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indianexpress: The national anthem is likely to be mired in controversy, yet again. Even as a 52- second film featuring 75 Marathi actors rendering the national anthem gets ready to be released in Mumbai on Saturday to mark the country’s 60 years of independence, an organisation is threatening to move a public interest litigation if the film is shown in movie theatres. The film is being made for screening in cinema halls.

For the past six months theatre and Marathi film actor Pushkar Shrotri has been working on a project close to his heart — a Jana Gana Mana rendition with 75 actors from Marathi stage, television and film industry singing the lines on screen. The 52-second cinemascope film shot at a cost of Rs eight lakh and produced by Lad Entertainment Co, owned by Karnataka MLA Santosh Lad, will be released at the Yashwantrao Natya Sankul in Matunga on Saturday in the presence of the deputy chief minister RR Patil.

Shrotri hopes that the film will finally find a place in theatres in Maharashtra, replacing the one being shown currently, that is two minutes long. However, the new venture is unlikely to find the going easy.

The current visual being screened in the theatres has a digital image of the tri-colour and this is already under severe criticism from citizens like Suresh Chandvankar, honorary secretary of the Society of Indian Records Collector. According to Chandvankar the colours are different from those on the original flag and also the flag appears spread on the ground rather than being hoisted on the flag post as per the regulation.

But what has been even more objectionable about the national anthem video produced in 2000, featuring some 50 artistes including Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosale, Pandit Jasraj, Kavita Krishnamurthy and AR Rahman is that it violates the Anthem Code. “It has been continuously screened on the television over the past seven years despite the fact that it totally flouts the Anthem Code. It’s too long, the artistes have varied actions and some even laugh and have their eyes closed,” says Chandvankar.

indianexpress: THE Pune Municipal Transport (PMT) committee and trade union have alleged that the privatisation of routes will render almost 2,200 daily wage workers unemployed. They have also said that the decision lacks clarity.

“We never opposed privatisation. However, majority of the routes selected are revenue earning ones,” PMT committee chairman Bhimrao Patole said on Thursday. According to CIRT norms, each bus needs to be attended by at least nine people, all of whom are daily wage workers. “These will be the ones who will be at loss because of the process,” said PMT union’s secretary Nasiruddin Inamdar.

The committee, after studying monthly earnings and load factor, said the routes on Nigdi corridor like Kamshet, Talegaon Dabhade and Wadgaon have occupancy of around 75-80 per cent, while Chakan and Rajgurunagar have 65-70 per cent. So, instead of privatising these routes, ones like Sinhagad and Khanapur from Shaniwarwada and Market Yard should have been privatised as they have less occupancy.

Also terming it a hasty decision, Patole said already the transport body’s buses hired from private players are not giving a good performance.

Though PMT owns the 149-hired buses, the administration has to spend on maintenance, conductors, timekeepers and even in case of accidents while the contractors provide drivers. “According to our contract, we have to pay them Rs 1.90 crore every month. We have handed over Rs 76 crore till now, which could have been used to purchase additional buses,” he said.

indianexpress: LEPTOSPIROSIS has claimed four lives in the city, according to health officials from Sassoon General Hospital (SGH). At least 23 cases of leptospirosis have been reported since January this year, said SGH medical superintendent Dr P S Pawar.

“It is a zoonotic (source of transmission in an animal) disease caused by bacteria called spirochete, whose natural reservoir is wild animals mostly rats,” Pawar said. “These bacteria can infect almost anybody. They are excreted through urine and can infect any water source to spread.”

Joint director of health Dr B Gaikwad said there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of this disease in the past few years. For instance, 22 cases of leptospirosis — besides 183 suspected ones — have been reported in Mumbai this year. Sassoon officials however say that most of these patients hail from Pune. The hospital also gets a fair share of its patients from surrounding districts. “There were 19 cases including one death reported last year,” said Pawar.

