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indianexpress: THE stir over the ban on plying vehicles on the Bharati Vidyapeeth (BV) road further intensified on Thursday with a few thousand citizens sporting black badges taking to the streets even as Congress legislator Balasaheb Shivarkar announced he will be joining the corporators in demanding the opening of the road for the nearly one-lakh affected residents from Dhankawadi, Katraj and Ambegaon areas.
“The BV road should be opened for vehicular traffic to serve the interest of local residents and I would personally meet Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh with the demand,” Shivarkar told reporters.

Meanwhile, locals, majority of them women, led by their corporators marched on the BV road and resorted to a show of ‘Gandhigiri’ by offering roses to the policemen on duty. Later the local corporators registered their protest during the PMC general body by sporting black badges during the meeting.

Taking note of the protests, Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale announced during the meeting that she will lead a delegation of all party corporators to meet State Cooperation Minister Patangrao Kadam, who is also the founder chancellor of the Bharati Vidyapeeth.

“We will urge him to allow use of the road in public interest,” said the mayor adding that she had already written to chief minister and Kadam conveying the views of all party corporators as expressed during the general body meeting on the issue.

Local residents have been protesting against the execution of the State Government order to ban vehicular traffic by the city police on Wednesday. The locals argue that the State Government order was unfair to them as the road comes under the Development Plan (DP) for the city and is their only direct access to the Pune-Satara Road.

indianexpress: THE Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) general body witnessed pandemonium as all party corporators on Thursday came down heavily against the civic administration decision to reinstate a senior official in the service despite disciplinary inquiry initiated against the officer on the charges of negligence in performing duty.

The civic administration had suspended assistant municipal commissioner (Technical) Uday Binniwale in July after charges was leveled against the officer for negligence in performing duty in the preliminary inquiry regarding implementation of a project for installing a garbage separator at Katraj that lead to financial loss to the civic body.

Raising the issue in the general body meeting, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporator Vasant More pointed out that the civic administration has reinstated Binniwale into service despite the departmental inquiry against the officer was still pending. More had earlier brought to the notice of the PMC that the garbage separator, installed at a cost of Rs 83 lakh to separate dry and wet garbage, was not functioning due to the negligence of the implementing officer.

Leader of opposition Vikas Mathkari said it was shocking that Binniwale was given a special treatment even when the preliminary inquiry had proved charges against the officer. He demanded the civic administration to reinstate all the civic officials against whom departmental inquiry is going on.

indianexpress: While many memorials built for soldiers lie ignored and forgotten, Kavita and her husband Capt Anil Gadgil, the parents of the martyred MiG 21 fighter pilot Abhijit Gadgil decided to honour many like him and announced the Jeet Aerospace Institute near Donje village last year. The institute was meant to introduce budding flyers and aviation enthusiasts to the thrill of flying.
Now a year later, the couple has moved a step closer towards realising their dream, after developing the country’s first mobile flight training simulator, which will be used to train the students.

“While some consciously strive to fly and serve the nation, aviation for many others is fantasy. Even though everyone may not seek entry into an aviation school, they would want to learn about the intricacies of a cockpit. The simulator will offer them basic cockpit familiarisation and flight orientation, thus ensuring the same thrill experienced during a real aircraft operation,” said Kavita.

The flight simulator was developed in Bangalore by a team of experts from RealiSim Ltd and Tata Motors had donated a truck chassis for mobile platform fabricated by ARCO engineers of Pune.

“It is essentially an indigenous simulator with its own supply of water, fuel and electricity. Measuring 8 ft by 8 ft in width and height, it is 20 ft long and consumes 10 KVA electricity,” said Capt Gadgil. The simulator comprises a two-pilot cockpit with a curved screen to facilitate visuals and a full flat panel CRT displays as found in a modern jet liner.

“While on one hand, newer aircraft are being acquired for the service, new pilots are trained using the old planes. This simulator is generic, which means that it has not been modelled on any one particular aircraft and the cockpit has been modelled on the cockpits that the modern aircraft possess,” said Capt Gadgil. “Knobs and dials are passé!” he said.

indianexpress: Pune district has kicked off the Centre’s ‘Aam Admi Bima Yojana’ after a GR for the same was issued by the State Government on October 16. The scheme provides death and disability insurance cover for rural landless households, a programme for which Rs 1,000 crore was earmarked in this year’s budget by the Union Finance Minister.

