News

indianexpress: “Mummy, I am being tortured here…they are not giving me any food…please do something for me,” cried 20-year-old Vishal Lalchand Ramani when he spoke to his family about a fortnight ago. Vishal is in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, working for K M Business Centre and RJV Commercial Limited allegedly owned by Anil Melwani from Kondhwa.

In a written application submitted to the Pune police commissionerate on July 28, Vishal’s parents have alleged that Melwani was holding their son on false charges. The Ramanis have also alleged that the Melwanis are demanding Rs 3 lakh for the release of their son. “Our son who works for Melwani’s firm has been accused of stealing electronic goods worth Rs 3 lakh,” said Vishal’s father Lalchand Ramani who stays in Kalewadi area of Pimpri-Chinchwad with his wife and a daughter.

In his complaint, Ramani says his son left for Mozambique along with the Melwanis on February 2, 2006. “We signed an agreement with Anil Melwani, according to which Vishal is supposed to get a monthly salary of Rs 10,000. But in the last 18 months, we have received only Rs 42,000,” his mother Hema Ramani told Newsline on Monday.

When contacted in Mozambique, Rashmi, wife of Anil Melwani, said, “Whatever proof we have…has been given to the Indian embassy in Mozambique…you should speak to Anil Garg in the Indian embassy…It is our sincere request that you take a reaction from the Indian embassy.”

indianexpress: Global warming may be the hottest topic of discussion all over the world today. But when it comes to creating awareness at the city level, the University of Pune (UoP) seems to be at the fore. Come Thursday, UoP vice chancellor Narendra Jadhav, accompanied by 3,000 students, principals, and representatives of various organisations, will take to the streets in a massive rally through the city to call attention to the issue of global climate change.

The rally has been organised jointly by the University of Pune along with the Association for Leadership, Education Research and Training (ALERT), an initiative against climate change spearheaded by former mayor Vandana Chavan.

The rally, which will end with a speech and presentation by Jadhav at the Ganesh Kala Krida Rangmanch, is being held to coincide with Krantidivas on August 9.

All the participants will assemble at the Shaniwarwada at 8.30 am for the rally that will commence at 9 am towards Dagdusheth Halwai via Shivaji Road. Thereafter, it will pass through the Belbag City Post Chowk, turning right at Laxmi Road, going past Bhanuvilas Talkies, Vijay Talkies, finally turning left at the Alka Talkies Chowk to Tilak Road. From Tilak Road the rally will turn right at the Vasantdada statue towards Sarasbag, finally ending at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch, where Jadhav will give a presentation on global warming at 10 am

indianexpress:  After the district collectorate put out a list naming seven big builders who had encroached on the land along Ram Nadi, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) in a statement released on Monday claimed some of the property owners had started bringing down the encroachments.

According to the PMC, the 25-mt compound wall of La Chappel Co-op Housing Society, 25-mt compound wall of Mahabaleshwar Hotel and 20-mt wall of Ujjwal Co-op Housing Society were brought down by the respective property owners with the help of the PMC staff.

Similarly, Kumar Builders removed the rubble in Ram Nadi to clean the river’s path while Teja Builders removed tin sheds encroaching on the river land, it added.

Meanwhile, Promoters’ & Builders’ Association of Pune (PBAP) president Lalitkumar Jain said his company Kumar Builders had removed the rubble in the river on the insistence of the PMC.

Bungalow owners too participated in the action in Baner and Bavdhan. The compound wall of three bungalows were demolished by their owners, the PMC said.

indianexpress: City-based Pune Merchants’ Chamber will join an agitation organised by the Federation of Associations of Maharashtra (FAM) against multinationals and big Indian corporates entering the retail business on August 9, the same day that Mahatma Gandhi had called for the British colonial rulers to quit India 65 years ago.

“All wholesale shops selling essential commodities from Market Yard and Nana, Bhavani and Ganesh peths will be shut down in protest this Thursday,” said chamber president Rajendra Bathiya.

FAM president Mohan Gurnani said nearly all of its 750 member associations had extended support to the agitation across the state. “We have been protesting against Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector for nine years. But big Indian corporates have entered the market, putting small-scale retailers and vendors out of business,” said Gurnani, who estimated a 50-60 per cent dip in the business among small traders located around malls.

“When big corporates enter the retail business, they offer schemes as an incentive to customers till they wipe out the competition across the world. Once they achieve that, they exploit the customers,” said Gurnani, adding that the choice of the date was chosen deliberately for its symbolic value.

“We have called for foreign retailers to quit India and Indian corporates to quit the trade,” he said.

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) nuisance detection squad that generates an annual revenue of over Rs 1 crore by way of fines for the civic body has run into problems. The ex-servicemen recruited for the specialised job, who are paid Rs 3,000 per month, are now taking up more lucrative offers as security guards where they earn at least Rs 7,000.

With the Pune Municipal Corporation not keen to raise their salaries, ex-servicemen, referred to by the District Sainik Kalyan office, are unwilling to sign up. As a result there are just 45 members in the squad, down from nearly 63 when it was started in 2000. This would have a direct effect on the fine collection.

The nuisance detection squad checks littering, spitting, urinating and defecating, putting up unauthorised posters or even dumping rubble on the footpath as part of a drive to keep the city clean.

The civic body decided that the 63-member squad would have only ex-servicemen so that they could effectively implement the drive without working under any pressure.

The squad members are appointed on a contract basis for six months and paid Rs 3,000 per month with a 10 per cent cut of the fine collected from those caught creating a nuisance in public places.

