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indianexpress: A delay of over a year by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) in completing the construction of four roads under the Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP) has led to a 100 per cent escalation in the project cost. The civic administration has proposed that the standing committee should sanction an additional Rs 50 crore for the road project that originally had a tag of Rs 46.90 crore. In other words, the latest project cost for completing the four roads is Rs 96.90 crore.

The PMC had taken up the work of concretisation of roads under IRDP in 2004 and after calling for tenders, the civic body had issued work order for concretisation of Alandi Road, Baner Road, Karve Road and Airport Road to Walecha Engineering Pvt Ltd.

However, failure by the PMC in acquiring the required land in time for the road construction has led to the cost overrun.

“The delay in acquiring land for the road and issues like relocation of religious structures has not allowed the completion of work in a timebound manner,” admits the PMC.

The expert consultants appointed by the PMC to ensure good quality work pointed out that there was no provision for service lanes in the project and once this was added, the expenditure went up, as did the time.

“The contractor undertook various additional work for the roads as per the PMC demand and only 60 per cent of the total work could be completed with the sanctioned money,” says a PMC proposal urging that additional funds be sanctioned to complete the project.

indianexpress:  Instead of sermonising on reducing pollution levels, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has itself decided to set an example by taking a policy decision to fit LPG kits in all 52 official cars which are used by civic officers and office-bearers. The PCMC is expecting to save 30 per cent of its monthly fuel bills by this conversion.

The Rs 10 lakh proposal will be placed before the civic standing committee meeting scheduled for Thursday. PCMC executive engineer Pravin Tupe said the move would serve twin purposes. “By fixing LGP kits to our petrol driven vehicles, we will help reduce the rising pollution levels in the twin industrial township. Besides it will lead to better savings,” he said.

Tupe said the standing committee will decide as to which firms will be given the LPG kit contract. “The RTO has given the names of the authorised firms which are supposed to fix LPG kits for different types of vehicles. Thus, Ambassador cars will have one firm while Corolla will have a different firm fitting the kits,” he said. Standing committee chairman Ajit Gavahane said the necessary approval will be given on Thursday. “We haven’t decided anything so far. Also, no expenditure has been sanctioned,” he said.

T R Thigale, assistant manager, PCMC Vehicle Workshop, said there were 52 cars used by civic officers and office-bearers. “Of the 52 cars, there are three Corollas, one Lancer, Maruti nine Esteem while the rest are Ambassador cars,” he said. The mayor, municipal commissioner and the standing committee chairman use Corollas while the Lancer is also at the disposal of the mayor. “I am sure we will save at least 30 per cent of our fuel bill by shifting to LPG,” Thigale said, adding, that cars used by civic officials will no more be a source of environmental pollution.

indianexpress: From banning environmentally hazardous materials in all school activities to gifting their guests with saplings instead of bouquets, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s (BVB) Paranjape Vidya Mandir School, Kothrud believes in protecting the environment. Today, they went a step further by taking a team of students to the city’s river banks to learn the importance of waste segregation and recycling.

As many as 160 students, 20 faculty members and the school principal Smita Kshirsagar participated in the International Coastal Clean-up as part of the nation-wide initiative to clean river banks and coasts by the Indian Maritime Foundation and International Ocean Conservancy. Over 11,000 students from BVB schools in 27 cities across the country also participated in the Clean Up held on September 22, 29 and October 2. In Pune, the Clean Up was coordinated by the Friends Society.

“No matter how many times you speak about the importance of recycling to a child within a classroom set up, it will not have as much of an impact, unless shown practically. The International Coastal Clean Up provided the perfect opportunity for this,” said Kshirsagar.

Thus, early on Tuesday morning, 160 ten-year-olds descended on the river bank near the Baba Bhide Bridge at Deccan, carefully segregating all the waste collected from the banks into biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, putting them in separate bags. “All the paper, cloth and food items have to be put into a green bag for bio-degradable waste; and plastic, glass and other items in a black bag,” said Vidula Purohit, a Class V student

 indianexpress: Venkateswara Hatcheries private limited (VHPL) is all set to launch a three-minute test for HIV.

VHPL chairperson Anuradha Desai said the company’s foray into pharma and diagnostics was on the cards, with the HIV test required in the community at this point of time.

MedMira’s rapid HIV test is the only one to achieve regulatory approvals by the United States Food and Drug Administration apart from Canada, China and the European Union. This is a simple diagnostic test that does not require a reader or an expert to perform, and can be done by anybody. The results will be obtained in three minutes.

MedMira is a manufacturer of flow through rapid diagnostics and the company’s tests are sold under the Reveal, MiraWell, MiraCare and Multiplo brands in global markets, a statement issued here has said.

indianexpress: The city police have issued prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) in view of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations being held at 18 centres in the city from October 4-23.

The police have prohibited entry of any unauthorised people besides the students and examination staff with valid identity cards from Maharashtra State Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board, within a 200-metre radius of all the examination centres during the examination days.

