Trivandrum Projects & Infrastructure :News

[rajkrish]

New building of CDAC in Technopark

Thiruvananthapuram : January 22, 2009:

The Minister of Communication & IT, Govt of India has approved the award of construction work of C-DAC building at Technopark. RDS Projects Limited will be constructing the building.

Source
This will C-DAC second facility in the City.

[Sathyalal]

‘BrahMos Aerospace keen to associate with N-programme’

Talking to reporters here in connection with the second phase development of BrahMos’ Thiruvananthapuram unit, Sivathanu Pillai said BrahMos is manufacturing robotic arms for the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. ``BARC needs remote-operated systems, they are highly sophisticated equipment. The BARC chairman had also visited our Thiruvananthapuram unit. This is going to open up new markets,’’ he said.

Currently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) comprise Brahmos’ main clientele.

BrahMos Thiruvananthapuram is on speedy expansion mode with the second phase expansion to be launched by Defence Minister A.K.Antony on Wednesday, followed by the third phase in six months to one year’s time.

EXPANSION PLANS: BrahMos management is planning the second phase of development on seven acres adjacent to the existing unit at Chackai. This is for augmenting existing infrastructure for large-scale production of the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic missiles. The first missiles will roll out of the Thiruvananthapuram unit by 2011 as planned, he said.

THIRD PHASE: For the third phase development, which includes wholesale integration of launch vehicles for the ISRO, BrahMos has sought 50 acres in Thiruvananthapuram district. The government is reportedly eyeing land at Koliakkode near Thonnackal. The third phase is expected to take three years for completion.
After the KELTEC take-over in 2008, BrahMos has increased output by three times, contributed to some major projects like Chandrayaan I, the `Shaurya’ missile programme and the nuclear programme, Sivathanu Pillai said. ``We can now supply to four PSLVs a year. We also built the main booster of `Shaurya’ missile,’’ he said.

Source

[chandrurajan]

The 35th National Games will be held across seven centres in Kerala from May 1 to 14, 2010.

The Games to be held for a second time in the State since 1987, will have Trivandrum as the main venue and will have one new discipline in beach handball.

Besides the capital, the Games will be held in Kollam, Alappuzha, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur. The format for the Games was decided during the course of a high-level meeting that the State Sports Minister, M. Vijayakumar had with the IOA president, Suresh Kalmadi here on Tuesday.
The demonstration events, kalaripayattu and boat racing, will be conducted in Trivandrum and Alappuzha respectively.

The proposed venues and disciplines:

Trivandrum:

• Opening and closing ceremonies, athletics, aquatics, boxing, equestrian, kabaddi, khoo-kho, netball, rugby 7s, taekwondo, table tennis, tennis, triathlon and wushu.

Kochi

• archery, badminton, fencing, karate-do, lawn bowls, shooting, squash, wrestling and yachting.

Kollam:

• hockey, handball and sepak takraw.

Alappuzha:

• canoeing/kayak and rowing. Thrissur: cycling, judo and weightlifting.

Kozhikode

• beach handball, beach volleyball, football and volleyball.

Kannur

• basketball.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/11/stor...1155861800.htm

[Sathyalal]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Life Science Park with worldclass facilities is set to come up in Thiruvananthapuram district on public-private partnership mode.


A Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC) project, the Rs 300-crore park will come up on 260 acres at Veiloor village near Thonnackal. A notification has been issued for land acquisition, KSIDC official said.

The park will house a cluster of industries in the fields of biotechnology/ nanotechnology, research institutions and science and technology academia. KSIDC envisages a separate company, Trivandrum Life Sciences Park Company, for developing the project.

The park will assist in exploring new growth avenues for exisiting and proposed R&D institutions and industry players. It will also be capable of addressing IT-related needs of the rapidly-emerging life sciences industry, besides attracting investments in the related areas.

