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Hans India
5 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
SIPB approves Rs. 20,000-croreinvestments
Vijayawada: The coalition government's commitment to generate 20 lakh jobs over five years is steadily bearing fruit. IT Minister Nara Lokesh, Chairman of the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Employment Generation, continues to make significant strides in attracting investments alongside his cabinet colleagues. In a major development, four prominent companies have come forward to invest in Andhra Pradesh. During the 9th State Investment Promotion Board chaired by the Chief Minister at the Secretariat on Wednesday, investment proposals of renowned firms such as Sify, Sattva, BVM, and ANSR, totaling ₹20,216 crore, were approved and these investments are projected to create 50,600 employment and livelihood opportunities. On this occasion, Lokesh, in his capacity as Chairman of the Employment Generation Sub-Committee, shared his insights into the proposed investments. He stated that the entry of such prestigious companies would significantly enhance Visakhapatnam's standing. He elaborated on the discussions held with these firms and highlighted their respective strengths. Following this, the Chief Minister emphasized the need to align Visakhapatnam's Master Plan with future investments and developmental needs. He reaffirmed that the available land in the region was limited and had been allotted to several companies, including the ArcelorMittal Steel Plant. He stressed the urgency of identifying suitable land for incoming companies and directed officials to undertake proactive planning to avoid infrastructure bottlenecks. When officials highlighted urban challenges faced by cities such as Pune and Bengaluru, the Chief Minister asserted that such issues must be avoided in Visakhapatnam. He underscored the importance of forward-looking planning, particularly for airport and rail connectivity, highways, and Metro networks, so that Visakhapatnam could avoid the urban strains seen elsewhere. While setting up industrial units, it was essential to establish ecosystems that catered also to the needs of residents. Comprehensive planning must ensure that these areas were livable and well-equipped for the general public, he added. To date, 113 projects amounting to ₹5,94,454 crore in investments have been approved under the alliance government's tenure through SIPB meetings. These include 46 projects in the industrial sector, 41 in energy, 11 in tourism, 11 in IT, and four in food processing. Collectively, these ventures are expected to generate 5,56,568 employment and livelihood opportunities.
New Indian Express
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
I helped save MAMI in 2014. Its 2025 death fills me with rage.
Picture a tiny, five-foot-something woman from Assam, battling gravity and loneliness in Mumbai, trudging religiously to the Mumbai Film Festival (affectionately called MAMI) every single year. Her dream? To become a filmmaker. With no other path visible, she endures endless queues and back-breaking theatre seats, absorbing the craft of masters whose visions flickered to life exactly as intended: on a big, forty-foot screen. Years later, her own film premieres on that screen. I was there, capturing her tears as they fell. That woman was Rima Das. That film, born in a remote corner of Northeast India that few outsiders had been to, was Village Rockstars, and it travelled the world. That is the power of MAMI – Mumbai's only global-scale film festival. I tell Rima's story because I witnessed it first-hand, having helped her become the filmmaker she deserved to be. But her story isn't unique. It echoes Nagraj Manjule's story. His debut, the brilliant Fandry, received its first public screening at MAMI. I saw the mist in his eyes too after a thunderous five-minute standing ovation – cut short only by the cruel clock. Even he confessed that MAMI wasn't just a festival for him: it was his film school. Chaitanya Tamhane (Court, The Disciple) and Anand Gandhi (Ship Of Theseus) walked similar dreams born on MAMI screens. Countless others, perhaps less heralded but no less devoted, kept returning. For them, MAMI was Varanasi, Jerusalem, Mecca, Kaaba – a shifting pilgrimage defined by whichever theatre hosted the magic that year. That's why, in 2014, when Shyam Benegal (then festival Chairman and whose office I was working in) and Director Srinivasan Narayanan told me the festival was shutting down – its sponsor vanished, funds zero – I snapped. I unleashed an angry rant on My editor, Sarita Ravindranath, wisely titled it: 'Mumbai's Rs Five Crore Shame: Who will fund a film festival' (The article is now lost behind a server with only a ghost in its original link). The rest, as the cliché screams, is history. Manish Mundra was the first to step in, with what became, along with Anand Mahindra, the most generous cheques of that year. Then came Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. A lot of other filmmakers: I remember Hansal Mehta and Anurag Kashyap, who spread the word. And crucially, hundreds of Mumbaikars donated thousands, even lakhs. My friend Sanika Prabhu's mother donated one lakh rupees, despite knowing she wouldn't even be able to attend. In a rare, beautiful surge of collective will, they saved the institution that would later