Published on: January 16, 2025
Snippets : 16 JANUARY 2025
Snippets : 16 JANUARY 2025
- Bengaluru remains the leading destination for global capability centres (GCCs), hosting nearly 300 Forbes Global 2000 companies and employing approximately 5,60,000 professionals as per ANSR’s Q3 report for October-December 2024. GCCs, fully owned subsidiaries of multinational companies, focus on data, R&D, and product innovation. While Hyderabad and Chennai emerge as strong competitors, Bengaluru dominates due to its infrastructure and talent pool. Banking, financial services, retail, healthcare, and emerging technologies like AI and cybersecurity drive GCC growth, with projections suggesting employment of nearly 2 million professionals in India by 2030. Despite challenges like infrastructure and connectivity issues, Bengaluru leads in Grade-A office space demand, accounting for 55% of the city’s leasing activity. GCCs largely originate from North America, Europe, and Japan, with increasing interest from the Middle East, particularly UAE and Saudi Arabia.
- Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Company has inaugurated its first Innovation Capability Centre (ICC) in Bengaluru, marking its debut ICC in the Asian region. The centre aims to focus on Research and Development (R&D) and digital health solutions, with a vision to transition into a digital biopharmaceutical company within 3-5 years. Bengaluru was chosen for its skilled talent pool in artificial intelligence, robotics, and software engineering, as well as government incentives under Karnataka’s GCC policy. Currently employing 275 professionals in advanced technology areas, the centre emphasizes skill development alongside hiring niche talent. Unlike traditional GCCs, the Bengaluru ICC prioritizes high-impact areas, such as plasma-derived therapy donor systems and scalable tools for patient support, rather than traditional verticals like finance or HR. Additionally, it collaborates with global tech leaders like AWS, Salesforce, and SAP, ensuring that innovations developed in Bengaluru are implemented across Takeda’s global operations. The company plans to expand its workforce to 750 by the end of 2025.
- The Indian Navy achieved a historic milestone with the first-ever tri-commissioning of naval platforms—INS Nilgiri, INS Vaghsheer, and INS Surat—at a ceremony in Mumbai on Wednesday, symbolizing a major stride toward the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. INS Nilgiri, the lead ship of Project 17A frigates, boasts enhanced firepower, a concealed deck, and accommodations for women officers. INS Vaghsheer, the sixth and final submarine of the Project 75 Kalvari class, is celebrated as the most advanced diesel-electric stealth submarine globally. INS Surat, the fourth and final ship of Project 15B destroyers, exemplifies advancements in design, construction efficiency, and combat capabilities across air, surface, and underwater domains.
- India’s Union government has introduced a new program to promote battlefield tourism, aimed at allowing tourists to visit iconic war sites for educational purposes and to inspire patriotism. The initiative was launched by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh during Army Day in Pune, and it will make 77 historic battlefields accessible to the public. Some of the key locations include Rezang La in Ladakh, the site of the 1962 battle between India and China, Galwan Valley, the location of recent India-China hand-to-hand combat, and Doklam in Sikkim, which was the site of the 2017 standoff. Other notable locations include Nathu La and Bum La in Arunachal Pradesh, Pangong Tso in Ladakh, Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand, Gurudongmar Lake in Sikkim, and the Longewala war site in Rajasthan. The initiative focuses on improving infrastructure, communication, tourism, and education, with plans for technological support such as the Bharat Ranbhoomi Darshan App, which provides comprehensive information about historical battlefields and related sites. The program also aims to promote awareness of India’s military heritage by allowing tourists to relive historical battles and gain insight into the soldiers’ experiences.
- India has successfully tested the Bhargavastra, its first micro-missile system designed to counter the growing threat posed by swarm drones. Developed by Economic Explosives Ltd., this indigenous micro-missile system boasts impressive features such as mobility, with the ability to be deployed on mobile platforms, and a range capable of engaging targets over 2.5 km. Its detection capability is highly advanced, allowing it to spot small flying objects from over 6 km away. The system uses micro-munitions that can be guided towards targets, and it can fire over 64 micro missiles simultaneously, offering a significant advantage in dealing with large swarms of drones. It is operable in challenging terrains, including high-altitude areas. The Bhargavastra is designed for military integration, specifically for Army Air Defence, marking India’s first counter-drone system that utilizes micro missiles for swarm drone defense.
- The Union Minister of Commerce & Industry has launched the Bharat Cleantech Manufacturing Platform, an initiative aimed at enhancing India’s cleantech value chains in solar, wind, hydrogen, and battery storage sectors. The platform will facilitate collaboration, co-innovation, financing, and resource sharing among Indian firms, positioning India as a global leader in sustainability and cleantech. This move aligns with India’s clean energy targets, which include achieving 500 GW of clean energy sources by 2030, building on its success in meeting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and installing 200 GW of renewable energy by 2022, eight years ahead of schedule.