KSIDC will develop the park as a knowledge centre, consisting of incubation and technology development centres, housing biotech companies, drug discovery companies, contract research outsourcing firms with focus on health.

The Park will also feature dry and wet labs, technology transfer cell, computational biology labs, IT centre, digital imaging centre, central instrumentation centre, bio-It software and database library and intellectual property cell.
The project will be developed on PP mode with equity contribution from the Kerala Government as well as qualified private parties.

[Sathyalal]

Kerala State Industrial Enterprises Ltd (KSIEL) has chalked out a detailed project to set up a greenfield air cargo complex at the international airport in Thiruvananthapuram.


KSIEL Managing Director M D Josemon said that the KSIEL would soon appoint a consultant to prepare a project for the setting up of a stateof- the-art air cargo complex at Vallakkadavu at a cost of nearly Rs 90 crore.

“The land surveying is in progress and the government will soon allocate 15 acres of land to the KSIEL.

The state government has given an in-principle approval for establishing the air cargo complex,” he said.

He said that the cargo movement through the airport was expected to go up significantly in the coming years.

The airport is currently no.1 in cargo movement from state.

[Sathyalal]

ISRO gets 27 per cent hike in budgetary allocations
New Delhi (PTI): ISRO today got a 27 per cent hike in budgetary allocation, a major chunk of which is will be spent on missions to moon, development of the semi-cryogenic engine and building a rocket for launching heavier satellites.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was allocated Rs 4,459 crore, an increase of Rs 960 crore over the previous year's sanction of Rs 3,499 crore, in the interim budget presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee here.

Development of a semi-cryogenic engine for future advanced satellite launch vehicles has been allocated Rs 75 crore as against Rs 4.09 crore last year. The Cabinet had approved the project for development of the semi-cryogenic engine recently.

Chandrayaan-I and its future missions have been provided Rs 90 crore as against Rs 88 crore last year, while the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III project has received Rs 217 crore as against Rs 240.19 crore last year.
The GSLV Mk III, which will have the capability to put in orbit four-tonne satellites, is expected to be launched later this year.

ISRO's institute for training space science personnel has received Rs 175 crore as against Rs 65.25 crore last year. The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, currently functioning from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, is developing its permanent infrastructure at Valiamala in Kerala.
The space agency has received Rs 50 crore for its programme to send a human in space. The objective of the Human Space Flight Programme is to develop a fully autonomous manned space vehicle to carry a two-member crew to a 400-km low earth orbit and ensure their safe return to earth.

The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, a constellation of seven satellites, has been provided with Rs 270 crore.

The IRNSS is expected to provide position accuracies similar to the Global Positioning System in a region centered around the country with a coverage extending up to 1,500 km from India.

The VSSC, a lead facility for development of satellite launch vehicles, has received Rs 613.42 crore as against Rs 494.69 crore last year.

[Sathyalal]

Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has entered into a tie-up with German cultural centre Goethe Institute Max Mueller Bhavan here to offer basic course in German language as part of its distance learning programme.

The course, meant for students and young professionals, would start next month and its applications would be closed this month-end, IGNOU's regional director Dr B Sukumar and Ruediger Punzet of Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, told a press meet here.

[Sathyalal]

Isro set to use indigenously developed cryogenic engine for GSLV launch

Bibhu Ranjan Mishra / Bangalore February 18, 2009, 0:55 IST


"All the previous GSLV flights had cryogenic engines procured from Russia. For the first time, indigenously developed cryogenic engines will be used. This is a development started almost parallelly to procurement from Russia. We have completed all the tests, including qualification and flight acceptance. Now the engine is fully qualified and will be used in the next flight of GSLV," a highly-placed source in Isro told Business Standard.

With an initial project cost of about Rs 235 crore, the work for the development of India's own cryogenic engine was jointly carried out by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in Trivandrum, Material Development and Research Centre at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and the Liquid Propulsion Test Facility (LPSC) at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. Isro conducted the flight acceptance test of the indigenous cryogenic engine on December 18 last year at the LPSC, which was found to be quite satisfactory.

