Category: Records, Karnataka

KARNATAKA: ACHIEVERS HONOURED: 5 Eminent Personalities of Udupi & Dakshina Kannada District Awarded at the ‘New Year Awards 2024’

Academy of General Education, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, MEMG, Manipal Media Network Ltd and Dr TMA Pai Foundation, Manipal conducted ‘New Year Awards 2024’ to honour eminent personalities of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada district for their immense contributions to society, art and culture.

The awards were conferred to five achievers who have contributed in their own ways in culture, literature and have even created awareness in this unprecedented situation.

The welcome address was made by Dr H S Ballal – pro chancellor and president, Academy of General Education, MAHE and the felicitation address was given by Lt Gen (Dr) M D Venkatesh – vice chancellor, MAHE.

The winners of this year were Dr M Narendra, an esteemed senior professional and retired chairman and managing director of Indian Overseas Bank; Dr Jaimala Ramachandra, cine artiste and producer; Dr H Manjunatha Hande, professor, HOD and unit head in the department of medicine, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal; Dr Yadkathody Sanjeeva Rai, former dean of Kasturba Medical College, Mangaluru, and a distinguished cosmetic surgeon at Kasturba Medical College, Mangaluru and B K Deva Rao, agriculturist.

Commenting on the occasion, Dr H S Ballal – pro chancellor, MAHE said, “Being the hosts of this wonderful celebration of the contributions and outstanding accomplishments of the five recipients is an honour for us. I congratulate each one of them from the bottom of my heart for their spirit. The educational system in place now looks for fresh perspectives and investigations. The liberal arts and humanities ought to be given more importance. We are thrilled to acknowledge their hard work and accomplishments in their respective fields which has added significant impact towards the betterment of the society.”

Lt Gen (Dr) MD Venkatesh, vice chancellor, MAHE, sharing his excitement said, “We are exuberant to felicitate the outstanding achievements of the New Year awardees, and this is undoubtedly a terrific occasion for us. We value their unparalleled contributions to literature, agriculture, medicine, culture, and mankind. They have gone above and beyond the call of duty to establish an example for others to follow and instil virtues in the community. The most effective way to address societal issues or raise awareness is through these literary and artistic disciplines. Honouring the achievers serves a dual purpose: it not only shows appreciation and recognition for their hard work, but it also serves as a springboard for young people to aim higher.”

Humbled by the award, Dr M Narendra conveyed, “With deep appreciation I extend my sincere gratitude to the community for choosing me. This serves as not just a personal achievement but a celebration of the vital role of banking in shaping our economic landscape. From early on, I have been committed to contribute to the welfare of society through the financial sector by fostering economic growth, and financial inclusion. In a world where economic well-being is integral to the fabric of society, this award reinforces my determination to contribute to building a more inclusive and thriving society through responsible and impactful financial practices. Thank you for acknowledging my efforts and encouraging me to make a lasting positive difference.”

Expressing his happiness after receiving the award, Dr Yadkathody Sanjeeva Rai, said, “I am grateful for this award for recognizing the path I have chosen in medicine and surgery. Receiving this award not only celebrates my individual achievements but underscores the collective effort of all those who have been integral to my professional journey especially during the establishment of Manipal College of Medical Sciences in Pokhara, Nepal. It highlights the significance of collaboration in the global healthcare landscape, and I am inspired to continue fostering partnerships that transcend borders for the betterment of medical education and healthcare. Thank you for this incredible moment.”

Conveying her joy, Dr Jaimala Ramachandra said, “In this moment of reflection and gratitude, I am truly touched by the recognition given to me by the New Year Awards committee. This recognition holds a special place in my heart, acknowledging not just my contributions to the film industry but also my commitment to public service, literature and social wellbeing. Movies are a powerful storytelling form which can showcase the reality of society in an open forum. I see this award that reaffirms the belief in the transformative impact of cinema to connect, inspire and bring about positive change. I am deeply thankful for the encouragement to persist in my endeavours.”

