Bangalore 365

BENGALURU, India — State-owned communication services provider Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. on Monday (Sept. 24) launched what it claims is the world’s first utility computing service. The service, which treats computing as a commodity rather than as a product, uses a low-cost home computing platform launched by Novatium (Chennai, India). Source: eetimes

The Novatium netPC costs $50 without a monitor, and $125 with a monitor. It is available at a monthly subscription fee of $10, including 30 hours of Internet access. So far, the service is only available in New Delhi.

Based on Novatium’s patented technology called Desktop Utility Delivery Model, the service was developed with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai.

The service will help deliver computing to Mahanagar’s fixed-line customers. The carrier hopes to usher in a “computing and broadband revolution in the country,” said R.S.P. Sinha, Mahanagar’s chairman and managing director.

Novatium has applied for eight global patents for its netPC. The service was launched after a pilot program in Chennai. A national launch is scheduled for later this year.

“We are now looking at attaining a subscriber base of 25,000 in New Delhi [during] financial year 2007,” said Alok Singh, chief executive of Novatium.

Customers will be able to store data and files on servers where hard drives or CPUs are hosted and connected by wireline or wireless media. The netPC architecture eliminates PC or thin client components.

The netPC includes a keyboard, screen, USB ports and uses a central network server to run software applications and store data. It works with most network servers running Windows, Linux or Solaris operating systems.

Rajesh Jain, an entrepreneur who once ran one of India’s best-known Web portals, and Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor of electrical engineering at IIT, Chennai, are also helping to promote the system.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is also pursuing proposals to make notebook PCs available for as little as $10. It is working with IIT on the notebook initiative.

With the IT city fast emerging as a global health destination, Tanzania is looking at tie-ups with two Bangalore-based hospitals for telemedicine.

“Lions Club of Dar Es Salam is seriously contemplating tie-ups with Narayana Hrudayalaya and Manipal Hospital in Bangalore in the sphere of telemedicine in the coming years,” Lion’s Club President Hyderali Gangji told PTI on Tuesday. Gangji is here as part of the club’s “Heart Babies Project” wherein 41 poor patients from Tanzania, including 28 children, underwent surgery for congenital and rheumatic heart diseases at Narayana Hrudayalaya. The “cost of surgery here was much lower compared to South A frica, UK and the US while the quality matched global standards,” he said.

“We will be bringing in 160 more Tanzanian children in the coming months for heart surgeries at Narayana Hrudayalaya and Manipal Hospital,” he said. India is a preferred destination for surgeries because of cost effectiveness and high success rates. “C ost of heart surgery at Bangalore is $1,650 (excluding cost of valves) and a month’s stay,” Mr Gangji said.

Over 1,300 surgeries have been facilitated through this initiative which was heralded by Dr Rajni Kanabar way back in 1979. One in every 150 children in Tanzania is born with congenital heart defect and over 7,000 children with congenital heart diseases await open heart surgeries which cannot be taken up due to lack of sophisticated surgery centre in the country and they lack the means to go abroad for treatment. – PTI

The Bangalore police have rounded up 24 people to ascertain who were behind Tuesday night’s attack on the residence here of Selvi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s daughter, and the subsequent burning of a Tamil Nadu State Express Transport Corporation bus on the outskirts of the city, in which two passengers were charred to death.

Police Commissioner Neelam Achuta Rao told The Hindu on Wednesday that it was too early to conclude whether the two incidents were related. The descriptions of the attackers given by the security guard at Ms. Selvi’s house in the J.P. Nagar police station limits and by the bus driver did not tally, Mr. Rao said.

However, the possibility of two groups from the same organisation carrying out the attacks could not be ruled out. There was no information to indicate that Sangh Parivar activists were involved in the attacks as was being rumoured, Mr. Rao said.

There is speculation that the attacks were a sequel to Mr. Karunanidhi’s remarks on Rama in the context of the Sethusamudram project.

Ten minutes after the attack on Ms. Selvi’s house, a person, claiming to be a member of a Parivar organisation, called up this correspondent to inform him of the incident and asked that a photographer be sent to the spot.

Mr. Rao said patrolling was intensified in the city and pickets were posted on important roads. The police were yet to establish the identity of the deceased bus passengers.

Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Home Minister M.P. Prakash condemned the attacks. Mr. Prakash had a telephonic conversation with Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Mr. Karunanidhi.

Following the torching of the bus, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation on Tuesday night cancelled six Chennai-bound services. The Tamil Nadu Transport Corporation also suspended its services. The two corporations resumed regular operations after 10 a.m. on Wednesday. Source:Hindu