A meeting taken up the District Collector has directed tehsildars and land revenue officers doing rounds of all the talukas to get the “landless” households fill up the requisite forms. The same has to be completed by November 1. District Collector Prabhakar Deshmukh told The Indian Express that the project will commence with the campaign to list the landless households in the rural areas after which they would be tying up with the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).

Under the scheme, all the rural landless households will be provided life and disability insurance cover. The cover will be for Rs 75,000 on death due to accident and permanent disability due to accident. In case of partial disability due to accident, the insurance cover would be Rs 37,500. And upon death of a member, prior to termination date, Rs 30,000 is the insurance amount. The premium to be charged under the scheme will be Rs 200 per annum per member of which 50 per cent will be contributed by the central government and remaining by the state governments.

indianexpress: A high-powered delegation from Baden-Wuttemberg in Germany — comprising elected members, industrialists and journalists — visited the University of Pune recently.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the University of Pune and University of Tuebingen from Baden-Wuttemberg was what brought the German delegation here. The exchange students from Tuebingen, who were here, shared their experiences with the delegates.

The delegation was welcomed by Dr Pandit Vidyasagar, director of the Board of Colleges and University Development, while Dr Vasudha Garde, director of the International Student Centre, briefed them about the ongoing projects as part of MoU between the two universities.

indianexpress: Cocking a snook at the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, encroachments are back in business in Pimpri Camp. Several of the encroachments affecting movement of pedestrians and vehicular traffic were removed in an anti-encroachment drive launched by the PCMC on Wednesday afternoon. But on Thursday, in less than 24 hours, footpaths and chowks were again out of bounds for the travelling public in Pimpri Camp as shopkeepers grabbed them for displaying furniture, buckets and other dime a dozen wares.

On Wednesday, tension had prevailed in Pimpri Camp — the business nerve centre of Pimpri-Chinchwad — after a PCMC anti-encroachment drive swooped on squatters impeding smooth flow of traffic. Shopkeepers and other vendors protesting against the action had a heated argument with PCMC engineers. But a determined PCMC anti-encroachment squad seized 22 hand-carts, 71 plastic chairs, 6 travel bags, 14 plastic buckets, 12 plastic boards, 4 tables and other wares which were collective put at 149. The encroachments were removed from Shagun Chowk, Saik Chowk, Deluxe Chowk, River Road, Main Bazaar, Pt Nehru Road and Mandai area. The seized materials were taken to the Nehrunagar godown. Through the day after that, Pimpri Camp, after several years, breathed a sigh of relief as pedestrian and traffic moved without hindrances.

This morning, however the situation was back to square one. Shopkeepers again displayed their wares on footpaths and in some parts of the chowks, leading to chaotic traffic scenes. City engineer Eknath Ugile told The Indian Express on Thursday that the drive would be a continuous process. “Let the encroachments come, we will again initiate action against them,” he said.

Civic activist DG Baliga said the encroachers are not afraid of the PCMC because of such half-hearted action. “They know PCMC only makes a show of taking action. Once its action gets wide publicity, PCMC then won’t act for days. Such soft-peddling by the civic administration has emboldened the shopkeepers over the years,” he said.

indianexpress: HE may have been living in Britain for the past 50 years, but 76-year-old Dr. Vijay Salvi’s mind never strayed far from his roots. Since 1999, he has been providing financial support to villagers displaced by the Mulshi Dam project in Male, Khechare and Vandre in Pune’s Mulshi taluka. To commemorate his efforts, the students and teachers at the village schools got together to pay a tribute to him by setting up a plaque and planting trees on the occasion of his 76th birthday this October.

