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indianexpress: The traders’ strike on Monday to protest against the civic administration’s proposal to frame new rules and regulations for octroi that will hike the charges had some effect. Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Monday constituted a committee to study the octroi proposal before seeking the general body’s approval. Meanwhile, the strike received a good response.

Shops remained closed and traders took out a morcha on Laxmi Road to protest against the proposal passed by the legal committee. The proposal is waiting for the GB’s approval.

“There will be a committee constituted to study the octroi proposal with five traders and five corporators along with the PMC octroi chief,” Leader of House Anil Bhosale said.

Representatives of Federation of Trade Associations’ of Pune met municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi demanding withdrawal of the proposal. It was agreed to constitute a committee to study the proposal since the PMC had not taken the opinion of the traders into account, he added.

One corporator from each party will be part of the committee, Bhosale said.

Federation president Popatlal Oswal said,”We will propose some changes, including dropping provision of empowering the civic staff to raid shops since it may lead to harassment.” Oswal said they will also propose reduction in octroi rates of some goods.

indianexpress: The thought of planting a seedling in grated coconut instead of soil may sound odd. But for farmer-turned-entrepreneur Harivijay Kanchan, it turned out to be a novel idea that is a profitable venture and a boon for over 1,500 farmers in energy-starved Maharashtra.

For many farmers, the loss of crop seedlings has become cause for concern, as they are unable to immediately transfer seedlings to the fields due to power cuts and inability to operate water pumps which causes the seedlings to perish after they have been uprooted from the soil. Even if the seedlings are successfully transplanted, it takes eight full days for them to take root and begin to grow again.

Kanchan, an agriculture graduate, faced a similar problem on his two-acre farm at Urali Kanchan on the outskirts of Pune. His family was suffering huge losses to the tomato crop due to loss of seedlings. Instead of giving in, he decided to put to the test an old idea he had while studying at Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth in Rahuri. “I had thought of it a long time ago, but it remained dormant as I worked on the farm for nearly eight years after I graduated,” said Kanchan.

The innovation seems simple enough: A 1.5-inch plastic cavity is filled with finely grated coconut, into which the seedling is planted along with a chemical specially developed by Kanchan.

Trays with several such cavities can be purchased by the farmers — at Rs 80 per tray of 100 seedlings — and stored for long periods. “Moreover, since the seedling that is transferred to the field is not dead, it grows out very fast, whereas an ordinary seedling takes eight days. This boosts farm production,” Kanchan said.

indianexpress: Amidst speculations that the state government might cancel the 1,880-hectare Special Economic Zone (SEZ) being jointly developed by Videocon Group and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation Limited (MIDC) following intervention by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the state industries secretary V K Jairath on Monday ruled out any change in government’s stand on the Wagholi SEZ, saying the project was very much on.

The issue has taken a political turn with state industries minister Ashok Chavan, a known Pawar opponent, making it clear that he will not succumb to the pressure put by Pawar to abandon the SEZ. Chavan, when contacted said, he had made his stand “clear” and added “ the industries secretary will speak on this issue in detail.”

Jairath said neither the state government nor the MIDC had changed stand. “Speculations are rife that the Wagholi SEZ is getting scrapped. As far as the state government is concerned there is no change in earlier plan of SEZ. Nor has the MIDC changed its stand,” he said.

When contacted Videocon chairman Venugopal Dhoot said that he didn’t want to comment on the issue.

In May farmers from Wagholi had joined hands to oppose the SEZ and Shetkari Sanghatana had alleged that Sharad Pawar and Ajit Pawar had gone in for forceful land acquisition. Last week NCP MLA Vilas Lande had claimed that Sharad Pawar had held discussions with the state industries secretary following which a decision to cancel the SEZ was taken.

indianexpress:  A series of chain-snatching incidents in 2006 where senior citizens were the prime targets, cases of cheating, robbery, property-related offences and even murders __ that of 70-year-old Shalini Uddhav Jadhav of Purple Castle society in Bibvewadi on September 10 come to mind. Now, an aged couple’s flat has been grabbed. Clearly, cases of crimes against senior citizens in a city that once was a pensioner’s paradise are on the rise.

A study on crime against elderly comparing Pune and Delhi conducted by India Longevity Centre (ILC) along with the police department showed Pune was on par with Delhi especially in the area of property-related crimes.

Tukaram Kachare (74) and his wife Prabhavati (65) living at Himgauri Apartments in Kothrud are going through an ordeal ever since their flat was usurped by their tenants Sulochana Vitthal Paigude, her husband, son and two daughters.

The Kachares had rented their furnished one BHK flat located in Sheetal Complex Co-operative Housing Society in Modern Colony, Kothrud to the Paigudes on a leave and license basis for eleven months in 1998 for a monthly rental of Rs 2,000.

They paid the monthly rent till 2005 after which they have been living at the flat without paying any rent till date. The monthly rental in this area for the one BHK flat is Rs 5,000.

According to Kachare, Sulochana and her daughters threatened, even assaulted Prabhavati and abused Tukaram when the couple asked them to vacate their flat. The couple are looked after by their twenty-year-old grandson Shreepad, a second year BCom student.

indianexpress: The Commonwealth Youth Games 2008 in Pune and Commonwealth Games 2010 in New Delhi will be ‘green games’. The organising committee of the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect on Monday.
The idea is to work together to incorporate environmental considerations into the planning and staging of both international events.

With 71 countries participating, India can showcase herself as being an environmentally responsible nation, said organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi who signed the MoU with UNEP’s division of communications and public information director Eric Falt. “The 2008 CYG Games in Pune will focus its environmental programme on waste and water management, afforestation and anti-litter campaign, sustainable transport, public awareness and mobilisation campaigns,” said Kalmadi.

