* ‘This Is Us’ Honours Nasir Ahmed in Ep 8, Season 5 – Who is He?

Nasir is the man behind Discrete Cosine Transform – the technology which makes it possible to share photos & videos.

Nasir Ahmed hails from the southern city of Bengaluru, in India. He was born in 1940, and subsequently completed his schooling from Bishop Cotton Boys School. He earned his Bachelors in electrical engineering from the University College of Engineering in Bengaluru in 1961. Thereafter, he moved to the US for his higher studies and pursued both his MS and Ph.D at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Inventor – DCT Technology

* Bengaluru virologist’s test kit ‘Omisure’ for Omicron variant cuts delays

“Globally, all other test kits for Omicron are either made for gene dropout or mutation specific detection. Omisure is the first test kit combining both.”

In a major and global breakthrough towards cutting down procedural delays in genome sequencing to ascertain the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2, Dr V Ravi, former head of the Department of Neurovirology at National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences and Head, Research & Development, Tata Medical & Diagnostic Centre, Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, and his team have developed the world’s first test kit, Omisure, that can detect the Omicron variant by combining S-gene target failure (SGTF) and S-gene mutation amplification (SGMA).

* Karnataka’s Covid war room wins national award

We are the support network for the Covid warriors in the forefront. We make their lives easy by giving the details they want to act upon.

The Karnataka State Covid-19 war room on Friday received the national award under the category of using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in management of the Covid-19 at the 24th national conference on e- governance in Hyderabad. War room head Munish Moudgil, who received the award, told TNIE that the facility is an e-governance solution for effective management, integrated response and approach. 

* Athletic Championship: Two meet records set on Day 2

Two new meet records were created on the second day of the 81st All India Inter-University Athletic Championship 2022 being organised at Swaraj Maidan in Moodbidri on Wednesday. 

Akshdeep Singh of Punjabi University, Patiala, created a new record in the 20 km race walk clocking 1:26:09.08 sec. breaking the previous record (1:26:39.78) of Juned K T of Mangalore University, set in 2020.

In the same event, Paramjeet Singh and Hardeep of Mangalore University bettered the record clocking 1:26:39.15 and 1:27:13.89 respectively

*City Fighters Excel In Kickboxing

Students of IKA Karate Academy and Martial Arts, Mysuru, participated in Wako India National Kickboxing Championship which was organised by Wako India Kickboxing Federation between Dec. 21 to 25 in Pune.

Four (2 female and 2 male) of them have bagged, 2 gold, 1 silver and 3 bronze medals respectively.

* Udupi: UAE businessman B M Zaffer Thonse gets Indian Achievers Award-2021

B M Zaffer Thonse Chairman Thonse Health Centre (Nature cure and Ayurveda hospital) has been selected for the prestigious Indian Achievers Award-2021 by the Indian Achievers’ Forum for his outstanding professional achievements and contributions in national building.

Zaffer is a known businessman from UAE and the award is given for recognizing his excellence in business, health sector and social activities

* Techie-turned-farmer teaches kids about forgotten flora

He is a storehouse of knowledge on Indian trees, plants and herbs, and in his farm, which is nothing like the traditional setup, the flora grows wildly and naturally.

The farm has over 300 species of plants and trees, all either edible or used for medicinal purposes. 

Srivathsa Govindaraju, a software engineer-turned-farmer, started his farm 13 years ago with the intent of “respecting nature as it is and to understand how it functions”.

* Olympian M.P. Ganesh, Padma Shri Awardee, Is ‘Coorg Person Of The Year-2021’

Olympian M.P. Ganesh, who captained the Indian hockey team and was honoured with the Padma Shri by President Ram Nath Kovind, is Coorg Person of the Year-2021.

Mollera Poovaiah Ganesh, hailing from Suntikoppa in Kodagu district, was selected ‘Coorg Person of the Year’ in a poll conducted by www.coorgtourisminfo.com, Kodagu’s first news portal, promoted by journalist and author P.T. Bopanna.

* Historical informative documentary on St Francis Xavier’s death, its aftermath set to release soon

Tropical Creativity, a YouTube channel owned by Armando Roque Fernandes, created in Goa, basically to take interesting contents from local to global, has produced a historical informative documentary ‘O Padre Santo’ which is based on the central character St Francis Xavier who is one of the most famous saint in the world, whose sacred relics are existing in Goa since the last 468 years.

The powerful content in the documentary produced under ‘Noah Films’ by Tropical Creativity, is made at present in 13 languages mainly Konkani, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati. The idea is to take local content on a global stage in languages known across the world. With the success of this concept, ‘Noah Films’ will bring more powerful contents in the form of documentaries, entertainment & education in multiple languages. The teaser and the concept trailer has been released. 

*** Hassan: Man who found black box of crashed Navy helicopter awaiting prize from 30 years

A youth, who has reached senior citizen’s age now, who found the black box of the Navy helicopter that crashed on Western Ghats in 1991, did not receive the promised prize money.

In 1991, a Navy helicopter that was carrying very critical documents from Mangaluru to Bengaluru crashed on the plateau of Aramane Gudda on Western Ghats. Four people, including a colonel, lost their lives in the mishap. Even after frantic searching the helicopter could not be located.

Puttaswamy Gowda, a youth of 33 years, resident of Vanagoor village, continued his search in the quest of getting the prize, though all others stopped the hunt for the black box of the helicopter. After two years of continuous search he was able to locate the black box in 1992 October on the plateau of Aramane Gudda.