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indianexpress:  ONLY three months after forging a unique alliance to share power at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the Nationalist Congress Party-Shiv Sena alliance is set to face its first real test as the Sena proposes to continue the Zunka bhakar stalls. The decade-old Sena initiative to provide employment to Maharashtrians at the same time make available low-cost meals to poor citizens, that was recently abolished by the Congress-NCP alliance at the state government, will be revived in Pune if the Shiv Sena has its way.

In a proposal tabled before the Standing Committee, Sena leader and Deputy Mayor Chandrakant Mokate has urged the civic body to continue the saffron alliance initiated Zunka bhakar stalls .

“The Zunka bhakar stalls were launched to provide employment to the Marathi Manus while making available cheap meals to the poor ,” Mokate said.

It has become difficult for the Maharashtrian citizens to get jobs in their own land due to influx of population from outside the state, Deputy Mayor said adding, “The centre has been successful in providing employment to Maharashtrians and the civic body should continue to provide its space for the centre.”

The Sena move comes only a week after the state government decision to cancel the allotted space to the Zunka bhakar stalls was communicated to the PMC.

“The state government has directed the civic body to take back the allotted space for the centre,” a senior PMC official said.

indianexpress:  WITH an increasing number of complaints about poor water supply from the Wadgaon water pumping station on Sinhagad Road, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday decided to speed up the completion of the pumping station and proposed to hand over the contract to the bidder who had quoted almost double the working cost.

Work on the 125 TMC capacity pumping station that started in 2001, was on a standstill for all these years after allegations of corruption against the earlier contractor M K Mukherjee. The PMC had issued a stop work notice to the contractor.

However, the contractor dragged the PMC to local court on the matter and the court gave directions to maintain status quo on the project. Later, the PMC approached the Bombay High Court seeking to allow construction of the project. The court allowed the implementation of the project through retendering process and directed that work be completed by 2007.

The PMC then allotted the remaining part of work estimated to be Rs 2.69 crore out of the total cost of Rs 9.18 crore to a contractor named G D Khandesh. It was later found that the new contractor has quoted double the cost of the project and the work order was stayed after objections from corporators.

Now, in its proposal, the civic administration has said that the delay in work would further increase the cost of the entire project and it was only proper to give the contract to Khandesh since they have proposed to complete the work fast.

indianexpress: RSB Group, a leading engineering and component manufacturing house, on Monday announced that it has concluded a private equity placement of Rs 154.35 crore with the IL&FS Investment Managers (IIML) as lead investor along with a co-investment by Evolvence.

RSB Group, one of the largest engineering and automotive components manufacturing entities in the country that had a turnover of Rs 400 crore, will be using the private equity infusion for capital expansion activities and to grow organically and inorganically through joint ventures and acquisitions.

It has recently acquired Miller Brothers, an auto ancillary based in Michigan, USA. The group is ambitiously aiming to be a $ 1 billion global group by 2013 through both organic and inorganic growth.

“We believe that the auto ancillary and construction equipment sectors in India are high growth areas, driven by increased infrastructure spending, development of roads and highways and rising exports. RSB Group is an established, high quality player well positioned to ride this high growth.” said Shahzaad Dalal, vice chairman and managing director, IL&FS Investment Managers.

IIML is one of the country’s largest domestic private equity fund management companies, managing over $ 1 billion on behalf of leading Indian and International institutions.

indianexpress: ON Monday, around 1000 activists of the All India Muslim Backward Classes Organisation from Western Maharashtra carried out a massive morcha protesting against the malpractices prevalent in issuing caste validity certificates and pendency of over 450 caste validity certificates of Muslim OBC students at the Caste Verification Office in Swargate.

National President Haji Shaukat Bhai Tamboli while addressing the gathering said Muslim OBC students were facing a tough time owing to such malpractices and demanded an explanation from concerned officials. “Keeping applications pending for months together when the students are in need of them is the a serious crime and should not go unpunished,’’ Tamboli said.

President of city unit Shabbir Attar said, “Officials at the caste verification office were selectively targetting members of the minority community by denying them the caste certificates. We urge the government to order a high level probe into the issue and dig deep into irregularities being committed at the office.”

A delegation of members also met divisional commissioner of the social welfare department and urged him to take strict and punitive action against the erring officials and staff at the office.

Earlier during the day, a meet was organised at Azam Campus where issues pertaining to the increasing role of education amongst OBC muslims, scholarships and funding programmes by State and Central government was discussed at length.

indianexpress: THE Petrol Dealers’ Association (PDA), Pune has opposed any cess on petrol and diesel to generate funds to enable payments to Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) for the city’s infrastructure.

“Such cess is not levied in any state and development of road infrastructure should not be done putting a burden on the common man,” said Baba Dhumal on Monday. He has urged the State government and the PMC to look for other alternatives to generate funds.

