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indianexpress: A HOUSE collapse in Cantonment area, water logged roads, traffic snarls on the highway, cars and heavy vehicles breaking down at chowks and rising rivers in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad marked a wet Monday when the city received 63 mm of rain, the highest in a single day this season. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted frequent spells of rain with one or two heavy spells on Tuesday.

The continued heavy rain was because of a low-pressure area over Maharashtra that was moving in a west-north-westerly direction towards Rajasthan, said deputy director general of meteorology (weather forecasting) AB Majumdar, adding that the situation was likely to improve in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, heavy rain the catchment area, compelled irrigation authorities to release over 25,000 cusecs of water from Khadakvasla dam on the second consecutive day leading to a marked rise in the Mutha river.

At 10 pm, the water flowing at Bund Garden was 1 lakh cusecs. Besides Khadakvasla, waters from the Mula and Pavana rivers added to the volume. The water at Bund Garden bridge was 3 metres below the danger mark.

“There is absolutely nothing to fear. The situation is under control,” said executive engineer of the Khadakvasla irrigation division Vijay Ghogare on Monday evening .

Earlier, district officials said 27,180 cusecs of water had been released from the Khadakvasla dam by 8 pm. “There was heavy rain in the catchment area between noon and 6 pm, which is why we are releasing more water,” said Ghogare.

The Pune district authorities have cautioned people living in the low-lying areas to be ready for evacuation if more water is released from Khadakvasla on Tuesday.

indianexpress: This year, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) wants to address complaints about bad roads. To this end, the civic body ensured roads were repaired before the rain and even set up a monsoon helpline where citizens can dial 25501083 to register their complaints about potholes, waterlogging and choked drains. The PMC also gave the cellphone numbers of all 14 ward officers where complaints could be sent through SMSes.

The PMC promised to look into the complaints and address them within 24 hours. Now, to give this idea a big push, the civic body has roped in a group of young technocrats working for Better Roads Group, to monitor the operations of the helpline. The group will initiate immediate action on the complaints received through SMS.
 
“Members of the Better Roads Group would be forwarded a copy of each complaint regarding roads and time of completion of the work. These members will visit the site to ensure that the work is completed and would submit the report directly to municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi,” sources in the PMC said on Monday.

The idea is to reduce response time and keep an eye on the implementation of the system by the PMC staff. “It should not happen that citizens SMS their complaints and they are not attended to by the PMC staff,” said a top official.

“The Better Roads Group would facilitate the new system and ensure its effective implementation,” said development engineer (roads) Vivek Kharwadkar.

For the youth, it is their way of chipping in to improve the city. “All of us are from different companies. We have divided the ward offices among the members and will be monitoring the attendance of the complaints and submit a report to the municipal commissioner every week,” said the group’s president Youvraj Bagade, a software engineer working with Wipro Technologies.

indianexpress:  LIFE in many houses in low lying areas along side nallahs in different parts of the city was thrown out of gear after water from the flooded nallas entered slums and parking areas of societies on Monday. However, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has clarified that the flooding was a result of encroachments near the nallahs.

The flooding of Ambil odha resulted in water barging into slums in the adjoining Rajendranagar. Similar incidents of water entering into slums were reported from Warje and Karve Road. Houses in Chandannagar and Vimannagar too faced problems as rain water entered houses.
 
Water also entered the parking of many of the societies in the merged villages adding to the woes of the residents. Residents of few societies on Sinhagad Road, Warje and Baner faced problems due to flooding of the parking area.

Meanwhile, the PMC expressed satisfaction that its measures on Mutha river bank yielded results as there were no reports of flooding in the adjoining area even after discharge of 28,000 cusecs of water from the Khadakwasla dam.

“The houses near the Kamgar Putla, Patil Estate, Tapodham, Anandvan and Pulachiwadi used to get flooded after the discharge of 20,000 cusecs of water in the Mutha river, but the situation is different this time,” Ashok Kalamkar, incharge of PMCs flood control cell, said.

indianexpress: THREE days of incessant rain has caused massive water-logging on internal roads, chowks and a few cooperative housing societies in Pimpri-Chinchwad. While most of the nallahs have been overflowing, the level in Pavana river rose on Monday but flowed below the danger mark as no water was discharged from Pavana dam.

