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indianexpress: Paying no heed to protests by the local residents, Pune police on Wednesday started executing the state government order, banning thoroughfare on the Bharati Vidyapeeth road. The police deployed a heavy force to ensure there was no law and order problem and by 7 am, barricades were erected to prevent light and heavy vehicles from entering the road. Around 50 police personnel were deputed at Bharati Vidyapeeth, where State Cooperative minister Patangrao Kadam is the founder chancellor.

In its order, the state government had directed the city police and Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to ban vehicular traffic on BV road, passing through the university campus, while allowing pedestrians on the road to avoid any disturbance to the educational institute.

Meanwhile, the Bharati Vidyapeeth Road Bachav Sangharsh Samiti, comprising corporators from all political parties said they would intensify the stir from Thursday till the state government withdrew its order in public interest. “We will storm the BV Road with our vehicles at 10 am on Thursday and open the road for common public,” NCP corporator Datta Dhankawade said.

Efforts to open the road for vehicular traffic by the local corporators early in the day were foiled by the police as they did not allow the protestors enter the road. The shopkeepers of the area also joined the protest by bringing down their shutters. The police claimed that despite the move, traffic was smooth as vehicles took a diversion through the Katraj dairy and other routes.

Meanwhile, students and faculty members of the BV university are allowed to ply on the road upon showing their identity cards. “Students from various departments have been told where to park their vehicles,” said BV College of Engineering principal Anand Bhalerao.

The sangharsh samiti was not against banning of heavy vehicles on the BV road, Dhankawade said. The coroporators were not willing to accept the ban of light motor vehicles, four-wheelers and two-wheelers belonging to the local residents.
 

indianexpress: At least 100 medical interns and resident doctors at the Sassoon government hospital had to pop anti-HIV pills for 28 days after they suffered needle stick injuries while working in the hospital.

Even as healthcare workers are known to get accidentally exposed, mainly through needle stick injuries, to blood from patients infected with HIV, the study at SGH, one of the first in the country, found that medical interns were at the highest risk.

The joint study sponsored by Johns Hopkins University was conducted over a period of three years and the findings were presented by Dr Amita Gupta at the Johns Hopkins University at the 46th annual conference of Infectious Diseases Society of America at San Diego, in October this year.

Principal investigator of the project Dr A L Kakrani, Head of the Department of Medicine at SGH and B J Medical College, said that more than 700 such needle stick injuries were recorded during the period. The group that was exposed most to the needle stick injuries was of medical interns.

At least 100 persons suffered needle stick injuries and half of them were medical interns, followed by resident doctors. While the risk of transmission of HIV from patient to doctor via needle stick injuries is .3 per cent, according to Kakrani, there are around 70-80 cases worldwide where doctors have turned HIV positive.

Needle stick injuries are wounds caused by needles that accidentally puncture the skin. If not disposed of properly, needles, concealed in linen or garbage, can injure other workers unexpectedly, says Kakrani.

Doctors with needle stick injury were given drugs for 28 days. Kakrani explained that the virus remains localised in the area of injury for a maximum of three days.

indianexpress: Glaring irregularities in the way land deals are being done in the city have come to light with instances false entries in 7/12 extracts in Kondhwa Khurd being unearthed. An inspection resulting from a RTI application has thrown up startling details of land-grabbing using close to 80 bogus correction deeds of land documents pertaining to residential plots aggregating 10 acres of prime land.

The scam, that’s been going on since 1980, for over 25 years now, is understood to be to the tune of nearly Rs 100 crore, with the ruling price of land in Kondhwa Khurd at Rs 3,500 per sq ft.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Tanaji Shinde, Haveli Sub Divisional Tahsildar, officer in charge for land records in the area, admitted that several cases of bogus “correction deeds” had surfaced.

“No changes can be made on the 7/12 extracts. A probe into the irregularities has been ordered. It will be completed soon,” said Shinde.

The inspection of the documents under Section 4 of the RTI Act 2005 that led to the lid on irregular land deals getting blown was conducted on October 19 by Altaf Hussain Naik, a resident of Bhavani Peth, in the presence of senior land record officers.

