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India Smart Cities Fellowship, Internship Program launched to provide opportunity to youth to work
NEW DELHI: Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep S Puri has stated that Smart cities fellowship and internship program will provide the youth an opportunity to experience the aspects of Urban planning and governance.
Announcing the launch of the Smart cities digital payment award, Puri said that it is intended to promote ‘Digital India’ and ease of living for India’s urban residents by promoting digital payments and encouraging Smart Cities to adopt innovative digital payments initiatives.
Puri launched several new initiatives under AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission, here today. These include the India Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) Program, India Smart Cities Internship (ISCI) Program and The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards 2018 and the ‘CITIIS’ challenge under the Smart Cities Mission and the Local Area Plan (LAP)/Town Planning Scheme (TPS) to be implemented in 25 cities on pilot basis under AMRUT.
Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing Affairs and other senior officials of the ministry were also present on the occasion.
India Smart Cities Fellowship (ISCF) Program
The India Smart Cities Fellowship Program is designed to provide valuable experience to the youth interested in smart cities specifically, and urban renewal sector in general and will bring in new ideas, passion and energy to the challenging but exciting work of implementing cutting edge, high-impact solutions to key urban problems. This program will cultivate young leaders, strengthen their understanding of Indian urban sector and prepare them for greater leadership roles in future.
MoHUA will engage 30 young graduates/post graduates and PhDs in the fields of Urban Planning, Urban Design, Engineering, Information and Technology, Urban Mobility, Finance, Social Sector, and Environmental issues as Smart Cities Fellows. The period of engagement is 1-year extendable upto 3 years. They will provide necessary support to Office of Mission Director, Smart Cities in MoHUA and/or CEOs of selected Smart Cities in terms of analytics, research, documentation, independent assessment, visualization or any other related activities including preparation of reports, posters, dossiers, etc.
Interested applicants may apply online through Smart Net ( https://smartnet.niua.org) till 31 August 2018. Applications received will be scrutinized and shortlisted by the Selection Committee.
India Smart Cities Internship (ISCI) Program
MoHUA will engage students pursuing Under Graduate/Graduate/Post Graduate degree as Interns to help implementation of Smart City Projects in various States/Cities. The internship will be on unpaid basis for a period of 6 to 12 weeks. They will be given an Experience Certificate at the end successful completion of the program. ISCIs will be given exposure in the following areas of development under Smart Cities Mission including Urban Planning, Urban Design, Engineering, Information and Technology, Urban Mobility, Finance, Social Sector, and Environmental issues.
The ‘Interns’ shall be a part of the Smart Cities Mission, and their role primarily would be in implementation /reporting /evaluation and monitoring /knowledge management/stakeholder engagement/ media outreach and other similar activities as assigned to them by the Mission Director (SCM). Interested applicants may apply online anytime of the year through Smart Net ( https://smartnet.niua.org). Selection will be made by a Selection Committee constituted by the Mission Director (Smart Cities Mission).
The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards 2018
The Smart Cities Digital Payments Awards (SCDPA) 2018 ‘100 days Challenge in 100 Smart Cities’ is part of the initiatives of MoHUA to promote ease of living for India’s urban residents. The objective of these awards is to guide, motivate, recognize and reward the Smart Cities for promoting digital payments and carrying out innovative payment initiatives in their respective cities.
This program will not only reward cities at the forefront of digital payments but also act as encouragement for other cities to follow suite and strengthen their digital payments infrastructure, create awareness through promotion of digital payments with all the stakeholders and provide citizens with multiple options to make digital transactions.
The challenge period would be 100 days starting from the launch of the awards. This would galvanize the digital payments landscape in the Smart Cities. The awards will be conferred based on a 2-stage process. Evaluation Committee(s) chaired by Secretary, MoHUA and comprising of other members shall comprise the Jury. The timelines for the awards program are as follows:
Submission of responses for 1st stage: 15th September
Shortlist declaration for 1st stage: 30th September
Template sharing for 2nd stage evaluation: 15th October (template will be shared with the shortlisted cities only)
Submission of responses for 2nd stage: 30th October
Final results: Dates will be announced later
For evaluation purpose, the Smart Cities will be divided into 4 different categories based on their population. The city categories are mentioned below:
| City Category | Population |
| Category 1 | < 5 Lac |
| Category 2 | 5 – 10 Lac |
| Category 3 | 1 mn – 4 mn |
| Category 4 | 4 mn + |
Mn=Millions
Three awards will be conferred in each of the four categories. Hence, a total of 12 awards will be conferred as part of this program.
