News

indianexpress:  EVEN as a shadow of darkness looms large over the festival of lights across the state with the power situation worsening in the post-monsoon period, Pune has every reason to smile. The city’s demand for power has remained at 850 MW in October, almost the same as a year ago. Though the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) is anticipating a 10 per cent rise in demand during the Diwali festival, it’s a demand that can be met.

This, at a time when the demand for power in the state stood at 15,037 MW in mid-October as against 13,058 MW in the corresponding period last year.

“There is no chance of load-shedding in Pune,” said Shrihari Choudhari, superintending engineer of Rasta Peth circle, where the demand is 350 MW. A view that was reiterated by Ashok Gujar, superintending engineer of Ganeshkhind circle, who said there was no need to worry for Puneites as there was a match in the demand-supply ratio for Pune city and neighbouring areas.

“The additional demand of power during Diwali festival city will be offset by the closure of major industrial units during the season,” said Gujar.

“The overall situation will become clear only during Diwali festival. The total power available with the state is 10,475 mw while the demand has already reached 15,000 mw. The MSEDCL is cautiously assessing the situation as it is a sensitive matter,” said a senior officer of MSEDCL here.

Though Pune city has no reason to worry, rural parts in the state are already facing load-shedding of 4-6 hours a day. The state government is likely to ban illumination and neon signs in urban areas if the power crisis aggravates. The government is also planning an awareness campaign on the power crisis in the state anticipating shortage.

indianexpress:  A 400 sq ft flat for Rs 1.5 lakh in an upmarket locality of Pimpri-Chinchwad, where the current rate is Rs 3,000 per sq ft. It could be yours in the next two years, provided your monthly income is less than Rs 5000.

Spurred by the Rs 475 crore sanctioned by the Central Government under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has set in motion the process of constructing 13,250 flats in different parts of the town.

At Rs 1.5 lakh per flat, PCMC will recover Rs 198.75 crore, but it will take 15 years for full recovery. Of the Rs 1.5 lakh, the beneficiary will have to raise Rs 50,000 while the PCMC will help him get a loan of Rs one lakh from a nationalised bank.

“The beneficiary will have to repay Rs 1,100 to Rs 1,200 a month. They will need to return the borrowed amount in 15 years ,” Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal commissioner Dilip Band said at the general body meeting on Monday.

Many of these flats will come up in Sector 12, 13 and 14 of Pradhikaran area where the real estate rates have been hitting the roof by the day. The Centre has made it mandatory for the civic body to submit the list of beneficiaries in the next six weeks.

Band said also the land reserved for the economical weaker sections and the displaced will be acquired on priority. “TDR and FSI facility will be extended to the land owners. In one month, if they don’t hand over the land, we will initiate the necessary process for acquisition,” Band said, emphasising that his administration is determined to make Pimpri-Chinchwad a slum-free city.

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) standing committee on Tuesday decided to execute its various development projects of constructing flyovers on its own instead of giving it to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). Meanwhile, the committee passed the proposal to pay the dues of MSRDC for the completed work in slabs of Rs 10 crore.

“The long pending proposal to pay the Rs 140 crore dues of MSRDC for the completed development project, including flyovers, was cleared after discussing it with state corporation,” Standing Committee chairman Bapu Pathare said, adding that the committee has in principle approved the construction of three flyovers at Swargate, Shimla office and Market Yard to MSRDC and take a final decision after going through the proposed design for the projects.

“The committee also decided that the PMC should execute the rest development projects, including flyovers and road construction, on its own,” he added.

The PMC had earlier decided to execute the various development projects under Integrated Road Development Project (IRDP) through MSRDC. The Rs 260-crore IRDP planned in 2000 included 15 flyovers, nine railway overbridges, two bridges over Mula and Pavana riversand widening of six roads.

indianexpress: The standing committee of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Tuesday withdrew all powers given to the municipal commissioner over a period of time since 1992 for clearing various projects and proposals.

“The powers entrusted by the standing committee to the municipal commissioner in the last 16 years have been unanimously withdrawn by the committee,” standing committee chairman Bapu Pathare said.

He, however, failed to provide the reason behind such a move and what actually prompted such a drastic decision.

However, standing committee member and Congress leader Ulhas Bagul said the decision came after the committee observed that the civic administration was repeatedly misusing the powers given for particular projects/proposals and using it to clear other similar projects.

The committee had been empowering the municipal commissioner to clear particular proposals to speed up implementation, but the civic administration was taking advantage of it in other proposals, he said.

The proposals included decisions on proposals like land acquisition, appointment of consultants for projects and discussing the projects with private parties before implementation, Bagul said.

indianexpress: THE pantry cars of Sinhagad Express, Deccan Express, Indrayani Express and Panchavati Express will be withdrawn to accommodate an additional passenger bogie. This will come into force from Wednesday.

“The demand for seats in these trains has been on the rise and we expect this (removal of pantry car) will address the additional load,” said Central Railway PRO Y K Singh.