Honoured by the recognition, Dr H Manjunatha Hande,“I extend my heartfelt appreciation for recognizing my journey dedicated to medical education and research. It serves as a powerful acknowledgement of the importance of medicine in shaping a healthier and brighter future for our communities.”

Overcome with joy, B K Deva Rao, agriculturist said, “With sincere gratitude, I am humbled with the recognition given to me through the award. This acknowledgement reflects the tireless efforts of every farmer into cultivating our lands. I thank the community for considering me and celebrating the vital role of agriculture in our community.”

The event was aptly concluded with a heartfelt vote of thanks by Dr Raviraj N S, director, planning & monitoring, acknowledging the enthusiastic participation and support of the entire community.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

GLOBAL: AVIATION : MANUFACTURING – MAKE IN INDIA: PM Narendra Modi inaugurates in Bengaluru Largest Aerospace Engineering Facility of Boeing outside the United States

The state-of-the-art Boeing India Engineering and Technology Center (BIETC) is built with an investment of ₹1,600 crore.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Boeing India Engineering and Technology Center (BIETC) campus in Bengaluru along with the Boeing Sukanya Program, on January 19.

The state-of-the-art BIETC is built with an investment of ₹1,600 crore. It is located in a 43-acre campus, and is the American aerospace major’s largest such investment outside the U.S.

Boeing said that the BIETC will become a cornerstone for partnering with India on next generation products and services for the global aerospace and defence industry.

The Prime Minister also launched the Boeing Sukanya Program that aims to support the entry of more girl children from across India into the country’s growing aviation sector.

The program will provide opportunities for girls and women from across India to learn critical skills in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, and train for jobs in the aviation sector.

For young girls, the program will create STEM labs at 150 planned locations to help spark interest in STEM careers. It will also provide scholarships to women who are training to be pilots. Investments will support flight training curriculum, obtaining certifications, funding for simulator trainings, and career development programs.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

NATIONAL: SPORTS / EQUESTRIAN: Karnataka State Police Team’s V. Shylendra, Commandant KARP Wins Gold in 42nd All India Police National Equestrian Championship

V. Shylendra, Commandant, KARP Mounted Company, Mysuru, has won the gold medal in the National-level Equestrian Competition ‘Hacks’ event in the 42nd All India Police Equestrian Championship and Mounted Police Duty Meet – 2023 held at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy in Hyderabad, Telangana State, from Dec. 26, 2023 to Jan. 5, 2024.

A native of Chitradurga, Shylendra represented Karnataka State Police team with the horse named “King’s Power” and has won the individual gold medal after 12 years for Karnataka.

The last individual gold medal in this event was won in the year 2012.

source/content: starofmysore.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: TELECOMMUNICATIONS & AERIAL TECHNOLOGY / SATELLITES: Pixxel Unveils New Facility to Manufacture & Integrate Satellites, making it the First Spacecraft Manufacturing Facility in Bengaluru

This state-of-the-art facility spans over 30,000 square feet and is designed to streamline the satellite manufacturing process from conceptualisation to launch readiness.

In Short

  • The facility boasts the capacity to manage over twenty satellites concurrently
  • It will have a turnaround time of six months per satellite
  • The facility includes advanced camera integration labs

Pixxel, a space data company known for its cutting-edge hyperspectral earth-imaging technology, has inaugurated its first Spacecraft Manufacturing Facility, MegaPixxel, in Bengaluru.

This state-of-the-art facility spans over 30,000 square feet and is designed to streamline the satellite manufacturing process from conceptualisation to launch readiness.

The MegaPixxel facility will ensure spacecraft assembly, integration and testing (AIT), allowing Pixxel’s satellites to be crafted, integrated, and tested against the rigors of launch conditions before being dispatched to their respective launch sites.

“As we approach our fifth anniversary, the opening of this new facility is a significant achievement for Pixxel. It enhances our capability to act as the planet’s health monitor, increasing our satellite production capacity and enabling us to supply vital data to our clients more rapidly. This data is crucial for informed decision-making across various sectors, including agriculture, energy, forestry, and environmental monitoring,” Awais Ahmed, CEO of Pixxel, said in a statement.

