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indianexpress:  AT least 27 buildings, 20 belonging to the State government and seven to the Union government, have run up property tax dues amounting to Rs 5.36 crore that were not paid for several years despite bills sent followed by notices, making them the highest defaulters and exposing the Pune Municipal Corporation’s failure to recover pending dues from government offices.

This when the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) claims success in achieving its set target of revenue collection from the property tax this year. Till date, the civic body has raked in Rs 250 crore for 2006-2007. The target was Rs 200 crores.
 
In a reply to a query in the General Body (GB) on Friday, the civic administration admitted that these government offices have pending property tax dues of Rs 5,36,88,466. Among the biggest defaulters are Sakhar Sankul (Rs 1.32 crore), which houses the sugar commissionerate, Sakhar Sangh and the office of Vasantdada Sugar Institute and other offices of the agriculture department.

The other big defaulters include the Polytechnique College with Rs 50 lakh as dues, Maharashtra State Institute of Hotel Management and Catering in Shivajinagar with Rs 37 lakh as dues and Sinchan Bhavan with pending dues of Rs 30 lakh.

Among the union government offices, the Garrison Engineers (South), Defence Account Department at Lullanagar has the highest pending dues of Rs 24 lakh. Other offices with dues include Division Railway Manager, Central Railway at Pune Station with dues running to Rs 20 lakh, Control of Defence Accountant and Defence Estate with Rs 2 lakh and Income Tax Circle office at Erandwane that has to pay Rs 4 lakh.

The PMC follows the same procedure for government offices that it initiates for any other property owner who is a property tax defaulter. The bill is first served and if the owners does not pay up for a long period of time a notice warning him about attachment of property if the tax is not paid is sent.

indianexpress: THE Standing Committee of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Friday tabled a Rs 1,864-crore budget for the year 2007-08 in the General Body. A provision of Rs 1,087 crore has been proposed for capital expenditure and development work. The proposal includes novel schemes concerning computer training, road safety and housing societies.

The first budget after the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) came to power in the PMC saw a 50 per cent increase compared to last year’s budget of Rs 1,253 crore.
 
In tune with Pune’s image as an IT city, the Standing Committee has made a provision of Rs 2 crore for computer training for citizens. The scheme, known as Sharad Mobile Computer Training Scheme will be implemented on pilot basis in the wards of mayor, deputy mayor, standing committee chairman, Leader of House and Leader of Opposition.

Rs 2 crore has been proposed for road crossing systems to help senior citizens.

In another novel move, the PMC has proposed Rs 5 crore for paying half the expenses for repairs of internal roads in housing societies. The PMC has made special provision for improvement of burial grounds and crematoriums in the city.

Ahead of the Commonwealth Youth Games 2008, PMC will undertake road works utilising funds worth Rs 300 crore allotted for the games.

The civic administration proposed budget of Rs 1,681 crore was increased by Rs 183 crore. The provision of Rs 905 crore proposed by the civic administration for development work was also increased. Most of the proposals made by the civic administration were accepted by the Standing Committee.

indianexpress:  PROTESTS against Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) stand that Ram Nadi is a water body are growing louder. City environmentalists on Friday got together to assert that Ram Nadi was indeed a river and came down heavily on the civic administration for ‘tampering with the development plan (DP)’.

The greens comprising Aarti Kirloskar of INTACH, Sanskriti Menon from Centre for Environment Education, Anita Benninger from Centre for Development Studies and Activities, former mayor Vandana Chavan, Sujit Patwardhan of Parisar and Vijay Paranjpye of Gomukh Trust called on additional municipal commissioner Mohan Adtani at the PMC headquarters on Friday and handed over a list of their demands.

Paranjpye said: “We are shocked by the PMC authorities calling Ram Nadi a ‘nalla’ simply because the regional plan says so”. He said the municipal and collectorate authorities cannot just refer only to the regional plan and the development plan while feigning ignorance about the irrigation department’s dam safety manual, and other old plans and documents that say Ram Nadi is a river.

“The river was referred to as Dev Nadi in the dam safety manual on Pashan dam dating back to 1870. It is a matter of serious concern that authorities called it a water body in spite of these documents,” he added.

The environmentalists called for a joint survey of the encroachments on nallas and rivers in and around the city instead of separate surveys by the municipal and collectorate officials. “There was clearly dereliction of duty on part of certain officials, which needs to be fixed,” said Paranjpye.

indianexpress: DECKS have been cleared for the construction of a new bridge alongside the Holkar bridge on the Mula river with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) claiming that it had finally received a go-ahead from the defence ministry.

“The defence ministry has issued a no objection certificate (NOC) to the PMC’s proposal to construct a new bridge,” Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale said on Friday. She said the PMC had got clearance for a railway overbridge in Khadki.
 

indianexpress:  THE Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) is allocating 2,400 buses to Pandharpur from its 30 divisions across the State to facilitate transport of pilgrims for Ashadhi Ekadashi.

MSRTC spokesperson Neera Asthana said that the corporation has been allocating extra buses during the festival for some years now. “Last year, the MSRTC collected Rs 6.8 crore in 10 days by ferrying 10.58 lakh pilgrims.

Thus, the number of buses has been raised to 2,400 from the 2,356 allocated last year,” she said.

The Pune division will depute 200 buses. “Of these, 100 will begin the trip to Pandharpur from Swargate. The remaining will start from depots like Narayangaon, Baramati, Bhor and Talegoan. The 24-hour bus service will commence from Sunday,” said Pune Divisional Controller P P Nimsarkar.

The Central Workshop at Dapodi is releasing 100 buses for the Wari.