As part of the RTI inspection, the land records division of talathi office, Katraj handed over to Naik documents pertaining to bogus correction deeds where individuals with as many as six 7/12 extracts in their name were found. As per law, there can only be one extract against a name.

indianexpress: When some Solapur citizens sent a list of errant autorickshaws in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to the Bombay High Court, the ripples were felt in Pune.
“The PIL which came up for hearing on September 4 said that little action was taken by the local enforcement authorities against autorickshaws that flout norms. The PIL demands action against polluting rickshaws, those plying outside permitted limits, and without licences. The court had asked the Solapur Regional Transport Officer (RTO) to submit an action taken report.

“Pune Regional Transport Officer (RTO) C M Sontakke, who was also present at the hearing, decided to undertake the drives across the region including Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Baramati, Solapur and Akluj,” said Assistant Regional Transport Officer, Vijay Kothale. The case is still sub-judice.

An extensive drive was conducted from September 3 to September 14 to crack down on flouting vehicles, mainly autorickshaws. The crackdown was followed on September 26-27 and on October 10-11. “When we undertake such drives we do not target particular type of vehicles, but after the court hearing we came down heavily on errant autorickshaws,” said Assistant RTO Sandesh Chavan. These include the Ape rickshaws (Piaggio), that ferry around eight or ten against the norm. In September alone 126 Piaggio rickshaws were either detained or given a memo. The RTO has since made the rules stringent.

While earlier a flouting auto driver was either slapped a fine or his vehicle suspended, now there is one single punishment. “We are penalising them with a fine and a suspension now,” said Kothale. In September, the total fine collected was Rs 6,53,050.

indianexpress: Long power failure today forced the Postmortem Centre — run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation — to dispose of as many as 10 unclaimed bodies in quick time. The reason: the bodies kept in the cold storage were decomposing fast, emanating stink which forced the staff to stay out of the Postmortem Centre through the day.

The power tripped at the centre around 8 in the morning following a short-circuit. Till late afternoon when there was no sign of power being restored, it was decided to cremate the bodies at PCMC’s Bhosari electric crematorium. Nine of the bodies — in the age group 25 to 60 — were males while the tenth was that of an elderly woman.

They were found at railway tracks, along road sides, bus stops and isolated places. All the bodies were taken to the crematorium in ambulances around 5 pm.

Sources at the Postmortem Centre said the stink from the bodies had become so unbearable that the staff found it difficult to continue with their work. “We kept doing the postmortem work in short breaks,” the employees said. As a result, the work slowed down. Every day 10-15 postmortems are performed at the centre. By 5 pm, only four postmortems had been performed.

The bodies are generally disposed off after 7-10 days. “But these bodies were 5-6 days old. Sometimes we keep the bodies in the cold storage for more than 7-10 days. That is because in the past, many time relatives have come enquiring and claimed the bodies,” the employees said. Citing an instance, an employee said around two months back, a man’s body dumped on roadside was brought to centre. “After two weeks when we were about to dispose off the body, the relatives of the man came enquiring and identified the body. The man was allegedly murdered by his wife and her companion. If we had disposed off the body, the murder would never have come to light,” he said.

indianexpress: In a landmark decision, the University of Pune (UoP) academic council in its meeting on Wednesday passed a resolution to grant 50 per cent refund of revaluation fees to students in case there was an increase in their marks as a result of revaluation or rechecking. The change will be valid for all examinations conducted by the University from the coming academic year.

The decision was taken following a proposal to amend the Ordinance under the Maharashtra Universities Act related to revaluation and rechecking. Currently the University charges a fee of Rs. 150 for the revaluation or rechecking procedure. Thus, if there is any change in marks after re-calculation of marks (rechecking) or evaluation by a second examiner (revaluation), Rs. 75 will be refunded to the student.

“It was felt that when there is a change in marks, it is prima facie a loss to the student, as he had to incur expenses for no fault of his own. Thus on humanitarian grounds, the refund will be given,” an academic council member said, adding that the whole amount could not be refunded given the cost incurred by the UoP for hiring an examiner and so on.