Further, all booths with STD, fax, photocopying and internet facilities within the 200-metre radius have been ordered to close during the duration of the examinations. Similarly, the use of loudspeakers, mobile phones, calculators, laptops, wireless sets, computers and similar electronic devices have been strictly banned near the centres.

The prohibitory orders will be effective from 6 am on October 4 till 8 pm on October 23 and people found violating them will be liable for strict action, according to a press note issued by joint police commissioner Rajendra Sonawane here on Tuesday.

indianexpress: From operating an automated machine, to fixing a faulty circuit and even espousing winning business ideas, the College of Engineering Pune’s (COEP) mega technical festival ‘MindSpark’ will challenge a whole range of skills for both engineering and non-engineering students on October 5, 6, and 7.

With an objective of bringing together students from various academic streams, the technical festival is being organised by all nine departments of COEP for the first time. “Earlier all college festivals were organised in an isolated manner by each department, with only a select number of students able to participate. This year we will be doing it on a larger scale,” said COEP director Anil Sahasrabuddhe.

The festival this year will bring together not only students of various departments within COEP, but is also expected to draw over 7,500 students from across the country including places like New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. “We want to encourage co-operation between various streams of engineering,” said Priygun Jain, technical secretary and coordinator for MindSpark.

With events in categories like Robotics, Design, Software Programming, Paper Presentation, and Creativity, MindSpark will have something for everyone. Under the technical events, the automated contest Micromouse will require students to navigate a machine through a maze. The design category will include events for computer aided design (CAD) and even designing an ideal college.

Other highlights include the idea presentation competition ‘Save the World,’ in which participants can present ideas that will solve problems like environmental or social hazards. The ‘Amazing Race’ will involve logical and physical challenges to complete a task. Quizzes, astronomy workshops and paper presentations are also on the cards.

bbc: Yahoo and Microsoft have announced upgrades to their search engines in efforts to gain ground on rival Google.
Yahoo’s makeover will include features that allow users to refine searches as well as offering links to photos, music and video on the results page.

Microsoft’s new-improved Live Search represents a “quantum jump in search results” according to the company.

Google remains the most popular net search engine, accounting for over half of web searches.

According to data from comScore Media Metrix, Google had a 56.5% share of the US search market, compared to Yahoo wtih 23.3% and Microsoft with 11.3%. In the UK, Google’s dominance is even greater with around 75% market share.

Its dominance has forced rivals to relaunch, add new features and improve the relevance of its searches in an effort to compete.

Microsoft’s improved Live Search - which will be available globally by the end of October - will offer a series of new featues, including a quadrupling of its index of searchable web pages as well as improving the way it delivers answers to specific questions.

bbc: A weapon used to fight spammers is now helping university researchers preserve old books and manuscripts.
Many websites use an automated test to tell computers and humans apart when signing up to an account or logging in.

The test consists of typing in a few random letters in an image and is designed to fight spammers.

Carnegie Mellon is using this test to help decipher words in books that machines cannot read by letting sites use them to authenticate log-ins.

The test, known as a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart), was originally designed at Carnegie Mellon to help to keep out automated programs known as “bots.”

Bots are designed by spammers to post advertisements in discussion forums or to sign up for large numbers of e-mail addresses which are later used to send spam messages.

A CAPTCHA consists of an image containing letters or numbers which have been heavily distorted, making it hard or impossible for a bot to “read.”

  There’s still about 100 million books to be digitised, which at the current rate will take us about 400 years to complete

By requiring web site visitors to type in the contents of the CAPTCHA before being allowed in to the site, humans can be admitted while all but the smartest bots are rebuffed.

CAPTCHAs are unpopular with many Internet users because the words they contain are often so heavily distorted to foil bots that that many humans struggle to read them.

This means potential visitors’ time is wasted while they make repeated attempts to decipher the CAPTCHA they are presented with.

But the CMU research team, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has devised an ingenious system to put the time used interpreting CAPTCHAs to good use.

bbc: The future of a website which details all the mobile phone masts in the UK is in doubt following a row over divulging “commercially sensitive” information.
The Sitefinder website is maintained by media regulator Ofcom, following a request from the government in 2000.

But mobile firms stopped giving data to the site last year after Ofcom was told it must publish grid references of all the masts in a searchable database.

It is appealing against the Information Commissioner and Tribunal order.

Sitefinder also shows which type of mobile phone signal is being used, the name of the operator, the frequency of the signal and the height of the mast.

Ofcom was ordered by the Information Commissioner to publish all of that information, including the grid reference of each mast in the country, in a single database file.

msnbc: Ohio State University researchers say a breakfast byproduct could play a role in a new way of powering cars.

The researchers say they’ve found that eggshells can help produce hydrogen for fuel cells that mix the gas with oxygen to create energy for running a vehicle. Instead of exhaust, all that’s emitted is water vapor.

The current process for obtaining hydrogen also produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Ohio State engineering professor L.S. Fan says his team has found that when eggshells are added to the process, they absorb the carbon dioxide.

He says they would need to be buried afterward to keep the gas out of the atmosphere.

Fan says using eggshells also would save egg processors money now spent to dump their eggshells in landfills.