The MegaPixxel facility boasts the capacity to manage over twenty satellites concurrently , with a turnaround time of six months per satellite. This impressive throughput could see up to forty large satellites produced annually.

The facility is uniquely equipped with two modern clean rooms rated at ISO Class 7 and ISO Class 8 to prevent contamination that could compromise satellite functionality during assembly and integration.

In addition to the clean rooms, the facility includes advanced camera integration labs, electronics R&D, electrical assembly areas, a mechanical workshop, a mission control room, and office space capable of accommodating over 200 employees.

MegaPixxel is fitted with smart heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to optimise energy efficiency and minimize the carbon footprint.

Pixxel is the second private company to open its facility after Skyroot Aerospace, which unveiled its newly developed HQ in Hyderabad last year. 

source/content: indiatoday.in (headline edited)

NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: Bengaluru BEATS Delhi, Becomes Top Indian City With Highest Number Of Private Cars

Bengaluru has overtaken Delhi to become the Indian city with the highest number of private cars.

Bengaluru, the Silicon City of India, is famous for its food and friendly people, but it is also infamous for its kilometer-long traffic jams. According to recent data from the Delhi Statistical Handbook 2023, Bengaluru has surpassed the national capital to become the Indian city with the highest number of private cars. Delhi has a total of 79.5 lakh vehicles, with 20.7 lakh being private cars, according to TOI’s report. In recent years, Delhi’s transport department has decided to deregister and scrap overaged vehicles, citing the surging pollution levels in the city.

Reasons Behind Bengaluru’s Traffic

The biggest reasons for frequent traffic congestion in Bengaluru are rain and festivals due to which the city has secured the second position in the global traffic congestion ranking in 2022. The commuters here took an average of 20 minutes and 10 seconds to cover only 10 km distance with an average speed of 18 kmph. These reports were collected by Dutch location technology specialist TomTom, who disclosed the impact of traffic snarls on the daily lives of Bengaluru people.

People Of Bengaluru Living With Traffic

Notably, in 2022, people in Bengaluru spent a massive amount of time navigating through traffic, wasting a total of 260 hours which is equal to 10 days of driving, with 134 hours attributed to congestion-related delays.


The figures showcased the massive impact of traffic congestion on the daily lives of residents.

source/content: india.com (headline edited)

NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGLY / VACCINES : IISc Develops Heat-Tolerant Covid-19 Vaccine

A team of scientists has completed pre-clinical trials and is now gearing up for human testing .

India could soon have a new vaccine for the mutating COVID-19 virus to keep the virus at bay. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have been working on developing a heat-tolerant vaccine that can offer protection against different strains of SARS-CoV-2 which includes both current and future variants. The team has completed pre-clinical trials and is gearing up for the human testing of the vaccine candidate. 

According to scientists the evolving nature of the virus and different mutations, they are not sure if the current vaccines can be helpful. Raghavan Varadarajan, Professor at the Molecular Biophysics Unit (MBU) has been leading this research project in collaboration with Mynvax, a startup since the beginning of the pandemic. 

After analysing various proteins found in the virus, researchers selected two parts of SARS-CoV-2’s spike protein – the S2 subunit and the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) – for the new vaccine. The S2 subunit is highly conserved – it mutates much less than the S1 subunit, which is the target of most current vaccines. Scientists have also known that the RBD can provoke a strong immune response in the host. The team created a hybrid protein called RS2 by combining these two components, read a statement released by IISc.  

The researchers used mammalian cell lines to study the expression of the hybrid protein. “The protein showed very high levels of expression, and initially I thought that the experiment was not working properly,” said Nidhi Mittal, PhD student at MBU and first author of the study. Further research by Mittal showed that this protein potentially be produced in large quantities.    

The team then tested the effects of the protein in both mice and hamster models. They found that the hybrid protein triggered a strong immune response and provided better protection when compared to vaccines containing the whole spike protein.  

