News

indianexpress:  Back pains, damaged vehicles, no school buses and reduced after-school activities, for their school-going children, may all seem a part of a disconnected set of complaints. But the residents of Silver Woods Apartments in Mundhwa will say otherwise. The ire of the residents is directed at the PMC’s road concretisation activity on Mundhwa Road between Kalyani Nagar Bridge and Botanical Gardens and the resultant closure of one-way traffic, which they allege, have elevated the traffic and travel problems in the area, affecting their work and their children’s school schedules.

“The digging and the debris have obstructed the entrance of the building. While pedestrians manage to use the dug-up entrance, vehicle owners are forced to use the back exit that opens into Pimplewasti, and driving on the uneven roads has increased the maintenance cost of our vehicles,” said businessman Jyotesh Narang, referring to the digging that has made passage through the building’s entry, cumbersome.

The residents also lamented that school buses are forced to stop a distance away from the building. “School buses refuse to come in through the one-way as it would mean that they would be forced to take a full round to return. The bus stops on the other side of the Ghorpadi railway crossing and we have to pick the children from that spot,” said Abizer Karachiwalla whose daughter goes to Vibgyor High School on NIBM Road. “There have been instances when the children have disembarked from the buses, while the parents are stranded in traffic on this side.”

The one-way has doubled their traveling time claim the residents. “It now takes us an hour at least to cover a distance which we would have covered in a matter of minutes earlier,” said Narang.

indianexpress: It was a day of embarrassment at the Pune Municipal Corporation. In the first case, the State Government faulted the elected representatives and in the second, the civic administration received serious warning about implementation of the works under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

To start with, corporators today received a setback as the State Government asked them to rethink their decision to shelve the administration’s proposal for allotting the garbage collection work to a co-operative society on the grounds that it was not in public interest. A PMC general body meeting held on July 30 had shelved the civic administration’s proposal and called for re-tendering of the proposal on garbage collection.

“The general body has not given any reason while shelving the proposal and the decision is against public interest,” State Urban Development Department said in a letter to PMC. It said there was no reason for the general body to call for re-tendering of the proposal as it would lead to waste of time in execution of the project to collect 500-1000 mega tonne garbage every day.

“Therefore, the government has under section 451 of MRTP Act of 1949 decided to cancel the PMC general body decision,” the letter said. It urged the corporators to submit suggestions or objections against the state government decision within 30 days.

Municipal secretary Sharad Samel has requested Mayor Rajlakshmi Bhosale to call for a special general body meeting to discuss on the government directives.

indianexpress:  A Junior non-commissioned (NCO) officer with the Air Force Police in Lohegaon was returning to Pune by the 2780 Goa Express when a window-pane snapped shut on his right hand, costing him his thumb.
There was more shock for the 21-year-old as he found that even basic medical facilities were not available with the railways.

The incident occurred near Mathura around 4 pm on Thursday. Vipin Suhag, a native of Haryana, had boarded the train at Nizamuddin, quickly grabbing the window seat. Just as the train was about 20 minutes from the Mathura railway station, the window rattled and crashed on Suhag’s left hand, severing his thumb a little below his fingernail. “While the severed part of my thumb fell out of the window, I had already started feeling dizzy, owing to excessive loss of blood,” recalled Suhag, adding, he vaguely remembered the commotion that surrounded him as his fellow passengers searched for the TTE.

“No one knew where the first aid kit was and we were shuffling from the pantry car to the other bogies, before someone finally directed us to the first class compartment. We found the kit, but it did not even have a bandage or other essentials,” said Suhag. The victim finally found a welcome saviour in an Army Medical College doctor who bandaged the stump with a cloth, attempting to prevent further blood loss.

indianexpress: The Pune Municipal Corporation has bagged the World Leadership Forum award for developing a special software for automatic scrutiny of building proposals, beating competitors Los Angeles and Lagos in the architecture and civil engineering category. The World Leadership Forum had recently chosen Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, as their Policymaker of the Year.

Vying for global honours, the PMC was invited by the London-based World Leadership Forum to participate in the contest which is considered as a benchmark honour for civic bodies across the world. The PMC had sent its Unwire Pune project in the science and technology category, Auto DCR, a special software for automatic scrutiny of building proposals, and self help groups programme in the employment category but only two proposals - Auto DCR and Unwire Pune made it to the final round.

“The Auto DCR software of the PMC has bagged the international award of the World Leadership Forum,” PMC City Engineer Prashant Waghmare announced through a press release.

Pitted against Los Angeles and Lagos civic bodies, the PMC team consisting of four officers along with Mayor Rajlakshmi Bhosale made a presentation on the software before the judges in London on the morning of December 6 and the award was announced on the same evening.

indianexpress: The State Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) today arrested two traffic policemen for accepting a bribe of Rs 4,000 from a truck driver.

The accused were identified as Police Naik Atmaram Bhagwant Thakur and Police Constable Hussain Lokhande, both attached to the Chatushrungi traffic police branch.

According to the ACB sources, the duo was on duty near the Aundh traffic chowkie when they caught a truck over loaded with mud at around 6.30 am.

They asked the truck driver Santosh Vitthal Hagawane to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 and further demanded a bribe of Rs 5,000 for releasing his truck.

The policemen told the truck driver that they would leave his truck unless he pays the desired amount. The driver left the place saying that he was not having enough money and he will bring it in the evening. But the driver went to the Pune office of ACB and lodged a complaint against the policemen.