Isro is planning to use the GSLV for the Chandrayaan-II mission scheduled for 2012 as opposed to PSLV that was used to launch Chandrayaan-I.

read more

[Sathyalal]

Things are happening without making much noise in country's research hub. Be it Chandrayan, Cryogenic engine,scramjet,Alzheimer’s, heart valve, robotics etc. We are familiar with VSSC, Sree Chitra, RRL or RGCB.
But Have you ever heard of a research firm working at thiruvallom??

Here is it..

To make a perfect kill


Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Light Logics, a Technopark-based company, has developed professional-grade holographic weapon sight elements, claimed to be a first in the country.

Holographic sights facilitate sharp, quick and easy aiming of weapons.

Light Logics produces and supplies various types of core machines for holography, high-security master security holograms with security features, holographic optical elements, security holograms and diffractive products and materials. The company is supported by the DSIR (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), Government of India.

Dr Ajith Kumar, CEO of Light Logics, said that the production of professional-grade holographic weapon sight elements was a big step forward and a scientific development of national importance that would help the country in its defence and the onsite operations against terrorists.

Holographic sights carry a set of critical light-diffracting elements that create a virtual spot that is used to target the weapon. It has a wider field of view and hence very easy to align the weapon, even if the target is moving.

An ISO 9001-2000 company, the company is a corporate member of SPIE-USA, Asian Anti-counterfeit Association (AAA), IPAMA and the Optical Society of India and representative of the country in the International Commission for Optics. While the holography laboratory, studio, production and research facilities are located at Thiruvallom, the national-level operations and part of the R&D activities are executed from its centre at Technopark. The Global Operations Centre of the company is in Ras-Al-Khaimah, UAE.

Light Logics Holography and Optics Pvt Ltd at Technopark recently won the Indian Science and Technology Entrepreneurs Parks and Business Incubators Association (ISBA) award for the Most Innovative Engineering and Production Company of 2008.

[PLUS]

One million sq ft hotel cum commercial complex - Spring City Centre

Construction of Hotel cum Commercial Complex ?Spring City Centre? at Sy.No.111, 112 & 116, Village Pangappara, Grama Panchayat ? Sreekaryam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala by M/s. Spring Infradev (P) Ltd. (F.No.21-391/2008-IA.III)


The project involves construction of a Complex on a plot area of 17,240 Sq.m. The total builtup area is 93,200 Sq.m. (FAR area ? 65,876 sq.m. and basement area - 27,324 sq.m.). The total water requirement is 92 KLD (fresh water requirement is 66 KLD). The capacity of STP proposed is 70 KLD. Treated waste water to be used for flushing of toilets - 26 KLD, horticulture - 43 KLD. Total solid waste generation will be 1250 Kg/day. The power requirement is 10,000 KVA. The total parking spaces proposed are for 756 cars + 300 two wheelers. Total cost of the project is Rs. 244.94 Crores.
http://164.100.194.13:8080/allied_en...n%2016,%202009

[PLUS]

A happy coincidence, I got the webpage of Spring developers from Scorpiogenius' post at Kochi Now forum yesterday !

Details and pictures are yet to be updated at the link, but check out
http://www.springindia.in/projects.html

[Sathyalal]

BrahMos Aerospace Thiruvananthapuram Ltd (BATL), born from the takeover of state-run KELTEC a year ago, is eyeing possibilities of participating in the country's nuclear programme, BrahMos Aerospace CEO A Sivathanu Pillai said. "BARC needs remote-operated systems - they are highly sophisticated equipment. The BARC chairman had also visited our Thiruvananthapuram unit. This is going to open up new markets,'' he said.

