Business

The lesser-known cousin of Bangalore’s IT/ITes industry, the animation-visual effects-gaming-comics sector, or AVGC for short, is looking out for that great leap forward. The promise to that effect came from minister for information technology, biotechnology, and science and technology, SR Patil. The minister, who inaugurated a two-day industry meet in the city on Wednesday, asserted that his government would do all it takes to make the city the most preferred and lucrative outsourcing...

No, the Karnataka animation industry is not planning to catch them young. That may come in later; but it will nevertheless start with those who catch the young – faculties. The state government, in collaboration with the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI), will launch a Train-The-Trainer Institute in the city next month to train up faculty members from across the state who teach animation techniques to young professionals. The institute, which will be located in HSR Layout, is...

If you thought the catchphrase “taking it to the next level” was one of the most exasperating corporate clichés you had heard, you might want to do a rethink. Rajiv Chilakalapudi, the man behind the biggest success story of the Indian animation industry – Chhota Bheem, wants to do exactly that: take his story to the next level. He wants to do this by enlarging the 2D animation legend on to a 3D canvas. For one, the next version of Chhota Bheem, reckoned to be a Rs 200 crore brand now, will have...

Prominent players of the digital content industry will gather in the city next week to participate in the annual summit of the Association of Bangalore Animation Industry (ABAI). The AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics) sector forms a significant portion of the fast growing digital content industry. This segment in India was pegged at $685 million in 2011 by Deloitte and NASSCOM, growing at 18-20% CAGR. In recent years, the Karnataka government has been launching initiatives to...

This should be a rebuff of sorts to sceptics who have been insisting that IT companies are increasingly flocking to other states given the civic mess that Bangalore finds itself in. IT major Dell on Tuesday announced the inauguration of a new state-of-the-art Firmware Lab at its R&D centre in the city. The lab, which will be responsible for developing Dell’s embedded systems management products that form a part of its PowerEdge enterprise servers, is being described by the company as an...

This one goes a step beyond the GIMs that the state has hosted in the last few years. The effort in question is that of Karnataka's apex industry body spreading its wings across the seven seas. The NRI Chapter of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI), that was launched on Tuesday by Union minister for external affairs Salman Khurshid, is the first step in this direction. The gathering of industry leaders in the city turned out to be essentially a bouquet of...

You can describe it as an achievement against all odds. In spite of all the civic problems, from potholes to water scarcity, the city ranks the #1 business travel destination in the country. In fact, Bangalore ranks #12 worldwide. Bangalore emerged as the most visited city in India for business travel among the 25 most-visited cities worldwide followed by Mumbai at 20 in terms of number of overnight hotel stays, according to the latest release of Concur Expense IQ Report. Concur is a leading...

When the Lake Development Authority (LDA) virtually handed over the Kelaginakere Byrasandra Lake on a platter to Bagmane Developers under the former's "Adopt a lake" scheme, the city would have thought that the lake had a hope. But eight years after the agreement was signed, allegations of encroachment and land-grabbing are flying thick and fast — not only against the developer, arguably one of the city's most well-known and powerful, but also a host of corporates and a public sector undertaking...

Infrastructure projects in Bangalore have opened up the land and helped alleviate mobility constraints for economic inputs. Many commercial and residential projects have been launched; and this has not only affected emerging micro-markets but also influenced property sector returns in mature and established local areas. A research project conducted by the London-based Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has found that the most noticeable effect of the infrastructure investment is to...

It's a paradox of sorts. The retail real estate market in Bangalore is apparently stable; the size of the market may have grown over last year, but vacancy rates have not dipped enough to make an impact. Unoccupied space is growing proportionately. According to real estate consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield, 11.68 cent of the floorspace in malls of Bangalore still lies vacant (as of March 31, 2013). Things have improved only by a wafer-thin margin since December 31, 2012 when the vacancy rate...