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indianexpress: Sporadic incidents of stone pelting were reported from some parts of the city on Friday as slogan shouting members of the minority community marched to the Pune Municipal Corporation building from Gultekdi, protesting against the demolition of illegal portions of the centuries-old Gani Baba dargah.

A few shops and vehicles were damaged in the stone pelting near Saat Toti police chowki and the civic headquarters in Shivajinagar despite heavy police bandobast. The men-in-uniform kept their calm throughout, restricting their role to traffic management and safety of passers-by. Police officials later claimed that the march concluded “peacefully.”A few thousand people, including a large number of women, carrying posters in Marathi and Urdu condemning the PMC action participated in the march that began at the demolition site near Giridhar Bhavan around 1.30 pm. It passed through Market Yard, Dias Plot slum, Seven Loves Chowk, Sant Kabir Chowk, Maldhakka Chowk before reaching the PMC headquarters, already cordoned off by the police.

Anti-riot vans were deployed in front of the PMC building since morning while barricades were raised at all entry points.

Some of the protestors attempted to break the police cordon and enter the PMC building but were prevented from doing so by the police. The angry mob pelted stones at the police while water bottles were hurled on the lawns.

indianexpress: Shaken by The Indian Express report highlighting the pathetic working condition of conservancy staff, the Pune Municipal Corporation — which had promised to initiate drastic measures on this count — has now actually stepped forward to offer solace to Class IV employees. The civic administration has proposed to increase the financial assistance — from Rs 15,000 to Rs 50,000 — to the kin of deceased employee of the conservancy department. This will be in addition to the Rs 50,000 life insurance cover which it had decided to restore after the Express report.

In its proposal placed before the standing committee today, the civic administration said The Indian Express had highlighted the high mortality rate of conservancy staff in the city and the extreme conditions in which they work.

Union Social Justice secretary Arvind Prasad, who had visited the city, suggested measures to improve the working condition of the conservancy staff. “PMC had announced the increase in financial assistance to the kin of conservancy staff. As per the announcement, the committee should now approve the sanction of additional Rs 35,000 per person as financial assistance,” Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi said in the proposal.

On October 17, PMC had announced that it will increase the financial assistance to Rs one lakh to the family of conservancy staff in the event of death. After the Express report, it had decided to restore the life insurance cover for the conservancy staff. The life cover for PMC Class IV employees was scrapped in July after the Life Insurance Corporation of India communicated its unwillingness to extend the facility due to high mortality rate among the conservancy staff. Meanwhile, in view of the increase in jurisdiction and shortage of staff, the civic administration has proposed to allot the conservancy work of the 23 merged villages on contract basis. Tabling the proposal in standing committee meeting scheduled on November 27, the civic administration said the city was growing at a rapid pace while it was facing shortage of conservancy staff to clean up the newly included area

indianexpress: “I am a school principal. Under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, parents of some school children have sought the details of teachers’ duties and their timetable. However, the chairman of the school is not allowing me to divulge the information. What should I do in this case?”

Queries like this began poring in through a telephone help line dedicated to RTI queries, initiated by the RTI cell of Public Concern for Governance Trust (PCGT), from October 30. Nagesh Jadhav, a young member of PCGT and a postgraduate in social work from Karve Institute of Social Services, has been guiding the inquisitive callers. The help line has been started with an intention to clear up the layman’s doubts regarding RTI.

The help line (64005613), which operates between 3 pm and 5 pm from Monday to Friday, has received around 50 calls till date, not only from Pune, but also from other parts of the state like Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Nashik and the coastal part of the state- Konkan.

“The help line is available on weekdays and we receive about four calls on an average every day. While a major chunk of the queries are regarding how to file an RTI application, some others are issue-based. There is a welcome trend visible, as out of the total calls received till date, nearly 30 per cent were from young people showing concern for social welfare,” said Jadhav.

