Monthly Archives: June 2016
Historic tank to come back to life
Raghunathalayam atop the Quilla Indur in Nizamabad will be developed to attract devotees
The Raghunathalayam, atop the Quilla Indur dating back to the 10th century, will be developed to attract devotees from across the State as part of the Mission Kakatiya works undertaken at Boddemma cheruvu abutting the Quilla. A park would be built on three acres, and 12 acres would be allocated to the Kendriya Vidyalaya coming up nearby, according to MLA Bigala Ganesh Gupta.
Mr. Gupta, who inspected the works on Sunday to give shape to the tank as a mini tank bund, told reporters that an action plan would be prepared with proposal of funds required to develop the historic location. Collector Yogitha Rana and Joint Collector A. Ravinder Reddy, who accompanied the MLA, said that a detailed survey would be conducted to know about government land available around it.
They said that Quilla Indur and the Boddemma cheruvu would become important public recreational spots for the residents of the district headquarter town in the coming months. The government had sanctioned Rs. 6.28 crore and works were launched under the second phase of the Mission Kakatiya project. The bund strengthening work is almost complete.
Plantations and railings on both sides of the bund, as well as parks, would come up as part of the project. The 4.5-kilometre bund would be raised on a height of 8 metres with the same width, enabling passersby to move freely on it. Benches would be put up too. Nizamsagar main canal, which brings water into the tank and is one of the drinking water sources of the town, would also be strengthened with revetment.
“I request the government to revise the original plan as the amount sanctioned initially would not be sufficient to complete all works,” the MLA said.
Since it is meant for drinking water purpose, the only one sluice that exists for the tank may be removed. There is no clarity on it, but locals want it to continue. Raghunathalayam irrigation tank gradually became a drinking water source, with the ayacut under it having disappeared with the expansion of the city.
The tank is one of the major centres where Bathukamma is hosted during the nine-day celebrations. The tank will provide a panoramic view with lush green surroundings if water fills to the brim this monsoon.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Telangana / by P. Ram Mohan / Nizamabad – June 13th, 2016
10th jun
TIDE signs incubation agreements with start-ups
The Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurship (TIDE) at the University of Hyderabad signed incubation agreements with three start-up companies – Neoscript Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Sapphire Technologies LLP, and Aapka Painter Solutions Pvt. Ltd. – on Wednesday.
The TIDE-UoH is providing seed funding as part of its incubation support. The start-ups can use the varsity’s infrastructure facilities, and will also get technical mentoring by the university’s faculty.
Neoscript Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is a platform aimed at improving consistency and efficiency in learning quality of codes by providing automated evaluation and timely feedback. Sapphire Technologies LLP, with its platform www.ekgeo.com, is a social media built on the principle of radio, radar and broadcasting, said a press release on Wednesday.
The third start-up, Aapka Painter Solutions Pvt. Ltd., streamlines tire painting process and standardises the experience of getting spaces painted through technology. The programme was chaired by UoH Vice-Chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile. TIDE and TBI are recognised incubators in the Start-up India initiative of the Government of India.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Staff Reporter / Hyderabad – June 09th, 2016
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How Telangana is building brand Hyderabad
Behind Hyderabad’s bounce-back as a technology destination is its IT, industries and municipal administration minister, K.T. Rama Rao
Hyderabad:
The Deccan city of Hyderabad was almost written off as an investment destination when K. Chandrashekar Rao swept to power in Telangana in June 2014.
The new state was just born after four years of tumultuous struggle. The agitation, spearheaded by Rao, witnessed prolonged demonstrations and shutdown calls, blocked train and road services through the region, largely disrupting public life.
Rao’s diatribe against the settled population hailing from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, it was pointed out, would drive away multinationals that seek talent based on merit, without regard for one’s ancestral background.
It was feared that Hyderabad, Telangana’s economic powerhouse, would die a slow death if KCR, as Rao is known, ignored the city that had already fallen behind other Indian metros, thanks to a prolonged agitation for statehood. Many thus dismissed KCR & Co.’s assurances of turning around Hyderabad, whose brand image had taken a bad hit during the years of agitation.
Precisely 23 months after the state’s formation, three of the world’s top technology companies decided to set up base in Hyderabad—choosing it over other cities such as Bengaluru, Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) and Mumbai. Taxi aggregator Uber Technologies Inc., the world’s most valued start-up, opened its first service centre in Asia in Hyderabad in February.
