Category Archives: World Opinion

Biryani magic! Hyderabad declared ‘creative’ city in gastronomy category by UNESCO

Hyderabad is one of the two cities from India, among the total 66 smart cities selected by the UNESCO across the globe.

Image of biryani used for representational purposes.

Hyderabad :

The city of Hyderabad has been adjudged as ‘Creative City’ in gastronomy category by the UNESCO on the occasion of World Cities Day on Thursday.

Hyderabad is one of the two cities from India, among the total 66 smart cities selected by the UNESCO across the globe. The other city from India, Mumbai has been selected as a smart city in the film category.

Municipal administration and industries minister KT Rama Rao expressed happiness over Hyderabad’s ranking.  “It is a great effort by principal secretary municipal administration Arvind Kumar and his team,” Rama Rao said.

It may be mentioned here that Hyderabad has a number of starred restaurants and known for the delicious “Hyderabad Biryani”. The city of pearls is also famous for its rich food culture and heritage.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Express News Service / October 31st, 2019

Joint venture to develop aircraft leasing solution

City start-up Avrexsee Enterprises and Selom Aviation of Ireland are joining hands to develop a technologically-advanced aircraft leasing and asset management solution. Their proposed joint venture (JV), with an initial investment of $1 million, is expected to develop Civil Aircraft Asset Management Solutions (CAAMS) within 18 months. With that, the JV would address the global market.

The focus would be on potential customers such as airline operators, aircraft leasing companies, MROs in Ireland, the U.K., Europe and the U.S. Addressing media here on Tuesday, Avrexsee Enterprises founder and director Maneesh Singh said CAAMS as a product would ideally be developed and managed from Hyderabad. The sales interfaces would be through Selom Aviation. “We have already received some traction and are currently in dialogues with aircraft leasing companies in Dublin. Hyderabad’s product development facility will also enable this as an experiential training centre for some of the qualified engineers as aspirants to learn these advanced technologies and seek their career progression in aerospace and defence industry,” he said.

Stating that the team would be working with start-up incubator T-Hub, Mr. Singh said, “We have selection processes aligned accordingly and welcome partners in areas of AI, AR and RFID technologies”.

A release said the CAAMS is a product solution with automated and optimised business processes related to aircraft asset lease management and transition, aircraft sales transfer, aircraft inspection management, document management and GIS Integration.

Selom Aviation director Ravi Reddy said the CAAMS would help in addressing the needs of most of his firm’s customers such as aircraft leasing companies and aircraft owners. With Dublin being a major aircraft leasing hub globally, the plan is to promote CAAMS from there to enable near-shore product support and related managed services.

Mr. Singh said in five years the JV would be raising $5 million investment to scale up operations and develop more products.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – October 30th, 2019

Astra Rafael opens first Indian facility in Hyderabad

It is country’s first pvt sector manufacturer for defence communication systems

Minister G Kishan Reddy inaugurates the ARC facility on Tuesday (Photo |EPS)

Hyderabad :

Astra Rafael Communication System, a joint venture between Astra Microwave and Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd, on Tuesday inaugurated a state-of-the-art facility to manufacture tactical communications system (BNET) for the Indian Armed Forces. 

Set up at an investment of `35 crore at the Hardware Technology Park near Shamshabad Airport, the ARC would be India’s first private sector company to manufacture communication systems in multiple variants. The joint venture will start with $30 million order for providing software-defined radios for the Indian Air Force (IAF), Rafael’s CEO Yoav Har-Even told reporters.

The production facility would be manufacturing radio models such as BNET-V (Vehicular) Broadband IP Radio, BNET-AR (Air) Broadband IP Radio, BNET-MPS (Man-Pack System) Broadband Radio, BNET-HH (Handheld) Broadband Radio and C4I Connect —a secured tactical network.