nurture the likes of Rima Das. Don't mistake this for nostalgia. Or vanity. My clickbait title aside, I claim no credit for "saving" MAMI. I was a messenger; the film fraternity's collective zeal was the saviour. No, I write this now because I am obscenely, incandescently angry. Why? Let me quote my own snarky beginning from that 2014 Sify piece, now scrubbed from the internet: 'It seems like the much-awaited yearly art bonanza, the 16-year-old Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI to most and MFF to some) will not see the light of the projector this year. The reason is as old as civilisation – lack of a few pennies. Ok, a lot of pennies. Obviously, the much-fabled large-heartedness of Mumbai, home to 26 billionaires (ranked 6th in the world) and 2,700 multi-millionaires, where 100 crore films have become a norm of sorts, has failed to find the pennies needed to make up 5 crores (less than 1 million USD) to run the festival.' What's changed in eleven years? Mumbai's billionaire count quadrupled (92 in 2024, surpassing Beijing!). It boasts nearly 60,000 millionaires. ₹100 crore films are passé; ₹1000 crore is the new fantasy, even if Bollywood rarely hits it. Back then, I spared no one: 'As for the Government of Maharashtra (which 'supported' MFF by giving a princely sum of Rs. 10 lakh every year) and Government of India (which believes it can serve one sixth of the world's population by financing a huge total of exactly one film festival every year), the less said the better.' I demanded: 'How do you value it? How do you value art? How do you value that which promotes art and culture? How do you judge its importance in the life of a city, nation and world?' I railed against the custodians of wealth: 'O you custodians of money with brand consciousness and PR skills, your sham CSRs and blind PR activities, your money rotting and stinking in Swiss banks, you who understand the price of everything but the value of nothing, you who equate everything to profit and loss who try to draw the map of the human heart over balance sheets… how can anyone show you what a film festival means to the life and breath of a metropolis you yourself reside in.' Do you see it? Change the dates, update the billionaire count, and this same article could run today. Nothing has fundamentally changed. Festival Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur calls the 2025 miss '..revamping the festival with a dynamic vision,' – a dishonest euphemism for bankruptcy. But is there hope? I remember Mr. Narayanan's grim warning in 2014: a hiatus is a death knell. Reputation shatters. If you couldn't raise funds this year, what hope is there later? So, this is farewell. And you know what? Good riddance. Not because the festival was bad (though, let's be honest, its management was often terrible – but at least we saw the films properly). I say good riddance because we, Mumbai, we, this nation, do not deserve it. We don't deserve the pregnant hush before a masterpiece. We don't deserve luminous visions exploding across forty-foot screens. We deserve the cheap, disposable dopamine hits of Instagram Reels we endlessly, mindlessly scroll – our sensitivity eroded, our empathy drowned in the algorithmic deluge of dead pixels. In 2014, thousands cared enough to fund it. Today? The people are still here, but their hearts have been calloused by the relentless, AI-curated numbness. Blame will fall on Mukesh Ambani. Whispers cite his displeasure with the last edition for withdrawing funding. Critics will note the cost of Rolexes gifted at his family wedding could fund MAMI for years. But I refuse that bitterness. Let's acknowledge the positive: he funded it generously for a decade. I've heard it's over ₹15 crores annually. That's significant. We should appreciate that. But the burning, desperate question remains: Where did all that money go? The festival's quality didn't soar under the new post-2014 management (who, let's note, abandoned ship the moment the funding stopped). If anything, it frayed. For years, I've watched young volunteers scurry out for cheap dhaba lunches near the theatres – gone were the days when even journalists like me were sometimes fed cheap, plastic-packed lunches at the festival. Mukesh Ambani gave over ₹150 crores in a decade. In the pre-2015 MAMI, this would have funded the festival for three decades. But it could only fund ten now? I have no answers. Only scalding questions. A furnace of anger. A choking desperation. And so, with a bitter symmetry that tastes like ashes, I end with the same words I wrote in 2014, believing it was truly over then:'The world won't come to an end if a film festival in a small corner of the world does not exist anymore. Yet, many things of value will die with it. Mumbai would die just a little bit more with the death of the Mumbai Film Festival. And so will something in the heart of each and every Mumbaikar. And all for the want of a few pennies we couldn't find in our pockets.' Back then, Mumbai did find those hundreds of millions of pennies. It saved MAMI till Mr. Ambani funded it for a decade. Can it rally again in 2025? Eleven years older, eleven years wearier, eleven years number? I no longer have hope. Only rage. And a profound, aching grief for the dreams of another Rima Das, another Nagraj Manjule, who will now never find their screen, their light, their tears captured for eternity.
