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indianexpress:  Citizens haven’t realised the seriousness of the garbage disposal issue, said former mayor Vandana Chavan, speaking at a Dialogue on Climate Change organised by the Centre for Social Markets (CSM) in collaboration with British Council Library and ALERT at the Patrakar Bhavan on Thursday.

“Even though there is a provision in the Development Control (DC) rules making it mandatory for all housing societies to provide vermicompost pits, many pits remain empty because the residents do not use them,” said Chavan. Adding that a basic civic sense needed to be instilled in the people, Chavan said that school children could be very effective agents of change in this area.

The need for waste segregation at all levels was emphasised by all the participants in the dialogue, including Pune Municipal Commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi, Bajaj Auto Limited Director Madhur Bajaj, Praj Industries Chairman Pramod Chaudhuri, and lawyer-activist Shekhar Bonagiri.

Pardeshi said PMC had recently commissioned a project along with the Construction Corporation of India to segregate the waste that is dumped at landfills. “As per this two-year project, all organic waste will be converted into biocompost, and only the inert waste that will not cause ground water pollution will be dumped at the landfills,” he said.

indianexpress: THE more. chain of supermarkets launched by the Aditya Birla Retail Limited have turned vegetarian. Since last week, all 15 outlets in Pune and six outlets in Mumbai have stopped selling non-vegetarian products. After Reliance, it was the $24 billion diversified Aditya Birla group that had jumped into retail business and the more. brand of stores were launched through the supermarket format, more. for you.

The stores launched from June this year had promised a range of benefits to consumers and a solution to the many problems faced by housewives while shopping for their daily needs. The retail offering from the Aditya Birla Group was reportedly crafted after in-depth research of the needs and expectations of the Indian consumers. To ensure a fresh supply of fruits and vegetables, the company had built linkages directly with the farmers. The company had also announced plans to invest up to Rs 9,000 crore over three years to set up 1000 supermarkets.

According to a highly-placed official from the Aditya Birla Group in Mumbai, more. is the answer to the shopping needs of the Indian housewife who wants a modern and convenient option in her neighbourhood. In fact, community sensibilities and pressure from share-holders are being cited as the main reasons for turning vegetarian.

Officials in Venky’s (India) Limited — that sells processed and further processed chicken under the Venky’s brand name — said that they supplied one tonne of processed chicken (in the form of nuggets and samosas) and 970 kg of frozen chicken which amounted to Rs 3 lakh in July to the retail outlets. “From August 12, no further orders were taken,” Venky officials said.

indianexpress: PUNE Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi today said that constructions obstructing the natural flow of rivers and nallas and which have been permitted wrongly needed to be demolished. He was speaking at a “Dialogue on climate change” organised by Kolkata-based Centre for Social Markets (CSM) along with Pune’s British Council Library and ALERT at Patrakar Bhavan
 
Referring to the controversy over illegal constructions on the banks of the Ram Nadi, which led to unnatural flooding of the surrounding areas this monsoon, Pardeshi said the PMC was taking steps to prevent such eventualities. “PMC has mapped the hydrological pattern of the catchment area and noted where the natural flow of rivers and nallahs has been blocked by construction activity,” he said.

Pardeshi said from now on, constructions would not be permitted if they obstruct river flow. “Wrongly permitted constructions will also have to be demolished. This is a massive task, as this would require undoing of 30 years of construction activity,” he said.

“Efforts are now on to convert so far undeveloped sections of the Ram Nadi river bank into green belts. Rehabilitating economically weaker housing societies to areas away from the river banks is also being planned,” said Pardeshi.

indianexpress: SPORTS enthusiasts at Paraplegic Rehabilitation Centre (PRC) for defence personnel in Khadki have received a boost in the form of an indoor sports complex and the hydrotherapy-cum-swimming pool. Army Commander Lieutenant General Aditya Singh, who inaugurated the pool and the complex on the occasion of its 33rd foundation day on Thursday, said the next step was to become techno-savvy and develop the projects further.

A D Pereira — a 1971 war veteran, a swimmer as well as a shotput, discus, javelin player, and who has won over 100 medals at national level besides three gold, five silver and two bronze medals at the international level — inaugurated the pool.

The idea for the project took shape once several sportsmen, who had been on tour to various countries, saw indoor sports complexes over there and requested for a similar one in India. “Acting on their suggestions, a proposal was sent to the Adjutant General’s (AG) Branch in New Delhi, in 2005,” said medical director Lt Col S P Jyoti. “The Tata Defence Welfare Corpus donated Rs 40 lakh while the AG’s office have Rs 30 lakh for the project.”

indianexpress: CONSTRUCTION Industry Development Council (CIDC) and Pune-based Durocrete Construction Quality Rating Agency Pvt Ltd (CQRA) on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a joint certification programme aimed at rating the quality of construction in both the private and the public sectors, as well as in the infrastructure projects taken up by the government.