Best digital payments adopter
This award will be conferred to the Smart City that exhibits an overall excellence in digital payments across different channels and payments instrument to ensure anytime, anywhere payments for all.
Best digital payments innovator
This award will be conferred to the Smart City that exhibits the most innovative implementation of the digital payments options for its citizens
Fastest growing Smart City focusing on digital payments
The award will be given to the city having the highest growth rate in digital payment transactions by volume and value in the recent past.
The detailed brochure of the SCDPA is available on the SmartNet portal. A guidelines document to help cities in their efforts to embrace digital payments is also available on SmartNet.
Cities Investment To Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) Challenge
When Smart Cities Mission was launched on 25 June 2015 a competitive, challenge process was used to select the 100 Smart Cities. Now, the Challenge process is being applied to project implementation, in line with the NITI Aayog guideline where under the Indo-French partnership program, at least 15 projects would be selected through an All-India Challenge. The projects would be in four sectors- Sustainable Mobility, Public Open Spaces, Urban governance & ICT and Social and Organizational Innovation in low-income settlements. The duration of the program will be three years (FY2018-19 to FY2020- 21).
A Loan of EUR 100 million would be extended by AFD to selected CITIIS projects in the form of grant. The repayment of the principle and interest would be equally shared by the Central Government and State Government on 50:50 basis. Each awarded CITIIS project will benefit from a grant ranging from Rs 20 crore to Rs 80 crore (max project outlay: 160 crore). The CITIIS grant is expected to cover from minimum 50% up to 80% of the project cost subject to a maximum of INR 80 Cr. and additional funding amounting to least 20% to be secured by the awarded cities through its own resources.
In addition, EUR 6 million would be given as grant to be shared between the SPVs of the Smart Cities, State Governments and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for capacity building activities. The National institute of Urban Affairs would conduct the Challenge process for selection of projects under the Indo-French partnership.
The financial support and foreign technical assistance will help Smart Cities to access World Class expertise for selected innovative projects. It also intends to improve peer learning activities & cooperation within the smart cities and enhance the knowledge both at the State and National Level.
LOCAL AREA PLAN (LAP) & TOWN PLANNING SCHEME (TPS)
The Local Area Plan (LAP) and Town Planning Scheme (TPS) has been formulated under the AMRUT to enable planning for developing infrastructure in the Brownfield areas (those parts of the city that are already developed but not able to sustain the pressure on the existing infrastructure) & the Greenfield areas (periphery of the city that is prone to haphazard growth and development), respectively. They will be implemented in 25 selected cities on pilot basis. The existing areas or Brownfield areas can be redeveloped by preparing Local Area based Plans (LAP). While at the same time, the Town Planning Schemes (TPS) can be implemented for planned urban expansion in the peripheral Greenfield areas.
The Scheme will enable the selected cities to formulate Local Area based Plans (LAP) and Town Planning Schemes (TPS) for which 100% central assistance would be available. Based on the formulation of Local Area based Plans (LAPs) and Town Planning Schemes (TPS) by the city concerned, prioritization of urban infrastructure projects would be taken up.
An amount of Rs. 50 crore would be provided as Central assistance @ Rs 2.00 crore per city for identified 25 cities for preparing LAP/TPS. The Central Assistance shall be released in 3 installments; 20% with submission of preliminary proposal, 40% during submission of draft plan and remaining 40% during submission of final plan.
The exercise of preparing Local Area Plan and Town Planning Scheme is expected to be completed in a period of one year; the preliminary proposal in two months, the draft plan in 10 months. Town and Country Planning Organization (TCPO) will provide handholding support to the state nodal agency.
Guidelines have been prepared for the operationalization of the Scheme and shall be circulated to 25 States where the cities have been identified with a request to submit the proposal for preparing LAP/TPS.
The Scheme shall enable the cities to identify the areas for Local Area Plan and Town Planning Scheme and encourage bottom up approach to resolve the area based infrastructure problems in a short period of time.