Gurunatha Reddy, MD of Astra Microwave Products Ltd, said that as of now the joint venture would concentrate on manufacturing, but later would graduate towards design and development of equipment for defence communication. “We will also get into electronic warfare and signal intelligent systems as we go forward,” he added.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy, who was the chief guest at the event, pointed out that the Centre has taken numerous steps to boost indigenous production as part of Make in India. He also said that the FDI was being encouraged in railways and defence. 

Also present at the inauguration was IT and Industries secretary Jayesh Ranjan, who hoped that Israeli companies would invest not only for manufacturing joint ventures but also in design JVs. “Just as Hyderabad is becoming the defence and aerospace capital of the country, we would like to play a significant role in the design ecosystem also. If we could get Rafael and other Israeli players in Hyderabad we would support it,” he said.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express News Service / August 28th, 2019

P.V. Sindhu becomes first Indian to win Badminton World Championships gold

India’s Pusarla Sindhu in action during her final women’s singles match.   | Photo Credit: Reuters

The Badminton Association of India has announced a cash reward of ₹20 lakh for Sindhu and ₹5 lakh for B. Sai Praneeth who won a bronze in the BWF World Championship,

P.V. Sindhu on Sunday became the first Indian to win a Badminton World Championships gold by beating familiar rival Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in a lop-sided final here on Sunday.

The Indian won 21-7 21-7 in the summit clash that lasted just 38 minutes.

Two years after being robbed off the gold by Okuhara in an epic 110-minute final at Glasgow that went down as one of the greatest battles in badminton history, Sindhu finally exorcised the ghost of that heart-wrenching loss with a completely dominating win over the same opponent.

It was Sindhu’s fifth World Championships medal — joint most for a woman singles player with former Olympics and world champion Zhang Ning of China — to go with the two successive silvers and a couple of bronze medals.

Sindhu has also won an Olympic silver in 2016 Rio Games, a silver at Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, an Asian Games silver at Jakarta and the BWF World Tour Finals last year.

The fifth seeded Indian, who enjoyed a 8-7 head-to-head lead over third seeded Okuhara ahead of Sunday’s contest, was simply unstoppable as she dished out an attacking game right from the start to race to 8-1 lead.

The Indian targeted the deep corners and unleashed her big smashes to gather points at will.

A precise net shot helped Okuhara to snap Sindhu’s run of straight eight points but the Sindhu quickly got the control back when Okuhara went wide and then unleashed two good-looking smashes to enter the break with a massive 11-2 lead.

Okuhara tried to step up the pace but an alert Sindhu was up to the task. The Indian targeted Okuhara’s forehand corner to take two more points.

Sindhu used her height to produce those attacking clears which Okuhara could not negotiate. At 16-2, Sindhu committed a couple of unforced errors before again taking control of the match.

Sindhu eventually grabbed as many as 13 game points when Okuhara went long and she sealed the first game with a body blow which her rival sent out.

In the second game, Sindhu continued her rampaging form, grabbing two quick points before Okuhara earned a point with a cross court smash.

Okuhara had no answer to Sindhu’s razor sharp returns. The latter made Okuhara run to the deep corners with her acute angled returns and then swiftly followed them at the net to make life difficult for her opponent.

Okuhara seemed clueless as she ended up hitting the nets or missing the lines to allow Sindhu grab 11-4 lead at the interval.

At 16-4, Sindhu made a couple of rare errors when she hit long but that did not matter as she pounced on a weak return from Okuhara and sent it to the backline and then left her rival stranded with another powerful smash.

Sindhu grabbed the match point when Okuhara went long again and sealed the title when another superb return before throwing her hands in the air in celebration.

With Sindhu’s gold and Praneeth’s bronze in this edition, Indian shuttlers also continued the six-year streak of winning at least one medal in the prestigious event.

Watch | P.V. Sindhu’s journey to victory

BAI announces cash reward for Sindhu, Praneeth

Badminton Association of India on Sunday announced a cash reward of Rs 20 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for PV Sindhu and Sai Praneeth for their historic feats in the World Championships in Basel, Switzerland.

