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indianexpress: WHILE Pune attracts many foreigners around the world, its most recent visitor from the United Kingdom, has come with a charitable purpose. Charles Fellows, an investment and business consultant from London — who has embarked on a motorcycle ride from London to Australia to raise donations for Make-a-Wish Foundation — is currently in Pune to ‘take a break’ from 140 days of strenuous biking. Fellows was welcomed by the Pune Mayor, Rajlakshmi Bhosale on Thursday.

“The idea for this trip was derived from a combination of love of motorbikes, a desire to travel the world and in the process giving back to society,” said 33-year-old Fellows, a London native, who struck upon the idea of the trip four years ago along with his friend Jim, an Australian by birth who had been living in London for a decade. “After having spent the entire life dependent on public transport, a bike trip essentially means independent travelling,” said Fellows. While Fellow has stopped over at Pune to spend three weeks with a friend’s family, Jim is currently in Goa.

The duo chose Australia as a destination considering the route he would have to traverse. “The route from London to Australia covers a challenging array of less developed countries and thus unexplored cultures. Besides, the route has minimal sea or air travel. So there was scope for biking,” Fellows said. “The duo had decided the trip was meant to be an adventure not a vacation.”

Raising funds for the Foundation has received a great response said the biker who has been spreading awareness about the Foundation and its work with children throughout his trip. “While big organisations like the UNICEF are often in the limelight, smaller ones like the Foundation are in constant need of funds,” said Fellows. Having travelling through barely existent roads in Kazakhstan, visited the Khyber pass and the deserts of Rajasthan, the trip has helped him “soak up many cultures.” “As landscapes changed, people changed and the experience will never be forgotten,” said Fellows.

After 22,500 km across 20 countries and 850 litres of fuel, Fellows has 12,000 km to travel before he reaches his target destination.

indianexpress: THE city traffic branch has proposed certain measures near the Chhatuhshrungi, Bhavani and Tambdi Jogeshwari temples in view of the nine-day Navratra festival that starts on Friday. Vehicular movement will temporarily be suspended from Shivaji Housing Society Chowk to Senapati Bapat Junction. One-way traffic will be introduced from Hotel Sahara to Pallavi Junction. Parking will also be suspended on Senapati Road and the Chhatuhshrungi Temple premises. Devotees are requested to park vehicles at the Government Polytechnic Ground. Traffic from the Shivaji Housing Society Chowk to the Senapati Bapat Junction will be diverted to the carriageway on the opposite side. Similarly, traffic from Senapati Bapat Junction to Shivaji Housing Chowk will be diverted through the Senapati Bapat Road via the road adjacent to Sahara Hotel.

The Mahatma Phule Road in front of Bhavani Temple will be closed to vehicular movement. Parking will be provided at Arunkumar Vaidya Stadium. The Laxmi Road stretch between Ganpati Chowk and Tambdi Jogeshwari as well as the road between Appa Balwant Chowk and Budhwar Peth Chowk, will be closed to traffic.

indianexpress: From the main building to the ladies hostel, work orders at the University of Pune (UoP) seem to be faced with interminable delays, causing a great deal of inconvenience across the varsity campus. The reason: a crippled estates department. With as many as 50 ad-hoc posts in the department, the estates department has been functioning without a permanent head for nearly eight months.

The estates department, which is responsible for all development and repair works at the 411-acre UoP campus, has been at the receiving end of severe criticism for delays in implementing various projects. For example, while the UoP hostel authorities battle shortage of space and poor facilities at the existing ladies hostel, the construction of the new hostel building has been delayed for several years due to inefficiency in execution of work orders by the estates department.

The issue will now figure among the topics for discussion at the upcoming varsity senate meeting scheduled to be held on October 30. In a proposal, senate member Atul Bagul has demanded consolidation of estate department staff through permanent appointments to vital positions including the executive engineer. Currently, the executive engineer post is held as an additional charge by estates overseer Shivaji Mane. While interviews for the post were held some two months ago, the post could not be filled as none of the candidates were found suitable.