The civic administration’s recruitment drive got a poor response. “There are only 45 ex-servicemen in the squad this year. There are at least 18 vacancies yet to be filled,” said PMC health chief Pramod Dhaigude. Of these, 11 ex-servicemen joined the 34 from last year’s batch. Only three of 78 referred by the District Sainik Kalyan office turned up for the jobs.

indianexpress:  In an effort to increase the pressure on the bank administrator to recover loans immediately, the Suvarna Sahakari Bank Sangharsha Samiti has decided to seek weekly reports of the recovery process.

In a press release, samiti members have said they will present the list of defaulters to the bank administrator and keep a follow up of the action taken by him.
 
The samiti has alleged that the bank’s founder chairman Dnyaneshwar Agashe is dilly-dallying in repaying the loans.

“Agashe has repaid only Rs 5.96 crore in last 11 months while other others have repaid Rs 151 crore. Depositors are patiently waiting for complete recovery so that they could get back their deposits,” the press release said .

Members of the samiti recently met State Finance Minister Jayant Patil and Minister for Co-operatives Patangrao Kadam seeking their intervention to speed up the process of recovery in the case.

techtree: Samsung Telecommunications and Tata Teleservices have unveiled the country’s first touch screen-based dual SIM smart world phone, the Samsung Duo.

Unlike other phones, the Samsung Duo contains 2 SIM slots that would allow customers continue with their existing numbers, while switching to the Tata Indicom network. The Samsung Duo features a 2.2-inch TFT touch screen, a 1.3 mega pixels camera, micro SD card slot, and MP3/AAC+ player with A2DP Bluetooth support.

It packs-in handwriting recognition, file viewer, sketch memo, organiser, and India-specific applications like Panchang or Indian calendar, Hinglish, mobile prayer, and cricket scorer.

Speaking on the occasion, Vinayak Deshpande, president of enterprise solutions, Tata Teleservices Limited, said, “This is an extension of our commitment, and in line with our strategy to offer superior CDMA technology to our customers, and facilitate customers from any network to switch to Tata Indicom and thereby experience the difference. The introduction of the Samsung Duo is an opportunity for customers to now move to Tata Indicom without worrying about voice clarity, call drops, or their old numbers.”

reuters: Silicon Valley computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc is rolling out what it calls the world’s fastest commodity microprocessor in hopes that it would launch a new business: selling the chips to makers of set-top boxes, routers and other technology gear.

On Tuesday Sun is unveiling its UltraSparc T2 chip, also known by the code name Niagara 2. It follows the Niagara 1 chip and is far more powerful, capable of executing 64 threads — or sequences of instructions — at once, whereas many competing chips handle only one to four threads at one time.

While the Niagara chips will be used in Sun’s computer servers — which are popular in the financial services, telecommunications and government industries — the company is positioning the chip at markets beyond just servers.

“Sun is entering the merchant silicon business and by that we’re going to be chasing the commodity volume markets which are not simply limited to the market place for server computers,” said Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz in an interview.

Sun competes chiefly with Hewlett-Packard Co and International Business Machines Corp in the market for server computers that use the Unix operating system. The three computer makers together have about 90 percent of the Unix server market.

The introduction of Sun’s UltraSparc T2 comes after IBM of Armonk, New York, recently launched its Power6 processor. Scott Handy, an IBM vice president of marketing and strategy, said he believes that Sun’s latest chip will only find a home in “niche” markets such as Web hosting.

Analysts praised the chip, noting that it set records in a number of benchmarks used in the information technology industry to measure how quickly computers and chips can perform calculations.

beta: Toshiba confirmed that it will soon be launching its third-generation HD DVD players, with enhancements across the board. All three models are available for under $500, which could help spur adoption of the fledgling format.

As reported by BetaNews on Friday, the new lineup features the HD-A3, HD-A30, and HD-A35. Prices are $299, $399, and $499 USD, respectively. The HD-A30 will be available next month, while the HD-A3 and HD-A35 are not due until October.

The two higher-end players are capable of supporting 1080p/24, while the lower-end player supports 1080i. Additionally, the new models support “CE-Link,” which allows enabled devices to be controlled together to perform various functions.

Support for Deep Color via HDMI has been added to the top-of-the-line player, as well as support for 5.1 channel analog output and High Bit Rate Audio. All players feature a much slimmer design, about half as tall as Toshiba’s first-generation HD DVD boxes.

“With a majority market share in unit sales of next generation DVD players, consumers are speaking loud and clear, and they are adopting HD DVD as their HD movie format of choice,” said Jodi Sally, Vice President of Marketing for Toshiba’s Digital A/V Group.

zdnet: Mobile phone giant Nokia will start to use Microsoft’s copy protection software to boost the use of wireless entertainment, like music and videos, the two companies said Monday.
Microsoft’s technology enables people who use Nokia cell phones to share protected pieces of content–like music, games or videos–between phones, PCs and other devices.

Nokia, the world’s largest cell-phone maker, will license Microsoft’s PlayReady digital rights management (DRM) technology, and build it into its S60 software, the most widely used software platform in the cell-phone industry.

Nokia’s S60 software, built on U.K.-based Symbian’s operating system, is used extensively in Nokia’s lineup, but also in advanced cell phones of LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics.

Its closest rival is Microsoft’s own Windows Mobile, but analysts said the deal should benefit both.

“It is in both (companies’) interest that there is compatibility between the two and content can flow between devices,” said Geoff Blaber, senior analyst at consultancy CCS Insight.

In 2005 the two companies signed their first cooperation agreement to put Windows Media player on to Nokia phones, raising eyebrows as the two had been fierce competitors in the mobile software industry.

As cell phone prices fall, handset vendors are looking for new revenue from potentially lucrative software operations, while at the same time Microsoft is looking for new revenue from the mobile space.

In June, Nokia said it would reshape its whole organization to better focus on software and services.

Nokia said it expects many S60 and its lower-tier Series 40 phones, which are also included in the deal, using PlayReady technology to hit the market in 2008.