Varadarajan told TNIE that RS2 has better coverage compared to other vaccines. This could be India’s first homegrown vaccine for the JB.1 variant and others as Covaxin developed for the mutation has become inactive. “Post clinical trials the vaccine can be administered to everyone, starting with healthy human bodies. So far in our animal testing we have not seen any side effects but will have to wait for results on humans,” added Varadarajan.

The RS2 antigen can also be stored at room temperature for a month without the need for cold storage, unlike many vaccines in the market which require mandatory cold storage. This would make the distribution and storage of these vaccine candidates much more economical.  

Varadarajan said the vaccine candidate can be tailored to incorporate the RBD region of any new variant of SARS-CoV-2 that might emerge. Its high levels of expression and stability at room temperature can greatly reduce production and distribution costs, making it well-suited for combating COVID-19. “If need be, the vaccine can also be updated as and when the mutation develops over the years,” he added. 

source/content: newindianexpess.com (headline edited0

KARNATAKA: LANGUAGE / CULTURE / TECHNOLOGY: A search engine for Tumakuru Dialect: IIIT-B team develops AI interface for Colloquial Kannada

Called Graama-Kannada Audio Search, the interface allows the user to search for and access hyperlocal information from the Tumakuru region in audio format.

Access to information is relatively easy for the city dweller for whom knowledge is at the tip of the finger. Not so much is the case beyond the urban boundaries. 

Rural communities frequently depend on community radio, neighbourhood newspapers, and volunteer organisations for hyper-local information. But the corpus of knowledge produced by these entities often remains localised and is absent on the internet making it difficult for the people to re-access it. Added to this are the language challenges. 

Students of International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore (IIIT-B) have devised a solution for this by developing a search interface for colloquial audio content in Kannada language. 

Called Graama-Kannada Audio Search, the interface allows the user to search for and access hyperlocal information from the Tumakuru region in audio format. 

A search interface for rural communities

The framework was developed by Sharath Srivatsa (PhD Scholar, IIIT-B), Aparna M. (M.S. by Research Scholar, IIIT-B) and Sai Madhavan G. (iMTECH student, IIIT-B) under the guidance of Srinath Srinivasa (Professor and Dean (R&D), Web Science Lab, IIIT-B) and with the help of T. B. Dinesh (iruWay Rural Research Lab, Janastu).

Namma Halli Radio is a community owned WiFimesh radio run by Janastu NGO in the Tumakuru region. Over the years the radio grew an audio corpus rich with information on local customs, cultures, festivals, Covid-19 awareness and so on. But the absence of this data on the internet meant that people could not access the information at a later stage. 

The IIIT-B team worked with the community radio and fed the latter’s audio corpus into their search model. The audio was transcribed into text using automatic speech recognition (ASR) models. When a user searches for a certain keyword, this transcribed text would be matched with it to deliver results.

The user can search using keywords in Kannada or English text to obtain results in audio format. The audios would be timestamped to denote the exact location of the keyword.

“For example, someone wants to search for a specific term, say Red Cross. They can just type in the word in English or Kannada. And they’ll be provided with all the audio from the Namma Halli corpus where the word occurs. They can even just jump to the time where the word occurs,” explains Aparna M., one of the team members who developed the interface.

The missing colloquial 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models rely on data fed to them to give outputs. The bias of the data reflects in these models too, as a result of which AI models often fail to reflect the heterogeneity of the human population.

Models like Graama Kannada become relevant here.

Graama Kannada search interface could help add colloquial dialects to language models which have been trained either in English or sanitised formal versions of Kannada. 

“The problem with LLM (large language models) is that they are mostly built for a very formal type of Kannada like what is spoken on the All India Radio or seen in a newspaper. They don’t work very well when a person uses colloquial style language to search something,” Ms Aparna explains. 

“The main focus of our work is to build models that will be suitable for colloquial content. Since we have access to the community radio’s audio corpus, the model that we have built has given us better accuracy for the Tumakuru dialect,” she notes. 

The application, however, currently works on text-based search. But the team notes that they plan to include audio-based search very soon. 

“In the future, if someone wants to do a voice search, even if they speak in the Tumakuru dialect, our model will be better in processing it compared to other existing models. The same process can be repeated for other dialects too,” says Ms Aparna. 