“BAI President @himantabiswa announces cash award of ₹20 lakh for World Champion @Pvsindhu1 and ₹5 lakh for @saiprneeth92 for their historic performance at the #bwfworldchampionship2019,” tweeted BAI.

While Sindhu became the first Indian to win a World Championships gold, Praneeth ended a 36-year wait after Prakash Padukone’s feat to secure a bronze for the country in men’s singles.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport> Other Sports / by PTI / Basel – August 25th, 2019

Now, an oral drug to treat deadly kala-azar — IIT Hyderabad says it’s faster, better

Researchers at IIT Hyderabad say the pills will ensure controlled release of the drug used to treat the disease, bettering a patient’s chance of survival.

New Delhi: 

Researchers at the premier Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, have formulated oral tablets that they say will ensure better and faster treatment of the deadly parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis, commonly known as kala-azar or black fever.

Kala-azar is a fatal disease caused by the bite of a sandfly; it affects the bone marrow, spleen and liver. At present, the disease is treated through injection-based administration of the drug Amphotericin B but that leads to an uncontrolled release of the drug into a patient’s bloodstream, resulting in high toxicity.

The IIT researchers say their tablets will release Amphotericin B in a sustained and controlled manner over a period of 10 days, which is likely to increase the chances of a patient’s recovery.

The drug uses nanofibres, which are 1,00,000 times thinner than human hair, for the controlled release of drug molecules.

“In order to make controlled-release oral tablets, the drug molecules must be loaded onto a base that dissolves gradually to release the drug over a period of time,” said Dr Chandra Shekhar Sharma, associate professor, creative and advanced research based on nanomaterials (CARBON) laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Hyderabad. Sharma led the research along with professor Saptarshi Majumdar.

“The development of oral, controlled-release tablets for fatal fungal infections and leishmaniasis, will help in better management of the disease burden in the country,” IIT Hyderabad said in a statement Thursday, adding that “the team’s work has been published in the July 2019 issue of the reputed peer-reviewed journal Nano-Structures and Nano-Objects”.

“Many attempts have been made earlier to make oral medication to control the delivery of the drug and bring down costs,” the statement added.

Status of kala-azar in India

In India, malaria, dengue and kala-azar are the top three vector-borne diseases.

According to the latest data by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India registered over 5,700 cases of kala-azar in 2017.

Often referred to as a ‘disease of poverty’, the maximum number of cases were found in the economically underprivileged sections of Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

India had missed the 2017 deadline set to eliminate the disease. This was blamed on the absence of concrete or pucca houses in most infected areas and the issue was raised with the rural development ministry.

“As the endemic blocks (states) have a majority of houses made of wood, it is very difficult to eliminate the vector as it (the parasite) dwells in the wooden structure and escapes various measures to kill it,” reported  The Financial Express last year. “Hence, to stop the transmission of infection, pucca houses need to be built.”

source: http://www.theprint.in / The Print / Home> Health / by Himani Chandna / August 22nd, 2019

Amazon opens its largest office building globally in Hyderabad

A view of Amazon’s largest campus building anywhere globally at Gachibowli in Hyderabad, a facility spread over 9.5 acres and comprising three million square feet of built up area.   | Photo Credit:  Nagara Gopal

Its largest campus building anywhere globally which can seat 15,000 people.

E-commerce giant Amazon formally opened on Wednesday its largest campus building anywhere globally in Hyderabad, a facility spread over 9.5 acres and comprising three million square feet of built up area.

The new campus is Amazon’s first owned office building outside the U.S. and is the single largest building globally. The office space of 1.8 million sq ft can seat 15,000 people.

“We have room both for growing [new hires] and consolidating” operations at the campus, Country Head Amit Agarwal said.

Amazon currently has eight office spaces in Hyderabad and “it is natural for us to bring people together in one place. This large building also gives us enough space to grow… we will do that in phases. Already 4,000 employees have moved in [to the new campus] from other locations [in Hyderabad].”

