India must prioritise frontier AI research to drive innovation: Nadella

During his visit to India, Nadella announced strategic partnerships with the Government of India and industry leaders to advance cloud and AI transformation.



NEW DELHI: India must prioritise frontier research in artificial intelligence (AI) and develop foundational models to drive innovation, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said on Wednesday.

However, he noted that major investment is required to overcome the entry barrier and a single groundbreaking mathematical discovery can revolutionise the entire AI landscape.

“There is no reason why India can’t do frontier work, but you can even define frontier pretty unique. For example, I don’t think the last known big breakthrough in AI frontier has happened. I always say we are one mathematical breakthrough away from that entire edifice being thrown out and being going after something else,” said Nadella

During his visit to India, Nadella announced strategic partnerships with the Government of India and industry leaders to advance cloud and AI transformation. This comes on the heels of its plan to invest $3 billion in cloud and AI infrastructure in India over next two years, including establishment of new data centres.

Microsoft has partnered with RailTel to advance digital, cloud, and AI transformation in the Indian Railways and public sector space. As part of this five-year partnership, Microsoft will support RailTel in establishing an AI center of excellence (CoE).

The company has also joined forces with the Mahindra Group to transform automotive, farm and financial services with AI. Additionally, it has partnered with Apollo Hospitals to co-innovate, jointly develop products and drive digital transformation in the healthcare sector. The partnership will also focus on research in areas such as disease progression and genomics.

Furthermore, Microsoft has entered a strategic partnership with Bajaj Finance to enhance digital transformation and deliver seamless experiences for Bajaj Finance’s customers. The company has signed a MoU with India AI, a division of Digital India Corporation, to collaborate on advancing AI and emerging technologies in India.

Source: https://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2025/Jan/09/india-must-prioritise-frontier-ai-research-to-drive-innovation-nadella

Cornell transfers accessible, affordable anemia detecting tech to Indian government

BATHINDA: AnemiaPhone, a technology developed by Cornell University researchers to accurately, quickly and cheaply assess iron deficiency, has been transferred to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for integration into its programs for anemia, women’s health, and maternal and child health throughout the country.
In a press release on Wednesday Cornell University has stated that AnemiaPhone will enable access to rapid screening and diagnosis of iron deficiency at the point of need. Iron deficiency is the leading cause of anemia, a condition which can cause a range of symptoms, from fatigue and shortness of breath to multi-organ failure and death. Anemia affects 50-70% of pregnant women in India.

The technology, a test strip that can be coupled with small, portable wi-fi or Bluetooth-enabled test strip readers, was developed and tested in the laboratories of Dr Saurabh Mehta, David Erickson and Julia Finkelstein, founding director and co-directors of the Joan Klein Jacobs Center for Precision Nutrition and Health, and was formally transferred recently at no cost to India.
The technology requires a small finger stick, a drop of blood on a test strip similar to a COVID-19 home test, and a few minutes for the reader to assess. Then the information is uploaded to a clinical database via mobile phone, wireless tablet, or computer. Healthcare workers can interpret the test and provide guidance, triage and referral, or intervention on the spot.


Gold standards for biomarker assessments often have lab-intensive methodologies that much of the world cannot access or afford, said Finkelstein, whose lab in India validated the accuracy of the technology. AnemiaPhone can help bridge this gap, allowing iron deficiency to be quickly and cheaply diagnosed at home, in clinic, or during door-to-door healthcare surveys, reducing costs and speeding intervention.

“We’re not trying to replace traditional or reference laboratories, but in places where people don’t have access to laboratory and medical settings, this is a way to decentralize health care and extend the reach of central labs,” said Mehta. “It’s empowering across the whole system, enabling clinicians, community health workers and patients themselves to make real-time decisions and course corrections upon screening and diagnosis.”


AnemiaPhone has the potential to address current challenges in screening and diagnosing iron deficiency anemia within India’s Anemia Mukt Bharat programme, said Dr Bharati Kulkarni, the new Director of the Indian Council of Medical Research - National Institute of Nutrition and former head of ICMR’s Reproductive, Child Health and Nutrition Division.


“If scaled to its full capacity, it could play a pivotal role in India’s health care landscape where anemia remains a significant concern, particularly among women and children, offering new possibilities in combating this recalcitrant public health problem,” Kulkarni said.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/cornell-transfers-accessible-affordable-anemia-detecting-tech-to-indian-government/articleshowprint/117061314.cms

Vaachan Sankalp Maharashtracha: 1st to 15th January 2025

 

Book Exhibition on 20th and 21st January 2025

 

Book Review Competition on 24th January 2025

 

SFIT LIRC invites all the students to participate in an exciting Book Review Competition on 24th January 2025.