Pallavi Keluskar, an advisory committee member of the RTI cell of PCGT said the members of the trust thought it insufficient and hence decided to start something practically useful to people. “Therefore, we initiated a help line dedicated to solving the RTI queries. Even though we have started getting a good response, public memory is short, which is why we are planning to advertise about it on local cable channels.”

indianexpress:  While criticising the poor power management of the State, chairman of the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) Dr Pramod Deo on Friday said that decentralisation of power distribution system was the best way to tackle power crisis and also advocated the franchisee method for power distribution.
“In Thane and Nagpur, the franchisee model has been introduced. Under the franchisee system, the concerned franchisee can receive power in bulk and then distribute it and take care of everything including the billing system and also the problems faced by people. The franchisees can even delve into the power generation,” he said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of 23rd National Convention of Electrical Engineers and national seminar on “Challenges in electricity sector under deregulated environment” organised by the Institution of Engineers (India), Pune local centre. He said, “Maharashtra was once a leading state in power supply and management. However, now the situation has reversed, as 15 hours of load shedding is haunting rural parts. Even though the peak demand occurs during summer and in the month of October, power planning is not made based on this factor.”

He said, “It is possible to have a decentralised power franchisee system, for which people will be willing to pay. Decentralised mode of power distribution is the key to tackle the power crisis.”

Madan Lal, former vice president of the Institution of Engineers, said, “Even though the Centre has declared to make a capacity addition of 78,000 MW in the 11 th five year plan, no efforts are being made in that direction. Hence a power shortfall is bound to occur. No-conventional sources of energy too, need to be explored urgently.”

indianexpress: The Maharashtra Forest Service (MFS) exam will be held from November 25 to November 30. It is being held after a long gap of eight years.
With three compulsory and 13 optional subjects, the examination will be held in four different centres in the State including Pune, Mumbai, Aurangabad and Nagpur.

“This exam is for 40 posts from the State and 52,000 students are appearing for the exams while as many as 896 candidates were rejected due to technical faults.

Those candidates who did not receive the receipt of the exam can contact the MPSC before November 24 up to 5 pm,” said under-secretary, Maharashtra Public Service Commission, P D Adsule.

In Pune centre, 2,221candidates are going to appear for the exam.

Centres from Pune for MFS: 1. Mamasaheb Mohal Vidyalaya, Paud Road; 2. Yashawantrao Chavan Vidhi Mahavidyalaya, Parvati; 3. A K Khan College, Azam Campus; 4. Indrayani Mahavidyalaya, Talegaon Dabhade; 5. Bharat English School,Shivajinagar; 6. Mahatma Phule Vidyalaya, Pimpri; 7. Laxmanrao Apte Prashal, Apte Road; 8. Annasaheb Magar College, Hadapsar and 9. Lonkar Mahavidyalaya Mundhwa.

techtree: Hitachi today announced its Ultra Thin Series of LCD televisions, slated to be on the market by Q1 of 2008.

Hitachi claims the new LCD televisions are over 70 percent thinner than existing ones.

Available in 32-, 37-, and 42- inches sizes, all new LCD TVs measure only 35mm in thickness — what Hitachi claims is the slimmest in the world.

The new series LCD TVs offer freedom of placement, with the monitor separated from the media station. As such, using the optional wireless unit, customers can place the TVs wherever they wish, or connect them to other consumer electronics. Freedom of placement is accentuated by the lightness of the TVs that each weigh not more than 10.9 kgs.

The other thing about these newbies is that they look as sleek and elegant from the back as they look from the front, giving them a sort of 360 degrees aesthetic appeal. Besides, this feature makes them eligible for placement anywhere, not just against a wall.

And, the 32-inches LCD TVs come in four color variations; namely, Black, Red, White, and Blue — again a departure from the norm with respect to flat panel displays.

In addition to the Ultra Thin LCD TV Series, Hitachi has introduced full HD (high definition) Plasma and LCD TVs in India. These are immediately available.

beta: An expedited beta period is planned for the artistic development environment upgrade, which will now enable programmers to build multi-player games for Games for Windows Live.