“Apart from various construction works, even the budget to be presented by the estates department is always delayed. There are three reasons cited by officials: lack of staff, absence of a permanent HoD and lack of necessary promotions. The department does not presently have the necessary staff and expertise required for carrying out work orders on campus,” Bagul said.

indianexpress: On December 3, 2006, S Jaipal Reddy the Union Urban Development Minister was here to inaugurate the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). There was much fanfare then, as Pune was the first city in the country to get on the BRTS track. Now, with only two months to go for the first anniversary of the pilot project, Reddy who was here on Thursday for another event, preferred to be cautious while commenting on the meagre 4.5 km stretch that’s been completed till date of the total 12.2-km pilot project.

‘‘The Centre has sanctioned the required funds and there has been no delay from our side. It’s too early to be judgemental of the project as it was in the pilot phase. We will have to wait and watch how effective it is,’’ Reddy said. He refused to be drawn on why the “pilot project was still incomplete”.

Reddy was speaking to a section of the media on the sidelines after inaugurating the workshop to evolve National Guidelines for Management of Urban planning at YASHADA in the city on Thursday. He said the BRTS would encourage people to use public transport more.

The BRTS, to be operational for the Hadapsar-Swargate-Katraj corridor, was to be completed in three months at a cost of Rs 62 crore under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission funding.

indianexpress:  NOTED scientist Govind Swarup has been awarded the prestigious Grote Reber medal 2007 for lifetime innovative achievement in radio astronomy. Swarup, who works at the National Centre for Radio Astronomy (NCRA) in the city, has been chosen for his contribution to the design and construction of innovative radio telescopes including the Ooty Telescope and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT).

The Grote Reber Medal was instituted three years in the name of pioneer radio astronomer Grote Reber. Swarup is the third recipient of this award, which was previously presented to B Y Mills of Sydney University and W C Erickson of the University of Tasmania. “It is a great honour for an Indian to receive this award, instituted in the name of the first radio astronomer in the world,” said Swarup.

Swarup began his career in radio astronomy with the construction of a large steerable radio telescope at Ootacamund called the Ooty Telescope.

The telescope, was designed to use the technique of lunar occultations, where the moon passes in front of celestial objects and temporarily blocks them from view. It was used to determine the angular structure and precise position of many distant radio galaxies.

indianexpress: The Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Air Hostess Academy (AHA) have tied up for a one-month internship programme to impart to students on-the-job training and exposure to airport ground staff work at the Pune airport.

This was announced at a press conference held on Thursday. Pune Airport director Captain Deepak Shastri said, “The students will be able to observe and participate in various functions right from airport entry point, baggage screening, check-in to passenger boarding. But at no point will they be directly accountable for the job as they will be under continuous supervision by the senior airport staff.”

The AAI will charge AHA Rs 50,000 for a batch of 30 students. AHA assistant general manager Bela Goyal said, “We will be the first institute of its kind to join hands with the Pune Airport authorities for this programme.” She added that the students would be trained and equipped with the skills needed to take on the work at the airport before the internship.

AHA, which has received the Education Training Ratna Award, currently has nearly 100 students from the tribal community and the economically weaker sections of society. Goyal explained that through this effort, students who had never travelled by air or been inside an airport would get a feel of what they were learning in class.

Captain Deepak Shastri said, “At the end of the programme we will present each student with a work experience certificate on behalf of AAI and AHA.” He said that depending on the success of the first batch, he would consider tying up with other institutes for similar internship programmes.

indianexpress: Five persons have been chargesheeted for cheating Central Bank of India, Hadapsar Branch to the tune of Rs 4.96 crore by submitting forged documents and receipts.

The CBI’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Mumbai had filed a case of cheating in 2006 against Vinod Kedarnath Sharma, chairman and MD of Jayesh Engineering Forging Company, Mhalunge, Khed Taluka and four others.

