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indianexpress: After sky bus, tram and metro it’s now the turn of monorail to have caught the fancy of planners as an alternative mode of transportation for the city. Just as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning a monorail for the state capital, the Pune Metropolitan Area (PMR) is looking for monorail as solution to the city’s traffic congestion.

But with no Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) in place, the metropolitan commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad had no option but turn to MMRDA to bring out a request for qualification (RFQ) of bids for the Pune project. The advertisement, taken out on Wednesday under the banner of MMRDA as a ‘Corrigendum’ to a notification dated November 12, comes with strap line — “RFQ for bidders for implementation of monorail system in Mumbai Metropolitan Region.”

The insertion says: “The Pune metropolitan area is rapidly expanding metropolis of the country which is also looking for solution of monorail transport system in their area on similar lines of Mumbai. In view of this, the revised scope of bidders also includes implementation of monorail system on route length of 20 to 25 km in Pune Metropolitan Area on turnkey basis and operation & maintenance for a minimum period of three years.”

“We would be tapping the possibility of monorail system for Pune region as it could be implemented immediately with comparatively low cost. There is no need to develop new corridors for the implementation of monorail system and we can use the existing infrastructure,” said municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi, when asked about the initiative.

It may be recalled that in September, following an eight-part series on the city’s traffic problems, The Indian Express had organised a round table conference of stakeholders where the municipal commissioner had promised that all alternative options would be tapped.

indianexpress: Even though Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had announced a new Pune-Nashik train during the last railway budget, its status is not clear yet. Officials at the Central Railway headquarters in Mumbai and the Pune division headquarters in the city are totally clueless as to when the new train will be inaugurated because the Railway Board is yet to take a decision on the matter.

M.G. Dhamangaonkar, additional divisional railway manager of Central Railways (Pune division) told The Indian Express, “The Pune-Nashik route falls under three divisions of the Central Railway — Pune, Mumbai and Bhusawal. So whenever more than one divisions are involved in any of the Central Railway projects, the decision is taken by the headquarter (Mumbai) office. Therefore we are not exactly aware of the where the proposal exactly is. But, once the go-ahead is received, it is possible to start the train service in the current financial year.”

When contacted, the senior spokesperson headquarter office, Central Railways, C. Pitambaran said, “There were two routes proposed for the Pune-Nashik train — the Pune-Daund-Manmad-Nashik route and the Karjat-Panvel-Kalyan-Nashik route. Out of the two, the Central Railway has given approval to the Kalyan route. However, it will take more than seven hours to traverse the distance between the two cities.

“The modalities of this train like how many number of rakes the train will have and the ticket prices are to be fixed up by the Railway Board. But it is difficult to predict when the train will actually start operating,” Pitambaran added.

indianexpress: Shanghai-dreaming Mumbai has received a wake-up call from the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC)— “the recent incidents of flooding and waterlogging in Mumbai have highlighted its creaking infrastructure’’.
In its report on local governance presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Tuesday, the commission said “in addition to economic policy changes…”, Mumbai needs urgent reforms “for world class infrastructure and amenities”.

Pointing out that “the rising influx of migrants is putting pressure on land and services’’ and Mumbai is set to become the second most populous city in the world after Mexico City by 2020, the report says “less than a quarter of the population have the physical and financial access to good housing”, and the shortage of good housing makes it one of the most expensive cities in the world”.

The report, at the same time, points out that Mumbai is the 10th most important financial hub in the world today. Recommending a remedy for the megacity’s ailing infrastructure, the commission proposes: “Public-private partnership projects for re-development of inner city areas need to be encouraged through a transparent and well structured regulatory regime of incentives and penalties”.

Agreeing with the suggestion, chairman and country head, Joneslang and Lassalld, Anuj Puri says while transparent public-private partnership is needed, lot more needs to be done for making Mumbai an international financial hub. “The city has a very strategic position in the country due to the time zone between London and Hong Kong; the stock market and corporate governance ranks in the top three in the world,’’ he says.

indianexpress: Alleging that the the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officers have failed to abide by the order of information commissioner to penalise two of its officers for delaying the information sought, the applicant has demanded strict action against the officers for the contempt of commission order.
 
