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IIITH’s platform for mapping news and urban livability

A multilingual, spatially mapped news aggregation engine developed at IIITH is evolving into a powerful tool to track governance and the quality of urban life across the country, with Hyderabad as its first live testbed. In the world of e-governance, pictures often speak louder than reports. Maps, charts and visual dashboards help administrators see patterns such as distribution of government initiatives, where crimes are rising, which districts face repeated civic issues, and how different regions compare in real time – all that would otherwise remain buried in spreadsheets. By turning complex data into intuitive visual form, pictorial and spatial representations have become a cornerstone of modern, data-driven governance. It is this belief – good governance begins with good visualisation – that lies at the heart of a new research platform being developed at IIITH. The project began as a spatial mapping of a news aggregation engine: a system designed to collect news from multiple newspapers, translate it across Indian languages, and plot every report on a map to show where issues were emerging across the state.

Prof. P J Narayanan Joins PM Modi’s AI Roundtable on Ethical and Scalable AI

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi interacted with CEOs and Experts working in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), at his residence at Lok Kalyan Marg on 29 January. Prime Minister highlighted that India has a unique proposition of scale, diversity and democracy, due to which the world trusts India’s digital infrastructure. In line with his vision of ‘AI for All’, the Prime Minister stated that we need to create an impact with our technology as well as inspire the world. He also urged the CEOs and experts to make India a fertile destination for all global AI efforts. The high-level roundtable saw participation from CEOs of companies working in AI including Wipro, TCS, HCL Tech, Zoho Corporation, LTI Mindtree, Jio Platforms Ltd, AdaniConnex, Nxtra Data and Netweb Technologies along with experts from International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad, IIT Madras and IIT Bombay. Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw and Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Jitin Prasada also participated in the interaction.

Prof. Sandeep K Shukla shares his expectations from education budget 2026

As India prepares for the Union Budget 2026-27, education leaders across schools, universities, research institutions, and the skilling ecosystem are calling for a decisive shift – from incremental funding to outcome-driven investment. With the government’s long-term vision of Viksit Bharat 2047 in focus, stakeholders argue that education must be treated not merely as social expenditure, but as strategic national capacity-building. From improving school learning outcomes and implementing NEP 2020 in full, to building innovation-led universities, accelerating translational research, fostering entrepreneurship, and making digital education more affordable. Prof. Sandeep K Shukla, Director, IIIT Hyderabad says geopolitical uncertainty makes indigenous capability-building unavoidable. “Without strong investment in higher education and R&D, India cannot build semiconductors, secure operating systems or advanced manufacturing,” he says, adding that faculty development must move beyond token programs to sustained, outcome-oriented training.

IIITH’s Drishti Library: A digital initiative for visually impaired students

For most students, accessing textbooks is routine. For visually challenged students, it often means dealing with missing Braille editions, poor audio recordings, or expensive software. A new digital initiative developed at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT-H) is now working to change that. The initiative, called Drishti Library, aims to make higher-education textbooks available in Braille and audiobook formats using artificial intelligence and language technologies. The project has been developed by researcher Krishna Tulsiyan under the guidance of Professors C V Jawahar and Gurpreet Singh Lehal and is part of the Government of India’s Bhashini mission, which focuses on building AI-based language tools for Indian languages. The platform was recently unveiled at a symposium on Language AI for Accessibility. It currently focuses on Punjabi language textbooks and is gradually expanding to other Indian languages and academic disciplines. Drishti Library uses optical character recognition (OCR) systems developed under a national consortium to scan and convert textbooks into accessible formats.

IIITH hosted Winter Dialogue on Responsible AI for Healthcare Innovation

IIITH hosted the Winter Dialogue on Responsible AI for Synergistic Excellence (RAISE) as an official pre-summit event of the AI Impact Summit 2026 on 20 January. The four-city Winter Dialogue series is organised by Ashoka University and NIMS Jaipur jointly with IIITH and C-CAMP Bangalore. The one-day dialogue brought together leaders from healthcare, technology, policy, academia, and startups to explore how AI can responsibly transform healthcare delivery through intelligent, accessible, and human centred technologies. With HealthTech and AI as the central theme, the Winter Dialogue examined opportunities for AI-powered healthcare innovation, challenges in building and scaling healthcare startups, and pathways for taking Indian health AI solutions to global markets. Prof. SK Shukla said, “As AI becomes embedded in healthcare decision-making, the focus must move beyond technological capability to responsibility, trust, and real-world impact. Platforms like the Winter Dialogue are essential for aligning innovation with ethical, patient-centric outcomes.”

Urban AI Forum: Rethinking Cities by Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (29 January 2026)

The event will bring together academia, civil society, industry leaders, and policy makers to talk about Artificial Intelligence and the future of Cities. We welcome you to join, A panel discussion featuring industry and government representatives on Smart Cities: Applications, Planning & Implementation of AI A panel discussion featuring civil society and academic voices on Urban Futures of Sustainability, Inclusivity and Democracy Connecting Urban Data Platforms: Insights from IUDX and Institut Paris Region.
Please register for the event at: https://forms.office.com/r/PQfY5VANC4