A window to regional cultures 

While the interface has been developed predominantly keeping the community members in mind, Ms Aparna notes that it would also work as a window for the general public to get more local information about an area. 

The web application provides a list of most searched words such as Tumakuru, Turuvekere, Gruha Bandhana (quarantine), Dinasi (ration), Lasike (vaccine), Muneshwara Swamy (temple in Tumakuru) and so on. 

“This way even if a person is not very familiar with the community, they can understand what the corpus is about by looking at the words that we have given. These keywords can be like a clue to the community to them,” explains Ms. Aparna. 

No mean task 

The project was started in the beginning of 2022 as part of the PhD work of Sharath Srivatsa, who is the team lead, in collaboration with Janastu. The biggest challenge before the team was converting the audio accessed from the community-radio to text. 

“Our idea was to convert the audio to text and then do all the processing on the text. But getting a model to do that was very hard. For low-resource languages (languages with less data available on the internet for training AI systems) like Kannada with dialectical variations, most automatic speech recognition (ASR) models don’t work,” explains Mr. Srivatsa.

Towards the end of 2022, OpenAI introduced the Whisper model for ASR and speech translation. In 2023 Meta also introduced its own multilingual model. The team started experimenting with them and found better results.

But there were still challenges, a major one being spelling mistakes.

“When the audio was converted to text, it had spelling mistakes. For English the word error rate is just around 10% in ASR models given that it is the standard language and spoken across the world. But when it comes to low resource languages, models are not so optimal and efficient. We got around 60% word error rate and out of that 80% was spelling mistake. That is, when the audio was converted to text, it had spelling mistakes.”

The team realised this could become a problem. If the user typed the correct spelling, but the transcript carried a wrong spelling for the same word, the model would fail to match them and deliver results.

So, to address this the team allowed a relaxed criterion or fuzzy matching using which the input text would be compared to texts that are exact or very near.

Simple UI
Once a working model was in place, they started working on the website.

“We made a very simple web application with minimal features. But we made sure that the UI was accessible enough by having Kannada and English words,” says Sai Madhav who worked on the project as part of his internship. 

“You can search in English or Kannada. If you do it in English, there is this button for transliterating it from English to Kannada. Let’s say you search the name of a temple. Even with an approximate spelling, it will show you all the audio clips in the corpus that contain that word and the timestamp. So, you can seek to that particular timestamp, and you will be able to hear in what context it is being spoken about,” he adds. 

Analysing contrasting worldviews

Apart from adding voice search, the team also plans to add a question-and-answer feature to the model which would allow it to give full-fledged text answer like other LLMs such as ChatGPT. 

The team is also trying to analyse the contrast in worldviews between urban and rural communities.

“Information regarding modern societies and what they believe in is well documented and available as well-structured content on the internet. But that’s not the case with low-resource communities. So, we will collect some more corpus on it and try to find out more about their world views and unique beliefs. We want to mine such things and show in in our UI,” says Mr. Srivatsa. 

Ms. Aparna explains it further, “We have compared our corpus from the rural region with news corpus in more formal Kannada to find that there is significant difference in the worldviews. For example, let’s take the word development. Rrural community people talk about words like panchayat or Gowda of the village and so on in the context of it. Whereas the mainstream corpus got us results like development, Bangalore and so on.”

The team hopes that in a world were AI models push dominant mainstream views, their efforts would help to add more diversity to the mix. 

source/contents: thehindu.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: I.T: Infosys to acquire ‘InSemi’ the Bengaluru-based Semiconductor & Embedded Systems Design firm for Rs 280 cr

The IT giant expects the acquisition to help it complete its Chip-to-Cloud strategy and sync with its investments in AI/Automation platform.

Tech giant Infosys said it agreed to acquire InSemi, a Bengaluru-based semiconductor and embedded systems design provider for Rs 280 crore.

“With the advent of AI, Smart devices, 5G and beyond, electric vehicles, the demand for next-generation semiconductor design services integrated with our embedded systems creates unique differentiator. InSemi is a strategic investment as we usher a next wave of growth and a leadership position in Engineering R&D,” said Dinesh R, EVP & Co-Delivery Head, Infosys. 

