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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
ABYTE OF LIFE
WINDOW SHOPPER
Peek-a-boo Patterns for homefurnishings and furniture for kids
FREE CIRCULATION
Vol. 3No. 122
05
A group of software professionals is on adrive to collect educational material, oldor new, to help corporation schoolchildren this academic year
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Page 03
 
ERGO
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
NAMMA CHENNAI
02
Explosive devicecreates flutterat airport
P
anic prevailed for a short whileoutside the Chennai airport onTuesday morning after a bomb wasfound in the car parking area on thepremises. A police bomb disposal squadrushed in to remove the explosive anddiffused it later.According to police sources at theairport, the bomb, believed to be usedfor military training purposes, was foundby members of the public around 9 a.m.in the parking lot between the domesticand international terminals. The airportauthorities were alerted and a policebomb disposal squad with a sniffer dogwas commissioned to the spot.The explosive was safely removed fromthe location and taken to an isolatedlocation and diffused, police added.An investigation is underway on howthe bomb came to the airport premises.
The bomb that was seized at Chennaiairport on Tuesday morning.
PHOTO: A. MURALITHARAN
 T
he short messaging service(SMS) facility that helpspublic lodge their com-plaints instantaneously hasreceived an overwhelming re-sponse from Chennaiites.Launched on June 23 by theChennai City Police, the link re-ceives over 1,500 texts messagesper day on an average.Complaints like eve-teasing,domestic violence, clashes inpublic or any hin-drance to a law and or-der situation can beSMSed to 9500099100.The message will beautomatically divertedto the concerned po-lice limits inside thecity with the help of asoftware namedSMART SYS. The SMScomplaint facility hasbeen developed by D3D Technologies,Chennai, in associa-tion with City Police. A special controlroom headed by an In-spector of Police and15 police personnelhas been set up in theCommissionerate toattend to SMS complaints. Oncean SMS is received, the softwareinstalled in the control room au-tomatically segregates the com-plaints and forwards them to theconcerned police departments.“We receive lot of cases on eve-teasing, petty clashes and evendomestic violence in the city. Wereceived over 2,500 SMS texts onthe very first day the facility waslaunched,” said an officer at-tached to the control room. According to V. Priya of D3DTechnologies, the mobile num-ber is a toll-free number linkedthrough a GSM medium. “Thesoftware SMART SYS works basedon a public-police interface sys-tem aimed at assisting the regularbeat policing. Even if a text mes-sage is inarticulate or incomplete,the software has the capability topick up key words and segregateit to be forwarded to the con-cerned officer,” added Priya.D3D Technologies also intro-duced a similar SMS complaintfacility in Madurai and Virudhu-nagar districts in March 2008.City Police Commissioner T.Rajendran said that police havetaken immediate action on somespecific complaints that were re-ceived through SMS and have al-so informed the complainant onthe steps taken.
ERGO CORRESPONDENT
 feedback@goergo.in
Even if a textmessage isinarticulate orincomplete,the softwarehas thecapability topick up keywords andsegregate it tobe forwardedto theconcernedofficer
SMS complaintsa big hit
Online shopping store
Www.nightingalestore.com could be your new stop ifyou are looking for Nightingale products like journals,diaries, office stationary, etc.
Helpline 9500099100 received over  2,500 police complaints on day one itself 
 
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
03
I
t wasn’t another aimless stroll thatPriyesh C., then working with Sil-verline Technologies in Teynam-pet, had taken during a lunch break between his office hours.“A government-run school for men-tally challenged girls, situated nearSIET College, had caught my attention.For three-four days I kept insisting thatthey allow me in but they wouldn’t,saying it was only for girls. Finally, onthe fifth day I got in,” recalls Priyesh.Moved by the plight of the children hestarted by contributing educationalmaterial in the form of notebooks anduniforms. His four project-mates, who were equally motivated to take upsome social responsibility, joined Pri- yesh.The team made weekly visits, dis-tributed stationery, contributed amonthly fee for a child’s education andconducted games. The support contin-ued until their office shifted from thelocality and Priyesh got involved withanother institution. But their supportin terms of money, materials and timecontinued and further expanded, andHelp to Live was formed.The NGO is today eight years old, aregistered body and run by a group of software engineers who take time away from work to give their mite to under-privileged children.
Eight long years
Lending help for around eight yearsis not easy, especially in a profession where everybody is on the fast lane.That’s where its Yahoo! group came of great support.“Our core team comprises around 10people and we meet every month, whereas we have around 350 softwarefriends as members, a majority of themactive on Yahoo!,” explain Priyesh, anemployee of Mphasis. Members chan-nelise money and education materialfor children’s education.“In fact, we started our initiative with an exercise of collecting uniformsfor a corporation school. It was purely through word-of-mouth that we reac-hed out and in the process many  joined us,” says the engineer.Over the years the group has adopt-ed two institutions – one corporationschool in Mint Street and the other inTiruvallur district. “We collect aroundRs. 50,000 per month as funds from thegroup, but we still need more helping hands to carry out our projects.”
 You can help
 With the new academic year having begun, members of Help to Live are ona drive collecting educational materialfor the corporation children. The drivehas already begun in some of themembers’ offices, L&T and Mphasis,for example, where mailers are sentasking employees to donate unused/used geometry boxes, water bottles,books and other stationery. But it isstill in need of more and wants all youprofessionals to contribute.Besides, the group is also looking forvolunteers who could lend a helping hand any two weekends.
You could coordinate with Santhosh(9840743066) to hand over your sta-tionery.
Visit them at www.helptolive.org or email helptolive@yahoo.com
LIFFY THOMAS
liffythomas@goergo.in
   P   H   O   T   O  :   N .   B   A   S   H   K   A   R   A   N
Priyesh, Karthik and Santhosh
BETTER USEFOR YOURSTATIONERY 
 A group of software professionals is on adrive to collect educational material, old or new, to help corporation school childrenthis academic year. Could you help?
For her
Titan Eye Plus has launched Enigma, a collection of optical frames thatcelebrates the various facets of a woman’s personality. There are around50 designs in the collection, with motifs like florals, polka dots, sinuouscurves and textured temples. It is priced between Rs. 1, 200 and Rs.3,200, available across all Titan Eye Plus outlets.
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