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indianexpress:  The long awaited voters’ list for the proposed Pune Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) was published on Monday. The list comprises elected members of the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations, members of Alandi, Lonavla and Talegaon municipal councils, presidents of zilla parishads and panchayat samitis and sarpanchs of gram panchayats in Pune district. They will elect 30 of the 50 members of the MPC while the state government will nominate the rest.

The voters’ list is displayed in Pune divisional commissioner’s office, Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations, district collectorate and zilla parishad office. Divisional commissioner Nitin Kareer said in a press release that any objection to the voters’ list should be brought to his notice within three days. The voters’ list, once finalised, will be sent to the state government for taking a decision as to when the elections are to be held.

Setting up of the MPC is expected to enhance coordination between various government agencies and local governing bodies in the region. Along with Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur regions too will have their respective MPCs.

“The MPCs are planned for cities that have a minimum population of 30 lakh. This initiative is in line with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) wish list that requires metropolitan regions participating in the campaign to plan their city development by consulting their respective MPCs,’’ said T C Benjamin, state UD secretary.

indianexpress: With the state government giving its nod for high-rise buildings, Pune is set to join an exclusive club of skyscraper cities. The city, that had till now buildings with a maximum height of 40 metres or 11 floors, will soon get to see building with over 30 floors and rising up to 100 metres.

This comes even as the civic administration’s proposal to have high-rise buildings up to 100 metres has been approved by the state government with certain conditions.

The state government has divided the high-rise buildings into four categories: 36-40 metres, 40-50 metres, 50-70 metres and 70-100 metres.

These categories will have to be constructed in minimum plot area of 2000 sq metres, 4000 sq metres, 6000 sq metres and 8000 sq metres respectively and will require minimum access road width of 12 metres, 15 metres, 18 metres and 24 metres.

“The state government has sanctioned modifications proposed by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) after consulting the director of town planning and is satisfied that the modification is necessary in public interest,” said a government notification signed by Nandkishor Patil, Under Secretary, State Government.

According to the notification, the high-rise buildings in the 36-40 metre category will have to leave marginal spaces of 9 metre on the front and back of the buildings while for the other categories it will be 12 metres.

indianexpress:  From a settlement of just 15 huts in 613 AD to a thriving metropolitan city of 4.5 million residents, Pune has come a long way. But if coupled with a well-organised plan for sustainable development in these areas, the city’s growth could outdo other cities including Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi.

This has been highlighted by city-based researcher and reader at the University of Pune (UoP) geography department Vijaya Khairkar in a recently published study on ‘Migration and Social Economics’. Although the study takes an optimistic stand on the city’s growth potential given its unique geographical location and surroundings, Khairkar also cautions against the lack of uniformity and sustainability, especially with regard to the civic amenities in the merged fringe villages. This will now be the focus of her next study on sustainable development in these areas.

“Since Pune has a lot of space around it, there is tremendous space to expand. This gives it an edge over other cities like Kolkata and New Delhi, which have become stagnant and congested after the initial boom,” said Khairkar, adding that the population of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad combined is expected to rise to 6.9 million by 2020 according to some estimates.

Yet Pune’s irregular growth continues to be a source of concern. As a continuation of this earlier study, Khairkar will now analyse the reasons for this lack of uniformity. “I have found that although the 23 villages were merged into the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), the civic amenities in these areas have still not improved,” said Khairkar.

indianexpress: ALL this while, ever since Pune was chosen as one of the beneficiaries of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), officials have been maintaining that the funds that would flow in were grants and not loans which would come from the Centre. Now that there is a shortfall, after re-estimation of projects escalated to Rs 1,462.91 crore from the earlier Rs 807.12 crore, an 80 per cent rise, the Pune Municipal Corporation is facing an uphill task of completing the development work
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At this juncture, the Union government has asked PMC to seek the additional funds of Rs 655.79 crore from World Bank for completion of the projects.

“The Union Government has asked us to apply to World Bank for additional funds required for the completion of the project while ensuring assistance to get the funds,” municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi told The Indian Express.

He said they do not expect to encounter any problems since the Union Government will recommend the PMC’s proposal to the World Bank.

indianexpress: Increasing global dependency on information technology and Internet usage has fuelled the number of cyber crimes and recognising the need to discuss and debate the various aspects of cyber forensics, the National Insurance Academy, Pune chapter of Information Systems Audit Control Association (ISACA), and Asian School of Cyber Laws, Pune organised a two-day seminar on Monday in Balewadi.

Senior executives, foreign delegates from countries like Sri Lanka, Ghana, Maldives, academicians and research students attended the seminar which was inaugurated by Luray Caverns of the National Insurance Academy.

ISACA, Pune chapter former president M.S. Kumar spoke on the importance of cyber forensics through a case of cyber crime and its proceedings.