News18
21-07-2025
- Business
- News18
Sify Q1 loss widens to Rs 39 crore
Agency: PTI New Delhi, Jul 21 (PTI) IT company Sify reported widening of consolidated losses to Rs 38.9 crore in the June quarter, the company said on Monday. The company had posted a loss of Rs 5.2 crore in the same period a year ago. The consolidated revenue of Sify during the reported quarter grew about 14 per cent to Rs 1,072.3 from Rs 942.1 crore in the June 2024 quarter. 'While our current results reflect the impact of depreciation, interest costs, and rising manpower expenses, these are conscious trade-offs in our strategy to build future-ready capabilities across our businesses. Our financial strategies are designed with resilience and agility, enabling us to respond effectively to evolving market dynamics," Sify ED and Group CFO MP Vijay Kumar said in a statement. The revenue split between the businesses for the quarter was Network services 41 per cent, data centre services 37 per cent, and digital services 22 per cent. During the quarter, Sify commissioned 8.6 MW of additional data centre capacity, the statement said. PTI PRS TRB Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
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Business Standard
11-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
India's data centre capacity to hit 3GW by 2030 on investment surge: Report
India's data centre industry is on the brink of exponential growth, with total capacity expected to reach 3 GW by 2030, according to a report. The sector is also seeing a surge in annual investments, currently at $1-1.5 billion (around Rs 12,870 crore), and this figure is expected to double in the coming years, according to the report A Multi-Year Growth Proxy on India's Data Explosion and Localisation Wave by Avendus Capital. The data centre capacity of the country was estimated at 1.1 GW in 2024. Rising data consumption, AI and cloud adoption, and policy initiatives focused on data localisation are the main drivers of data centre demand, the report stated. The demand is expected to reach around 6 GW by 2033, but the supply is expected to be only 4.5 GW, leaving a gap of 1.5 GW. Much of the demand is expected to be met through large-format, hyperscale-ready infrastructure in core markets, alongside edge-ready capacity in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities for latency-sensitive workloads, the report said, projecting a 25-30 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the sector. The report further said that subsidised land banks and electricity duty exemptions by various state governments are emerging as key enablers for accelerating data centre capacity expansion across India. While established leaders such as STT GDC and Sify continue to anchor the market, new entrants are gearing up to meet the rising enterprise demand. Delhi-NCR-based infrastructure and real estate player Anant Raj has planned capital expenditure of $2.1 billion (around Rs 18,000 crore) to achieve an operational capacity of 307 MW by 2031-2032, up from 28 MW of IT Load in 2025-26. With the advantage of pre-zoned sites, strong government policies, robust power access, and connectivity, we are well-positioned to meet the rising enterprise and hyperscaler, cloud-infrastructure as a service demand from both public and private sector clients, Anant Raj Ltd Managing Director Amit Sarin said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Time of India
25-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Sify Technologies appoints ex-TRAI chief RS Sharma to board of directors
NEW DELHI: ICT services provider Sify Technologies on Tuesday appointed RS Sharma , a former chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), to its board of directors. 'Sify Technologies Limited today announced the appointment of Dr. Ram Sewak Sharma as a new Director on the Board of Sify Technologies Limited,' the NASDAQ-listed firm said in an official statement. A 1978-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Jharkhand cadre, Sharma has service record of more than 40 years, leading reforms and leveraging IT to simplify administrative processes, contributing to shaping India's policies in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Sharma's extensive experience in the telecom industry dates back to his time as the chief of India's telecom regulator and as the secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Ministry of Communications and Information Technology). As the founding director-general and mission director of the Unique Identification Authority of India ( UIDAI ), he helped formulate and launch Aadhaar , India's first and the world's largest biometric identity system. Sharma holds a master's degree in mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, a master's in computer science from the University of California, Riverside, and a PhD from IIT, Delhi. 'We are pleased to welcome Dr. Sharma to our Board. As Sify scales, Dr. Sharma's experience and ringside view of technology-enabled operations are valuable strengths from which Sify can gain. Sify will bank heavily on his mentorship as it strives to establish a leadership position across all its businesses,' said Raju Vegesna, chairman, Sify Technologies. Sify is a digital ICT solutions provider with global service capabilities spanning data center, cloud, networks, security and digital services. 'I am happy to join the Board of Sify Technologies. In my professional ascent, I have always viewed technology as an enabler and catalyst for the large-scale implementation of social welfare measures. It is this experience that can help scale Sify's services,' Sharma said.
