Tag: Karnataka First

NATIONAL: BANKING & ECONOMY / I.T: Bengaluru Leads the Country in Digital Payment Transactions reaching 14.82 million Transactions in only 10 months Jan to Oct 2022

Between January and October this year, Bengaluru saw 14.82 million such transactions valued at ₹3,620 crore.

Netizens in the tech capital of India have made 14.82 million digital payment transactions in the January to October 2022 period, the highest in the country, amounting to ₹3,620 crore, according to a study put out by Worldline India, a payment technology player.

Hyderabad accounted for 10.36 million digital payment transactions amounting to over ₹3,050 crore and Chennai 9.76 million at ₹2,250 crore. The country’s financial capital, Mumbai saw 9.4 million people carrying out digital payment transactions amounting to ₹2,740 crore and Pune with 7.88 million transactions clocked ₹1,730 crore.

The 10-month period under consideration, saw frequently visited physical merchant categories like grocery stores, restaurants, clothing and apparel, pharmacy, hotels, jewellery retail, speciality retail, household appliances, and departmental stores while in the online-space category wise, e-commerce (shopping for goods and services), gaming, utility and financial services together accounted for over 86% in terms of volume, according to the survey.

Festive season sales, and a rise in consumption after the pandemic have helped the city to take the top spot in digital payments transactions, stated the study.

Ramesh Narasimhan, Chief Executive Officer – India, Worldline, said: “Today, both customers and sellers are more receptive towards digital payments. Digital payments are gradually becoming like a commodity, and forming a subtle yet an integral part of our lives. The swift adoption of digital payments can be witnessed with each passing quarter.’‘

Payment instruments like UPI, cards, PPIs were already clocking over 23 billion transactions in the country in a quarter, he added.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

NATIONAL: SERVICE TO NATION / PERSONALITY: Mishal Queenie D’Costa, Dy. Director, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) honoured with Bravery Award by Finance Minister for displaying Extraordinary Bravery while chasing & nabbing drug peddlers

DRI Mishal Queenie D’Costa, IRS, deputy director of indirect taxes at Mumbai Customs was honoured with a bravery award by finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman for displaying extraordinary bravery without even fearing for her life while chasing Nigerian drug peddlers in Mumbai.

During the last financial year, Nigerian drug peddlers were caught in a daring operation with 1.9kg of drug tablets, when they jumped from a building roof.

Mishal who hails from Neerude, Dakshina Kannada, chased the culprits and physically stopped the culprits from escaping until the full force arrived at the scene. The young officer received the bravery award on DRI Foundation Day for her extraordinary achievement.

Mishal, who secured the 387th rank in the UPSC civil service examination in 2015, is second among the three children of Lazarus and Nancy D’Costa of Neerude.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: HEALTH & MEDICAL SERVICES: SAARC Countries Honour Dr.G. Siddesh, Sigma Hospital, Mysuru

Dr. G. Siddesh, Director of  Sigma Hospital, Mysuru, was honoured with a Fellowship by Colombo Hospital of Sri Lanka recently at the National Convention of  SAARC  countries held at Colombo.

He was honoured by Dr. Sathish Gonasinghe,  President of Sri Lanka Surgeon Associations in recognition of his more than 35 years of service to Medical Education and Minimal  Surgery in Hospital.

source/content: starofmysore.com ( edited)

KARNATAKA: ARTS & CULTURE: Filmy story: Digital board game ‘ODO’ for learning Karnataka culture through movies

Many of us might know that one person who knows multiple languages. And that comes from the love of cinema. Tapping that, Madan Kumar has developed an app called ODO, which is an online board game.

Kumar’s aim for the app is to make it easier for people to learn the language in a fun way. Some of the movies that are listed are Badava Rascal, Humble Politician Nograj, U-Turn to name a few.

Kumar loves movies and is a strong believer that nothing is difficult until and unless there is a right way of doing it.

“I can speak all the South Indian languages and am self-taught. My knowledge of languages is mostly from watching movies. I picked languages through dialogues. I know so many people who learn Tamil from Rajanikanth movies,” says Kumar with a laugh. While this is the second version of the game, the first version was about a simple word-making game.

The other reason Kumar is using movie references is to make people aware of Kannada movies.

