Sadagopan’s Weekly Column on IT*** March 17-31, 2024

Science, Technology, Innovation and Higher Education

• ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) successfully conducted the Pushpak Reusable Landing Vehicle (RLV) LEX 02 landing experiment at the Aeronautical Test Range in Chitradurga in Karnataka (22^nd March 2024)
• Indigenously developed (HAL made) series fighter LCA Tejas MKA 1 fighter aircraft made its maiden flight in Bangalore (28^th March 2024)
• Indian stock exchanges start same day transaction settlement, popularly known as T+0 scheme of settlements, setting a new trend globally; as of today most exchanges follow T+1 or T+2 (28^th March 2024)
• As per UGC, NET will be used by all Institutions for PhD Admissions from June 2024; hopefully, this will avoid multiple examinations to be taken by prospective PhD students (28^th March 2024)

Key Developments & Milestones

• Microsoft & OpenAI announce an investment of up to $ 100 Billion in the next generation supercomputer center Stargate (30^th March 2024)
• NVIDIA announces the world’s most powerful chip Blackwell – packed with 208 Billion transistors! (18^th March 2024)
• Dates announced for the General Elections 2024 – Apr 19^th, 26^th; May 7^th, 13^th, 20^th and 25^th; and, June 1^st; Results on June 4^th 2024
• General Elections 2024 will have 98 Crore Voters (including 82 Lakhs voters who are 85+ age!); use 55 Lakhs EVMS (Electronic Voting Machines) located in 10.5 Lakhs poll booths!
• 133 killed in Moscow Concert Hall incident incident (22^nd March 2024)

Market

• India’s stock market indices BSE and NSE closed at 73,651 and 22,326 respectively on the last day of the financial year; the indices gained 27% and 30% respectively, in the
  

  financial year 2023-24 ( 28^th March 2024)

Indian Tech Companies

• Wipro GE Healthcare to invest Rs 8,000 Cr ($ 1 Billion) in India (27^th March 2024)

People

• Pavan Davuluri, an IITM Alumnus, took charge as the Head of the merged Divisions within Microsoft, namely, MS Windows and Surface Division (28^th March 2024)
• IIT-KGP Alum and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest is intriguing; the very man who fought for the removal of corruption getting accused of corruption! (21^st March 2024)
• Nobel Laureate and a noted Behavioural economist Prof Daniel Kahneman, aged 90, who was teaching at UC Berkeley till 1994 died on 27^th March 2024

Interesting Applications & Apps

• IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India) approved the launch of Bima Sugam an online market place for all the players in the Insurance ecosystem (30^th March 2024)
• Ministries in the Government of India start using AI under AI Mission (26^th March 2024)
• GeM (Government e-Marketplace) procurement crossed Rs 4 Lakh Crores in the FY 2023-24, double the amount it did in FY 2022-23 (28^th March 2024)

Interesting Numbers

• Passenger car sales in India touch a new high of more than 4 Million in FY 2023-24 (23^rd March 2024)
• Indian Rupee closed at 38 against USD (29^th March 2024)
• India’s forex reserves at record high value of $ 642.5 Billion (29^th March 2024)

*** Due to my extensive travel this column captures the developments in two weeks!