News

indianexpress: Pune district has witnessed an increase in land under floriculture in the last couple of years and will slowly emerge as one of the top exporters in the country, said Navneesh Sharma, deputy General Manager, Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).

He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of an international floriculture exhibition, ‘Florex India 2007’ at the College of Agriculture grounds here on Friday.

“Despite shortage of land, the demand is increasing. In the past two three years, the hectares under floriculture in Pune has increased,” said Sharma, calling it an achievement. Sharma said that one of the reasons was the export potential of the city, with Pune slowly emerging among the top exporters in floriculture.

“Pune accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the exports annually and the share is growing,” said Ramesh Lalwani , president of the Western India Floriculture Association (WIFA) and chief coordinator of Florex India 2007. In 1996-97, the Tata group had conducted studies on the potential production areas for floriculture. Pune came fourth after Munnar, Kodaikanal, and Bangalore. However, the city was the first to start with the production and explore export potentials, said Sharma.

Currently, APEDA is pushing for MPS-GAP certification to improve quality and to ensure that the export schedule is maintained. “We are forcing farmers to go in for this certification of good agricultural practices. Some farmers in Pune have already done so,” said Sharma.

In Pune, roses lead the floriculture exports followed by other flowers like carnations, gerbera, and birds of paradise. This year there has been a push by APEDA towards traditional varieties like marigold and tuberose — which grows best in West Bengal. “These flowers are attractive abroad and have excellent export potential, besides roses — which are quite common in European countries,” said R K Mondol, western regional head, APEDA.

indianexpress:  A Significant breakthrough was achieved in the Unique Fincorp cheating case on Thursday, with the city police’s economic offences wing (EOW) sleuths recovering Rs 7.3 crore from Krantikumar Nivrutti Waghmare (41), a relative of the prime accused, Premchand Ashok Kamble, who is still absconding. The company had allegedly cheated over 1000 investors in the city to the tune of Rs 12.5 crores.

The cops recovered two cars and some electronic appliances from Waghmare who has been remanded to police custody till November 5.

“While culprits very often get arrested, tracing the cash amount is usually next to impossible in such cases. However, the EOW has been successful in tracing almost 70 per cent of the amount, and the prime suspect in the case will be arrested soon,” said Police Commssioner Jayant Umranikar on Friday.

The EOW had earlier arrested Anil Pandharinath Bharambhe and Santosh Dadasaheb Shinde in connection with the case. They are currently in magisterial custody and it was during the course of their interrogation that the sleuths learned that Kamble, the owner of the financial company, was in constant touch with his maternal uncle, Waghmare.

After a search, the officials arrested Waghmare from Pimpri and recovered around Rs 48.5 lakh which he had hidden in a briefcase and a cardboard carton. After repeated interrogation, Waghmare revealed that huge amounts of money amassed by the company were at Kamble’s Kanur village in Ichalkaranji taluka of Kolhapur district.

A police team reached the place and found 10 similar cartons filled with cash estimated to be around Rs 4.3 crores. In another interesting turn of events, the police also searched a neighbouring house belonging to Dilip Ingle and found five more cartons filled with currency worth Rs 2.04 crores. They were buried under the floor which was cemented.

indianexpress: The long traffic snarls which have become a daily headache at Jehangir Hospital chowk finally have a solution. The civic administration of Pune Municipal Corporation has given a favourable response to the proposal for constructing a flyover in the chowk while suggesting that the work can be proposed in the next financial budget.

In a proposal tabled in the City Improvement Committee (CIC), Congress corporator Chandbi Nadaf said there was a need for a flyover in the chowk in front of Jehangir Hospital due to frequent traffic jams.

“The PMC should take up construction of a flyover in the chowk under the on going Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM),” she said.

In its reply, the civic administration said it was in favour of the proposal, but cannot include the work in the present financial budget. The work can be proposed under JNNURM in the financial budget of 2008-09, it said.