Among other major decisions, the academic council approved two proposals, one to provide photocopies of answer sheets upon request to students dissatisfied with their results, and another to grant revaluation benefits to students even if there is a change in marks by 5 per cent. As per the earlier practice, revaluation benefits were given only if the change was more than 10 per cent. Both these proposals were made during a Board of Examinations meeting on June 21.

techtree: Within a week of the global launch, Microsoft has announced availability of its Unified Communications (UC) software in India. The company claims UC will greatly streamline workplace communication, and reduce the cost of the average corporate VoIP system.

The new Unified Communications (UC) and VoIP software comprises: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and the Service Pack Update of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

The new business software is intended to help employees within organizations communicate and collaborate through emails, phone calls, instant messaging, and video conferencing via devices including computers, cell phones, and even public phones.

Announcing the launch, Eric Swift, senior director (Unified Communications Group) of Microsoft, said, “Unified Communications software will redefine the way organizations communicate and collaborate both in India, and around the world.”

Sanjay Manchanda, director (Information Worker Business Group) of Microsoft India, said, “As businesses expand their geographical footprint and grow employee strength, we believe a Unified Communications solution will become an integral tool to ensure anytime anywhere access, and will significantly impact organizational productivity.”

Since the UC solution leverages existing IT and telephony infrastructure instead of ripping it apart, it is expected to generate substantial cost savings to customers and in turn, companies.

techtree: Zyxel Corp has announced its P320W 802.11g wireless firewall router for Broadband sharing. Which is a 4-in-1 router with 4 port switch for sharing Internet access.

The router’s built-in IEEE 802.11g Access Point allows easy connecting of wireless devices to the network. The powerful NAT and SPI firewall provides superior protection for home computers that are frequently used to surf the Internet. The device offers advanced wireless security transmission with WEP Encryption with WPA/WPA2 support.

Besides, it comes with one detachable antenna, as well as One-Touch Intelligent Security Technology (OTIST) for automatic establishment of wireless connection.

Other features of the P-320W include: Denial of Service (DoS) protection and Intrusion Detection using Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI). The router allows VPN pass-through to provide safe access to the Internet.

reuters: Microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research), coming off the heels of its biggest chip launch in years last week, said on Monday it will sell a chip with three electronic brains at the beginning of 2008.

The move by AMD, which until the middle of last year had a leg up on its far larger rival Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research), could help it garner a bigger portion of the overall desktop personal computer market, the Sunnyvale, California, company said.

AMD and Intel currently sell processors with a single, double and quadruple, or quad, cores, the central computing engines found in computers. With AMD’s Phenom triple-core chip, AMD hopes to speed the adoption of multi-core chips, since sales of PCs with quad-core chips have been lackluster.

In the second quarter of 2007, fewer than 2 percent of desktop PCs sold used quad-core processors, according to consultancy Mercury Research.

By regulating the speed at which each core operates, AMD could conceivably sell a triple-core chip that has higher performance metrics than one of its own quad-core chips, said Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood.

“If they can get three cores that are higher performing than a quad-core, that will be a really fascinating trade-off,” Brookwood said.

reuters: Hackers with a Vonage Holdings Corp phone subscriber’s name and telephone number could intercept Internet phone calls by exploiting a weakness in the system, a security firm said on Wednesday.

Vonage spokesman Charles Sahner declined comment on the report by Sipera Systems of Richardson, Texas, which said it informed Vonage of the problem more than a month ago. Vonage had not responded, Sipera said.

Vonage, which has almost 2.5 million customers, was a pioneer in the business of selling low-cost phone services that use the Internet to connect calls instead of traditional phone wires.

Vonage has posted huge losses since it went public in 2006 as it has spent heavily on advertising to recruit customers. It is also the target of patent lawsuits from rivals including Verizon Communications Inc and Sprint Nextel.

While crooks have been long been able to hack into traditional phone lines, they’ve had to physically tap into telephone wires to do so.

Without proper security measures, Internet phone providers risk exposing their customers to such attacks from far away as hackers use the Web to access their networks, said Krishna Kurapati, founder and chief technology officer of Sipera.

“This guy could be in Russia and Vonage thinks it’s John Smith. People think they’re calling John Smith and instead they get this guy,” he said.