NIA director Dr. K.C. Mishra in his inaugural address explained the terms forensics, cyber forensics, its historical development and its importance in current global IT enabled businesses. Senior faculty of Asian School of Cyber Laws Gokul Narayan highlighted the importance of cyber laws.

indianexpress: AS secondary schools affiliated to Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education get ready to implement the new grade-based evaluation system for standard X from the coming academic year, there is bound to be some confusion among most students and teachers about how the system will work.

To bring some clarity, the State Board will focus on the new grade system in its November edition of ‘Shikshan Sankraman’ - the academic magazine brought out every month for giving guidance and study tips.

As part of the changed Secondary School Certificate (SSC) syllabus for the academic year 2007-08, the evaluation system will also change from marks to grades in a phase-wise manner. Accordingly, some subjects will be evaluated with grades this year. The Shikshan Sankraman for November will provide special guidance to students and teachers on how to study these subjects, and how these subjects will be evaluated. The subjects include civil defence, defence studies, pre-vocational subjects, and others.

The State Board said this guidance would give students an idea about the importance of these subjects for gaining work experience, which in turn would help them to develop a positive approach while studying these subjects. An article by Ajaykumar Lolage on work experience will deal with this issue.

cnet: The first major fruits of Advanced Micro Devices’ acquisition of ATI Technologies are ready for the public just as the market for those products is going through some profound changes.

Spider will be AMD’s first “platform” product when it makes its expected debut Monday. It is designed for desktop PCs, and the entire Spider package comes with a new processor, AMD’s quad-core Phenom chip, the new 7-series chipsets, and new graphics chips.

AMD’s Spider platform is designed for gaming and multimedia desktops.

(Credit: AMD)The two Phenom FX processors launching Monday are essentially desktop versions of AMD’s Barcelona quad-core processors. They’re designed for the upper half of the desktop market: gamers who don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on the ultra high-end equipment and families who want a powerful home PC without breaking the bank. When combined with the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 unveiled last Wednesday, you get a pretty decent system for around $900 to $1,200, said Leslie Sobon, director of desktop product marketing for AMD.

For years, AMD disdained a so-called platform approach for its products, preferring to say that unlike Intel’s Centrino and Viiv programs, it gave its PC customers a choice of the components they could use to build a system. But PC companies like platforms because they make their lives easier, knowing they can slap components together that have already been tested and validated to work with each other.

bbc: Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.
The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.

Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers - instead content arrives via wireless.

Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch. 

“We’ve been working on Kindle for more than three years,” said Amazon boss Jeff Bezos in a statement.

“Our top design objective was for Kindle to disappear in your hands — to get out of the way — so you can enjoy your reading,” he said.

Content is delivered to the device via the EVDO wireless network - this could limit the gadget’s overseas appeal as the technology is not widely used outside North America.

Owners of a Kindle do not have to pay to use this wireless network, Amazon pays the access costs and only charges for any content downloaded to the reader.

techtree: Logitech has introduced the ultra-portable VX Nano Cordless Laser mouse, with the world’s smallest receiver.

Meant mainly for people who are always on the move, the mouse has a contoured shape and a soft rubber grip, with a trap door at the base, which when opened, reveals two AAA batteries plus a storage compartment for the nano-receiver.

The nano-receiver, the world’s smallest, when plugged into a laptop, is nearly flush against the notebook — protruding just 8 mm from the edge of the computer. As such, notebook users no longer need worry about the receiver getting lost or snagged. All they need to do is plug-in and forget about it.

The VX Nano features the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel to maximize productivity. In hyper-fast scrolling mode, people can fly through long documents with the flick of a finger; while in precise, click-to-click scrolling mode, people need to only press and click the scroll wheel.

Forward and Back buttons make for speedy navigation of Web pages and documents while a One-Touch search button allows people to instantly display results from their favorite search engine.

The laser engine ensures smooth cursor control, and precision tracking on virtually any surface, while the 2.4 GHz digital cordless technology provides a robust wireless connection.

techtree: Seagate has announced availability of its 1 Terabyte (TB) hard drives for its next generation Maxtor Onetouch4 and Barracuda family.

Targeting mobile users, home users, and the corporate segment, the new range of products comprises Maxtor One Touch4 Plus, OneTouch4 Mini, and OneTouch4; and Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2.

The entire Maxtor family incorporates Maxtor Safety Drill, a solution for disaster recovery, which is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and the Mac operating system. It packs one-touch synchronization and password encryption.

Meanwhile, the 1TB Barracuda hard drives are the second generation desktop and perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) hard drives that promise to deliver a combination of capacity, performance, and reliability for a wide range of PC applications.

The Barracuda 7200.11 and ES.2 deliver 7,200 rpm spin speeds, average seek times of 8.5 milliseconds, and caches up to 32 MB. The drives pack 1 TB of data on four disks to provide cool operating temperatures and low power consumption.