendation for in-principle approval during the Board of Approvals Meeting held at New Delhi on June 22, a press release issued by the company said.

Kedar Vanjape, Vice President, D S Kulkarni Developers Ltd. said that the proposed SEZ is for multi-services sector and would be spread on an area of around 101.2 hectares.
 
The proposed SEZ will include sectors like information technology, biotechnology, hospitality, animation, design engineering, hospitality etc.

The company is purchasing the land for this SEZ directly from the landowners, the release said.

This will be the first SEZ for the multi-services sector in the city and the company is planning to take the FDI route for setting up this SEZ, it added.

The estimated cost of the project would be close to Rs 2,000 crores.

For more information on the project one can contact Tushar Joshi on 98220 57625

techtree: Microsoft has reportedly added two new features, Photo Gallery and Folders to its Windows Live service, which are now available for limited beta testing.

Windows Live Photo Gallery is but a new version of the photo application offered on Windows XP and Vista operating systems. The service simplifies sharing of photos by allowing users upload photos on to Windows Live Spaces.

Once the photos are uploaded and edited, they can be sent to near and dear ones via e-mail.

The service seems similar to the one offered by Apple Computer, where users are able to publish pictures from the iPhoto application on to the Mac online service.

Currently, Windows Live Photo Gallery is available in beta in nine markets, including USA, China, France, Germany, UK, India, Japan, and Spain.

The other new Windows Live feature, Windows Live Folders, according to Microsoft, is a way for people to share documents but not necessarily a place for them to back-up all their files on the computer hard drive.

Windows Live Folders will offer 500 megabytes of free online storage in the US, as part of a limited beta test release.

Users will also have the option to label some folders as private for sharing with specific users, or making public.

While as of now, there are no plans to make the additional storage available to users on demand, Microsoft intends making further changes to its service, basis feedback from beta users.

bbc: The world’s fastest commercial supercomputer has been launched by computer giant IBM.
Blue Gene/P is three times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.

The latest number cruncher is capable of operating at so called “petaflop” speeds - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

Approximately 100,000 times more powerful than a PC, the first machine has been bought by the US government.

It will be installed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois later this year.

Two further machines are planned for US laboratories and a fourth has been bought by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council for its Daresbury Laboratory Cheshire.

The ultra powerful machines will be used for complex simulations to study everything from particle physics to nanotechnology.

Currently the most powerful machine is Blue Gene/L, housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Used to ensure that the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable, it has achieved 280.6 teraflops or trillions of calculations per second.

The machine packs 131,072 processors and is theoretically capable of reaching 367 teraflops.

By comparison the standard one petaflop Blue Gene/P comes with 294,912-processors connected by a high-speed, optical network.

However, it can be expanded to pack 884,736 processors, a configuration that would allow the machine to compute 3,000 trillion calculations per second (three petaflops).

“Blue Gene/P marks the evolution of the most powerful supercomputing platform the world has ever known,” said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing, IBM.

techtree: If UK-based mobile solutions provider, Affle, has its way, mobile users in the country will soon get Gen-Next text messaging on their handsets…

The company has launched its SMS (Short Messaging and Search) version 2.0 that includes scheduled SMS, color SMS, and emoticons, among others.

SMS 2.0 promises a seamless integration of messaging, content, and advertising on mobile phones, and integrates with usual user interaction as default SMS application.

The application allows users access/download content through SMS Window that comes from a customized RSS feed provided free-of-charge by Affle’s partners, Indiatimes and CrickInfo.

When sending an SMS, instead of the ’sending message’ icon that appears normally, users will now get to hear advertisements based on their selection of subjects. And users will retain the option to decide which advertisers they want to go with.

Commenting on SMS 2.0, Anuj Khanna, chief executive officer of Affle, said that with this application, users would get a better, more engaging customer experience at the same cost and with the same simplicity as existing SMS applications.

Affle has reportedly partnered with Bharti Airtel to make the service available to customers in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).
A pilot program has already been rolled-out in the NCR region beginning June 10, and customers are now able to download SMS 2.0 for free by sending ’sms2′ to 121.

Commercial roll-outs however are expected after two or three months, the company said.

And as of now, SMS 2.0 is compatible only with Nokia smart phones, but Affle intends making it available on other handsets as well.

techtree: Rashi Peripherals has announced availability of Netgear’s next generation storage device named “Storage Central SC101 Turbo”.

“Storage Central SC101 Turbo” is a flexible way to store music, photos, and videos, and access them at gigabit speeds.

According to Rohit Posaria, product manager at Rashi Peripherals, “With the market size expanding exponentially for the SOHO and SMB segment, this product is an ideal choice for users looking beyond desktop PC storage in a networked environment.”

All that users need to do is insert one or two 3.5-inch SATA drives of any capacity from any vendor into the device, connect the device to any router or switch, and the Smart Wizard then takes care of the configuration.

‘SC101 Turbo’ functions like a local disk drive, and is accessible from any network PC sans the need for a dedicated one. The device comes with advanced back-up and synchronization software to protect against data loss.

With dimensions of around 6.90 x 5.91 x 5.74 inches, the ‘Turbo’ comes with 3 diagnostic LEDs for power, hard disk, and network.