Apple Inc. was the latest jewel in Hyderabad’s crown when it established its first development centre in India in the city, joining other high-profile tech companies from America’s West Coast that made Hyderabad their home.
Salesforce.com Inc., one of the world’s top cloud computing companies, will open its first centre of excellence in Hyderabad on 7 June.
Before Apple and Salesforce.com, search giant Google Inc. and online retailer Amazon.com Inc. announced that they would have their biggest campuses outside home base US, in Hyderabad. Amazon has already commenced construction of a campus, as big as three million sq.ft, which is set to open by 2019.
Together with Microsoft Corp. and Facebook Inc., which had offices in the city before 2014, five of the world’s top technology companies have started or are in the process of setting up a significant presence in the city.
“The state formation happened after a period of turbulence. The very first task was to set the record straight,” said Jayesh Ranjan, information technology secretary of Telangana government, in an interview. The government met industry leaders promising physical safety of their employees, projected a pro-business attitude and showcased Hyderabad’s innovative environment.
The toning down of the rhetoric by Rao’s Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) helped in assuaging the concerns of information technology (IT) sector.
In fact, investors were cautious and adopted a wait-and-watch mode during the initial months after the country’s youngest state took birth.
“People were not sure how the new government will function, how things will actually improve. The party had not been in power in the past. So people were waiting to see how they will perform,” said Vasudevan Iyer, director of Hyderabad market for real estate consultancy Knight Frank India Pvt. Ltd. “When the state split happened there was a lot of ambiguity among people and stakeholders, but then the way the government in Hyderabad actually performed is commendable.”
Behind Hyderabad’s bounce-back as a technology destination is its IT, industries and municipal administration minister, K.T. Rama Rao (known as KTR), a smooth-talking, charismatic former marketing professional who returned from the US to join his father’s party in 2004. KTR is the son of KCR.
After some initial follies, the father-son duo began nurturing Hyderabad, assuaging concerns, promoting the city as an attractive investment destination, and wooing global companies and start-ups alike. It helped that KTR has related portfolios of IT and industries (to draw investments) and municipal administration (to rebuild brand Hyderabad and address infrastructure issues).
Bengaluru, the IT and start-up capital of the country that had an early mover advantage, was Hyderabad’s biggest competitor.
KTR and his team quickly realized that they could not beat Bengaluru easily at its game of software exporting. They went to the drawing table and identified opportunities where they could “drive the bus”, Ranjan said.
Data analytics, cloud technology, internet of things (IoT), gaming and animation, start-ups, data centers—areas that no one city in India can yet lay a claim to—were identified in the process.
The team also watched carefully for Bengaluru’s follies.
So, when Karnataka taxmen went after e-commerce firms in 2014, threatening to halt their businesses, Telangana officials went knocking on Amazon’s door. Amazon had already signed the dotted line to set up its campus in Bengaluru. But in the backdrop of tax troubles in Karnataka, Telangana officials promised a conducive regulatory environment to Amazon, wooing the company to the state.
Of course, they also presented Hyderabad as an attractive (and cheaper) alternative destination to Bengaluru whose infrastructure was already bursting at its seams. Apart from the office space, Amazon also set up its then biggest Indian warehouse spread across 280,000 sq.ft in Telangana. Flipkart soon followed, opening its biggest warehouse, spanning 220,000 sq. ft, near Hyderabad.
That was also how they wooed back Google, which had decided to set up its campus near Bengaluru. Google had initially planned to set up its campus in Hyderabad—the company was even allotted land in Hyderabad way back in 2007—but reconsidered its plan after the land it was allocated ran into legal issues. With successive governments unable to solve the legal tangle, Google decided to move to Bengaluru, only to realize the city’s inadequacies. The Telangana government moved in quickly at this point by allocating site from its land bank and issuing quick clearances to Google.
At the same time, the government is attractively packaging the state as a destination for new-age technology companies. While governments across the world are grappling with disruption to their traditional industries by taxi aggregators and home lodging sites such as Airbnb, the Telangana government is assuring start-ups of rolling in conducive regulatory policies to ensure their business model can operate in the state.
Uber was in the eye of the storm over a rape incident in Delhi by one of its drivers when it announced its plan to establish its first centre of excellence in Asia in Hyderabad to provide round-the-clock specialized support for “critical incidents that require immediate attention”. Taxi aggregators such as Uber, Ola and TaxiForSure were under government scrutiny on whether they should be regulated when Uber said it will invest $50 million in the city.