“The appeal authority in PMC have failed to execute the order of information commissioner and instead demanded Rs 300 fee for furnishing the photo copy of the information sought,” RTI applicant Shivdas Salunkhe said. He has urged the information commissioner Vijay Kuwalekar to initiate strict action against the officers concerned for contempt of commission by not executing the order.

Salunkhe had filed a RTI application on March 8, 2006 urging the PMC to furnish him the map of a building in Erandwane along with the completion certificate. With no information provided within the stipulated 30 days, the applicant filed an appeal authority city engineer Prashant Waghmare. However, the applicant filed second appeal with the information commissioner after not receiving satisfactory reply.

After conducting a public hearing, information commissioner Vijay Kuwalekar on July 7, 2007 penalised Rs 5,500 each to two PMC officers Shantaram Thorat and Suresh Kadu for not furnishing the information sought by the applicant in time.

The information commissioner also directed the city engineer to deduct the penalty amount from the July salary of the two officers and deposit it to the commission while directing the information officer to furnish the information to applicant free of cost by July 20. It also urged the city engineer to execute the order and submit the report by August 5.

indianexpress:  Pune, at least 150 km off the nearest coast, is a haven for fish-eaters. It brings in fish from as far off as Ratnagiri, Betul (Goa), Veraval (Gujarat), Tuticorin (Tamil Nadu) and Vizag (Andhra Pradesh). For the uninitiated, Puneikars consume as much as eight to 10 tonnes of fish on a given day.

However, a combination of factors — rising demand and reduced supply — has led to an escalation in prices during the last fortnight. This is an aberration given that the onset of winter also signals a drop in prices, with November-January being the months that price of fish drops to its lowest during the entire year.

Wholesale trader Datta Taru said the supply of fish was stable, yet due to rising demand, prices have gone up. “On an average, eight to 10 tonnes of fish come into Pune each day during winter. This time there is a significant diversion into the export markets and also many non-traditional pockets are turning to be more profitable for the suppliers,” he said.

Rafiq Shaikh, a retail vendor, said more fish was finding its way to cold storages: “The cyclone in Bangladesh too has affected the supply. Exports are also squeezing the domestic supply.”

Said wholesaler Vijay Pardeshi, “During winter the catch is good but the demand seems to have picked up in the last fortnight, leading to a rise in prices. But post-Diwali, prices are up as the demand for fish has also gone up.”

indianexpress: Constro 2007, an exhibition for builders and promoters, was inaugurated in the city on Wednesday at the grounds of the College of Engineering and will continue till December 2.

Speaking at the occasion, divisional commissioner Nitin Kareer said exhibitions like these enhanced the prestige of the city.

The exhibition would help businessmen increase trade with other countries, added M D Mallaya, chairman and managing director of Bank of Maharashtra, who was chief guest at the exhibition.

“New technologies from other countries mixed with indigenous systems can do wonders for the nation which is growing at a fast pace in the construction and infrastructure sector,” Mallaya said.

The organisers said that the construction sector was one of the largest employers in the country and set to grow at a fast pace in the country, including Pune.

A special seminar on malls, multiplexes and IT Parks would also be organised on Friday and Saturday, while the Builders Association of India (BAI) would host its meeting in the city and giving away the ‘Well Built Structure awards’ for builders and buildings of the city.

Apart from the international centre, the other highlights of the exhibition included a musical fountain, water body-raised platforms, water screens and landscaping surrounding intelligent homes, a live demonstration of electronic doors and working lifts and a truck mounted fire extinguisher for the upcoming multistoreyed structures and buildings.

indianexpress:  Fond of feather friends? Here’s a chance to understand them better as the fourth certificate course in basic ornithology will get underway from December 17 at Abasaheb Garware college. Organised by the ELA foundation and the Abasaheb Garware College, the course aims at promoting scientific awareness about birds, avian ecology and conservation aspects among people.

There will be around 40 bi-weekly audio-visual lectures and demonstrations on avian anatomical adaptations, physiology, migration, bird flight, breeding and roosting behaviour, identification, bird photography, bird call recording, cultural aspects, archaeo-zoological aspects, birds as pest controllers, environmental law. Apart from four field visits, participants will also be taken to the Zoological Survey of India and Bird Orphanage to learn about preserved bird skins, biometry and bird first aid and care, Dr Satish Pande, founder trustee of the Ela foundation said and avid ornithologist said.