For the better part of the 1980s, it was the reason young people entered the realm of programming: to have the opportunity to build something worthwhile on their own on a computer, that’s as much fun to make as it is to run, and to exploit that real chance of making it commercial. The greatest game programmers of the 20th century entered this industry through a back-door flung open wide…one that was shut throughout the last decade, as commercial games became multi-million-dollar productions by design.

It was Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio Express which helped reinvigorate the spirit of programming as an art form, especially for an operating system where so little of the development process has recently been considered artistic. Yesterday, the company unveiled its public beta of XNA Game Studio 2.0; and while the “Express” appears to have been dropped, it still appears the company has every intention of distributing the entire toolkit for free.

The big addition to this version is a multi-player enhancement to the SDK, which will enable experimental developers to create games that can be deployed over Games for Windows Live and apparently for Xbox Live as well. But that aspect of the environment - and perhaps even the testing of it - may not be so free after all.

beta:  Internet startup with close ties to, and an existing partnership with, Intel, is planning to release as soon as next month a new online small business suite to directly compete with Microsoft Office Live and Google Apps, BetaNews has learned.

Yesterday, TransMedia’s Glide Digital unit released Glide Crunch, a full-featured spreadsheet application that, while said to be cross-platform, targets Linux users. Following up on that development, BetaNews has learned that the company is looking at December availability for new enterprise and small business editions of its crossplatform office suite for Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile platforms, a product that’s viewed as a competitor to both Microsoft Office and Google Apps.

Beyond simultaneous release this week of the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of the Glide Crunch Spreadsheet, TransMedia is now readying enterprise and small business editions of its full online office suite, first conceived of seven years ago as a cross-platorm alternative to Microsoft Office, BetaNews has learned.

David Schwartz, TransMedia’s senior VP of business development, told BetaNews today that the two upcoming but unannounced business editions — which will add project management and a central archive to existing Glide apps such as a word processor and presentation package — are now eyed for release on December 5.

TransMedia provides the hosting services for the current edition of the Glide suite, which is tailored to individual end users. Schwartz said that TransMedia will likewise host the small business editions.

beta: Verizon announced today’s availability of the Samsung Flipshot 3.0 megapixel cameraphone in the US — a slightly re-tooled version of the previously available A990.

Verizon today announced the availability of Samsung’s new U900 FlipShot camera phone in the US. The 3.0 Mp handset is designed around the camera functions. And its rotating 2.2″ 240 x 430 display is mounted in such a way that it can swivel and lock into a position more like a traditional dedicated digital camera.

If this design looks familliar, it’s because it is a near-clone of the company’s earlier SCH-A990, which was released in 2006. The older model actually featured a higher-resolution camera at 3.2 Mp, and a marginally smaller 240 x 320 display.

zdnet: Haansoft, which represents the Korean side of ‘Asianux consortium’ that Korea, China, Japan, and Vietnam have took part in, announced on Monday, October 15, in the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) being held in Taiwan, that Asianux consortium would collaborate with Intel mobile group to develop Asianux-based mobile OS.

The main goal of collaboration is to develop ‘Asianux’ OS based on Mobile Internet Device (MID) that Intel has brought up as a next generation business.

This announcement stated a continuing collaboration in the filed of marketing after the end of development. It is expected that the collaboration contributes to popularize Linux OS in the world mobile computing market.

Asianux mobile version named as ‘Asianux Mobile Medinux Edition’ (Medinux) is expected to be circulated in the world market by early next year. It will be equipped in various mobile internet devices using Intel Menlow platform.

Medinux, loaded on Intel-based MID, will be released in January 2008. It remarkably increases the connectivity of various mobile internet services and the duration of battery of mobile technologies by being optimized in Intel Menlow platform.

Developers of Asianux, including Haansoft, have established a Medinux-related research center in Beijing and technology support centers in Seoul, Beijing, and Tokyo, in order to strengthen the collaboration with Intel. They plan to set up an additional technology support center in Taiwan.