On the work that will be undertaken at the campus, Mr. Agarwal, in a media interaction after the inauguration of the facility, said Amazon has over 60,000 employees in the country “serving our global market places, including India”. A third of the employees are housed in Hyderabad. “This is the largest employee base and technology employee base outside of Seattle,” he said, adding software development engineers, machine learning scientists, product managers, finance and many other involved in various functions will be based out of the campus.

Room to grow

Asked on the economic slowdown and the likely impact on the business plans of Amazon, he said, “We haven’t seen any slowdown yet. One reason is e-commerce is very small portion of retail consumption in India, probably less than 3%. When it is that small, there is so much room to grow.”

Macro conditions are unlikely to seriously impact the e-commerce growth, he said, adding Amazon is committed to long term and “does not get distracted by what’s happening in short cycles. We continue to invest, add more selection, continue to make things more affordable, more faster… growing at a very heavy rate,” he said, without sharing numbers.

About investments made in India, he said: “We publicly announced $5 billion of investment so far and another $500 million in food retail. Outside of that we continue to invest in across our businesses.”

$1 billion exports

The company, Mr. Agarwal said, is registering “tremendous growth not just in our national business but also export business [with] 50,000 sellers now using the services to export to many countries outside where Amazon customers are based. That business has actually crossed $1 billion and we expect it to grow to $5 billion in next three years.”

Amazon vice-president (Global Real Estate and Facilities) John Schoettler said Amazon has roughly 40 million sq ft of office space globally across 300 different locations in over 40 countries. “In Seattle [headquarters] we have approximately 12 million sq ft, half of it owned and the rest leased. Hyderabad is the second location where we have our corporate office outside of the US.”

Telangana Home Minister Mohammed Mahmood and Industries and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan participated in the inauguration. Besides offices, Amazon in Telangana has three fulfilment centres offering more than 3.2 million cubic feet of storage space to sellers, two sort centres with 100,000 square feet of processing capacity and 90 delivery stations.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by N. Ravi Kumar / Hyderabad – August 21st, 2019

IIT-Hyderabad researchers develop method to make biofuel with sugar and salt

The researchers described the novel process that can produce carbon catalysts at room temperatures using sugar, sulphuric acid and salt in the journal ‘ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering’.

Hyderabad : 

Researchers  at IIT Hyderabad have developed a simple and innovative method to synthesise a catalyst that can convert chemicals derived from biomass into a precursor to diesel and jet fuel, the institute said on Tuesday. This catalyst showed better efficiency and selectivity than commercial catalysts to produce C15 oxygenated hydrocarbon, a biofuel precursor.

The researchers described the novel process that can produce carbon catalysts at room temperatures using sugar, sulphuric acid and salt in the journal ‘ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering’. “The dehydration of sugar by concentrated sulfuric acid is high-school chemistry. But the intense heat released is not well-controlled,” explained Dr Atul Suresh Deshpande, assistant professor at IIT-H.

In order to control the exothermic dehydration of sugar, the researchers add common salt. Salt helps in controlled dehydration of sugar, which leads to formation of the desired carbon nanoplates. “Due to the low cost of precursors with practically zero energy input and simplicity of reaction, this process of producing carbon nanoplates can be easily adapted for large-scale commercial production,” added Prof Sunil Kumar Maity.

This development is important for States such as Uttar Pradesh and the two Telugu states which are the largest producers of corn in India. The large amount of corncob waste can now be converted into fuels and allow additional income for farmers of corn, provide a sustainable energy source and reduce carbon footprint in the automobile/ aviation sector.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express News Service / July 31st, 2019

Incubated in IIT-Hyderabad, start-up PURE EV raises VC Nannapaneni’s funding

PURE EV has also been developing a prototype of HVDC electric truck/bus lithium battery modules and intends to showcase them in 2020 for potential collaborations.