The biggest factor that sealed the deal in Telangana’s favour was the government’s offer to “work closely” with Uber to develop a new regulatory framework. Telangana’s transportation department evolved a framework to allow new-age online services like Ola and Uber to operate without any ambiguity.
The state’s IT department, on its part, is continually making sure that issues related to new-age tech companies are addressed amicably.
When the Telangana government recently considered a ban on surge pricing, on the lines of the Delhi government, on Ola and Uber, the state’s IT department intervened on their behalf to point out the economic rationale behind surge pricing. The state’s transport department relented.
Of course, the city’s biggest advantage is a readily available talent pool of engineers graduating from the likes of IIT, IIIT and BITS-Pilani, among other engineering schools around the city.
“With a pool of quality talent, state-of-the art infrastructure and a progressive government, the state was a natural choice for us to set up our largest campus in India here,” David Zapolsky, senior vice-president and general counsel (legal) of Amazon, said in a statement in March, while breaking ground for the facility.
Hyderabad’s lower real estate costs coupled with, what is often lauded as, the city’s excellent infrastructure work in its favour compared with other metros such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi NCR.
Last July, Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer, zeroed in on Hyderabad to purchase 13 acres of prime property at IT hub, Hitec City. Hyderabad was chosen over other cities such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi NCR for the company’s India debut.
“The difference between Bengaluru and Hyderabad is that Hyderabad offers twice the infrastructure of Bengaluru at half the cost,” said Ranjan.
KTR was quick to figure out the dynamics playing out in the global IT sphere. Even traditionally closeted companies such as Microsoft were embracing innovation and start-ups in a way never seen before, and the 39-year-old minister knew he needed to pitch the city as an innovation hub to make companies take Telangana seriously.
He sewed an arrangement between three of the biggest educational institutes in the city, Indian School of Business, Nalsar University of Law and International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Hyderabad, to start a swanky incubator, T-Hub, close to the campuses of the big IT firms.
The incubator drew the likes of Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella and Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka to talk about innovation with the start-ups.
“For everybody (services companies and product development firms) the local innovation ecosystem is a key part of their consideration. Even if you want to attract a larger company, making sure there is an active thriving start-up ecosystem is a key part of that whole message,” Ramesh Loganathan, a recent president of local industry body, Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association, said. “It resonated well because some of the larger companies are looking at the city because we have projected a very strong R&D innovation start-up focus. They like to be operating in that environment.”
Sometimes it was just plain luck.
Telangana wasn’t even on the radar of plane maker Boeing Co. when a government delegation led by minister Rama Rao met the company’s executives in Washington DC during a tour last year.
Rama Rao and his team briefed Boeing about the state’s new industrial policy and how an aerospace ecosystem already exists in Hyderabad in the form of Indian government’s defence manufacturing installations and units of Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL), which has tie-ups with Sikorsky Aircraft Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp., RUAG Aviation AG and Pilatus Aircraft Ltd.
After a series of meetings, Boeing finally zeroed in on Hyderabad to make fuselage for Apache helicopters in collaboration with TASL. The company is expected to break ground in June, Ranjan said.
Telangana is also among the states being considered by plane maker Airbus Group SE to set up a final assembly line for Panther helicopter it plans to make in India in collaboration with Mahindra Defence Systems Ltd. The company plans to make India a global hub for Panther helicopter production.
“Airbus Group is evaluating Telangana and Andhra Pradesh among several other Indian states to select a site for setting up a final assembly line for the Panther helicopter in case we were to be awarded the Naval Utility Helicopter programme,” an Airbus spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint / Home> E-paper / Home> Politics / by Yogendra Kalavalapalli / Friday – June 03rd, 2016
Bobbing and weaving at Rasoolpura
/ The Hindu
The slum is a nursery of sporting talent, and it’s in boxing that many of the youngsters show their punch.
This report is the third of a 12-part series on the changing face of the Indian slum, chronicling stories of new social and economic trends in our impoverished neighbourhoods
What makes them so athletic? Not a day passes without Rasoolpura’s young sportspersons making a dash for the track and field. Many vault into the boxing ring. A few go as far as the lake to tame the wind and sail. Girls hike to the ground for athletic training and handball practice.