(List of 25 cities)
| Sl. No | City | State |
| 1 | Greater Visakhapatnam | Andhra Pradesh |
| 2 | Guwahati | Assam |
| 3 | Vadodara | Gujarat |
| 4 | Indore | Madhya Pradesh |
| 5 | Chennai | Tamil Nadu |
| 6 | Bengaluru | Karnataka |
| 7 | Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala |
| 8 | Warangal | Telangana |
| 9 | Pune | Maharashtra |
| 10 | Varanasi | Uttar Pradesh |
| 11 | Jaipur | Rajasthan |
| 12 | Amritsar | Punjab |
| 13 | Patna | Bihar |
| 14 | Faridabad | Haryana |
| 15 | Bhubaneswar | Odisha |
| 16 | Ranchi | Jharkhand |
| 17 | Raipur | Chhattisgarh |
| 18 | Panaji | Goa |
| 19 | Shimla | Himachal Pradesh |
| 20 | New Kolkata | West Bengal |
| 21 | Srinagar | Jammu and Kashmir |
| 22 | Dehradun | Uttarakhand |
| 23 | Aizawl | Mizoram |
| 24 | Gangtok | Sikkim |
| 25 | Imphal | Manipur |
NEW DELHI: Yotta Data Services, an end-to-end Digital Transformation service provider, has announced that its state-of-the-art data centre facility, “Yotta G1”, located in GIFT city, Gandhinagar is ready for service (RFS).
The opening of this data center marks the debut of Yotta in Gujarat and progresses the company’s mission to provide digital services in India’s high-growth markets.
G1 is Yotta’s fifth data center facility in the country. It joins four large operational data centers, two of which, at Navi Mumbai and Greater Noida are part of hyperscale campuses. Yotta G1 is uniquely located inside the International Financial Services Center (IFSC) zone of Gandhinagar’s Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT city).
G1 represents an investment of more than INR 500 cr. over five years across critical non-IT and IT / Cloud / AI compute infrastructure. The data center has a capacity of over 350 high-density racks and 2 MW power (which can be scaled further as per demand). The facility is designed to meet the most demanding digital needs of its customers, who may be located within GIFT City or anywhere in the world, by seamlessly delivering fault-tolerant facility infrastructure, high-performance Cloud compute and storage infrastructure, advanced physical and cyber security, unmatched connectivity, and steadfast sustainability.
For large global enterprises operating in the GIFT City IFSC zone, the G1 data center functions as a potential data embassy, whereby their data stored is subject to the laws and regulations of their home country, thus allowing them to maintain sovereignty over their data, even when stored in India. By storing data in a physically different location, global enterprises can ensure continuity of operations in case of major disruptions within their borders. The data center’s location also ensures compliance with the IFSC regulations, providing businesses in the zone with distinct advantages like free foreign exchange convertibility, a liberalised regulatory environment, and business-friendly policies. It also helps enterprises adhere to IFSC’s compliance requirements, including being mandated to host their data within the IFSC zone.
Commenting on the announcement, Darshan Hiranandani, Co-founder and Chairman, Yotta Data Services, said, “The state of Gujarat, with GIFT City, has been at the forefront of providing a viable and sustainable platform for global businesses to set up base in India. The setting up of the IFSC zone is a further testament to their vision for financial services companies. We are proud to support this vision of the Gujarat government with a state-of-the-art data center within the IFSC zone, providing the latest and best in cutting-edge technologies to help businesses set up and scale their businesses while also adhering to all regulatory requirements.”
Adding to this, Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder, MD & CEO, Yotta Data Services, said, “Yotta’s G1 marks a pivotal milestone in delivering high-end data center, Cloud, AI compute, storage, connectivity and cybersecurity services to enterprises both on a global and local scale in the Gujarat region. Besides serving the domestic enterprises within and outside GIFT City, our data center shall serve as a potential data embassy for global enterprises, enabling them to adhere to their respective country’s laws while offering a dependable and secure locale for offshore data storage.”
G1 data centre stands distinct in GIFT city for being a data center offering more than just colocation services. True to Yotta’s stature as the end-to-end digital transformation partner of choice for enterprises, G1 brings forth a suite of key features, ranging from advanced data security and customised business solutions to an indigenous hyperscale cloud offering, AI-GPU compute offering, state-of-the-art infrastructure, cybersecurity expertise, seamless integration with managed IT services, 24/7 customer support, cost optimisation, and an overall competitive edge.
This announcement follows on the heels of Yotta’s recent launch of its cloud services – Shakti Cloud and Yntraa Cloud. Powered by NVIDIA’s top-of-the-line GPUs, Shakti Cloud is India’s largest & fastest AI-HPC supercomputer, delivering cutting-edge GPU computing infrastructure, platforms, and services, including Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service. Yntraa Cloud, on the other hand, is a truly indigenous hyperscale cloud platform at par with global cloud platforms, offering an exhaustive range of cloud products and services.
NEW DELHI: Domestic contract manufacturer Optiemus Infracom has entered into a joint venture with US-based speciality glassmaker Corning International to set up India’s first manufacturing facility for producing high-quality finished cover glass parts for the mobile consumer electronics industry.
