KARNATAKA: AI in MEDICINE: Siemens Healthineers opens Precision Medicine Lab at IISc

Siemens Healthineers and IISc inaugurated the Siemens Healthineers-Computational Data Sciences (CDS) Collaborative Laboratory for AI in Precision Medicine at IISc campus in the city.

The laboratory would develop open-source AI-based tools to precisely automate the segmentation of pathological findings in neuroimaging data, with a focus on accurately diagnosing neurological diseases and analysing their clinical impact at a population level, said Peter Schardt, Chief Technology Officer, Siemens Healthineers while inaugurating the lab.

The focus of this collaborative laboratory would be to work closely with neurologists, radiologists and Siemens Healthineers and integrate the developed computational models into their regular clinical workflows, the company said.

Mr. Schardt said, “The collaboration with IISc solidifies our commitment to advancing precision medicine through AI using state-of-the-art, data-driven deep-learning techniques. Leveraging IISc’s academic excellence and our strong core in medical imaging, smart solutions developed through this collaboration will help us ultimately save lives through precise diagnoses and evidence-based treatments”.

Govindan Rangarajan, Director, Indian Institute of Science, said, “This lab marks a crucial step forward in unlocking the potential of AI for precision medicine.”

India was one of the four global innovation hubs for Siemens Healthineers, and the company was committed to being catalysts in interdisciplinary research, stated Dileep Mangsuli, Executive Director, Siemens Healthineers.

“Along with IISc, we aim to reshape the landscape of neuroscientific progress through the capabilities of artificial intelligence, translating laboratory insights into intelligent solutions. We want to empower the broader clinical research community and be changemakers in the fight against world’s most life-threatening diseases,” Mr. Mangsuli added.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

REGIONAL: KARNATAKA: TRAVEL & TOURISM: Bengaluru to function as Hub of Thomas Cook’s Charter Operations for South India

The travel firm’s maiden air charter service will be between Bengaluru and Bhutanese Capital Thimphu, a three-hour flight, starting in April 2024.

Thomas Cook (India) Limited, an omnichannel travel services company, has forayed into charter services to cater to the growing interest among customers in South India for holiday destinations in South Asian and European countries.

Bengaluru will function as the hub of Thomas Cook’s charter operations for South India and leisure/holidays tourists from across the region would be able to board the charter flights departing from the city, Romil Pant, executive vice-president & Business Head (Holidays), Thomas Cook, told The Hindu on Wednesday.

The travel firm’s maiden air charter service will be between Bengaluru and Bhutanese Capital Thimphu, a three-hour flight, starting in April 2024.

“We will hire a 126-seater airplane from Bhutan Airlines and will operate five charter flights every eight days starting from April 27. This is the first time we are entering into the chartering space and we may extend this service to connect other neighbouring countries, including Nepal and Sri Lanka and also some European destinations,” Mr Pant said.

Commenting on the rationale of starting the charter service from Bengaluru, he said Karnataka and Bengaluru were the company’s biggest markets in the country. For instance, the southern region solely contributed 45% of Thomas Cook’s total business in the country.

Currently, there is no direct flight to Bhutan from the southern region, only Delhi and Kolkata offer direct flights and land travel also takes a lot of time.

“South India is the largest contributor to the holidays business for us, overtaking the West and North India. Bengaluru and Karnatka has emerged as our number 1 source market for the leisure segment. Huge demand is coming from small cities including Mysuru, Udupi, and Hubballi too,” he added.

Commenting on travel trends in Bengaluru, Mr. Pant said the travel firm had witnessed a 60% increase in demand this year compared to 2019, the travel spend also increased by up to 30%, and average holiday duration has increased to seven days from three days compared to 2019 levels. The most favourite destinations for Bengalureans have been Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Mauritius, Singapore, Dubai, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, and Georgia while Andamans, Kashmir, North-East, Rajasthan, Kerala, Coorg, Chickmagaluru, Kabini, and Ooty are their favourite domestic getaways.