On Sunday, 170 mm rain was recorded in the catchment area of the Pavana dam. By Monday evening, the dam area recorded 110 mm of rain. “The Pavana dam is filled up to 55 per cent of its capacity. There has been no discharge so far from the dam,” Ramesh Galiyal, deputy engineer of the irrigation department at Pavana dam told Newsline.
 
In Sanjay Gandhinagar slum of Pimpri, the river water had entered a few hutments, but residents refused to vacate the place. “We tried shifting them, but they wouldn’t listen,” said PCMC assistant municipal commissioner Dilip Gawde, who is also the flood control unit chief. In Ramabai nagar slums in Ravet, water from a nearby nallah entered a few hutments. Gawde said the slum-dwellers have been shifted to a safer place.

In Adinathnagar society in Bhosari and Kunal Icon society in Chinchwad, incidents of water logging were reported. At Thermax chowk, a man was trapped after a tree came crashing. He was rescued by PCMC fire brigade.

On the Pune-Mumbai highway at Dapodi, water-logging along the Army wall affected the smooth flow of water. In Phugewadi, the octroi post area remained under water ankle-deep water since Sunday.

In slums near Mulanagar, Sangvi, 10 families were shifted to Ahilyadevi school as the water-level in Mula river rose by evening.

indianexpress: ITS proximity to the highway is one of the distinguishing features of the new 250-bed Noble Hospital at Magarpatta city. The multi-specialty hospital, which is being readied, will be easily accessible in cases of accidents and emergencies, managing director Dr Dilip Mane said.

Located on Magarpatta Road — one of the IT corridors — just off Pune-Solapur highway, the hospital has been built on a 1.75 acre site and spread over ground plus six floors. The hospital plans to provide tertiary services not just to the residents in Magarpatta but also from nearby areas like Phursungi, Mundhwa and others.
 
Mane said a 64-bed ICU care complex for all ages with a centralized oxygen supply will be manned by medical and para-medical staff. The unit will handle all types of critical illnesses, heart attacks, poly trauma and others. Apart from a brain lab navigation system, the hospital also has a neurosurgery facility, trauma ICU and blood bank with cell separator for component therapy. It also has a pathology lab that can cater to over 300 patients daily. Noble lab will have a team of phlebotomists for home collection to collect the samples from the doorstep and also deliver reports.

The hospital has insurance tie-ups with Bajaj Allianz, family health plan limited, Medicare and others. Moreover a corporate Out Patient Department is dedicated to the IT professionals, working class and corporate personnel .

indianexpress:  THE incessant rains also affected railway services on Monday. Central Railways PRO Y Singh told Pune Newsline that all trains arriving at Pune Railway station were late by at least 30 minutes owing to heavy rainfall in Pune Division. Meanwhile, railway authorities in a release issued a warning to slum dwellers, who had put up makeshift shelters along the walls of the railway tracks to refrain from doing so because of fear of wall collapses.

“People living in colonies near the railway tracks have the tendency to drill holes in the walls to provide outlets to for water collected in their localities. This results in extensive damage to the tracks,” Singh said.

Meanwhile, BSNL officials said that heavy rains have hampered repair work in faulty cables so much so that the situation of dead phone lines has not changed much since last week. Two thousand lines in Central division of BSNL were still down from last week because of faults in two cables of 1200 pairs at Mitramandal chowk, two cables of 1200 pairs at Bajirao Road, one cable of 800 pairs at Shanivarwada and one cable of 1000 pair at Shivaji Road. In Chinchwad around 300 landlines are still dead since last week because of fault in an 800 pair cable, BSNL sources said.

A dilapidated house in Bhimpura collapsed at around 8.30 pm on Monday following heavy rains. Three persons were stuck in the debris but were rescued by Cantonment Fire Brigade officials.

According to PCB officials, the house owners had been issued a warning by the PCB earlier this month.

techtree: AMD has announced the ATI Radeon HD 2600 and the ATI Radeon HD 2400 series, its mid-range entry-level graphics processors.

These Gen-Next graphics processors support Windows Vista, and feature DirectX 10 graphics, and built-in multimedia functions for an immersive HD video experience on the PC.

According to Rick Bergman, senior vice president of the AMD Graphics Products Group, with the new graphics processors, AMD is broadening the reach of the ultimate visual experience at an incredible price and performance proposition.