Salvi, a sports doctor who settled at Bolton in the United Kingdom in 1947, became acquainted with the Mulshi Dharan Vibhag Shikshan Mandal (MDVSM) through his sister and advocate Jayashree Mohite, who is actively involved with the Rotary Club of Pune (Ganeshkhind). “He expressed a keen interest to lend a helping hand to the three schools run by us, the Senapati Bapat Vidyalaya at Male, Appasaheb Dhamale Vidyalaya at Khechare and the Baburao Dhamale Vidyalaya at Vandre,” said MDVSM founder secretary Ramchandra Datar.

On November 12, 1999, Salvi visited the schools along with friend Jim Walker from the Manchester United football club in the UK. “After this visit, Salvi and Jim Walker were very impressed with the enthusiasm of the students to learn. When they went back they organised an auction of a Manchester United jersey and a football, the proceeds of which were sent to the school,” Datar said.

techtree: Today, Novell announced availability of openSUSE 10.3, the newest version of its community Linux distribution.

OpenSUSE 10.3 provides everything that a user needs to get started with Linux, the company said.

OpenSUSE 10.3 endeavors to offer a better user experience with the following: a flexible Linux-Windows dual-boot configuration, an improved user interface, Microsoft Office file compatibility with latest OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, and enhanced multimedia support.

OpenSUSE is based on Linux kernel 2.6.22, and includes enhancements like: the newest versions of Gnome and KDE desktop environments, including a KDE 4 preview; OpenOffice.org 2.3 for easy sharing of files with Microsoft Office users; and the newest version of AppArmor that protects Linux and Linux-based applications from attacks, viruses, and other malware.

OpenSUSE also includes: MP3 support for Banshee and Amarok, which are the default media players in openSUSE. Besides, it offers the latest open source developing applications, setting-up of a home network and running of a Web server, and latest virtualization software.

The newest version is also the first Linux distribution to take full advantage of the “1-Click Install” option that gives openSUSE 10.3 users easy access to many more software packages residing on the openSUSE Build Service.

cnn: Parents may worry less about losing their child — and the kid’s expensive coat — with a new piece of winter wear that includes a global positioning tracker.

The jackets, released this week by the British clothing company Bladerunner, have a GPS tracking device in the lining. The device can track the jacket anywhere in the world, within 43 square feet.

“The jacket is not something that was released due to people losing their kids,” said Adrian Davis, a partner at Bladerunner. “It was originally made for mountain climbers, skiers and snowboarders.”

Davis said the company decided to make a children’s version of the jacket aimed at parents concerned about their children’s safety.

Using Google Earth maps, users can watch the jacket wearer move. The movements are updated every 10 seconds.

But they don’t need to be online to find out where the person is. Users can also receive alerts to their e-mail or cell phone when the jacket leaves the boundary, meaning parents could potentially receive alerts whenever their children skipped school, left the neighborhood or went to their boyfriend’s house — so long as the child was wearing the jacket.

Bladerunner, which designed the jacket and commissioned Asset Monitoring Solutions to craft the tracking device, made headlines in the spring when they released slash-resistant clothing for children, aimed at those worried about increasing knife crime in London.

The new jacket is also equipped with the slash-resistant lining. The tracking device uses a rechargeable battery that can last for about 18 hours.

zdnet: MIT researchers have developed gels which can change colors almost instantaneously when they’re exposed to a variety of stimuli, such as temperature, pressure or humidity. These gels could be used to design inexpensive sensors. For example, these gel-based sensors could be useful in a food processing plant to ‘indicate whether food that must remain dry has been overly exposed to humidity.’ Now the researchers are working on a gel which would change color in response of electricity.

The photography above, taken by Donna Coveney, describes how “photonic gel crystals demonstrate the ‘tunability’ of materials made from alternating layers of hard and soft polymers. The soft polymers are easily swollen with liquid or vapor causing the materials to reflect different colors of light based on the way their molecules are chemically ‘tuned.’ (Credit: MIT) Here is a link to a larger version of this picture. And here is another link to a short video, “Structured gel turns colors based on stimuli,” available in several formats, which shows the versatility of these gels.

This structured gel has been developed under the supervision of Edwin Thomas, head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). This research project has been conducted by graduate students from his research group, Youngjong Kang, now a professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea, Joseph Walish and Taras Gorishnyy.