The bank’s General Manager S K Chatterjee had lodged a complaint with the EOW against Sharma, his wife Elachi who is the director of the company, Subhendhu Biswas, proprietor of Supertech Technologies, Janardhan Adhik Singh, propreitor of Steel Age Enterprises and Vilas B Parad, a chartered accountant with the company, accusing them of availing credit facilities worth Rs 4.96 crore from the bank during the period between 1998 and 2003, by submitting applications for various term loans.

The chargesheet mentioned that Sharma had allegedly submitted two forged quotations and five other quotations accompanied by loan applications, even though no such business transactions had been made. Unaware of the fraudulent intentions, the bank had continued to process the loans police said

techtree: The newest versions of Symantec- ‘Norton Internet Security’ and ‘AntiVirus’ software are now available to Indian consumers.

The latest security solutions have been enhanced to provide users protection against new and emerging online threats, including disguised attacks by drive-by downloads.

Vishal Dhupar, managing director of Symantec India, said, “Our 2008 products bring valuable new protection technologies to block threats before they get a foothold in the system, as also significant performance improvements to make for a better end-user experience.”

‘Norton Internet Security 2008′ is equipped with ‘Identity Safe’ to protect users’ identities while carrying out online transactions. The solution enables users control information shared with Web sites, securely store private information, and fill-in passwords and Web forms.

The solution also provides defense against drive-by downloads and other unknown threats that exploit vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer (IE). Besides, it has been optimized for greater performance, improved one-click support, and reduced user interruption.

According to Dhupar, “India is growing on Broadband. As Broadband penetration is increasing, threats are also increasing, and so is the level of threats. This is happening because a number of ambitious youngsters across the globe are trying to prove that they know more than the company.”

With the Norton 2008 security solutions, Symantec promises to provide protection beyond the PC to wireless home networks and online identities. Among other features, both solutions include ‘Sonar’ behavioral detection technology that aims to protect against malicious code even before standard detection is done.

msnbc: When your favorite gadget of the future breaks, you might select a replacement model online, download its design file and make a true 3-D replacement on your home printer.

Thanks to falling prices and wider application of an industrial technology called 3-D printing (among other things), this option might be a reality for consumers in a few years.

Instead of stamping or casting to create objects using tools, dies and forms that were laboriously created for the task, each object is basically printed — built thin layer by thin layer directly from a computer-aided design, or CAD, file using various high-accuracy deposition methods.

Sintering, for instance, deposits layers of fine particles that are heated until they bind to adjacent particles. Stereo-lithography, meanwhile, uses a laser to harden a layer of an object on the surface of a pool of special resin. The object is then lowered slightly, and the next layer is created. Altogether, 3-D printing technologies can create things out of plastics, metal and ceramics, and some methods can add photo-realistic coloring.

More importantly, prices for 3-D printing machines have been falling rapidly, reaching $20,000, and the day is foreseeable when they will fall below $1,000 and become home appliances, says Phil Anderson of the School of Theoretical and Applied Science at Ramapo College in New Jersey.

msnbc: The back of a computer tends to be a messy, messy place, with cables snaking like an overturned bowl of spaghetti.

Now, the first fruits of an industry push to cut that tangle have hit the market, and while they won’t be much of an immediate help, the underlying wireless technology does show some promise.

Yes, you heard right. Another wireless technology. Apparently, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are not enough. This one is called ultra-wideband, or UWB. It’s similar to Bluetooth in that it has a short range, up to about 30 feet, but it’s potentially much faster — as fast, proponents say, as the USB cables we use to connect printers, webcams and external hard drives.

You can’t, however, expect to shear away a lot of cable clutter with the first general-purpose products that use UWB. These are USB (Universal Serial Bus) hubs, each of which has four ports for regular USB cables. The only “wireless” part is the connection between the wallet-sized hub and the computer, which is equipped with a UWB dongle that sticks into a USB port.

The intended use is something like this: You plug your peripherals, like the printer and your backup hard drive, into the USB hub in your office. When you use your laptop there, you insert the dongle, which connects you to the peripherals without being tethered by a USB cable.