Venue: SFIT Library, B Wing, 2nd floor
Timings: 9.45 am onward
Languages: English, Hindi and Marathi
Time for Presentation: 5 to 6 minutes
Last Date of Registration: 20th January 2025
Registration form: http://bit.ly/3DNG5B5
No Registration Fees

Congratulations on Achieving the Highest Footfalls of the Academic Year 2023-2024!

Dear Library Users,

We are thrilled to celebrate a remarkable milestone with all of you — the highest number of footfalls in the library for the academic year 2023-2024! This achievement is a testament to your unwavering commitment to learning, growth, and curiosity.

Your engagement with the library not only reflects your dedication to academic excellence but also reinforces the library as a vibrant hub of knowledge, inspiration, and community. Whether you’ve explored new resources, participated in events, or simply enjoyed the quiet space for study, your presence has made this achievement possible.

As we continue to evolve with the times, we are excited to offer even more innovative tools and services to meet your needs. Together, we are shaping the future of learning, one visit at a time.

Thank you for being a part of this success. Let’s keep the momentum going and make the coming year even more inspiring!

Congratulations once again to all the students, and we look forward to seeing you in the library!

Government panel suggests AI incident database, invites comments till January 27

The report recommends that the governance group should bring together all authorities and institutions that deal with AI governance at the national level.

A panel set up by the government in 2023 to look at AI governance has recommended an AI incident database to better understand the actual risks of artificial intelligence, stressing that an inter-ministerial, or a holistic government approach is required to govern AI, an effort that could be spearheaded by the IT ministry and the office of the principal scientific advisor (PSA).

For representational purposes only. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)


These recommendations were made in the IT ministry’s ‘Report on AI Governance Guidelines Development’, released for public consultation on Tuesday, and comments are welcome until January 27. HT had reported on the contents of this report in October 2024.

The report recommends that the governance group should bring together all authorities and institutions that deal with AI governance at the national level.

MeitY had formed the subcommittee on November 9, 2023, and it is headed by Dr Balaraman Ravindran, chief of the department of data science and AI and the Centre for Responsible AI at IIT Madras.

The report wants MeitY to house a technical advisory body and act as the coordination focal point for this governance group, which should build an AI incident database to understand the “actual incidence of AI-related risks in India”, echoing a similar recommendation by the NITI Aayog in 2021.

These AI incidents could include “cyber incidents” and “cyber security incidents” and extend to “adverse or dangerous” outcomes from the use of AI that can disadvantage or harm individuals, businesses, and societies”. They could include “malfunctions, unauthorised outcomes, discriminatory outcomes, unforeseeable outcomes and unexpected emergent behaviour, system failures, privacy violations, physical safety problems, etc.”

It said that initially, only public sector organisations using AI systems should mandatorily report to this database while private entities were “encouraged to voluntarily report AI incidents”. “The focus should be on defining reporting protocols to ensure confidentiality and to focus on harm mitigation, not fault finding,” the report said.

The technical secretariat, as per the report, should try to get “voluntary commitments on transparency across the overall AI ecosystem and on baseline commitments for high capability/widely deployed systems” from the industry. These could include regular transparency reports by AI developers and deployers, internal and external red-teaming of models or systems, peer review by third-party qualified experts, and others. The commitments could vary across sectors.


The sub-committee also recommended that the technical secretariat could examine the suitability of technology measures to address AI-related risks, such as use of watermarking, labelling and fact-checking to deal with deepfakes.

It said that the governance group should have a mix of government and non-government members to bring in “external expertise from industry and academia” and could be headed by the PSA. On the other hand, the technical secretariat located in MeitY could be staffed by MeitY officials and “lateral hires, young professionals, and consultants.

This subcommittee also noted that providers and deployers of AI systems cannot claim “safe harbour” by default as in many scenarios, they “select or modify the content”, something that intermediaries such as Google, Facebook, Cloudflare and Airtel cannot do to claim protection from liability for third party content. This, however, is not a recommendation of the subcommittee.

Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/centre-approves-memorial-for-pranab-mukherjee-ex-presidents-daughter-thanks-pm-modi-101736253981414.html