- Bengaluru has lost a staggering Rs 1,788 crore to cybercrimes between 2021 and September 2024, with nearly 78.7% of the total losses attributed to six major fraud categories, including investment and job frauds, courier scams, and phishing. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has supercharged these scams, with scammers leveraging AI for voice cloning and creating advanced setups to enhance courier scams, making it challenging for investigators to recover the stolen funds, with only 20% of the lost amount retrieved
- Just days before a new US administration took office, the US government removed restrictions on three Indian nuclear entities: the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), the Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre (IGCAR), and Indian Rare Earths (IRE).
- This action, announced by the US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), followed National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement at IIT-Delhi that the US was finalizing steps to ease regulations hindering civil nuclear cooperation between Indian and American companies. This move was widely interpreted as an effort by the outgoing administration to bolster the implementation of the landmark India-US civil nuclear agreement, initially unveiled in 2005 and finalized around 2008. The BIS stated that this modification to the Entity List, which removed the three entities after an inter-agency review, aimed to facilitate closer US-India cooperation in securing resilient critical minerals and clean energy supply chains, aligning with the broader strategic direction of the US-India partnership.
- Third edition of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam (KTS), which celebrates the timeless bond between Tamil Nadu and Kashi, will be held from February 15 to 24 at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh
- A new international commission has redefined obesity, urging assessments to move beyond the traditional Body Mass Index (BMI) and focus instead on the amount of body fat and any related medical complications, as reported by NYT News Service and published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. This new definition, endorsed by 76 organizations, proposes using BMI as a screening tool to identify individuals needing further testing for excess body fat, suggesting that those with a BMI over 25 and excess fat, but no other health issues, may not require treatment. This shift in focus could significantly alter how doctors identify and treat obesity, potentially impacting the use of prescription obesity medications like Wegovy and Zepbound.
- Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Lightbagged a nomination for the Best Film Not in English Language at the 2025 BAFTA Film Awards. The Malayalam-Hindi movie is pitted against Kneecap (Ireland), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany), Emilia Perez (France) and I’m Still Here (Brazil) in the category
- Off-spinner Kaushalya Choudhary (four for 38), leg-spinner Prema Rawat (four for 54), and opener D. Vrinda (71, 65b, 10×4) helped Team-C defeat Team-A by two wickets in the final of the BCCI senior women’s one-day Challenger Trophy in Chennai
- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched two lunar landers, one built by U.S.-based Firefly Aerospace (Blue Ghost) and the other by Japan’s ispace (Resilience), on a “rideshare” mission to the moon, highlighting the increasing role of the private sector in space exploration. This launch follows Intuitive Machines’ successful lunar landing last year and aims to build upon that achievement under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which seeks to reduce costs and foster a lunar economy in support of the Artemis program’s goal of establishing a sustained human presence on the moon. 2 Blue Ghost, carrying 10 NASA instruments for scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, will be deployed first and aims for a 45-day journey to Mons Latreille, while Resilience, carrying ispace-Europe’s “Tenacious” micro rover designed to collect lunar regolith, will take four to five months to reach Mare Frigoris; both missions face the challenging task of achieving a soft landing using thrusters for a controlled descent in the absence of an atmosphere
- The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) has partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) to develop “Building Blocks for THz Communication Front Ends” for 6G technology under the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF), an initiative of the Department of Telecom’s (DOT) Universal Services Obligation Fund (now Digital Bharat Nidhi). The TTDF aims to foster research, design, prototyping, and manufacturing in the telecommunications sector, specifically focusing on rural-specific applications and promoting indigenous technology ownership, co-innovation, and intellectual property creation by funding eligible Indian entities such as domestic companies, startups, MSMEs, academic and R&D institutions, and government entities involved in telecom R&D.
- The S N Bose Centre for Basic Sciences (SNBCBS), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, has established a new observatory in Purulia district, West Bengal.
- Located on Panchet Hill at a height of 600 meters above ground level and approximately 86° E longitude, the Purulia Observatory is equipped with a 14-inch diameter telescope for scientific observations. Its strategic location along the 86° East longitude, which has few existing observatories, positions it as a significant facility not only in eastern India but globally, filling a crucial observational gap. The observatory will facilitate astronomical research and provide training for students in telescope operation and data recording, joining other prominent Indian observatories such as ARIES Observatory in Nainital, Vainu Bappu Observatory in Kavalur, and the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) in Hanle, Ladakh
