Go to: http://j.mp/aN2qps and click on Page 4.
The lazy ones can check out the attached PDF (which is legally a
copyright violation...)
Not sure why they have a big red "Expert Opinion" right over my quote.
I'm certainly not an expert. :-)

Note: You get a score for correctly solving each of the python beginners challenges.

You get 0.5 points: If you manage to write a python program that gets the correct answer for the basic challenge, but your program is badly written (i.e. it is difficult to understand, or it is unnecessarily confusing, or something else is particularly bad about the program).
You get 1 points: if you write a program that is correct, as well as easy to understand. This is important. Writing good programs, that others can understand easily, is as important as writing correct programs.
Each challenge has two bonus questions.
You get a additional 1 point for solving bonus question #1.
You get an additional 2 points for solving bonus question #2.

Yesterday I came to know that suddenly a 10-person team with deep Java and enterprise middleware expertise is going to be "on the market" in a few days. Basically, there is a small US-based company which has a development center in Pune. Unfortunately, the company has been hit by the recession and as part of the cutbacks, it is closing the India dev center entirely in the next few days. Which means 10 good people, from juniors, to team leads, to director will soon be on the job market. Note: this is a product company which is selling software products in the enterprise infrastructure space.
 
However, there is a good opportunity here for somebody who might be
interested in hiring the entire team (or most of it). It takes too
much effort to build a good team, and breaking up a team for reasons
that are not related to the performance of the team is a shame and a
waste.
 
At this time, further details cannot be shared publicly, because this
information is not public yet. But if you are interested please get in
touch with us (punetech@punetech.com, or navin@smriti.com) and we can
talk. If you can suggest to us names of people that they (the team)
can approach for a deal like this, please let us know. In general, if
you can think of any other way in which it is a win-win situation for
this team and for any other party, please let us know.
 
Note: PuneTech is doing this solely because it is a "good cause" and
it could significantly benefit both the acquirer and the acquirees.
PuneTech has no financial interest, or indeed any other sort of gain
from this.

We just visited Praj Matrix, a research subsidiary of Praj Industries, a little after Pirangut on the way to Lavasa. Very impressive.

See http://www.praj.net/matrix_innovation.asp for details.

I was too busy being impressed and did not take notes, so I wont be able to write a good, informative article. Rather, let me do an "impressionistic" sketch of what I remember.

They have about 20 PhDs, and 30 Masters amongst a total of 70 scientists and engineers.

They are working on 4 major focus areas:
1. Extracting fuel out of any biological substances - typically waste. So, cobs of corn (after the corn has been removed). Sugarcane remains after the juice has been extracted. Wood chips. Grass. They can extract bio-diesel out of all of this, and this is a fuel that can be burned like any other fuel.

2. Development of special germs (I guess the technical term is micro-organisms) which can be used by other bio-processing industries to do some chemical processing. For example, yeasts and bacteria are used to extract bio-diesel from the biowaste in #1. Similarly development of special enzymes that can be used to do some chemical processing easily. Enzymes are biological catalysts. They are rather expensive compared to "regular" chemical catalysts. But sometimes they can be used to produce some very high value chemical cheaply. Praj Matrix plans to develop such enzymes and sell the technology to others.

3. Developing new kinds of plants/seeds/algae/grass that can be used for #1 above (viz. extracting bio-diesel). The idea would be produce a new kind of crop that requires less water, or produces lots of biodiesel, or can be grown in areas that are not suitable for regular "food" farming.

4. Development of efficient, and proven processes for doing the above things.

Note: this needs three different kinds of expertise - biology, chemical engineering, and process engineering. This is a combination that is not easy to find elsewhere. For example, there might be a research company somewhere that has disovered a new and cool micro-organism ("a funky bug", to use the words of Dr. Balu Sarma, head of Praj Matrix). But they don't have the process engineering expertise to be able to manufature it commercially. That's were Praj Matrix comes in. In its facility, it can figure out and prototype this process.

WARNING: this is not my field. I did not take notes while I was there. And, I have not bothered to do the background research to figure out whether everything I've said is accurate. It is very likely that I've made major mistakes in what I've written. But chances are that, you know less than me, so this article will be useful for you :-) If you are a chemical, biological or process engineer, please doublecheck everything I've said from a more reliable source.

Would I use it to throw simple one-liners? Like, for example, the fact
that there will be an online startup chat this Saturday at 3pm over at
proto.in?