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indianexpress:  PUNEITES may soon get some respite from heavy vehicles plying freely within city limits as municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi has expressed keenness to have the police force play gatekeepers at octroi posts. 

This was one of the many proactive suggestions that came out of a unique round table conference held by The Indian Express on Wednesday to address the shabby state of Pune’s transport infrastructure. Pardeshi also agreed to identify arterial roads critical to city’s day-to-day mobility and segregate traffic on roads such as Nagar road, Solapur road and Baner road.

Resident Editor Vinod Mathew Jacob set the ball rolling by listing out a set of immediate solutions to ease traffic congestions and bring in some method on the roads that are currently bereft of any systems, using available resources.

In response to the Express wish list, Pardeshi agreed to initiate a crackdown on polluting public transport vehicles, with 250 vehicles, older than 10 years, lined up for being taken off the roads.

The initiative was a take-off on an eight-part series Chaotic Pune highlighting the city’s traffic woes that touches all walks of life.

indianexpress: LACK of availability of user-friendly technology acts as a hurdle to using Hindi as an official language for governance, said P V Vatsala G Kutty, joint secretary, Department of Official Languages (DOL), Ministry of Home Affairs. She was speaking at a seminar organised by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) on ‘CDAC’s Contribution to the Area of Hindi Language Computing’ on Wednesday. The seminar was inaugurated by Union Home Minister for State Manikrao Gavit. 

Kutty said that the DOL had been encouraging state governments to use Hindi in day-to-day governance. “However, most state governments we have approached hesitate to use Hindi, and prefer to use English, because it is simpler and faster. This is because all facilities including computers, internet and computer software are in English,” she said. Gavit said that new techniques should be incorporated to expand the use of Hindi as the official language.

Through its Graphics and Intelligence-based Script Technology (GIST) initiative, CDAC has been developing various software applications for Indian languages, including the ISM range of applications like ISM Office, ISM Publisher, and ISM Soft.

Apart from this, CDAC’s Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) group has also developed a series of products for Hindi language computing including Machine Assisted Translation Tool (MANTRA), and Shrutlekhan Rajbhasha and VACHANTAR to convert Hindi speech to script. For aspiring learners of Hindi, the AAI group has developed an e-learning package called Learn Indian Languages through Artificial intelligence (LILA) comprising three parts LILA Prabodh, Praveen and Pragya.

indianexpress: THERE was tension near the crematorium in Yerawada on Wednesday after a mob protested against Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for bringing 17 unclaimed bodies from Sassoon Hospital for cremation — allegedly without proper treatment. However, the bodies were later cremated under police protection.
PMC deputy commissioner Bhanudas Mane said their staff faced stiff opposition from the locals for not bringing them in an ambulance.

“People alleged the bodies were not properly wrapped in cloth,” he said, adding their PMC staff had followed all the required procedures usually followed during the cremation of unclaimed bodies.

“The only thing was that PMC did not use their regular vehicle for the purpose since it has been sent for urgent repair.”

Local corporators Siddharth Dhende and John Paul helped the police in easing the tension.

indianexpress: IN normal circumstances, the recruitment of candidates from Pune’s Air Hostesses Academy (AHA) by Reliance, Jet Airways and Airports Authority of India (AAI) wouldn’t raise eyebrows at all. But add a fact about their background, and it paints a different picture. As many as 27 girls, from the tribal areas of Nandurbar and Chandrapur, have been picked by industry biggies for training. Only two years ago, a 100-odd had been chosen by AHA during a mass selection drive in Nashik. 

Stunningly, of the 27 trainees comprising the first batch of enrolled students in the city, the employment firms rejected none. What’s more, the AAI took one of their batches to handle the traffic control rooms. AHA director Daya Prakash is naturally ecstatic. “The training period stretches up to a year, in which the latter six months entail the employment of the students as trainees, to assess their strengths and weaknesses,” he said on Wednesday.

Prakash added this was only a start. “In Maharashtra alone, our target is to register and train as many as 2,000 students,” he said.

It all started when AHA’s success at gearing up tribal girls — to make a mark in the service sector — inspired Minister of State (Home) Manikrao Gavit to push their cause through sponsorship. Under the Central Special Assistance Scheme launched in 2005, AHA received Rs one lakh per student, to facilitate enrollment and training of as many as 100 students in the academy.

indianexpress: IN order to avoid haphazard growth in the adjoining villages to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the civic administration on Wednesday reacted positively to a proposal for inclusion of 21 additional villages in the existing PMC jurisdiction for the planned development of the area.