VC Nannapaneni is working on the development of high-speed and long-range scooters and motorcycles

Hyderabad :

Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad-incubated startup PURE EV has raised venture capital funding from Hyderabad-based pharmaceuticals visionary VC Nannapaneni, in his personal capacity. The funding is coming at an opportune moment for the company with its plans for expansion of its manufacturing capacity and R&D initiatives. It is working on the development of high-speed and long-range scooter and motorcycle, which are scheduled for commercial launch in October this year and early 2020 respectively.

PURE EV has also been developing a prototype of HVDC electric truck/bus lithium battery modules and intends to showcase them in 2020 for potential collaborations. PURE EV is now looking to ramp up its EV manufacturing capacity to 2000 units per month by October 2019.

The company was founded in 2016 by Dr Nishanth Dongari, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and is led by Rohit Vadera, an alumnus of IIT Bombay. The startup will continue to collaborate with R&D laboratories of IIT Hyderabad.

PURE EV recently launched four two-wheeler models – ‘EGNITE,’ ‘ETRANCE,’ ‘EPLUTO’ and ‘ETRON’. It aims to deploy over 10,000 electric vehicles on the road during 2019-20. It has established an 18,000-sqft state-of-the-art facility, co-located with IIT Hyderabad, for cutting-edge research and development and for large-scale production of electric vehicles and electric batteries.

The company had also recently launched its CMVR-exempted electric vehicles commercially in the market and is actively working on building strategic partnerships for vehicle financing and branding collaboration. Nannapaneni, speaking about his reasons for the investment, said, “We hope they are able to succeed in their vision to promote usage of electric vehicles amongst the masses.”

“The funding will be primarily utilised for expanding the manufacturing capacity by installation of an automated assembly line,” said Rohit Vadera, CEO, PURE EV.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express News Service / July 11th, 2019

INCOIS Director elected to UNESCO body

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) Director Satheesh Shenoi has been unanimously elected Vice-Chair (Group IV), of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission for 2019-2021. Group IV encompasses the countries of Australia, China, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Japan, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea and Thailand.

UNESCO-IOC has around 150 member States and promotes international cooperation and programmes in marine research, services, observation systems, hazard mitigation, and capacity development in order to understand and effectively manage the resources of the ocean and coastal areas. Representatives of the member states are currently meeting at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France for the 30th session of the IOC Assembly (26 June – 4 July 2019).

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – July 05th, 2019

Former NCC cadet from State scales Mt. Everest

Tukaram Amgoth  

He took the challenging South Col route to the summit

Tukaram Amgoth, a former NCC cadet and hailing from Telangana State, scaled Mount Everest from the most challenging South Col route on May 22 after he had started his climb from Nepal on April 6.

Mr. Amgoth of 2 (T) Bn NCC, Secunderabad Group, had been a cadet from 2015 to 2017 and had attended basic mountaineering course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi through the NCC and secured ‘A’ grade. He was further selected in advance mountaineering course at Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering & Sports, Jammu and secured best technique award from the institution.

In 2016, Brigadier Abbay (Commandant, High Altitude Warfare School) had encouraged him to scale Mt. Everest from the South Col route and from then on he made up his mind to scale Mt Everest. Cadet Amgoth had scaled Mt Norbo (17,145 ft) in June 2016 scaled on Telangana Formation Day and hoisted Telangana Flag.

In June 2017 he had scaled Mt Rudragaira Peak (19,091 ft) on Telangana Formation Day in adverse climatic conditions. In the same year on July 2017 he has also scaled Mt Stok Kangri (20,187 ft) along with four other friends who had sponsored him.

Thereafter, he scaled the highest mountain peak of Africa Mt Kilimanjaro (19,340 ft) in July 2018 and hoisted the National flag. He was also honoured by President Ramnath Kovind and Governor of AP & Telangana State E.S.L Narasimhan, a press release said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Telangana / by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – May 24th, 2019