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indianexpress: WITH the assembly elections next year and the general polls likely the year after, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and its alliance partner Shiv Sena have decided to use the Shaniwarwada festival organised by the civic body during Ganeshotsav to strengthen their voters’ base in the city.

The festival, a three-day affair that will begin from September 22, will feature cultural programmes like lavani, Marathi songs by a troupe led by actress Varsha Usgaonkar, Marathi plays and bhajans. The Shaniwarwada festival was started by the civic body in 2002 to promote cultural events and to make people aware about their history along with an effort to highlight the glory of the Peshwas.

“The festival was so far organised outside Shaniwarwada. Starting this year, it will be taken to various parts of the city, so that more citizens can enjoy cultural shows,” mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale of the NCP said.

The mayor, who has been given the powers to finalise the cultural events, has decided to hold them at Hadapsar, Kothrud, Chandannagar and Katraj, besides Shaniwarwada. Hadapsar is Bhosale’s stronghold, Kothrud is deputy mayor and Shiv Sena leader Chandrakant Mokate’s area, while Chandannagar and Katraj are NCP strongholds.

To ensure that the show is a success, the PMC has increased the funds for the festival from Rs 5 lakh last year to Rs 25 lakh now and appointed an event manager. While Rs 4.64 lakh will be allotted for each of the four venues across the city, the Rs 2.10 lakh set aside for Shaniwarwada will be used on light and sound facilities during the festival.

indianexpress:  How many children in Mokasbaug village are under the age of five?

* What is the number of illiterate and married women in Ahmednagar’s Parner taluka?

* Why is Malganga River at Nighoj village near Shirur so famous?

THE answers will be available at the click of a mouse, thanks to a unique project by students of the University of Pune (UoP) to map villages in Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik districts using Geographical Information System (GIS). Under Samartha Bharat Abhiyaan (SBA), detailed geographical, historical and socio-economic data of each village will soon be available in digital maps.

Each of the 400-odd colleges affiliated to UoP will adopt one village and the UoP’s geoinformatics department will be coordinating a massive effort to train college students in gathering data. “A total of 206 students have already received training,” said SBA executive council chairman Sambhaji Pathare.

Called Samartha Bharat Geoinfosys, the project has already begun with mapping of Mokasbaug, Vadu Budruk and Narayangaon near Pune. Using the talathi or revenue map, students divided the village into sections and then walked through the village, measuring road lengths and taking the latitude and longitude coordinates using Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

“Each house was given a number, and a sketch prepared. GPS coordinates were taken at road intersections, temples and schools,” said final year M.Sc student Kiran Mane. This data was then plotted on the revenue map using the GIS software, and non-spatial attribute data like names of roads and landmarks were added.

indianexpress: AFTER political parties came out in support of Ganesh mandals by opposing the civic administration’s decision of fining mandals for digging up roads, Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) Standing Committee on Tuesday approved a nominal fee of Rs 500 for each mandal for putting up advertisements and hoardings in and around their pandals during the 10-day fest.

The civic administration had recently warned action against mandals for putting up advertisements and hoardings near the pandals without seeking prior permission.

“We did not want to hurt the feelings of mandal activists by charging a heavy fee for putting up commercial advertisements near their pandals and simultaneously wanted to ensure that nothing is done illegally,” Standing Committee chairman Bapu Pathare said.

The advertisements are a major source of funding for the mandals, he said, adding that the decision to charge Rs 500 was unanimously approved by all political parties in the meeting to ensure that mandals do not lose a major chunk of their collections in paying fees to PMC. The decision is applicable only for this year, Pathare said.

Earlier, the political parties had forced the civic administration to withdraw its decision to take action against mandals for digging up roads.

indianexpress: PUNE Municipal Corporation (PMC) health officials who have been refuting reports from private practitioners and even government hospitals, are now staring at deaths in the city due to malaria and leptospirosis.

On Tuesday, Santosh Kolte from Shivdarshan chowk, Parvati died of leptospirosis, taking the tally of leptospirosis deaths in the city to six since July.

Experts at Sassoon General Hospital (SGH) have observed that consumption of alcohol was common in all six deaths. “All the six patients who succumbed to leptospirosis were chronic alcoholics. Ashok Sukale of Nana Peth was a chronic alcoholic who had a cardiorespiratory arrest due to leptospirosis in the first week of September,” said SGH medical superintendent Dr P S Pawar.

The other victims — handkerchief vendor Ravi Bagade from Parvati Darshan who died on July 16, Vikas Jadhav from Nana Peth who died at SGH in August, Shambu Mudliar from Pandu Laman Vasti of Yerawada who died of multiorgan dysfunction in July and Shankar Zalte from Mangalwar Peth who died in August, were all chronic alcoholics.

