Month: October 2021

** ‘No Presents Please’ wins American translation award

Tejaswini Niranjana had translated the original Kannada short stories collection written by Jayant Kaikini to English

No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories, a collection of short stories by Jayant Kaikini translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana, has won American Literary Translators Association’s National Translation Award for 2021 for prose.

** IISc. team develops novel computational model to predict ‘change blindness’

Insights can be applied to diagnosing neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, improving road safety and enhancing the reliability of eyewitness testimonies

Our brains pay attention to details, but may sometimes fail to notice even marked differences. This phenomenon of overlooking a visual change, or ‘change blindness’, has been studied by a research group at the Centre for Neuroscience and the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science (IISc.).

** Honeywell bags ₹496.57 crore Bengaluru Safe City project

ity to have 7,000 video cameras at over 3,000 locations

The Union Government has selected Honeywell Automation India to lead the ₹496.57-crore Bengaluru Safe City project under the Nirbhaya Fund. The project was initiated by the Ministry of Home Affairs to create a safe, secure and empowering environment for women and girls in public places to enable them to pursue all opportunities without the threat of gender-based violence or harassment.

Bengaluru is among eight cities selected for the government’s Safe City project, which involves identification of hot spots for crimes against women and deployment of various components, including infrastructure, technology adoption, and capacity building in the community through awareness programmes.

** Mangaluru: LiveStream Studio inaugurated at World Konkani Centre

Nirupama G Shenoy inaugurated the new LiveStream Studio donated by Nandakumar Shenoy in memory of his parents Lakshmi and V Nandagopal Shenoy at the World Konkani Centre on Friday October 15.

In his inaugural address, Nandakumar Shenoy stressed the need for means of communication to reach out to the community without facing the hindrances of dialects and regions. “Our ancestors did many good things for us. Now with the same spirit, we have to hand over some good things to our future generation. The legacy of our culture and language should be continued. I hope this facility will turn into a knowledge enrichment center.”

** Puttur: Youth dumps IT job, enriches land fertility with dung-based manure

The experiment made by an engineering graduate from Puttur taluk to use dung powder as an alternative to chemical fertiliser and thereby improving the yield, has succeeded. We keep hearing about the efforts being successfully made by farmers to rid the land of chemical fertiliser. Jayaguru Achar, a resident of Hindaru village in the taluk, has given the field of organic farming a new weapon in the form of dung powder. He does not use chemical fertiliser, and is entirely dependent on dung manure. He has improved fertility and got increased yield.

** Progressive Karnataka farmer generates power from pond

Suresh Balnad, a resident of Bayar in Balnad village of Puttur taluk, uses water from a pond that is above 60 feet to generate power. He has fixed a wind turbine with a pipe to generate electricity. For the last 17 years, Suresh has been producing 2 kilowatt (KV) of power as water flows via canal.

** Goa stakes claim over 12 islands close to Karwar

The Union home ministry forwarded Goa’s demand to the Karnataka government, following which the Inspector General of Police, Internal Security, sent a letter, dated September 21, 2021, a copy of which is available with The New Indian Express, to the Uttara Kannada district administration seeking details as to which taluks these islands belong to. 

** Reading between the lines

With a plethora of options to choose from in the book space, zeroing in on a book that really interests you could be quite a challenge. Which is where these ‘Book Doctors’ intervene. MyBookWorks is a Bengaluru-based startup that aims to provide a hyper-personal reading programme to corporates to boost the personal and professional development of employees.  

Founded by IT professionals Deepthi Rajan, Prayukth KV and Nitin Saxena, the birth of MyBookWorks took place following the downward trend in the reading habit among working professionals. 

** Seismometer installed at tremor-hit Gadikeshwar village

Taking note of the frequent tremors striking a few villages in Kalaburagi district in the past couple of weeks, a team of scientists from the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) visited the area and took stock of the situation.

The team comprised seismologists Suresh and Shashidhar from NGRI and Ramesh and Abhinaya from Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority. Associate scientist Anaveerappa Biradar from Sharan Sirasagi Seismic Centre in Kalaburagi was also present.