Treatment includes administering antibiotics latest by the fourth day, which reduces the complications of the disease. Severe cases are treated with antibiotics like penicillin or ampicillin for 10 days.

indianexpress: WORRIED over the growing number of orphaned child beggars in the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) recently conducted a random survey that identified 394 such children. Child beggars were found on the streets of Yerawada, Bibvewadi, Hadapsar, Kondhwa, Deccan Gymkhana, Ghole Road and other areas during the exercise.

Though the project is still in its early stages, the interest evinced by the municipal administration for the welfare of these children has enthused NGOs in the city.

Along with the civic body, they too will be doing their bit for the rehabilitation of the children by providing shelter, food and education in a non-formal set-up.

At an informal meeting, organisations like Vanchit Vikas, Eklavya, Aaple Ghar, Santulan, Child Abuse Child Neglect Child Labour (CAN CAL) and Bachpan Bachao Andolan have decided to work together for the orphaned child beggars in the age-group of six to 14 years.

Says Dr Dilip Sarda, chairman for West Zone, CAN-CAL and vice president of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, “A few like minded NGOs have come together and decided to take the responsibility of rehabilitating the children.”

indianexpress: RESIDENTS of Vijaynagar, Kalewadi on Thursday launched a peace march to the civic headquarters in Pimpri to protest against the proposed move by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to demolish a church and 250 houses in the area for the construction of a road.

Rev Nebu Skariah, who led the march, said the PCMC proposal to construct the road would displace 250 houses and result in the demolition of a community hall-cum-worship centre situated at Survey No 99/3/31 in Vijaynagar, Kalewadi. Skariah also said St Paul’s Church was built in 1994 and the PCMC development plan of 1996 had indicated a 45-metre wide road which would be built at a distance from the church.

“According to this plan, the church remains unaffected. But after a recent survey, the PCMC told us that the road would pass through the very spot on which the church is located,” he said. “The new plan is a deviation from what is stated in the 1996 development plan. We cannot fathom this sudden change that will throw families out of their homes.”

Later, Skariah led a delegation that met municipal commissioner Dilip Band and urged him to implement the original plan, which leaves the church untouched. After hearing the grievances of the residents, Band said his administration would make every possible effort to save the church. “I will inspect the area myself to find a solution to this problem,” he said, adding that the PCMC was seeking to construct a world class 10-lane road from Kalewadi Phata to Kudalwadi, which then joins the Dehu Road-Alandi Road.

indianexpress: WITH a view to tackle the acute shortage of engineering skills in India’s growing lighting industry, the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) on Thursday formally launched the Lighting Research Academy (LRA), which will offer a post graduate course in lighting technology.

The LRA, which was inaugurated by Wipro Lighting’s C&I Business CEO Rajesh Kochhar, has already begun its PG programme with the first batch of 60 students, and will soon be launching part-time and distance learning programmes.

While the lighting technology curriculum has been developed in close consultation with the industry, each course will offer hands-on experience through applied projects, and will even provide job opportunities to students.

MIT’s decision to start the lighting technology curriculum had its roots in a national workshop held at the college on April 20 on ‘Vision for Lighting Technology’ organised by Mumbai’s Indian Society of Lighting Engineers (ISLE) and MIT.

The workshop highlighted that since there were not many institutes offering courses in lighting technology, companies often had to resort to engineering from the electrical or electronics stream. “It was found that there was a need to develop professionals at different levels on this important subject by providing appropriate courses of study,” said MIT founder and executive president VD Karad.

techtree: To cater to its style-conscious customers, Nokia has unveiled the ‘Prism Collection’, comprising the 7900 Prism and the 7500 Prism handsets.

The name ‘Prism Collection’ derives from the use of revolutionary colors, materials, and graphics. The new handsets show off an exclusive diamond-cut design, with sharp-angled lines, geometric patterns, and graphic light-refracting colors.

The 7900 Prism has a sleek, liquorice-black front, and comes with an anodized aluminum backcover that is coin-stamped and laser-etched in the signature diamond-cut design.