Acting on it, a team of ACB sleuths including police inspector B R Patil and police inspector Dayanand Dhome laid a trap near Aundh police chowki around 5 pm and nabbed the traffic cops red-handed while accepting bribe from Hagawane. The Chatushringi police is investigating.

indianexpress:  Sassoon General Hospital’s six-month trial on the use of ayurvedic treatment to control diabetes has provided a ray of hope. In what can be termed as a breakthrough of sorts, a majority of diabetic patients in the clinical trial showed relief of symptoms in just two months of ayurvedic treatment, while one diabetic patient successfully managed on ayurvedic treatment without insulin.

The clinical trial on 63 patients was undertaken to find out the effect of ayurvedic treatment on diabetic patients. Around 46 patients (73 per cent) responded to ayurvedic diabetic treatment, where a statistically significant difference was found in the blood sugar levels. One out of 14 Type 1 diabetic patient successfully managed on ayurvedic treatment without insulin, while nine patients of Type 1 diabetes (those requiring insulin) showed reduction in the dosage of insulin from 35 units to 21.6 units.

Dr Sarita Gaikwad, Head of the Department of Ayurved, Sassoon General Hospital, told The Indian Express that a majority of patients showed relief. The effect of the ayurvedic diabetic therapy was more pronounced in patients with Type 2 diabetes (those not requiring insulin). Allopathic drugs were completely stopped in 19 patients, whereas in 14 patients the dosage was reduced after 180 days of treatment. While 43 participants in the study were males, there were two children below 10 years. The average age group was 31 and above. Co-researchers of the study included Dr D B Kadam, professor of medicine at SGH and Dr P S Pawar, Medical Superintendent of SGH. Patients were given Madhusar granules of 5 gms twice a day and half the dose was given to children, said Pawar.

techtree: Lenovo has unveiled its Y510 entertainment notebook PC, which marries cutting-edge multimedia with design.

The Y510 breaks away from the typical gloss and matt finish, introducing a styled light-weave texture for a classy, elegant look.

The 2.77 kg notebook’s 15-inch monitor comes with a border-less screen, while the keyboard is inspired by Lenovo’s ThinkPad design.

The Y510 introduces a Dolby 4.1 Home Theater speaker system for enhanced sound output for movies, videos, music, and games. It comes with four speakers and a sub-woofer for superior output. A built-in TV tuner card helps ensure television connectivity, accentuating the multimedia experience.

The Y510 features a 160GB SATA hard disk, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 802.11 Wi-Fi, and Vista Home Basic/Premium version. It incorporates a 6-in-1 multi-card reader for downloading digital pictures from multiple types of memory cards; a slot-in optical drive for ease of use; and a 1.3 mega pixels integrated camera.

Besides, the notebook has Veriface face recognition software to give users a secure way to log on to it. And One Key Recovery helps restore factory pre-load settings. The notebook has a battery life of 4 hours.

techtree: LG Electronics has recently launched its R200, the first notebook with a 2.5-inches auxiliary LCD display on top.

Thanks to this auxiliary display, the R200 provides powerful new ways of accessing information instantly, and using emails, documents, photos, and music without having to boot the system.

The piano Black R200 features ‘Sideshow’, which offers the convenience of viewing a slide-show, listening to music, and even accessing Windows Mail without having to boot the system.

The notebook features a 12-inches wide-screen, Intel Core2 Duo processor, 1 GB RAM (667), 160GB HDD, the latest ATI Mobility Radeon HD2400 graphics, and built-in Bluetooth/Intel Wireless (802.11 abg).

It supports the latest audio technology for cinema-quality sound, and enhanced virtual surround sound.

techtree: Transcend has introduced its largest capacity card till date — a 16GB Class 6 SDHC card.

This card is based on a new generation of SD cards (SD 2.0 ) that support the FAT32 file system format.

It is fully class 6 compliant, and features fast data transfer speeds (guaranteed minimum write speed of 6MB/s) to meet the high-capacity demands of today’s SDHC devices.

With 16GB memory, users can store thousands of images and video clips or complete full-length high quality movies.

The SDHC card comes with special features such as a mechanical write protection switch for keeping important data safe from accidental deletion or over-writing; and ECC or Error Correcting Code for automatic detection and correction of errors during data transfer.

Transcend claims all its SDHC cards are comprehensively tested for compatibility and reliability

techtree: Microsoft and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) Consortium have announced a joint standards-based development project that will make it possible for computer users who are blind or print disabled to make better use of assistive technology in their daily lives.

The project will enable translation of millions of Open XML documents into DAISY XML, which is the lingua franca for digital talking books.

Yes, in recent times, individuals with print disabilities have been accessing information using assistive technologies, including screen readers, large print, refreshable Braille, and text-to-speech synthesizers. But their problem is they cannot visually navigate complex page layouts.

DAISY publications have a structure, which makes it possible for these individuals to navigate quickly by heading or page number, and by using indexes and references — all with correctly ordered, synchronized audio and text.

DAISY material can be played on dedicated devices or PCs by installing special software. DAISY specifications are usually shaped from feedback gotten from talking to book users, etc.

Dipendra Manocha, director (IT & Services) of the National Association for Blind (NAB), welcomed the initiative, saying that with the largest blind population in the world, India needs initiatives like these to redress the problems faced by the visually challenged.

George Kerscher, secretary general of the DAISY Consortium, said that in this information age, access to information is a fundamental human right, which is why leading organizations of and for the blind throughout the world are committed to the advancement of the DAISY standard