The PDA has submitted a memorandum to guardian minister Ajit Pawar opposing his proposal.

indianexpress: FIVE people were killed on the spot when the jeep they were travelling in collided head-on with speeding truck near Ale Phata on Pune-Nashik highway, some seventy km from here on Monday.

The deceased have been identified as Arun Kale (50), his wife Mandakini (45), both residents of Ghodegaon Manchar, Ramdas Narayan Takalkar (52), Neelam Kakade (22), Dattatreya Shete (40), residents of Junnar taluka of the district.
 
According to the Narayangaon police, barring Mandakini who breathed her last in transit while the remaining four were killed on the spot.

Arun Kale is the son of vice president of Vignaharta co-operative sugar factory and the family was coming home after visiting Arun’s sister at Aurangabad, the police said.

Meanwhile, the police have booked the truck driver on the charges of rash and negligent driving.

No arrest has been made so far.

Assistant Police Inspector Padmakar Ghanwat of Narayangaon police station, who was the first to reach the spot said: “Such was the impact of the collision that the jeep was mangled beyond recognition. Four people dies on the spot.” Investigations are on, the police added.

techtree: Search major Yahoo! has introduced a new search tool named ‘Search Suggest’ to provide users a ‘faster way to find what they are looking for’.

‘Search Suggest’ works by giving users suggestions as part of a drop-down menu, as soon as they start searching for something on Yahoo!.

In his blog, Yahoo!’s Kevin Lee goes on to say that the suggestions appear even as users type-in the search words.

The new feature, according to Lee, reduces the number of words that users need to type into a query. Besides, it might throw-up similar queries in the drop-down menu. Overall, Lee says, ‘Search Suggest’ reduces the time required by users to find something.

Meanwhile, ‘Search Suggest’ has already been launched in the Yahoo! Toolbar in Firefox. However, users need select Yahoo! as their search engine to get ‘Search Suggest’ directly from the Firefox 2 search box.

For those who find the drop-down menu an irritant, it can be turned-off by clicking on ‘disable’ at the bottom of the menu box. And, it can be re-installed by clicking on ‘more’ at the top of the menu box.

techtree: Search major Yahoo! has introduced a new search tool named ‘Search Suggest’ to provide users a ‘faster way to find what they are looking for’.

‘Search Suggest’ works by giving users suggestions as part of a drop-down menu, as soon as they start searching for something on Yahoo!.

In his blog, Yahoo!’s Kevin Lee goes on to say that the suggestions appear even as users type-in the search words.

The new feature, according to Lee, reduces the number of words that users need to type into a query. Besides, it might throw-up similar queries in the drop-down menu. Overall, Lee says, ‘Search Suggest’ reduces the time required by users to find something.

Meanwhile, ‘Search Suggest’ has already been launched in the Yahoo! Toolbar in Firefox. However, users need select Yahoo! as their search engine to get ‘Search Suggest’ directly from the Firefox 2 search box.

For those who find the drop-down menu an irritant, it can be turned-off by clicking on ‘disable’ at the bottom of the menu box. And, it can be re-installed by clicking on ‘more’ at the top of the menu box.

techtree: A new twist-and-shoot 5 mega pixel auto-focus camera phone, the KG920, has been launched in the country by LG Electronics.

A slim phone with dimensions of 108 x 50 x 18.9 mm, the KG920 allows for the camera to be rotated 180 degrees so as to be able to take self-portraits.

The camera phone promises VGA-level video at 30 fps (frames per second). It has a strobe flash effective upto 1.5 meters, according to the company. The camera sports 6 shot modes, 6-frame consecutive shots, an up to 15-second timer shot, a half shutter, and a lens cover.

The KG920 features a 2-inch TFT display with 240 x 320 pixels resolution, in-built 8MB internal memory, and support for external memory through miniSD cards.

A tri-band phone, it supports GPRS, Bluetooth (v1.2)m, and USB (v1.1).
And, it comes equipped with a media player that supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, WAV, and MPEG4 formats.

Speaking at the launch, H S Bhatia, product group head of GSM Mobile Phones, LG Electronics, said, “Today’s customers are very design-conscious. The KG920 is extremely attractive in terms of style, features, and price.”

bbc: Google has said that its cookies, tiny files stored on a computer when a user visits a website, will auto delete after two years.
They will be deleted unless the user returns to a Google site within the two-year period, prompting a re-setting of the file’s lifespan.

The company’s cookies are used to store preference data for sites, such as default language and to track searches.

All search engines and most websites store cookies on a computer.

Currently, Google’s are set to delete after 2039.

Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said in a statement: “After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we’ve concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies.”

He said the company had to “find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time.”