Other green initiatives underway are ‘green’ buildings that are being constructed, the Balewadi Sports Complex being one of them. “Rainwater harvesting, waste water treatment and recycling plant, insulated roofs, heat reflecting surfaces, low floor sanitary fittings, solar water heaters and cross ventilation are some of the features these green buildings will comprise. It will aim at reducing pollution and energy consumption,” said divisional commissioner Nitin Kareer.

Listing cost and time as the risks they face, Kareer said the buildings and the sports complex will be handed over to the Sports Committee in May 2008. Acknowledging that the efficient public transport during the Games would minimise pollution to a great extent, municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi said Bus Rapid Transit System would be functional from June 2008 and direct transport from ‘airport to stadium’ will be made possible. Footpaths and cycle paths alongside the roads will be a priority, he said.

techtree: Consumers on shoe-string budgets, confused about whether to buy a desktop or laptop, now have reason to settle for the latter. Why? It’s been raining low-cost laptops lately.

After Asus and OLPC ($100 laptop), Allied Computers International (ACi) has now announced a low-cost compact laptop which comes for around Rs 15,000 in the Indian market.

ACi entered the Indian market in 2004 with laptops priced as low as Rs 29,999. Back in 2006, the company launched a laptop for Rs 19,999.

With the latest announcement, ACi plans to further widen its net. The new laptops are scheduled to be available by mid next year.

They have an Aluminum body as against those with fiber or plastic, which is the real reason behind such low prices.

ACi plans to increase production from the existing 10,000 to 100,000 laptops per year.

And to make the laptops more easily available to consumers, the company plans to open its own showrooms across the country as also tie-up with supermarkets/malls/retail showroom franchises.

techtree: Bharti Airtel has launched a wireless compact desktop pre-paid PCO solution for PCO owners in Maharashtra and Goa.

Generally till today, PCO owners had to buy a coin box or a billing machine and subscribe to a PCO connection from an operator, which costs somewhere between Rs 2,500 and Rs 6,000.

But Airtel’s new PCO solution is claimed to be an all-in-one solution with minimum investment required, i.e. Rs 1,999.

PCO operators now need buy only one instrument, which has a phone and other features like call billing, call display meter, call usage reports, internal battery and wireless set, all built into it.

In addition, the PCO features polyphonic ring tones, phone book, hands-free speaker phone, etc. Owners can even attach a bill printer or an external booth display separately.

For end customers, the solution offers features like call limit wherein they can set the call limit in advance. Local calls would be charged at Rs 1 per minute, and STD calls would be charged at Rs 2.40 per minute anywhere in the country.

The Airtel wireless desktop PCO phone is available for just Rs 1,999, and comes with a one year warranty and after sales service support.

bbc: Experts at a Scottish university say they have paved the way for the creation of tiny supercomputers which could fit in the palm of the hand.
Engineers at the University of Edinburgh studied the behaviour of wires which were 1,000 times thinner than human hair.

They then created a tool which could help develop tiny microchips.

German and Italian experts also worked on the project. Their findings will be published in the journal Science.

It is hoped that the discovery will eventually lead to medical advances, as well as hand-held PCs and mobile phones as powerful as laptops becoming available on the high street.

To create a powerful computer the size of a mobile phone, much smaller microchips with thinner wires are needed.

This will help to make small devices much more powerful in the future

The Edinburgh researchers teamed up with colleagues from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of Rome, Italy, to look at how tiny wires behave when they are manipulated.

infoweek: IBM disclosed Monday that it has teamed up with Taiwanese vendor MediaTek to develop computer chipsets that the companies say will allow consumers to wirelessly zap high-definition content to televisions and other devices at push-button speeds.

Dubbed mmWave, the chipsets — which comprise computer chips and high-speed interconnects — will use so-called millimeter wave radio technology to transmit the data.

The technology employs ultra-high radio frequencies capable of sending and receiving large amounts of data at extremely high speeds to create what IBM and MediaTek are calling “revolutionary multimedia wireless products.”

Devices utilizing the technology would be capable of receiving a 10-Gbit file in about 5 seconds, compared to 10 minutes using current Wi-Fi systems. “This collaborative effort will enable consumers to wirelessly transfer large multimedia data files around their home and/or offices in seconds,” said T.C. Chen, VP for science and technology at IBM Research, in a statement.

The technology could be used in applications like home theater, where a wireless DVD player could stream high-definition movie content to a television in near-real time.

IBM said it will work to integrate its mmWave radio chips, antenna, and package technology with MediaTek’s expertise in digital baseband and video processing.

computerworld: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies today unveiled the new Deskstar P7K500 desktop hard drive, which it claims cuts power requirements by up to 40% over its predecessor T7K500 offering.

Hitachi said the 250GB version of the new drive requires 3.6 watts of power in idle mode, while higher-end models that store 350GB and more require 4.8 watts. Active Deskstar PK7500 machines require 6.4 watts to 8.2 watts of energy, the Tokyo-based company said.

The new Hitachi desktop drives will start shipping in volume before the end of the year, Hitachi officials said in a statement.

John Rydning, an analyst at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, noted that most vendors are paying less attention to cutting desktop power requirements than they are to reducing those of larger systems. He suggested that users could force such vendors to work harder to curb energy requirements.

Rydning also suggested that the emerging hybrid offerings are the most energy-efficient disk drive option for corporate users today. “The last step to possibly reduce hard drive power consumption is to migrate to hybrid hard disk drives,” said Rydning. “Hybrid hard drives with sufficient capacity of nonvolatile flash memory as an [onboard] cache could reduce the frequency of spinning up the drive.”