“It is good to see so many Kannada movies getting recognition nationally. There are many other good movies in addition to KGF and Kantara. I want people to know more about it. And as Indians we love movies, I feel it’s easier for us to make something new through movies. Initially, we started with old movies, but now we have expanded their database to 800 movies. So every day, there are new scenes or dialogues from the movie,” he adds.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: ARTS & CULTURE: With a few firsts, 11th edition Bangalore Literature Festival 2022(BLT) all set to kick off on Saturday, Dec 03-05th

The BLT and Atta Galatta, a city-based bookstore and hub for literary events, will also give out the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize to honour the best of English fiction and non-fiction and Kannada writing.

The 11th edition of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLT) is all set to kick off on Saturday, December 3, at Hotel Lalit Ashok.

The two-day festival will feature over 250 international, Indian, and city authors and speakers, four programme forums, and two children’s venues, said organisers.

They added stimulating conversations around a breadth of fiction and non-fiction topics, including history, biographies, translations, literature, religion, mythology, travel, art and music, feminism, food, cinema, publishing, technology, startups and more will also feature in the festival.

BLT will host several authors and speakers, including historian William Dalrymple, author and poet Jerry Pinto, poet and novelist Jeet Thayil, researcher and journalist Akshaya Mukul; author-politician Arun Shourie, author-playwright Cyrus Mistry, screenwriter-children’s writer Honey Irani, and author and constitutional lawyer J Sai Deepak among other guests.

Members from the film fraternity including Alankrita Shrivastava, Natesh Hegde, and Kamal KM, will be participating at ScreenLit—the pitching platform for screenwriters. Noted editors, journalists, and media personalities, including T J S George, Senthil Chengalvarayan, Bachi Karkaria, Kaveree Bamzai, Malini Goyal, R Kaushik, Stutee Ghosh, and Suresh Menon, will be among others at BLT.

source/content: indianexpress.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: HEALTH & MEDICAL SCIENCES / INNOVATION: Ayushi Chauhan, Student of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Wins Prize for ‘TB Diagnostics Tool’ at the Falling Walls Lab and Science Summit 2022, Berlin, Germany

An IISc student won third prize at an international summit held in Berlin, Germany, for a device that could make tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis cheaper and more accessible.

Ayushi Chauhan, a PhD scholar at IISc’s chemical engineering department, was awarded third prize under the ‘Breakthrough of the Year Emerging Talents’ category at the Falling Walls Lab and Science Summit 2022 in Germany. She was earlier the winner of Falling Walls Lab India 2022, leading her to represent the country during the global summit.

She and her adviser, Dr Bhushan Toley, developed a pocket-sized device for the detection of both regular and drug-resistant tuberculosis, that makes the diagnostic portion near equipment-free. “The device reduces instrumentation cost by 99.6% and testing cost by 87%, which can be reduced even further. Only around one-third of tuberculosis cases are actually reported.

This is due in large part to equipment needs,” she said, during her pitch at the summit. She said the diagnosis method was visually similar to that of a home pregnancy test and Covid tests. “I believe this invention can bring an end to tuberculosis by 2035,” she said.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL / NATIONAL / KARNATAKA: ENGINEERING & TRANSPORT / GLOBAL J.V. / INDUSTRY LEADER:Vikram Kirloskar – The man who brought Toyota to Karnataka

Vikram Kirloskar brought global auto giant Toyota to Karnataka in 1997, when the State wasn’t yet a big name in the global business arena.

Way back in 1997, when Karnataka wasn’t yet a big spot on the global business map, auto major Toyota set up a manufacturing facility at Bidadi, on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The man who was instrumental in bringing the Japanese automaker to Karnataka was Vikram Kirloskar who passed away on November 29.

The initial efforts towards bringing Toyota Motor Corp to India were made during the tenure of Chief Minister Veerappa Moily in the early 1990s, and were later followed up by his successor H.D. Deve Gowda. During J.H. Patel’s tenure, Toyota Kirloskar officially started its operations in Karnataka. Thereafter, the business savvy S.M Krishna and his industrious industries minister R.V. Deshpande extended support to the venture.

Although multiple Chief Ministers and their industries ministers were involved in bringing, hosting and settling Toyota at Bidadi, one key person who worked tirelessly from outside was Vikram Kirloskar, who is a mechanical engineering graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), U.S.A.

Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani said, “He was a dear personal friend, an industry friend and, more importantly, a genuine human being who was always ready with a smile. With the passing of Vikram, a prominent face and a pillar of the business community of Karnataka is no more.”

The Kirloskar family hails from Haveri in the Dharwad region. They have been running various businesses, including automotive engineering, pumps, gensets, and machine tools for over 100 years. Vikram Kirloskar became the mainstay of ‘Karnataka Inc.’ with Toyota Kirloskar in 1997.

Since its inception, Toyota has invested over ₹20,000 crore in Karnataka, and Mr. Kirloskar’s personal commitment in 2010 was ₹1,500 crore.

“He has been a great help in organising Global Investors’ Meet. He and (his wife) Geetanjali came with me for a road show in the U.S. prior to GIM in 2010,” recalled Mr. Nirani.

A doyen of the automotive industry, Mr. Kirloskar was extremely supportive of young people and their business ideas.

Addressing a trade body event that had several youngsters in the audience recently, he said, “You are the future leaders. You should soon be sitting here where I am sitting.”

The fourth-generation entrepreneur of the Kirloskar family leaves behind his wife Geetanjali and daughter Manasi, who works in the company.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

INTERNATIONAL: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Shreya Narayan, Student of Bangalore Institute of Technology Wins First Position in ‘UNESCO-India-Africa Hackathon 2022’, Greater Noida

Shreya Narayan, a student of Bangalore Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, took part in the UNESCO-India-Africa Hackathon 2022 held at Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, recently and won the first place with a cash prize of ₹3 lakh, said a release.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: BUSINESS & ECONOMY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY / EXCELLENCE: Infosys, Intel Win ‘Karnataka IT Rathna Awards’ & Host of others Won the ‘IT Pride of Karnataka Awards’ at Bengaluru Tech Summit-2022

Infosys and Intel bagged the Karnataka IT Rathna awards at the 25th edition of the Bengaluru Tech Summit (BTS) 2022 held in Bengaluru, informed a press release.

The awards which were given away at the meet have been instituted by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and are given to companies that have clocked more than ₹10,000 crore in exports.

Minister for IT-BT, Science & Technology Dr C N Aswath Narayan also honoured companies such as TCS, Bosch, Mindtree, and 21 others with the award ‘IT Pride of Karnataka’ for clocking ₹2,000 crore to ₹10,000 crore in exports.

Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said “Karnataka is clocking exports worth ₹1 lakh crore annually and expressed hope that it would rise to ₹1.5 lakh crore in the next three years and also achieve $1 trillion in the digital economy space.”

However, the Minister expressed anxiousness over the 40% shortage of finances in the current account despite a high turnover in exports from the state. He urged the IT captains to raise exports and reduce imports to maintain a good balance of trade. He also assured the industry that the government will continue to extend its support.

Aravind Kumar and Shailendra Tyagi of STPI, IT Vision group chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan, Additional chief secretary of IT-BT department E V Ramana Reddy, and director Meena Nagaraj were also present at the vent.

– Winners of the ‘IT Pride of Karnataka Awards’:

– Accenture, Amazon Development Centre, Dell, EIT Services, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, IBM, JP Morgan, Juniper Networks, Mercedes Benz, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Samsung, SAP Labs, Standard Chartered, VMware and Wipro won the IT Pride of Karnataka awards.

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline and sub-head edited)

INTERNATIONAL: MEDICAL TEAM AT QATAR: Pratibha N Darkasu selected as a Member of the Medical Team for the ‘FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022’

A woman, native of the taluk is selected to serve in the medical team of FIFA World Cup that is going on at Qatar.

Pratibha N Darkasu, wife of Naveen Poojary, a resident of Darkasu in Kudambettu village is the woman who is selected for this coveted job. She has become the only woman from Karnataka to serve in the medical team of World Cup.

Pratibha is the daughter of Narayana Poojary and Srimathi couple, residents of Siddakatte Soorande in Bantwal. She lives with her husband Naveen in Doha Qatar since many years.

Pratibha works in Hamad Medical Corporation government hospital.

Her special service was recognized during coronavirus pandemic also for which she was honoured.

Now she is selected as the nursing in-charge for the World Cup considering her outstanding service in the health sector of Qatar.

source/content: daijiworld.com (headline edited)