In a proposal tabled by BJP corporator before the PMC legal committee, the civic administration said the city is expanding at a rapid pace and construction activities are at a peak in the adjoining villages. “If the construction activities are not checked, it can lead to chaos later on,” municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said to the proposal. “The illegal construction under gunthewari is increasing in these villages and the growth is directionless.”

Ujjwal Keskar said PMC has been supplying drinking water to villages within five kms of its jurisdiction and their inclusion will not increase the load on them, but ensure planned development of the area. Around 38 villages were merged in PMC in 1997, but later 15 villages and a portion of five villages were de-linked under pressure from the villages.

Keskar submitted a fresh proposal to include the de-linked villages after the civic administration tabled a proposal to pay for the construction of the ring road going from the adjoining villages. Along with the 15 de-linked villages, the civic administration has recommended the inclusion of six more villages in PMC jurisdiction. They are: Pisoli-Undri, Urli Devachi, Holkarwadi, Avtadewadi, Handewadi and Shewalwadi.

techtree: Seagate Technology has announced new hard drives that the company claims give consumers and businesses the ability to create, share, and protect their digital content more easily, securely, and powerfully.

Among the 9 new products are new Maxtor storage solutions, and a ‘bare metal system restore’. Seagate has also announced the first 1 TB hard drive with full disc encryption for strong data security; capacity increases of up to 60GB for it’s D.A.V.E. (Digital Audio Video Experience) technology platform, and up to 1TB for it’s DB35 Series hard drives for DVRs and home media centers, as also it’s SV35 Series digital video surveillance hard drives.

The new Maxtor OneTouch 4 family of external solutions includes: Maxtor OneTouch 4, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus, and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini.

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 is available for Mac or PC platforms in 250GB, 500BG, or 750GB capacities, and makes it easy to set up and manage data backup, file archiving, and system settings.

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus includes Maxtor’s SafetyDrill software to prepare, boot, and recover the PC’s entire internal hard drive contents in case of system failure or virus/spyware infection. This is available in capacities up to 750GB, and includes two levels of security to guard against unauthorized use of a lost or stolen drive.

Whereas, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini, Seagate claims, is the first mobile storage solution that ships with a full suite of software protection tools.

techtree: Seagate Technology has announced new hard drives that the company claims give consumers and businesses the ability to create, share, and protect their digital content more easily, securely, and powerfully.

Among the 9 new products are new Maxtor storage solutions, and a ‘bare metal system restore’. Seagate has also announced the first 1 TB hard drive with full disc encryption for strong data security; capacity increases of up to 60GB for it’s D.A.V.E. (Digital Audio Video Experience) technology platform, and up to 1TB for it’s DB35 Series hard drives for DVRs and home media centers, as also it’s SV35 Series digital video surveillance hard drives.

The new Maxtor OneTouch 4 family of external solutions includes: Maxtor OneTouch 4, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus, and Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini.

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 is available for Mac or PC platforms in 250GB, 500BG, or 750GB capacities, and makes it easy to set up and manage data backup, file archiving, and system settings.

The Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus includes Maxtor’s SafetyDrill software to prepare, boot, and recover the PC’s entire internal hard drive contents in case of system failure or virus/spyware infection. This is available in capacities up to 750GB, and includes two levels of security to guard against unauthorized use of a lost or stolen drive.

Whereas, Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini, Seagate claims, is the first mobile storage solution that ships with a full suite of software protection tools.

techtree: Earlier this year in April, Google had announced plans to add a new, PowerPoint-like presentation application to its Web-based Docs suite.

Reportedly, starting today, the application named ‘Google presentation’ has been added to Google Docs. Using this application, users can create Web-based presentations, as well as view and update them from any Internet-connected PC anytime.

Similar to what Microsoft’s PowerPoint offers, ‘Google presentation’ users will be able to create presentations, including series of slides with text and graphics on them.

Users will be able to manage, and share presentations with colleagues by sending simple email invites to the latter. This would enable them together edit online in real-time, or contribute at different times to the same presentation online.

In addition, users will be able to present and control slide shows over the Web without any additional software, and simultaneously chat with viewers via integrated chat.

Google Docs is a Web-based platform for creating, sharing, storing, and publishing documents; and it now includes capabilities for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. The suite is seen as a competitor to Microsoft’s Office.