The course participants in association with other NGO’s and forest department successfully carried out the counting of Indian Peacocks at Morachi Chincholi for the first time. So also a project on installation of artificial nest boxes for hole nesting birds is undertaken with the involvement of PMC and this work is underway. Several birds have been rescued and successfully released in nature by the course participants and some are also carrying their own research studies on birds and two publications are in the pipeline. Anyone who has passed Standard XI is eligible to join this course conducted in English. The previous courses has so far seen the participation of doctors, engineers, software personnel, lawyers, journalists, junior and senior college students.

Participants can contact Dr. Sanjay Kharat, course coordinator or SN Suryawanshi HOD, Zoology Department of MES College between 10.30 am till 4 pm on working days at the Abasaheb Garware College.

techtree: Philips Electronics has introduced its new range of Ambilight FlatTVs in India that feature new LED (Light Emitting Diode) illumination, and proprietary Perfect Pixel HD Engine technologies, along with future proof full HD (high definition) screen display of 1920 x 1080p resolution.

Basically, Philips’ Ambilight technology enhances TV viewing by projecting background lighting from the rear of the FlatTV unit onto the wall.

The new range Ambilight FlatTVs come with new LED illumination for generating more saturated colors, plus a more compact set design. The Ambilight operation is designed to suit individual preferences, and can be adjusted to three preset modes, including Relaxed, Moderate, and Dynamic.

The Relaxed mode enables slow- color and brightness changes; the moderate mode is for general movie viewing; while the Dynamic mode is for maximizing color- and brightness- for a more intense viewing experience.

The new Ambilight FlatTVs also feature a mix of proprietary Perfect Pixel HD Engine technologies for picture quality improvement. These include: 100Hz ClearLCD, HD Natural Motion, Horizontal and Vertical Luminance Transient Improvement (LTI), and Color Booster.

Perfect Pixel HD Engine technologies, according to Philips, deliver more advanced video-signal processing than any other system on the market. Thanks to the 14-bit color processing, and Philips’ Color Booster that gives vivid colors with natural skin tones, better color saturation is achieved, creating a color palette of nearly 4 trillion colors.

techtree: Norway-based Kristanix Software has released “Web Button Maker Deluxe 3″, which the company claims is the most professional tool for designing Vista- and Mac- style buttons for Web sites.

The good part about this tool is that it enables creating professional buttons and adding them to Web pages in minutes, whether you are a Web designer or a business person or a hobbyist.

With “Web Button Maker Deluxe”, you can create animated buttons, and use different button designs for normal buttons, mouse-over buttons, and mouse-down buttons.

The program packs over 200 professionally designed, ready-to-use button templates and background textures.

And unlike other button tools, there are no static images as templates; rather, effects are dynamically created, and customized for optimal quality.

Each button can be fine-tuned with respect to every detail, be it color or shape or font. It can have solid colors or gradients, and a range of special effects. Further, the transparency levels of these effects can be adjusted. And, icons added to the buttons.

“Web Button Maker Deluxe” is also capable of creating custom HTML required to make the buttons function on the user’s Web site.

techtree: WebEx, a leading provider of on-demand applications for collaborative business on the Web, has released a co-browsing plug-in for Yahoo! Messenger.

With the WebEx branded plug-in, instant messaging (IM) users can ‘co-browse’, and view a Web site together via Yahoo! Messenger.

WebEx says the plug-in has been developed to enable tens of millions of Yahoo! Messenger users worldwide to easily interact and collaborate in real time during their live Web searches.

Thanks to the plug-in, users will no longer need to email- or instant message- Web links to and fro. They will be able to simultaneously view and collaborate on Web searches, which is just right for shopping or party planning or picture viewing.

Kiran Datar, managing director of WebEx Communications India, said that with the new co-browsing plug-in, they are extending reach beyond meetings and trainings into everyday instant messaging sessions.

To access the WebEx co-browsing plug-in, go to the Plug-in Picker within the Yahoo! Messenger Client. Else, it can be downloaded at: www.webex.com/go/yahoo.