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indianexpress: Appealing to Ganesh mandals to celebrate the annual festival differently this year, mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale urged the organisers not to dig up roads for putting up pandals as citizens have had more than their share of bad roads and potholes.

Addressing a combined meeting of Ganesh mandal activists, police and municipal officers Bhosale said, “Please take into account the feelings of the common man while celebrating the festival. Already people have suffered much due to bad roads and potholes and now by further digging up roads to put up pandals, you shouldn’t add to the problems.”

She said the municipal corporation has put in every effort to fill up potholes and provide good roads to citizens this year and if the mandals were to dig up roads for pandals it was surely going to lead to a deterioration of the city’s roads.

“I appeal to mandals to look for alternative ways like putting up steel frames or any other way to erect pandals so there is no need to dig up roads. Ganesh mandals represent common people and they should ensure that the common man doesn’t suffer,” said Bhosale, adding that PMC will request the State government to relax the deadline for loudspeakers. “However, all mandals should strictly follow law and order guidelines and cooperate with the police,” she said.

Activists of various mandals suggested that the PMC and police should manage traffic more efficiently during the festival and drinking water should be provided near mandals. Some of the women corporators including Puja Yadav and Ratnaprabha Jagtap demanded that flow of illicit liquor be controlled during the festival. They also demanded that mandal workers be trained to deal with the emergency situations like terrorist attacks.

indianexpress: The fifth Maharashtra State Police Duty Meet — 2007 began at the State Reserve Police Force (Group I) headquarters on Saturday. The seven-day meet will see the participation of 16 teams drawn from eight ranges, seven police commissionerates and the Crime Investigation Department (CID).

The meet will focus on key issues including usage of scientific aids to investigation, police photography, police videography, anti-sabotage check, computer awareness and dog squad competition.
 
Addressing reporters on the sidelines of the meet, additional director general (ADGP) SPS Yadav said the meet has been organised as a preparatory step taken before the All India Police meet.

“The meet seeks to infuse a spirit of scientific investigation amongst the police personnel, a vital component taking into account the changes being ushered in by science and technology,” Yadav said. A wave of awareness is sweeping amongst the masses and the police too are taking lead in registering offences on a priority basis.”

Yadav said a murder took place every three hours, a theft every four hours, a dowry case every day, a rape every six hours, an accidental death every hour and an incident of outraging the modest every three hours, according to the 2006 crime clock.

indianexpress: It has taken a year for Kiran Shinde to convince the government that he’s visually impaired. Having got his appointment letter on September 22, 2006 as a ward boy at the zilla parishad-run primary health centre in the Jogawadi village of Bhor taluka, it required the court to intervene by way of a ruling about his blindness before the authorities allowed him to sign on the dotted line. Now, Shinde is expected to join duty on Tuesday, September 3.

On August 29 the city industrial court gave the order that Shinde be reinstated to work from September 1 with and rightful wages be paid to him. The post was reserved for visually/partially blind as per government resolution dated January 1, 2004 for induction as a “ward boy” for which Shinde was selected after an interview and written test.

However, the ZP general administration section asked Shinde to produce a “medical certificate to prove his blindness”, triggering numerous trips to the Sassoon General Hospital as well as the JJ Hospital, Mumbai. Finally, he turned to the court when faced with a ZP ultimatum that unless he proved that he is “visually blind” through a proper certificate, he stood to lose the job.

Excited and happy, Shinde, who is currently staying in a college hostel as he’s pursing his third year degree from Wadia College in political science, is apprehensive as to how he will be accepted at the workplace. Recounting his grueling experience of being made to run pillar to post, he says that the success would not have been possible without the support of advocate Shrikant Malegaonkar who took up his case. “I was really frustrated and my friend Suresh Avghadrao, a law student directed me to Malegaonkar, who is a visiting professor at the ILS Law College,’’ he says.

indianexpress: The Central Railway (CR) will provide a range of additional facilities to its commuters from September 5.

“Getting to Central Railway platforms at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) will be easier from next Wednesday with provision for entry from P D’Mello Road. This move was taken by the Central Railway keeping in mind the menace of traffic congestion around CST,” said S Murgekar, chief PRO, CR. The station area will consist of an entry hall, seven booking office counters, an enquiry office and separate waiting halls for ladies and gentlemen.
 
In addition to this, mail and express trains will be able to arrive and depart from the newly developed three 24 coach length platforms (Platform numbers 16, 17, and 18). A six-metre wide foot over bridge connecting platform number 14 to 18 has also been built.

The CR has also made provisions for additional parking facility for 250 vehicles including a taxi parking area. For the convenience of the physically challenged, the CR intends to provide one lift on each platform.

The project consisting of the above works has cost the CR around Rs 7.3 crore. From September 3, all Up and Down slow local trains on Diva-Kalyan section will halt at lower level Kopar railway station. This station has two platforms, a booking office and a foot over bridge connecting the lower and upper railway stations.

indianexpress: The first daily international flight of Indian Airlines from Pune to Dubai was flagged off by Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale at Lohegaon Airport on Saturday. The Airbus 320 took off at 3 pm carrying around 90 passengers.

Indian Airlines area manager for Pune region Dhairyashil Vandekar said, “It’s a historic moment for Pune Airport as it has now achieved the status of an international hub.”