However, the move has irked Railway Commuters’ Association, who claim there could have been an alternative.

“Instead of removing the pantry car, they could have utilised the space in the brake van or the guard’s bogie as the pantry car. This move will compromise the hygiene of the food available to commuters,” said association president Harsha Shah.

indianexpress: Following dissatisfaction expressed by corporators from all parties about the execution of a State government decision to ban vehicles on roads passing through the Bharati Vidyapeeth premises, mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale on Tuesday said she would take up the issue with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to convey the public opinion expressed by the corporators in General Body (GB) against the government decision.

“I will discuss the issue with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, state co-operative minister and Bharati Vidyapeeth chancellor Patangrao Kadam, police commissioner Jayant Umranikar and municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi,” she said in the GB.

Raising the issue, Bharatiya Janata Party corporator Ujjwal Keskar said it was improper for the State government to go against the public opinion and ban vehicles on the Bharati Vidyapeeth Road. Lakhs of residents staying in the area will face problems due to it as the Development Plan (DP) road provided them access to Satara Road.

techtree: Geneva Software Technologies today launched Geneva E2C, a multi-lingual SMS service in up to 11 Indian languages.

The product is based on patented Vivid technology, and according to Geneva, allows up to one lakh sms (in 11 Indian languages) to be sent in about an hour from any PC to any mobile (irrespective of handset or telecom network).

Ravindra V V, the brain behind E2C, and director (Technical) of Geneva Software Technologies, said the intent is to reach knowledge to the widest spectrum of humanity by crossing language barriers.

Ravindra, who originally hails from the Kolar Gold Fields down South, said it is all the brilliant people whom he met during his years there, who could not communicate simply because they didn’t know English, is what led him to come out with such a product.

During the launch, T Murali Krishna Reddy, managing director of Geneva Software Technologies, expressed confidence that E2C would ensure achieving the fullest potential of the mobile revolution that is currently sweeping through the country.

Geneva has already tied-up with eSys to distribute E2C in the country. And, there might be tie-ups with handset makers like Nokia and Motorola on the anvil.

techtree: Tamron, a Japanese camera lens manufacturer, is re-launching its lens, the AF28-300MM F/3.5-6.3 DI VC, in Japan.

The lens is compatible with Canon and Nikon Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras. The Canon version of the lens will see its launch on October 26th, and the Nikon version in the early spring of 2008.

The “VC” in the name stands for “Vibration Compensation”. This mechanism, which is built into the lens, compensates for camera shake — decreasing chances for motion blur in your pictures.

The mechanism, however, won’t work properly on the Canon EOS-1Ds camera. Even on some (Canon) film cameras, the function may not function. Here’s a list of cameras on which it won’t: EOS Rebel T2 or 300X (Kiss7), Rebel K2 or 3000V (Kiss Lite), 100QD, 10QD, 850, 750, 650, 620, and 630.

Meanwhile, the minimum focus distance of the lens is 0.49m (19.3″), its overall length 99mm, maximum diameter 78.1mm, and weight 555g. And, it’s compatible with filters with 67mm diameter

techtree: Korea-based Pantech has unveiled a bone conduction handset dubbed ‘A1407PT’ in Japan.

The unique thing about the ‘A1407PT’ is that it features bone conduction of voice by vibration. So what is bone conduction? It implies sound waves connected through peoples’ skulls by vibration, and further to the inner ear to let people hear.

Simply put, users can hear the voice of the caller only by making the bone conduction speaker touch their heads. It is believed this will solve communication problems especially in noisy places, for older people, and for people with auditory handicap.

The ‘A1407PT’ is specially designed to make use of the bone conduction function. Users have to only press the side key to make a call, and talk with the bone conduction speaker without opening the handset. The volume can also be controlled with the side key.

The ‘A1407PT’ is a clam-shell phone with a 6cm wide QVGA class LCD, and three one-touch buttons below the display for easy number dialing. It has a built-in 1.35 mega pixels camera, and supports games and IrDA communication.

bbc: Electronics giant Samsung has shown off what it claims is the world’s most powerful chip for use in memory cards.
The 64 gigabit (Gb) chips could be used to make flash memory, commonly used in MP3 players, capable of holding the equivalent of 80 DVDs, the firm said.

The chips are built using circuits with a minimum feature size of just 30 billionths of a metre (nanometre).

Rival firm Toshiba has said it is also working with similar technology. Both firms will release products in 2009.

Flash memory is a so-called non-volatile computer memory, primarily used in memory cards, USB drives and MP3 players.

Non-volatile memory retains information even when there is no power to the device.

Samsung said there was currently “exploding demand” for flash memory as a storage medium in a range of applications.

The new chips are designed to be used in a specific type of memory known as NAND flash.

NAND is one of two types of flash memory and offers higher storage and faster speeds than the cheaper NOR flash.

NOR is commonly used in low-end applications where smaller memory capacity and slower speeds are acceptable, such as in cheaper mobile phone handsets.