Meanwhile, the civic administration has rejected three proposals of elected members calling for de-reservation of the PMC plots. The proposal for removing the reservation of a garden in Lohegaon was made by NCP corporator Bhimrao Kharat, arguing that there was already a garden in the area while Congress corporator Abhijit Shivarkar has demanded the conversion of the reservation of a garden plot in Wanawadi into a residential one. Similarly, NCP corporator Ratnaprabha Jagtap had proposed removing reservation on 40-feet road in Wanawadi.`

indianexpress: In a landmark decision that could impact the way state governments go about clearing Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the country, the Maharashtra government will soon be disbursing Rs 238 crore for the payout to the farmers of the four villages — three in Khed taluka and one in Shirur — who had agreed to give up their lands for the Bharat Forge SEZ.

With the high power committee headed by the Industries secretary V K Jairath, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) CEO, District Collector and a team comprising various department heads, giving the green signal to the rehabilitation package, the government along with the company will be looking towards implementing the settlement and rehabilitation package to villagers displaced by the SEZ.

The SEZ will come up on a total of 1,900 hectares of which the government owns 500 hectares. As per the deal, about 1,400 hectares owned by the farmers will be acquired at Rs 17 lakh per hectare. The deal was worked out after protracted negotiations and numerous agitations after the project was announced in August 2006. The district administration is acquiring the land from four villages— Khanesar, Nimgaon, Dhavadi under Khed taluka and Kendur under Shirur taluka for the MIDC as the SEZ is promoted as a 74:26 joint venture between Bharat Forge and MIDC through a special purpose vehicle.

Pune District Collector Prabhakar Deshmukh who had negotiated the package with the farmers on August 25, and had forwarded the proposal to the members, will now wait for the government to disburse the funds. “It should be done in 10 days time and then we will start with distributing the money to the farmers,” Deshmukh told The Indian Express.

indianexpress: A Pimpri-Chinchwad Bharatiya Janata Party delegation, led by its State leader Kirit Somaiya on Friday made a “surprise check” at three ration shops and seized three packets of red imported wheat which they claimed were infected with insects. “The packets will be sent to the laboratories and its findings made public,” said Somaiya.

The wheat packets, each costing Rs 16 per kilo, were collected from Ajanthanagar, Oata scheme and Gawlimata area. Demanding that “rotten red wheat infected insects,” be withdrawn from all rations shops, Somaiya said the BJP would launch criminal cases against the shopkeepers and government officials if the sell of wheat under public distribution system was not stopped immediately.

“Not only in Pimpri-Chinchwad, we have collected such samples from five places in Pune district as well,” he said, adding that the infected wheat was available everywhere in Baramati Lok Sabha constituency represented by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. “What I want to ask Mr Pawar is: ‘Who is distributing this infected wheat and why is it being done forcibly,’” he said at a press conference.

Somaiya said the State was committing injustice on the poor by not withdrawing the wheat from the market. “This wheat is basically distributed through ration shops to persons living below the poverty line under the Anapurna scheme, Gram Rojgar yogna and mid-day meal scheme,” he said. He added that the Food Corporation of India procures the wheat from companies in Ukraine, Russia, Canada and Australia. “We don’t know where the wheat is getting infected… whether the supplies received are infected, whether they get infected while being stored with FCI or at the State government godown. We have no idea,” he said.

indianexpress:  After over 17 years of occupying a place of pride in the University of Pune (UoP) campus, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is in the process of looking for a new home. Having completed the two-year extension period after the expiry of the contract agreement with university, C-DAC now is in a spot, as it needs to find a place adequately suited to its technological and space requirements.

A government research organisation, C-DAC, better known for producing India’s first supercomputer PARAM, was set up after the signing of a 15-year lease document with the university. After the expiry of this agreement two years ago, the then vice-chancellor Ashok Kolaskar sent eviction notices to C-DAC. However, C-DAC was able to secure a two-year extension with intervention from the Central Government.

With this time now having run out, university authorities are pressing for an early settlement. “Although it is an honour to have C-DAC on our campus, the contract agreement has expired, and there needs to be some specific time-frame for settling the issue. I have been in talks with Ministry of Information Technology officials to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution,” said Vice-Chancellor Narendra Jadhav.

