Month: December 2021

** American Association of Engineers of India Origin launches Innovation Center

The hub was inaugurated by Bill Foster, Congressman-IL, together with AAEIO President Gladson Varghese, President-Elect Ajit Pant, Vice President Nitin Maheshwari, and other board members.

** Indian American professor releases a ghazal album

Nostalgia, a contemporary ghazal album, was released by a 59-year-old Indian American professor, Susmita Datta. It brings forth the appeal of a genre noted for showing an astonishing range of expression around its basic themes of love and separation.

Data, currently a professor at the University of Florida is a prominent biostatistics scholar from Kolkata. 

** Sahitya Akademi announces awards in 20 languages

Anuradha Sarma Pujari, Namita Gokhale, Ambai among winners.

The Sahitya Akademi on Thursday announced its awards for 2021 for literary works in 20 languages, including novels in Assamese and English by Anuradha Sarma Pujari and Namita Gokhale respectively.

Among the winners for poetry were Mwdai Gahai (Bodo), Sanjiv Verenkar (Konkani), Hrushikesh Mallick (Odia), Meethesh Nirmohi (Rajasthani), Vindeshwariprasad Mishr ‘Vinay’ (Sanskrit), Arjun Chawla (Sindhi) and Gorati Venkanna (Telugu).

Books of short stories by writers Raj Rahi (Dogri), Kiran Gurav (Marathi), Khalid Hussain (Punjabi), Niranjan Hansda (Santali) and Ambai (Tamil) were among those chosen for the awards.

A biography by D.S. Nagabhushana in Kannada, an autobiography by George Onakkoor in Malayalam, a work of criticism by Wali Mohd. Aseer Kashtawari in Kashmiri and a book of epic poetry by Chhabilal Upadhyaya in Nepali were awarded as well. Two plays — by Bratya Basu in Bengali and Daya Prakash Sinha in Hindi — were selected for the award.

** Amara Raja investing €10 million in European electric vehicle battery group

The investment is part of the Energy and Mobility strategy Amara Raja is pursuing to foray into new green technologies and solutions through expansion and investment

Amara Raja Batteries is investing €10 million in InoBat Auto, a European Group focused on research and development in the field of batteries for electric vehicles and production of lithium-ion battery cells as well as tailored and customs cells.

** Reliance New Energy Solar to acquire U.K.’s sodium-ion battery tech firm Faradion

Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd. (RNESL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd., said it has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% shareholding in Faradion Ltd. (Faradion) for an enterprise value of GBP 100 million (around ₹1,000 crore).

In addition, RNESL has also agreed to invest GBP 25 million as growth capital to accelerate commercial roll out.

“Based out of Sheffield and Oxford in U.K. and with its patented sodium-ion battery technology, Faradion is one of the leading global battery technology companies. It has a competitively superior, strategic, wide-reaching and extensive IP portfolio covering several aspects of sodium-ion technology,” RIL said in a statement.

** New scheme to support the marginalised

Focus is on rehabilitation, medical facilities, counselling, education, skill development

A scheme for rehabilitation of persons engaged in begging and for providing support to transgender persons was expected to be launched soon, according to a statement by the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry on Thursday.

The Ministry said it had formulated an umbrella scheme, SMILE (Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise), that included two sub-schemes for the welfare of transgender persons and persons engaged in begging. The scheme will cover rehabilitation, provision of medical facilities, counselling, education, skill development and economic linkages.