The new graphics processors feature second-generation unified shader architecture for immersive HD gaming, native ATI CrossFire technology for a wider variety of multi-GPU configurations, Windows Aero 3D user interface (UI) for quick multi-tasking between applications, Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for advanced hardware HD video processing, HDMI with in-built HD audio, and ATI Avivo HD technology for sharper images.

Besides, both series of processors features high-quality video playback, brought jointly by CyberLink and AMD.

Some of the HD 2600 and HD 2400 series processors deploy 65nm process technology for reduced power consumption along with quieter operation.

Both new processor series are expected early this month, and will come for around $89 to $149 (Rs 4,005 to Rs 6,705 aprox) for the HD 2600 series and about $50 to $85 (Rs 2,250 to Rs 3,825 approx) for the HD 2400 series. 

techtree: Working out how people use a city’s roads and planning for it, can be difficult, but research into mobile phone use may hold the key to preventing traffic jams in the future.

Mobile phone data can help planners see how people use a city
If you do not like crowds, congestion, chaos - and few do - then you might want to avoid Rome’s rush-hour. But congestion in the city might be about to ease a little as researchers use Italy’s passion for mobiles to combat Rome’s daily war on wheels.

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are using data from mobile-phone networks to create real time maps of people moving around the city.

Networks keep track of subscribers to ensure signals stay strong, and because so many people have mobiles, this data can give an accurate picture of where people are in a city.

“This is really the first time that you can take an urban system, like a big city, and try to see in real time how it lives, how people move and what’s happening in the city,” says Carlo Ratti from MIT.

“In the city for example you’ve got taxis with GPS, you’ve got buses with GPS, and also you’ve got mobile phones.

“If you take that information and you apply artificial intelligence and algorithms to it, then you can understand very interesting things about the urban system,” he says

bbc: Working out how people use a city’s roads and planning for it, can be difficult, but research into mobile phone use may hold the key to preventing traffic jams in the future.

Mobile phone data can help planners see how people use a city
If you do not like crowds, congestion, chaos - and few do - then you might want to avoid Rome’s rush-hour. But congestion in the city might be about to ease a little as researchers use Italy’s passion for mobiles to combat Rome’s daily war on wheels.

Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are using data from mobile-phone networks to create real time maps of people moving around the city.

Networks keep track of subscribers to ensure signals stay strong, and because so many people have mobiles, this data can give an accurate picture of where people are in a city.

“This is really the first time that you can take an urban system, like a big city, and try to see in real time how it lives, how people move and what’s happening in the city,” says Carlo Ratti from MIT.

“In the city for example you’ve got taxis with GPS, you’ve got buses with GPS, and also you’ve got mobile phones.

“If you take that information and you apply artificial intelligence and algorithms to it, then you can understand very interesting things about the urban system,” he says

zdnet: The fastest supercomputer in the Asia-Pacific region, housed at Japan’s Tokyo Institute of Technology, has been edged out of the latest list of the world’s top 10 fastest machines. But, the Japanese contender holds on to its throne in the region.

Dubbed TSUBAME Grid Cluster, the system dropped from the No. 9 position in November 2006 to the No. 14 spot on the new Top500 list announced Wednesday. The biannual Top500 list measures the world’s fastest supercomputers according to the Linpack benchmark, which focuses on solving linear equations.
 
However, the Japanese system–installed by Sun Microsystems in 2006–is still the leading supercomputer in the region. The system consists of a cluster integrated by NEC based on 648 Sun Fire x4600 with 11,088 AMD’s Opteron processors, 21 terabytes of memory, ClearSpeed accelerators and an InfiniBand interconnect.

Overall, the BlueGene/L system developed by IBM and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in the United States, held on to its throne in the Top500 project list, claiming the No. 1 spot four times in a row.

Housed at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., the BlueGene/L reached a Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 teraflops (trillions of calculations per second).

The No. 2 spot went to Cray’s Jaguar system, at 101.7 teraflops, which leapfrogged from the No. 10 position in November 2006. It is currently held at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jaguar in the United States. Trailing closely behind is Cray’s Red Storm system at Sandia National Laboratory in the United States, at 101.4 teraflops, becoming the world’s third fastest supercomputer.