Giving details about the fare, he said, “For the economy class, till September 15, the lowest fare for a one-way ticket to Dubai will be Rs 10,100 whereas the return journey ticket will cost Rs 18,880. From September 16, the one-way will cost Rs 7,000 and the return journey ticket Rs 15,000. All tickets are subject to taxes, which are extra.”

From September 15 to May 8, 2008, the runway will be operational only between 10.30 am and 6.30 pm due to resurfacing work.

techtree: Sony is reportedly introducing 15 new Bravia LCD TVs in the Japanese market in November this year.

While the screen sizes of the new models are mostly in the range of 40-inches, 46-inches, and 52-inches, the flagship model, Sony claims, has a 70-inches screen. This, Sony says, would be the largest commercially available flat screen television.

The 70-inch LCD TV (KDL-70X7000) will be available in Japan beginning November 20th, Sony said.

The upcoming Bravia models, to be released around the same time, will retail for Yen 2,70,000 (Rs 96,784 approx) for the 40-inch model, and Yen 4 Million (Rs 1,435,350 approx) for the 70-inch model, among others.

Sony aims to boost its LCD TV sales by nearly 59 percent up to March 2008, the company said.

Sony has already introduced its 70-inch KDL-70XBR3 LCD TV in the US.
This 70-inch TV features a 1,920 x 1,080 pixels resolution, a 10-bit panel, 178-degree viewing angle, dynamic contrast ratio of 7,000:1, three HDMI inputs, and two component inputs

techtree: India seems on track to get its first ever indigenously designed digital car christened the ‘HERA FxV’.

This e-auto initiative was reportedly kicked off at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference titled ‘e-Automotive R&D 2007: The Opportunities Ahead’ by R Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the Goverment of India, and B Ramalinga Raju, chairman and founder, Satyam Computer Services.

The digital car initiative aims to bring together the IT industry, the automotive industry, R&D groups, various industrial associations, and universities and educational institutions with Satyam Computers to act as prime integrator.

A consortium of different players will combine efforts towards bringing out India’s first car of this kind.

Raju said the ‘HERA FxV’, once completed, would be a demonstration of India’s technological capabilities, and draw much needed attention of global players towards India as an innovation-led design hub.

msnbc: Imagine cramming 30,000 full-length movies into a gadget the size of an iPod.

Scientists at IBM said on Thursday they had moved closer to such a feat by learning how to steer single atoms in a way that could create building blocks for ultra-tiny storage devices.

Understanding and manipulating the behavior of atoms is critical to harnessing the power of nanotechnology, which deals with particles tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair.

“One of the most basic properties that every atom has is that it behaves like a little magnet,” said Cyrus Hirjibehedin, a scientist at International Business Machines Corp.’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.

“If you can keep that magnetic orientation stable over time, then you can use that to store information. That is how your hard drive works,” Hirjibehedin said in a telephone interview.

“What we are trying to understand is how this fundamental property works for a single atom.”

Hirjibehedin and colleague Andreas Heinrich studied this property — known as magnetic anisotropy — in individual iron atoms using a special microscope developed at IBM.

msnbc: Two professors at Arizona State University Polytechnic in east Mesa are exploring the feasibility of producing aviation fuel from the most humble of organisms - algae. Researchers Qiang Hu and Milton Sommerfeld are part of a university-industrial team that received a $6.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop and commercialize the process.

With the grant, the researchers will screen for oil-rich algae strains and develop an algae production system that will yield competitively priced oil that can be converted into jet fuel for the U.S. Air Force.

Certain strains of algae are especially rich in oil. The key is finding a way to produce it cost-effectively, Sommerfeld said. He thinks it could happen on a commercial scale in five to 10 years.

“It’s all a matter of how much money is put into it,” he said. “If we spent as much money on this as we are on corn-based fuels, it would happen quickly.”

Arizona is a promising location for algae farming, he said. There’s plenty of vacant land and lots of sunshine necessary for growing masses of the stuff. And because algae thrive in nutrient-rich water, wastewater can be used as the medium for growing the plants, reducing the impact on Arizona’s scarce fresh-water resources.

“The water is recycled in closed reactors, so there is very little evaporation,” Hu said.

Hu and Sommerfeld envision commercial operations with thousands of acres of Arizona land covered with bio-reactors producing enough fastgrowing algae to furnish 100 barrels of oil per acre daily.

msnbc: At first glance, HTC’s Advantage could be mistaken for two devices.  It’s either a very large cell phone or an  amazing wireless PDA.  Luckily, there’s no need to choose.

The Advantage X7501 is a 3G, GSM-based  smart, world phone.  You don’t hold it to your ear - it’s used as a speakerphone or with a headset.  It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth  and GPS satellite location finding built inside and runs on the Windows Mobile 6 operating system.
 
The Advantage is a two-piece device.  The main unit is about 5 inches long, 4 inches wide and two-thirds of an inch deep and weighs about 13 ounces.  It has a touch screen and a thin (0.16 inch) QWERTY keyboard that attaches magnetically to the main unit.  It also covers the touch-sensitive screen while allowing you to see when messages arrive through a transparent window.   The Advantage comes with a magnetic leather case to hold both pieces in place.