The 7900 features an Organic LED main display with support for up to 16 million colors, and sports light-focused screensaver graphics.

It has what is called a ‘living wallpaper’ that cleverly changes through the day according to time and battery and signal strength.

Besides, the handset comes with a gallery selection of 49 illumination colors. The colors, once chosen, emit from the graphic key-mat and the LED display. Lights are also emanated from the top of the phone to signal missed calls and messages.

Other features of the 7900 Prism include: Dual band 3G technology, Quad band GSM capability, 2MP Camera, and 1GB internal memory.

Meanwhile, the other Prism phone, the 7500 Prism is more or less like the 7900. It’s polished black exterior is merged with bright, interchangeable color accents.

techtree: Apple Computer has introduced a new version of iLife featuring a major upgrade to iPhoto, and a reinvented iMovie.

iLife ‘08 consists of updates to iPhoto (a photo management program), iMovie for editing and sharing videos, iWeb for creating Web sites, and GarageBand for recording music.

iPhoto ‘08 automatically organizes photo libraries into events. Users have to simply move the mouse over an event to skim through all its photos instantly. Besides, a single event can be split into multiple events, and photos stored on the events can be found by rating, date, and keywords, using a new unified search. One more addition to the iPhoto tool box is the ability to copy and paste an adjustment made on one photo to another.

iMovie ‘08 is iMovie revisited, and allows users make movies in a couple of minutes. Importantly, it allows importing of videos from the latest AVCHD, HDV, and DV camcorders, as well as from digital cameras.

iMovie ‘08 too includes the skimming feature present on iPhoto ‘08, wherein users can skim through all movie clips instantly. The new feature allows users export movies to the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV, or share with anyone across the globe.

Both iPhoto ‘08 and iMovie ‘08 integrate seamlessly with the .Mac Web Gallery, Apple’s new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host online Web sites for their photos and videos.

With iWeb ‘08, users can add Internet video, news headlines, weather, and more from any site that supports HTML snippets. Users having .Mac membership can host iWeb Web sites using personal domains.

techtree: Kingston has launched new 4GB miniSDHC cards that are poised to support next generation digital devices with small form factor.

Speaking on the occasion, Rajesh Panicker, country manager of Kingston, said, “As sleeker, more sophisticated devices offer digital imaging, music, video, mobile TV, and games, the need for higher data transfer rates, increased storage, and smaller form factor expansion memory becomes greater.”

“Kingston is ready with miniSDHC memory to support the popular but storage-hungry advanced features of these next generation digital devices.”

The new 4GB miniSDHC cards can hold over 2,000 images, up to 750 songs, or 4.5 hours of MPEG4 video, according to Kingston.

The new cards are available in class 2, 4, and 6 speed ratings. Each speed rating reflects the minimum sustained data transfer rate (DTR) of megabytes per second (MB/s). A class 2 card has a minimum DTR of 2MB/sec, while class 4 and class 6 cards have minimum DTR of 4 and 6MB/sec respectively.

bbc: Scottish researchers are turning to camera phones to help bridge the virtual and real worlds.
Using image-matching algorithms the researchers have found a way to adorn the real world with digital content.

The technology has already been used to create a guide of Edinburgh that allows people to find virtual artworks placed around the city using their mobile.

Another related project uses the technology to automatically update a person’s blog with their location.

“It’s about using a camera phone as a magic wand,” said Dr Mark Wright of the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh who came up with the idea.

At the heart of Spellbinder, as the project is known, is a database of all the places that participants have added data to. People query it by taking a snap of a location with their phone then using multimedia text messages to send it to Spellbinder.

Dr Wright said powerful image-matching algorithms are used to analyse the image that can deal with snaps of the same place being taken under different lighting conditions or orientations.

Once Spellbinder has worked out the location of an image it consults the database and sends back an image with the extras added to it.