The collaboration between both the companies will help expand India’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem, as the Indian government strengthens its Make in India initiative. As a part of the joint venture, the companies strategically aim to set up a world-class manufacturing facility in India, powered by cutting-edge technologies and processes.
Driven by a shared commitment to innovation and technological excellence, this collaboration will pave the way for the manufacturing of “Made in India” finished cover glass parts for use in mobile consumer electronic devices, and other cover glass applications, to meet the needs of next-generation mobile consumer electronic devices.
The joint venture signifies a powerful synergy between Optiemus’s deep domestic industry and manufacturing knowledge of electronics and telecom market and Corning’s globally-acclaimed expertise in advanced glass technology. By combining these strengths, the joint venture aspires to not only establish cover glass manufacturing capabilities and capacity in India, but also to contribute significantly to the creation of jobs and skill development within India’s thriving technology sector, the companies said in a statement.
Ashok Kumar Gupta, Chairman, Optiemus Infracom, said, “It is a matter of great pride for us to actively contribute to the growing manufacturing ecosystem in the country. With this joint venture, initiated in line with the vision of Hon’ble Prime Minister of India of ‘Make in India’ programme and the “Atmanirbhar Bharat” initiative, we are committed to make available world-class high-quality products for global and local brands.”
“Embarking on this new journey, we intend to emerge as one of the top manufacturers of finished cover glass parts for use in mobile consumer electronic devices in the next five years. Our collective expertise in innovation, design, and manufacturing, will provide holistic solutions for the brands,” Gupta added.
NEW DELHI: Chipset maker MediaTek, which claims to power more than two billion connected devices every year, hosted ‘Catch-up with Tech’ in collaboration with handset brand Infinix on August 28 to share insightful and engaging conversations about the new-age smartphones and innovative technologies powering everyday lives.
The meet-up threw the spotlight on the MediaTek Dimensity Auto, Satellite solutions and Generative AI along with an extensive showcase of newly-launched Infinix Zero 30 5G powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8020, Infinix GT 10 Pro powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8050, and Infinix QLED TV powered by MediaTek.
In terms of specs, the Infinix Zero 30 5G is tailored for young storytellers and creators, featuring the first-ever smartphone to deliver 4K 60fps video recording from its 108 MP OIS rear camera and ultra-high resolution 50MP front camera. The Zero 30 series powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8020 is said to be a game changer for the front camera vlogging experience along with being the slimmest curved AMOLED smartphone in the segment with glass and a vegan leather back panel. It also claims to be one of the most premium-looking devices in the segment.
The event witnessed a panel discussion moderated by Anuj Sidharth, Deputy Director Marketing & Corporate Communications, MediaTek and included expert panelists from Infinix, MediaTek and two renowned professional photographers.
“With the fifth edition of Catch-up with Tech, we aim to bring consumers closer to the technology and enable them to make informed buying decisions based on their diverse needs. In collaboration with Infinix, this meet-up is in-line with MediaTek’s vision of technology democratization and making innovative technology accessible to everyone,” said Anku Jain, Managing Director, MediaTek India. “The MediaTek Dimensity 8020 in Infinix Zero 30 5G brings faster displays, brilliant cameras and ultra-fast performance. Further, MediaTek Imagiq technologies enrich the capture experience by combining dedicated AI, imaging processors and accelerators to provide incredible results,” he added.
Anish Kapoor, CEO, Infinix Mobile India, said, “Featuring India’s first 50MP 4K 60 fps video recording, Infinix Zero 30 5G is primed to redefine smartphone imaging capabilities, setting a new standard for the creators and vlogging enthusiasts. Our collaboration with MediaTek has played a pivotal role in shaping our exceptional smartphone portfolio, and the Zero 30 5G stands as evidence of our unwavering commitment to innovation and delivering unmatched experiences to our users. The display and design of the device represent a leap forward in smartphone technology. As Infinix Zero 30 5G hits the shelves, we are positive that our customers will find this new offering as exhilarating as we do, further empowering creators to capture their story like never before.”
Radhakrishnan Chakyat, a photography evangelist, founder and host of Pixel Viilage, said, “Infinix Zero 30 5G smartphone powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8020 chipset has amazing hardware features, an excellent camera, dual-view video mode and is primed for optimal content creation and saves a tremendous amount of editing time.”
Aarzoo Khurana, a wildlife photographer, said, “Over the last few days, I clicked various pictures and recorded a few videos with the newly-launched Infinix Zero 30 5G powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8020, and the experience has been truly inspiring. Infinix’s smartphone’s OIS feature helps content creators click shake-free pictures and the front camera, which is extremely sharp and detailed, enables content creators to click countless selfies.”