A yen for sports, especially boxing, pervades the slum. Proximity to the Gymkhana Grounds, the famed cricket ground of Secunderabad, has stoked and preserved the passion.
Take Yerrolla Prasad, who has fallen completely in love with water but also occasionally spar. For this shy, soft-spoken 16-year-old, born and raised in a 7X7 tenement, sailing is a passion. If the wind keeps away, he leaps into the water for kayaking.
N. Shyam Prasad, who finished first-year B.Com., is saving up for a trip to Haryana to perfect his pugilistic skills, win the gold at the national level and join the Indian Air Force — his dream of years.
“All my friends abandoned sailing, overawed by the waters of Hussain Sagar Lake, despite their training in swimming. I never had any fear, and loved sailing. I hope it will help me get into the police service,” Yerrolla Prasad says.
The eldest of three children of a Dalit daily-wage earner, he snagged gold in the junior category of the Monsoon Regatta of the National Optimist Coastal Championship in 2014. Sponsored by the Yacht Club of Hyderabad, he participated in sailing events in Pune and Chennai. He was one of the 14 children from the slum trained in swimming by Bhumi, a youth-volunteer non-profit organisation, before being sent to the Yacht Club three years ago.
Shyam is now busy at a bakers’. “Four or five of us are working during summer holidays, so that we can save up for the trip and training in Haryana,” he says.
The Hyderabad District Sports Authority is coaching more than 10 youngsters from the slum at the Gymkhana Grounds. “We encourage youth to take up sports. The idea is to dissuade them from ‘gutkha’ and substance abuse. We ran a gym for three years, but had to shut it for lack of funds,” says Sheik Nayeem, convener of the Kriya Sangh Society, a community group trained by Bhumi before it left the slum.
N. Ramya, Shyam’s sister, wears her brother’s boxing shorts and shoes and trains with her friend K. Sandhya at the grounds for a summer camp.
“Initially, we could not cross our locality wearing shorts. There would be catcalls and jeers. Now, we wear trousers underneath and remove them after reaching the grounds,” says A. Bhavani, a Plus Two student.
Bhavani is into running, long jump, high jump and basketball, apart from handball. Introduced to sports during her schooldays, she was selected for training by the District Sports Authority and went on to participate in State-level handball and judo tournaments. Her brother A. Sai Kumar is into hockey.
“I studied in a private school, and though it didn’t have a ground of its own, the teachers took us to Gymkhana Grounds for games. It has become a habit,” Bhavani says.
Though parental aspirations are high about their wards’ education and career, that do not come in the way of sports.
Y. Bhaskar, Yerrolla Prasad’s father, has decided not to enrol his son in a private educational institution despite repeated calls from multiple colleges, as that would hinder his sailing aspirations.
“I want him to become an IPS officer. I hope his training as a sailor does help him get through,” he says, while his wife, Parvathi, nods in agreement.
“There are 130 to 140 self-help groups in this area, offering women loans at low interest rates. When it comes to school fees, loans of Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 come in handy,” Mr. Nayeem says.
“My daughter studied up to Class IX in a private school, after which they asked us to take her away as the school lacked recognition. I sent her to another English-medium school far off, though the fee is very high,” says Padma P., a domestic help. (With inputs from Rohit P.S.)
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Swathi Vadlamudi / May 30th, 2016
T-Hub outpost in US
Hyderabad :
IT minister KT Rama Rao has said that an outpost of the T-Hub will be set up in Silicon Valley in the United States.
Addressing a convention of investors and IT professionals at Silicon Valley on Wednesday, Rama Rao dwelt at length on Telangana government’s plans on investments, industries and innovation. The meeting was attended by prominent industrialists from Silicon Valley.
Rama Rao said the Telangana government too started T-Hub to encourage new thoughts and innovations. The largest incubator T-Hub outpost centre would be opened in Silicon Valley, the minister said.
He said that efforts were on to make start-ups as scale-ups. ‘’We need support and cooperation from TiE (a global network of entrepreneurs) and investors from Silicon Valley,” the minister said.
“We are interested to partner with Silicon Valley and TiE to attract more investments to Telangana,” Rama Rao said.
The minister said the state government took up digital literacy in a massive scale and is moving towards m-Governance from e-Governance aiming to take the administration to the masses.
Rama Rao is currently touring the North American country along with some senior officials.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Telangana / by Express News Service / June 02nd, 2016