InSemi was founded in 2013 and has over 900 employees, offers end-to-end semiconductor design services with expertise across electronic design, platform design, automation, embedded and software technologies. It serves several leading global corporations across semi-conductor, consumer electronics, automotive, and hi-tech industries. 

The company had revenue of 154 crore in the year ended March last year.

“The acquisition demonstrates our commitment to the semiconductor ecosystem and strengthens expertise in Engineering R&D services,” Infosys said, adding: 

“This collaboration will help accelerate Infosys’ Chip-to-Cloud strategy by bringing niche design skills at scale and will also pair seamlessly with existing investments in AI/Automation platform and industry partnerships. This strategic investment will aim to orchestrate comprehensive end-to-end product development for clients.”

The acquisition process is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of FY2024, according to Infosys. 

“With Infosys as our catalyst, it creates a synergistic combination that allows us to scale and bring the power of AI & Engineering R&D and next-generation technology to global clients, expanding across industry sectors,” said Shreekanth Sampigethaya & Arup Dash, Co-Founders, InSemi.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: NATIONAL / KARNATAKA: EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: Mangalurean Prof Dr Anjana Devi appointed Director at IFW Dresden, Germany

Prof Dr Anjana Devi has become the new director of the IFW Institute for Material Chemistry on January 1.

Prof Dr Anjana Devi has taken over as the new director of the Institute for Materials Chemistry (IMC) at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research (IFW) Dresden. At the same time, she is appointed as the chair of materials chemistry in the faculty of chemistry and food chemistry at the Technical University of Dresden. With her internationally recognized expertise, Devi brings a new thematic focus to the research programme of IFW Dresden.

The IFW Institute for Complex Materials (IKM), as it was previously called, will in future focus on materials chemistry. This will enable the entire institute to work together on an extended interdisciplinary basis, from theoretical calculations to experimental research into new materials for effective and sustainable future technologies.

Anjana Devi has a broad expertise in the field precursor chemistry and the development of new ALD/MOCVD processes of functional materials. She employs novel precursors to synthesize nanostructured advanced functional materials for various applications ranging from micro/nano/opto electronics to energy conversion and storage. The research activities include an interdisciplinary approach with a special focus on bridging synthetic chemistry and materials chemistry. At IFW, the research will be centred on 2D materials, in particular their scalable synthesis, heterostructures and nanostructured surfaces.

The ability to design their electronic and structural properties will significantly expand the application areas of 2D materials for industry and thus lead to sustainable research and development at IFW Dresden. Prof Devi is an active and internationally recognized collaborator undertaking joint projects with leading research groups and industries in the field of ALD and CVD.

“With Anjana Devi, we have gained an outstanding expert in the research field of materials chemistry who has a strong international network and reputation,” emphasizes scientific director Prof Dr Bernd Büchner. “Her expertise in advanced functional materials and their development adds another fundamental pillar to our research program in the research for new materials for future technologies. On behalf of the entire institute, I would like to warmly welcome her.”

With her profound expertise in this field, Prof Devi will establish a competence center for atomic layer deposition with the ASPIRE2D project at IFW Dresden in the coming years, which will aim to process advanced 2D functional materials on an atomic scale for future technologies. The focus is on the development of new molecular precursors and transforming them into nanostructured functional materials followed by testing the materials for device applications. In addition, a systematic understanding and evaluation of selected chemical processes will be undertaken. The new ALD competence center will serve as an interdisciplinary platform for researchers and manufacturing institutions within the Silicon Saxony network and the Leibniz Association. A task which the new director is very pleased to fulfill: “I am very excited to venture deep into the development of advanced nanostructured functional materials at IFW. Technological advances are rising tremendously in various sectors and there is a huge demand for new materials with defined functionalities to be identified and processed. The excellent infrastructure and resources that will be at my disposable and the strong interdisciplinary research activities at IFW will enable me to design and develop purpose-driven advanced materials. 2D materials are exciting owing to their multifaceted properties and thus revolutionizing many fields of applications. As research in this field intensifies, the contribution to this field in terms of scalable synthesis of 2D materials via MOCVD and ALD using novel precursor chemistries can facilitate new technological applications in the future.”