“We are very bullish on Bengaluru and Karnataka and we are investing deeply in this high potential market and are expanding our footprint here. We expect to see a business uptick of 30% from Karnataka in 2024,” Mr. Pant added.

source/content: thehindu.com (headline edited)

KARNATAKA: CITY PUBLIC TRANSPORT-MAJOR MILESTONE: Bengaluru’s Namma Metro Clocks 100 Crore Foot Falls ever since its inception

Bengaluru’s Namma Metro Achieves Major Milestone with 100 Crore Footfalls.

Bengaluru’s Namma Metro clocked more than 100 crore foot falls from 2012 when it was first launched, said Bengaluru Metro Transport Corporation (BMRCL) in an announcement. This is said to be a major milestone for the key public transport system of the IT Capital.

The first metro line in Bengaluru was launched in the year 2012 and was between Baiyappanahalli and MG Road. The 6.7 kilometers metro on the Purple Line was widely used by the public, with an average daily ridership of 33,152 passengers during the first year.

BMRCL later extended metro lines to most parts of the city in phases. In 2016-17, the Majestic metro station was opened on the Purple line, and it turned out to be one of the busiest metro stations in the city, connecting areas like Mysuru Road, Jayanagar and Baiyappanahalli. The average daily ridership then crossed 1 lakh passengers.

Bengaluru’s Namma Metro has 65 stations with an operational network of 74 kilometres.

In December 2023 alone, Bengaluru’s Namma Metro recorded two crore footfalls. This is said to be the highest monthly ridership for Namma Metro, ever since it was launched, and it also saw a spike in average daily ridership.

Making Purple Line fully operational in October last year by connecting Whitefield to Bengaluru South and Bengaluru Central was a game changer for BMRCL.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally dedicated the full operations of Bengaluru metro’s Purple Line to the people of the IT capital by inaugurating two pending stretches, Baiyappanahalli – KR Puram and Kengeri – Challaghatta, on October 20. The Purple Line operations started on October 9 without much fanfare or an inaugural event.

During the launch of Purple Line, BMRCL expected the increase in ridership would be at least between 70,000 and 1 lakh people, but it has only risen to roughly 60,000 passengers per day.

source/content: hindustantimes.com (headline edited)

WORLD RECORD: NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: World No.1 Ranking will Inspire ‘Gen-Next’ of Indian Tennis, says Rohan Bopanna after Achieving the Feat

Bopanna is set to become the oldest tennis player to achieve the world No. 1 ranking in men’s doubles after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open along with his partner Matthew Ebden of Australia.

Rohan Bopanna feels that his ascent to world No. 1 in doubles rankings at the twilight of his career is perfect boost that Indian tennis needed just when it was falling off the radar.

Bopanna is set to become the oldest tennis player to achieve the world No. 1 ranking in men’s doubles after reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open along with his partner Matthew Ebden of Australia here on Wednesday.

The 43-year-old, who had entered the tournament with a career-high ranking of world No. 3, and Ebden recorded a comfortable 6-4 7-6(5) win over sixth seeded Argentinian duo of Máximo González and Andrés Molteni in the quarterfinals that lasted an hour and 46 minutes here.

Bopanna will be crowned the new numero uno spot on Monday after the end of the tournament.

“It (the feat) means a lot not to just me but for Indian tennis also. You need something to inspire the next generation. Sumit (Nagal) also had a great Australian Open. He won a round,” Bopanna told PTI in an exclusive interview from Melbourne.

And the star player said the feat came with a lot of sacrifices.

“Extremely proud of this (world no.1 ranking in men’s doubles). It’s a special moment. Lot of sacrifices have gone into this. My coaches, family everyone. My family is travelling with me, so different feeling,” he said.

In fact, he is more happy that for the past week, Indian tennis has been in the news.