Meanwhile, travelling by MSRTC is set to get cheaper by a few rupees. “During the monsoon, there is usually a dip in the number of passengers.

indianexpress: AT a seminar on approaches to sex and sexuality education in Pune on Friday, attended by activists, school and NGO representatives, counsellors and gynaecologists, voices rose in favour of sex education.

From the need to have school-based awareness programmes on sex and sexuality education, adolescent education, life skills, approach to sex and sexuality to how the issue was being politicised, participants spoke on the approaches related to school programmes and NGO initiatives.

In the panel discussion, gynaecologist Dr Anand Sathe addressed questions related to tackling the cultural and religious backgrounds of students while educating them about sex. “People need to know what exactly is sex education. It is about healthier relationships and not just procreation or recreation”.

Counsellor Laxmi Kumar said, “ We must sensitise the entire school. Before we teach students, some stock checking should happen in our own minds.”

Activist Anand Pawar added, “We need to look at how sex education has been politicised and the ways in which the state government, judiciary, politicians, families and educational institutions are responding to it.”

Representatives from various schools conveyed the approaches, methodologies and concepts used by their schools to educate the students about sex and sexuality.

Education and child counsellor at Dr Kalmadi Shamarao High School Aswini Singh, Dilmeher Bharucha Bhola and Nivedita Krishnaswami from Rewachand Bhojwani Academy and Anagha Lawalekar from Dnyana Prabodhini Prashala gave power point presentations on the schools’ approaches to sexuality education.

techtree: Ubisoft has officially announced the sequel to it’s highly acclaimed first-person-shooter (FPS) game, ‘Far Cry’, but is holding back on any kind of details.

“Far Cry 2″ is presently being developed by Ubisoft’s Montreal studio, while it’s prequel was developed by German development studio, Crytek (Crysis).

The intellectual property rights to the ‘Far Cry’ franchise were taken over by Ubisoft in March 2006. ‘Far Cry’ reportedly won PC Gamer’s ‘Action Game of the Year’ Award in 2004.

Commenting on the ‘Far Cry’ franchise, Tony Key, vice president of marketing at Ubisoft, said, “Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics, and of advanced artificial intelligence. We are confident that ‘Far Cry 2′ will have the same impact again on the FPS landscape.”

As the game has just been announced — that too the PC version, it appears that fans of ‘Far Cry’ will have to wait until spring next year to get a feel of the game’s next iteration…

techtree: Imation India has announced added capacity of up to 4GB for it’s Nano Flash Drives.

According to Imation, the 4GB Nano Flash Drives not only deliver the kind of performance and storage capacity needed to manage and transfer digital files, but also come in a very small form factor.

The 4GB Nano Flash Drives feature an all-in-one swivel cap design, and are extremely lightweight and compact — fitting easily into any pocket or onto a keychain.

Sanjay Koul, country manager of Imation India, said, “Our Nano Flash is an ideal solution for mobile consumers and business professionals. The innovative 360-degrees rotating swivel cap allows for easy access to USB ports in tight spaces, circumventing the need for additional USB cables.”

The new drives feature password protection and drive partitioning software for Windows (Windows 2000 and later). With plug-and-play format, dragging-and-dropping of files is easy using a USB 1.1 or 2.0 port.

The Nano Flash Drives do not require any software installations (Windows 2000 and later), additional power supply, or cables. The drives are compatible with Windows, Mac OS, and Linux operating systems.

techtree: SanDisk has announced a range of products under a new edition named after Ducati Corse team motorcycles.

Under the brand Ducati, the company has rolled-out a sleek USB Flash Drive called “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition”, and two flash memory cards, “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition CompactFlash” and “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition SD Plus.”

The “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition” details the Ducati Corse logo on top, and there is a red tail light which illuminates whenever the drive is inserted into the USB port of a computer.

The sleek USB flash drive has a 4GB capacity, and read- and write- speeds of 20 megabytes per second.

According to Greg Rhine, senior vice president and general manager of the consumer products division at SanDisk, the ‘Extreme Ducati Edition’ is not just fast and functional, but it is also a way for everyone to share the excitement of Ducati motorcycles, and Ducati’s long history as racing champion.

The “Extreme Ducati Edition” comes with a custom lanyard, as well as SanDisk’s RescuePRO Deluxe software for recovering data that is accidentally deleted. It is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Mac OS version 10.1.2 or more, and is priced at $124.99 (Rs 5,040).

Meanwhile, the “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition CompactFlash” and “SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition SD Plus” flash memory cards come in 4GB and 8GB, and 4GB capacities respectively.

While the CompactFlash card has a read/write speed of 45MB per second, the SD Plus card has a read/write speed of 20MB per second.

The SD Plus card features a snap-open connector that enables the card to be plugged in directly to the USB port of a PC, without requiring a cable or reader.

bbc:  A robotic arm able to carry out an intricate life-saving heart operation is being pioneered by UK surgeons.
The robot is used to guide thin wires through blood vessels in the heart to treat a fast or irregular heartbeat.

Doctors at St Mary’s Hospital in London say it will reduce risk for patients and increase the number of procedures they can carry out.

More than 20 patients have been operated on with the robot, which is only one of four in use in the world.

  In the UK a shortage of expertise means there are too few centres where highly complex cases can be carried out

During the procedure, known as catheter ablation, several thin wires and tubes are inserted through a vein in the groin and guided into the heart where they deliver an electric current to specific areas of heart muscle.

The electric current destroys tiny portions of heart tissue which are causing the abnormal heartbeat.

With the Sensei robot, surgeons use a joystick on a computer console to more accurately position and control the wires, which often need to be placed in locations that are difficult to reach.

In the future the system could be automated so the robot guides the wires to a point in the heart selected by the doctor from images on a computer screen.