In addition to her professional expertise, Anjana Devi has proven herself to be an internationally connected person who is committed to the urgent challenges of these times. Starting her career as a junior professor at the Ruhr University Bochum in 2002, she was the speaker of the ‘Global Young Faculty’ organization, which dealt with the effects of climate change, and she has been supporting the ‘Soroptimist Club’ project in Bochum since 2017, which gives women and girls the opportunity to access education.

The administrative director of IFW Dresden, Juliane Schmidt, also warmly welcomes Prof Devi to the institute: “With Anjana Devi, another female scientist is taking over the directorship of one of the IFW institutes exactly one year after Yana Vaynzof, which is extremely gratifying. Both directors and their projects were recently selected for the ‘Leibniz Programme for Women Professors’, which supports innovative research by women in science. We are pleased to be role models for the next generations of researchers in this context.

Prof Dr Anjana Devi studied chemistry, physics, mathematics and materials science at St Agnes College under Mangalore University until 1991. She completed her PhD in materials science at the Materials Research Center of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. With a fellowship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, she moved to Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) as a postdoc in 1998. She has been a junior professor at RUB since 2002 and professor of inorganic materials chemistry since 2011.

In 2020, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in science and technology by Aalto University in Finland in recognition of her contributions to the field of precursor chemistry for CVD and ALD applications. In 2021, Prof Devi received the Attract grant from the Fraunhofer Society for carrying out research on 2D materials for innovative sensors using ALD technology. Since then, she has been leading the Nanostructured Sensor Materials (NSM) research group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems (IMS) in Duisburg.

Starting January this year, she is the director of the Institute for Materials Chemistry (IMC) at IFW Dresden and professor of materials chemistry at TU Dresden.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: KARNATAKA: DOCTORS: NRI Forum Karnataka felicitates Indian-origin American Doctors at Manipal, Udupi

 American Doctors who are of Indian origin were felicitated by NRI Forum Karnataka on Saturday January 6 at Rajathaadri, Manipal.

Dr Sampath Shivangi, founding member Association of Physicians of India, Dr Dayanand Nayak, Dr Geetha Nayak, cancer specialist, Dr Anupama Bhat, Dr Ramesh Gowda, Dr Udaya Shivangi, convener, Subramanya Bhat, Dr Rajeshwari, Dr Shantha Moorthi, Dr Sujatha Moorthi, Dr Ramdas were felicitated on the occasion.

Addressing the gathering, Dr Vidyakumari, deputy commissioner of Udupi district, said, “Today we are in the times of globalisation. America once which was very distant is now very near because of globalisation. Non-Resident Indian Forum, Karnataka, has helped Indian-origin doctors in America. It has quickly responded and helped doctors during Ukraine war and other crisis. When I was the zilla panchayat CEO in Tumakuru, when there was need for oxygen cylinders, foreign ambassadors have supplied in more quantity. They have helped a lot during the COVID pandemic.”

Dr Sampath Shivangi, thanking the gathered said, “Earlier, we were called Asian Americans and now we are called Indian Americans. This is one of the achievements we have made. We always want to help our motherland.”

Dr Dayanand Nayak said, “No other Indians have done the work Dr Arathi Krishna, the deputy chairman of the NRI Forum Karnataka has done. We are not only immigrants but also sub-Indians. No doctors from other countries receive respect as Indian doctors get in America. Dr Sampath, Dr Uday and Dr Subramanyam Bhat have contributed a lot.”

The event began with a prayer by Sachin. Dignitaries and all the doctors lighted the lamp.

Dr Arathi Krishna welcomed the gathering. Lakshmamma, working secretary of NRI Forum Karnataka proposed the vote of thanks. M A Gafoor, senior Udupi Congress leader, presided over the event.

Mamatha Devi G S, additional deputy commissioner of Udupi and others were present.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)