Currently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) comprise BrahMos' main clientele. BrahMos is on speedy expansion mode with the second phase expansion to be launched by the defence minister, A K Antony, followed by the third phase in six months to one year's time. Its management is planning the second phase of development on seven acres of land adjacent to the existing unit at Chackai. This is for augmenting existing infrastructure for large-scale production of the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic missiles.

The first missiles will roll out of the Thiruvananthapuram unit by 2011 as planned. Thiruvananthapuram will be one of the two units in India - the other being the BrahMos unit in Hyderabad - where the missiles are to be integrated. Some of the missiles will be integrated in Russia also, he said. Under the Rs 125-crore expansion planned in the second phase, Rs 75 crore will be for integration of the missiles and Rs 50 crore for adding new machinery to the unit. For the third phase development, which includes wholesale integration of launch vehicles for the ISRO, BrahMos has sought 50 acres of land in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The government is reportedly eyeing land at Koliakkode near Thonnackal. The third phase is expected to take three years for completion.

[chandrurajan]

With the Reliance Communications deal already in its kitty covering the former’s 65 million subscribers, Flytxt, the Netherlands-based technology provider for mobile marketing, is now focusing on capturing more business from the Indian market. The company has a global development centre at Technopark in Trivandrum.

Flytxt currently has 60 professional at its Trivandrum centre, who are engaged in software development, quality assurance, and systems operations and management. “We will be scaling up our Indian workforce to 150 by this year end as we add more operators to our list of clients,” Williams said, adding the company expects to grow over 300 per cent this year, with a majority of the revenues flowing in from its operators business in India.

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...market/352797/

[Sathyalal]

Software exports from Kerala grows 43 percent
By IANS
Sunday,29 March 2009, 20:01 hrs Comment(1)PrintForward
Thiruvananthapuram: While India's overall software exports have slowed down on account of the global slowdown, those from Kerala grew 43.41 percent till February-end, fetching a revenue of Rs.2,300 crore.

"While the STPI (Software Technology Parks India) figures for the country show a growth of 17.62 percent till February-end this fiscal, software exports from Kerala have grown at 43.41 percent," said an IT department official who did not wish to be identified.

According to him, software exports from the state touched Rs.1,750 crore for 2007-08.

STPI, is a society set up by the central government in 1991, with the objective of encouraging, promoting and boosting the software exports.

There are 250 software companies in the state, of which 170 are based in the Technopark information technology campus here and 40 at the Infopark campus at Kochi.

"According to the STPI figures, the Technopark and Infopark together account for 25 percent of the total exports from tier-two and tier-three cities in the country and this is good news for those IT companies looking to shift operations from the metros," the IT official added.

Currently, there are 26,000 employees at Technopark and another 8,500 at Infopark.
http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews...nid-54377.html

[Sathyalal]

A brilliant spectacle in eastern horizon.

Congratulate the scientists for PSLV-C12.

http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/21/stor...2160091300.htm

[Sathyalal]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Technopark and Infopark general bodies, which met here on Wednesday, approved annual expansion budgets of Rs.650 crore and Rs.250 crore respectively for the year 2009-10.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan gave these details at a press conference after the general body meetings.

Technopark to start construction activities soon

http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/21/stor...2150170100.htm

[Sathyalal]

Technopark contributes around 78% of state's IT exports. Contributes 1800 crores out of 2300 crores of total revenue. Infy alone contributes 400 crores.

read the news

[Sathyalal]

Tata Elxsi gains leeway with global OEMs

BS Reporter / Chennai/ Bangalore June 19, 2009, 0:36 IST

Embedded product design and engineering company Tata Elxsi Limited has said that it will aggressively pursue projects in the automotive and aerospace sectors into fiscal 2010. Tata Elxsi’s development centre in Thiruvananthapuram focuses on supporting automotive and aerospace customers for mission-critical embedded software, hardware and systems.

R Natarajan, VP -Automotive and Aerospace practice, Tata Elxsi, said that India would emerge as a major player in the automotive industry with electronics, electronic design services, software and production activities shifting to low-cost countries.