The MoU, which was signed between CIDC director general P R Swarup and CQRA founder and MD Ujwal Kunte, is touted to be the first of its kind in the country aimed exclusively at assessing the ‘quality’ of a construction project. Under the tie-up, CQRA will invest in the necessary infrastructure and manpower; CIDC will also help popularise the concept in the construction industry as well as the governmental organisations. CIDC will help source trained manpower from its specialised training institutions across the country.

indianexpress: TWENTY-year-old Chetan Pardeshi, who was working with the Bopodi octroi post of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan at his residence in Bopodi on Wednesday afternoon. Chetan’s family has alleged that he was forced to work continuously for four days, round-the-clock, which led him into a depression. In a complaint filed with Khadki police, they also said he was “threatened” that action would be taken against him if he did not follow orders.

Chetan’s brother Rohit Pardeshi said, “My brother was tensed for last couple of days. He told my mother and I that his seniors were forcing him to work continuously and also threatened to take action against him if he didn’t follow their directives.” A final year B Com student of T J College, Chetan was working as a computer operator with PMC’s octroi post.

When contacted, PMC octroi superintendent K C Karkar denied the youth was made to work for 24 hours for four days. “From our information, he worked for 16 hours on two consecutive days. That was with mutual understanding with one of his colleagues. The youngster seems to have suffered from some kind of psychological problem,” he said, adding that PMC has outsourced some of the octroi work and Chetan was one of the 150 such workers.

Assistant commissioner of police N R Dange said it was too early to say what led to the youth’s suicide. He however said the Khadki police is investigating the case after taking down the complaint lodged by the family.

beta: Nokia’s Newest unlicensed mobile access phone, the 6301 was unveiled in Helsinki today.

The world’s number one maker of cellular handsets said that this model will be shipping in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007. As their fourth UMA-enabled device, the estimated retail price is €230 ($322USD) before subsidies and taxes.

Hitting the scales at a mere 93 grams, the phone also offers a 2 megapixel camera, MP3 player, FM radio, Bluetooth support, and microSD expandable memory. It switches seamlessly between Wi-Fi and GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz networks.

UMA has been popularized in the United States by T-Mobile’s Tmobile@home service, but there is no confirmation as to whether this particular model will be brought stateside. T-Mobile’s service was launched with both the Nokia 6086 and the Samsung t409.

techtree: Asus has launched it’s ultra portable U1F notebook with a 11.1-inch widescreen in the country. The notebook is based on Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology, Windows Vista operation system, and other Asus innovations, the company claims.

It sports clean, simple lines, with a gleaming lacquer-finished surface. It features an exterior piano painted LCD cover, stainless contour, carbon fiber alloy housing, and leather bound palm rest.

The U1F screen has a special LED backlight panel, which according to Asus, is half the width of, and 1/3 lighter than, the traditional LCD panel. The 11.1-inch glare-type widescreen with Splendid Color Enhancement Engine displays vivid colors and sharp details, says Asus.

The notebook has a built-in fingerprint scanner that reads from the live layer of skin, preventing scanner inaccuracy. And Embedded Trusted Protection Module (TPM) hardware solution prevents attacks by hackers looking to capture passwords and encryption keys to sensitive data.

Asus says the high-resolution Web cam module is one of the smallest lenses available that integrates into the U1F’s LCD panel, and together with the built-in high quality microphone, makes wire-free video conferencing possible anywhere.

The U1F has extensive wireless connectivity with built-in WLAN 802.11 a/b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 enhanced data rate for high speed Internet access and data transfer. Asus Power4 Gear eXtreme power management extends battery life up to twenty to twenty-five percent, according to Asus.

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: At the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) being held in San Francisco, among other things, Intel said it will begin the pending rollout of WiMax support for laptops, as also a new category of Internet-connected devices in early 2008.

Due later in 2008, the Montevina platform based on Penryn dual-core processors operating at 25 watts, will include support for WiMax. It will feature integrated HD-DVD/Blu-ray support, and next generation data manageability, and security features.

Intel claims this is the first notebook Centrino processor technology offering integrated Wi-Fi and WiMax wireless technologies for greater wireless Broadband access.

According to Intel, mobile WiMax provides multi-megabit speed, greater throughput, and wider range compared to other wireless Broadband alternatives, which is crucial to consumers who want to increasingly access user-generated content, HD videos, music, photos, and other large data files while on-the-move.

Intel said that in the first half of 2008, it plans to deliver the first platform designed from the ground up for UMPCs, which is codenamed Menlow. The platform promises to deliver 10x lower power compared to the first UMPCs in the market, Intel said.

Menlow is based on Silverthorne, a 45nm hi-k low power microarchitecture-based processor, and a next-generation chipset, codenamed Poulsbo. Menlow will also feature optional communication capabilities such as Wi-Fi, 3G, and WiMax.

The event saw Intel president and chief executive officer, Paul Otellini, outlining new products, chip designs, and manufacturing technologies.