“Nothing at all was happening in Indian tennis. You (journalists) also did not have much to write about, so this has happened at the right time.” Earlier, Rajeev Ram of the USA was the oldest player to be ranked world no. 1 when he had achieve the top ranking in October 2022 at the age of 38 for the first time in his career.

Ebden, on the other hand, is set to reach the world no 2 spot.

Bopanna twice reached the US Open final but never won a men’s doubles major.

He, however, has a mixed doubles trophy at the French Open when he and his partner Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada won the crown at the 2017 French Open, defeating Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Robert Farah in the final 2–6 6–2 12–10.

But Bopanna’s desire to win a men’s doubles title at the Slam still remains unfulfilled, something which we wants to achieve before hanging up his racquet.

“That’s a personal goal (winning men’s doubles title at a Grand Slam). It’s no one else’s goal,” he said.

For the veteran, it is always one step at a time.

“When you reach second round, next you want is third round then fourth, quarters, semi-final. So, yes I have been in two Slam final and now want to win but it’s a natural. You always try to go one better,” Bopanna said about his future goal.

Bopanna, who had achieved the highest of world No. 3 for the first time in 2013, is the fourth Indian after Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza to take the world number one rank in doubles.

He also didn’t forget to acknowledge the contribution of his long-time coach Scott David of the USA in his breathtaking journey in the game.

“I am probably fifty world number one of coach Scott David. It’s a proud moment for him also. I switched to doubles in 2010 and since then I have been with him only,” Bopanna said.

Bopanna and Ebden have been one of the most consistent pairs on the tour over the last 12 months. The duo reached the final of US Open 2023, their best result so far in Grand Slams.

En route the semifinals here, the second seeded Bopanna and Ebden, had to over come two close contests in the first and third rounds to book their place in the semifinals.

Their first hurdle came in the opening round against wildcards James Duckworth and Marc Polmans of Australia, whom Bopanna and Ebden defeated 6-7(5) 6-4 6-7(2).

Their next steep challenge came in the third round where they overcame 14th seeds Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands and Croatian Nikola Mektić 7-6(8) 7-6(4).

And Bopanna attributed the ability to finish close matches to his experience on the circuit.

“Experience is a great factor in getting those wins. Ever since, I started focussing only on doubles in 2010, it has taken me 13-14 years to reach this. I have been a journeyman,” said Bopanna, who will take over the top position from USA’s Austin Krajicek, who and his Croatian partner Ivan Dodig lost in the second round.

The Indo-Australian pair will play unseeded Tomas Machac of Czech Republic and Chinese Zhizhen Zhang in the semi-finals.

His former Davis Cup teammates Mahesh Bhupathi and Somdev Devvarman termed it as one of the greatest stories in Indian sport.

“Rohan Bopanna getting to World Number 1 today after 20 years on tour in my opinion is one of the greatest stories in Indian Sport!!!,” Bhupathi wrote on ‘X’.

“Bops first told me he was contemplating retirement 5 years ago, then 4 years ago, then 3 years ago…Moral of the story is…. Who cares… He’s number 1! Couldn’t be happier for the Bopanna family! rohanbopanna is the best story in indian sport,” Devvarman wrote.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.

source/content: telegraphindia.com (headline edited)

NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: AVIATION & AIRLINES: RECORD SETTING: India’s First wide-bodied Airbus A350 Flies from Bengaluru to Mumbai

Flight AI 589 will operate from Kempegowda International Airport six days of the week barring Tuesdays to the same launch timings.

Air India on Monday commercially launched of India’s first Airbus A350 flight from Bengaluru to Mumbai carrying 297 passengers on board. Flight AI 589 departed from Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) at 7.05 am and reached Mumbai at 8.50 am.

The Airbus A350 aircraft is part of Air India’s record setting order of 470 aircraft signed with Airbus and Boeing in June 2023. The first Airbus A350-900, registered as VT-JRA arrived at IGI Airport, New Delhi on December 23, 2023, said an official release. One aircraft will arrive every six days in 2024.