A highly-placed source at C-DAC said that there had been some restrictions on their growth in the past few years, as they were not allowed by university authorities to set up additional facilities. This has resulted in delays of several projects, including the launch of the five-teraflop supercomputer, the source added.

indianexpress:  For Radha Vallab (30) who has set up a Paithani saree stall at the Gram Sampada 2007, sales have been decent over the past three days — he has managed to sell six sarees.

However, his prized Rs 21,000 saree is yet to be sold. Like the rest of the Paithani sarees on display, this one too, which took Vallab three months to make, is completely hand woven.

“Customers take time to decide. But it would help us if we could get tips from fashion designers on the latest trends in sarees, dress materials, and kurtas,” said Vallab.

“New design trends will help us market and sell the idea of paithani style to young girls, who may not be interested in a sari but would buy a kurta or a dress material,” he said.

This exhibition of SHG products at the campus of NABARD office at Shivajinagar is an exercise in marketing for the SHG groups so much so that at the end of the exhibition NABARD intends to award one SHG stall for best performance. “We are judging the stalls on the basis of their product display, sales and promotion methods, variety of products, adequate stock and pricing,” said general manager J P Nema.

techtree: To cater to the ever-increasing number of pay-TV subscribers, DG2L Technologies has launched an entry-level set-top box (STB) “N100″.

The “N100″ is a low-cost STB, and can be customized for use with cable, satellite, IPTV, and terrestrial networks.

Ideal for free-to-air and pay television, “N100″ supports all Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) or MPEG-2 compliant transmissions, and features 32-bit MIPS CPU.

Furthermore, “N100″ features a dedicated transport RISC-based de-multiplexer engine, and a DVB descrambler that meets most DVB pay-TV specifications, thus leaving the CPU free to handle other tasks.

All DG2L products and solutions can be customized according to specific requirements. Headquartered in New York, DG2L has pioneered the STB market to offer a Hybrid H.264-based DVB/IP High Definition STB.

The company claims to be one of the first to introduce an MPEG-4 based digital content management system.

techtree: Today, Microsoft announced the India availability of Silverlight 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in that promises powerful media experiences across the Web.

Microsoft says the possibilities are endless with Silverlight 1.0, whether it’s booking tickets simply by connecting destinations on an online map, or setting-off on a seamless virtual tour of myriad destinations.

Silverlight 1.0 integrates with existing Web technologies, and promises consistent experiences to both Windows and Mac users on a variety of browsers.

“I believe that businesses can use Silverlight 1.0 to create strong differentiators and customer loyalty. This is particularly important because companies in India are beginning to increasingly adopt online models of business, often in addition to existing off-line ones,” said Tarun Gulati, general manager (Developer and Platform Evangelism) of Microsoft India, during the launch.

Some early adapters of the technology including Sify.com and Rediff.com are planning on delivering Silverlight-based experiences to viewers and customers.

Bhaskar Saiapparaju, chief executive officer of Sify, said they are looking at ways to redefine user experience by introducing rich interactive elements, vector graphics, animation, and high definition TV experiences.

cnn: You don’t need a rocket to send scientific instruments into space. A really big balloon works just as well, according to an international research team that plans to take a closer-than-ever look at the sun.

A recent test flight launched from New Mexico provided support for the concept. Dangling from a balloon larger than a 747 airliner, a solar telescope soared to 120,000 feet before snapping pictures of the sun. About 10 hours later, the telescope separated from the balloon and parachuted to a safe landing in Texas.

The project, known as “Sunrise,” is designed to observe details on the sun’s surface that can help researchers forecast electromagnetic storms in Earth’s upper atmosphere. In the super-thin air at high altitudes, the telescope can get a much sharper view of the sun than from the ground.

The gondola carrying the telescope has a special motor that keeps the telescope pointed at the sun as the balloon dips and twirls.

Beginning in 2009, the balloon-telescope combo will embark on pole-circling missions above the Arctic and Antarctica. There the telescope will take advantage of the midnight sun to capture continuous images for up to two weeks