While six deaths have been reported from Pune city, one death of Sheela Jayabhaji was reported from Beed.

indianexpress: Daimlerchrysler India Pvt Ltd will bring the intercity coach to India, DCIL MD and CEO Dr Wilfried Aulbur said here on Tuesday. DCIL is all set to start assembling the diesel buses at the Pune plant before sending it to Sutlej’s facility at Jalandhar.

“We are not aiming at higher sales and will make a slow entry into this segment,” Aulbur said. “The buses could come in by the first or second quarter of 2008,” Aulbur said. These buses will come with financing options.”

The new 50-million Euro investment that the company is making at its Chakan plant, will include investments for the new bus assembly line. The buses will be distributed through the truck dealerships that the company is setting.

“We have five partners for distributing the Actros truck, with two more being added by the end of this year. We will have more than five dealers in 2009,” he said.

For the moment, DCIL is not looking at more than one partner for building the coaches and will stick with Sutlej as the bus sales numbers did not make sense to have more coach builders.

The parent company sees a future for DaimlerChrysler Buses in the above eight tonnes category in the global markets with its main growth opportunities coming up in Asia as scope for future growth in core markets of Western Europe, the NAFTA region and Latin America was very limited.

indianexpress: THE city recorded 57.2 mm rainfall till 8.30 pm on Tuesday. IMD officials said heavy spells of rain are expected in the next 48 hours. Rain in Pune for the year is already 333 mm above normal for the season, with a total of 805 mm while normal for this season should be around 472 mm.

Said SB Gaonkar, director, Weather Central, “There is low pressure over the west central Bay off the Andhra Pradesh coast which is well marked while there is another off shore trough from Maharashtra coast to Lakshadweep over the Arabian Sea. These two systems are ensuring rainfall in the entire South India.’’

The system will move eastwards in next 48 hours and Pune will continue to have rain for two more days, he said. The monsoon normally retreats by first or second week of October, but may take a little longer this time, officials said.

techtree: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is reportedly introducing triple-core Phenom processors to its much decorated chips portfolio.

The three-core chips will essentially be quad-core Phenom processors — with one core disabled, according to AMD.

In a way, the company is looking to make concrete use of four-cores that don’t quite make the cut instead of relegating them to scrap.

While a balanced approach towards multiple cores is common practice, AMD has it that even an odd number of chips can make light work out of a single workload.

Part of AMD’s roadmap update, the company indicated that it’s ‘Toliman’ triple-core chip would be out in 2008; the ‘Heka’ triple-core chip in 2009; and a Gen-Next ‘Regor’ dual-core chip — also in 2009.

Meanwhile, the timing of AMD’s announcement is precariously close to the ongoing Intel Developer Forum, yet consumers are likely to see the move more as addition of yet another mid-range chip to somewhat blur the dividing lines between a high end Phenom and a low end single-core Athlon.

techtree: Logitech has launched its ‘Noise Canceling Headphones’ that as the name suggests, promise to cancel out external noises and help users enjoy pure, quality sound.

This they do, Logitech claims, using battery-powered active noise-cancellation technology.

“The headphones help in reducing unwanted distractions with high-parametric noise cancelling,” said Moninder Jain, director, India and South East Asia. They may help users get some quiet ‘me’ time, according to Jain.

According to Logitech, the headphones are comfortable to wear and compatible with all portable media players. They come with a handy carrying case, along with a dual plug airplane adaptor and detachable audio cable.

Available through Rashi Peripherals and Neoteric, the new headphones are available for Rs 9,995 along with a one-year replacement warranty

techtree: Gigabyte Technology has expanded its Ultra Durable 2 motherboard series with GA-G31MX-S2 and GA-G33M-S2H motherboards that support the latest Intel quad-core processors.

Gigabyte claims the new motherboards offer All Solid Lower ESR Capacitors to provide improved system stability and component lifespan.

According to the company, they feature Lower RDS(on) MOSFETs, thus making for lower power consumption during the switching process.

And they deploy higher quality Ferrite Chokes that hold energy for longer than common iron-ore chokes, providing reduced core energy loss as well as EMI interference, the company claims.

Besides, the motherboards are equipped with Gigabyte proprietary Silent-Pipe thermal technology, and built-in high-definition 7.1 + 2 channel Realtek ALC889A sound chip for reduced noise during signal transmission.

bbc: Online virtual worlds could soon be accessible to blind people thanks to research by students at IBM in Ireland.

Some estimates predict that 80% of active internet users will be using a virtual world in four years’ time.

The company said that it is keen to ensure that blind people are not excluded from an environment that sighted people will take for granted.

The students have designed an audio equivalent of the virtual world using 3D sound to create a sense of space.

They were working as part of the company’s Extreme Blue research initiative which brings groups of students together for 12 weeks to solve problem set by senior researchers.

The project - called Accessibility In Virtual Worlds - is what the company describes as “a proof of concept” at this stage, but it will be passed on to IBM’s Human Ability and Accessibility Centre in Texas for further development