Tata Elxsi expanded its Thiruvananthapuram development centre last year to meet scale-up requirements of its clients in these industries. The Thiruvananthapuram centre works on advanced automotive technologies including hybrid and electric hybrid vehicles, setting up virtual test environment and executing virtual tests, designing ECUs (Engine Control Units) for various applications, including AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) compliance, and deploying model-based design strategies for developing production code.

The increasing complexity of software in the automotive electronics sector has made it mandatory for OEMs to shift to more flexible and reusable software architectures, Natarajan said.

“The oil crisis and recession have increased focus on fuel efficiency and hybrid technologies. Customers in the West as well as in emerging markets such as India and China are turning to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. We are currently engaged with numerous vendors who are working to realise the dream of viable hybrid cars by the end of 2010. We are offering prototyping and production stage support to our customers globally and are actively engaged with automotive OEMs and Tier 1 companies in their hybrid electric programs. Our understanding of challenges and emerging technologies in this area, and premium membership with consortiums such as AUTOSAR has yielded positive results for us.”


“We have recently bagged a project in the technology-intensive aerospace and defence domain from a European Tier 1 aerospace supplier. We began our engagement with a pilot activity, which has been expanded into a full-fledged development program,” Natarajan said.

[Sathyalal]

Technopreneurs from Technopark have left the rest of the country way behind, accounting for a good 50% of the country and 100% of Kerala.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was sometime in the making, but now it is official. Kerala’s lowly image of being little more than a banana chips-player in
the country’s industrial sweepstakes is getting turned right on its head.

In the latest report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which showcases exciting start-ups from across the country, technopreneurs from Kerala have left the rest of the country way behind, accounting for a good 50% of the projects.

As many as 11 of the 23 latest start-ups showcased by DSIR are from Kerala, including projects that straddle diverse ideation ranging from optimization of a holographic pulsed portrait camera system to a cardiac analyzer, and an automated multi-level modular automobile parking system to a pedestal wet grinder.

Fittingly, the state’s start-ups saga is being scripted at the Technopark, itself a trendsetter in the country’s tech horizon when it was launched as the first technology park in the country before the IT/ITES revolution swept the nation.
The Technopark Technology Business Incubator (T-TBI), which functions under the Department of Science and Technology, is presently incubating two dozen start-ups, all of which are hopeful of emerging as full-fledged companies in the near term.

“The success stories are the result of funding by the DSIR by way of grant and the mentoring we do at T-TBI. DSIR provides Rs 75,000 for viable ideas under the micro-techpreneurial programme (TePP), then a larger funding of Rs 15 lakh at the prototype development level and Rs 45 lakh at the commercialization stage, all as grant. However, many of the technopreneurs have little knowledge outside the tech domain and we provide overall mentoring, including the financial and management aspects”, says K C Chandrasekharan, CFO and Program Co-ordinator for New Initiatives at T-TBI.

He says Kerala has not been entrepreneur-rich but Technopark’s brand strength and the mentoring services offered by T-TBI has been attracting an increasing number of technopreneurs to get their ideas off the ground.

According to Sanjay Vijaya Kumar, CEO of MobME, a mobile media entertainment company and a beneficiary of TePP funding, seed capital is what is often lacking in the entrepreneur eco-system and TePP funding has filled this gap.

Agrees Babeesh C T from Kozhikode, who has developed a wearable ECG monitoring equipment along with his friend Jerry Raj: “Funding was a hurdle and the Rs 2.25 lakh we got from DSIR has helped grow our venture to one that employs 15 persons now”, says he.

T-TBI is presently incubating 24 companies at the Technopark campus, and another 50 companies that were incubated have since moved out to be on their own.

[Sathyalal]

Mohan Lal and Priyadarsan starts new IPL team for the city.

250 crore state of art facility with stadium planned near Kovalam.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/E...ow/4671836.cms