The configuration of the aircraft is 316 seats – 28 private business suites with full-flat beds, 24 premium economy seats with extra legroom and 264 spacious economy seats. The latest generation Panasonic (eX3) in-flight entertainment system and HD screens in them will offer a superior flying experience to flyers, it said. “Fitted with the Rolls Royce Trent XWB engines, this aircraft is 20 percent more fuel efficient tan other similar aircraft,” it added.

Bengalurean Naveen, who flew on this spacious aircraft during one of its subsequent trips later on Monday from Bengaluru to Chennai told TNIE, “I have been waiting for long to travel by this magnificient aircraft. This model has been operated by international airlines to India and I have flown by them. But this is the first time that an Indian airline is operating one and that too on a domestic route.”

Asked what impressed him about this make, he said, “The entertainment systems available were impressive. Overall, it has more space than regular aircraft.”

AI 589 will operate from KIA on six days of the week barring Tuesdays to the same launch timings.

The release added, “Initially the aircraft will be deployed on domestic routes for crew familiarisation and regulatory compliance purposes. Passengers from Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai will have the opportunity to experience the unparalleled comfort and state-of-the-art technology of the A350 – part of the 470 new aircraft order that Air India placed less than a year ago. The aircraft will be later deployed for long-haul flights to destinations across continents, strengthening AI’s growing fleet of wide-body fleets, comprising its own and recently leased aircraft.”

source/content: newindianexpress.com (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)

NATIONAL: KARNATAKA: RECORDS: Bengaluru Most Favoured Office Space Market in Country 

Quality office space supply in Bengaluru has driven rentals upward in the market. The average transacted rentals in Bengaluru grew by 6.6% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 86.4/sq ft/month in 2023.

Bengaluru registered an office transaction volume of 12.5 million square feet in 2023, the highest transaction volume recorded amongst the leading cities in India, according to a report by Knight Frank India released on Wednesday. 

In its latest report titled ‘India Real Estate: Residential and Office (July-December 2023)’, Global Capability Centres (GCC), flex spaces and India-facing occupiers supported the office leasing momentum in Bengaluru while there was a moderation from the tech occupiers. During 2023, flex space occupiers and GCCs dominated the leasing activity in Bengaluru, each accounting for 30% of the total transactions in the city.

The growing occupier interest and the quality office space supply in Bengaluru have driven rentals upward in the market. The average transacted rentals in Bengaluru grew by 6.6% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 86.4/sq ft/month in 2023, according to the report.

As per the report, in 2023, the Bengaluru market witnessed a new supply infusion of 13.4 mnsqft, leading to a stock accumulation of 215 mnsqft. The market contains an adequate inventory to fulfil occupier demands in the near future.

Shantanu Mazumder, Executive Director, Bengaluru, Knight Frank India, said, “The moderate leasing activity by third-party IT was positively cushioned by the market share consolidation by GCC, flex and India-facing businesses. Bengaluru is an attractive market for GCC occupiers as the city is already an established global hub, has a diverse talent pool and a unique ecosystem comprising technology penetration, research and development, start-ups, academia and more. Bengaluru’s office market fundamentals remain strong.

The acceleration of return-to-office by firms and the growth in India-facing businesses along with stable business inflow from the western developed markets into India should support the growth in the office market demand in the near term.”

According to the report, in 2023, Bengaluru registered a nine-year high sales volume of residential units at 54,046. The North Bengaluru micro-market is an emerging and one of the fastest-growing clusters in the city. In 2023, the micro-market witnessed 22% of sales, with a sharp rise in absolute volumes.

The city witnessed new launches of 51,126 units, a multi-year high, as the market experienced a strong influx of new project launches in 2023, indicating an 18% year-on-year increase. South Bengaluru micro-market continued to dominate sales comprising a share of 39% of the total sales in the city in 2023. The weighted average price of residential units in Bengaluru increased by 7% YoY to Rs 5,900/sq ft/month.

source/content: newindianexpress.com (headline edited)