On a stifling April afternoon in Ajmer, in the Indian state of Rajasthan, local politician Shakti Singh Rathore sat down in front of a greenscreen to shoot a short video. It was his first time being cloned. Wearing a crisp white shirt and a ceremonial saffron scarf bearing a lotus flower--the logo of the BJP, the country's ruling party--Rathore pressed his palms together and greeted his audience in Hindi. Before he could continue, the director of the shoot walked into the frame. Divyendra Singh Jadoun, a 31-year-old with a bald head and a thick black beard, told Rathore he was moving around too much on camera.

The state of Maharashtra recently delivered personalized Diwali video messages to almost 4 crore people as an example of how technology can be leveraged to reach a bigger audience. Eknath Shinde, the state's chief minister, and Devendra Fadnavis, the deputy chief minister, sent individual Diwali greetings to more than 4 crore residents of the state. These emails consisted of 42,000 messages addressed to distinct names in total. So, among the 4 crore people who received customized video messages in Marathi from Shinde and Fadnavis this Diwali were Chitanya, Manish, Kokila, and Champabai. The state of Maharashtra recently delivered personalized Diwali video messages to almost 4 crore people as an example of how technology can be leveraged to reach a bigger audience.

GUWAHATI: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati launched the Samsung Digital Academy Programme by inaugurating the Samsung Digital Academy at the campus. The 14-week long course will be taught through classroom lectures, assignments and lab room sessions, self-study and mini-projects. Extensive tutorials and approach documents will also be provided to students to facilitate practical exercises. The curriculum at the Samsung Innovation Lab at IIT Guwahati will include Internet of Things (IoT), Embedded Systems (ES), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). The students will be trained on these industry-relevant skills in order to make them job-ready.

Mumbai: In a first in the country, the State government will be setting up an institute for artificial intelligence (AI) in Mumbai. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will unveil the plan for the institute during the Magnetic Maharashtra Summit, and at the Global Economic Conference in Canada next month. "We have discussed cooperation in artificial intelligence and other port-led development. Maharashtra has already become the first state to unveil a FinTech Policy," said the Chief Minister, while setting up a joint working group for AI cooperation with the government of Canada on Tuesday. The meeting between Canadian Minister of International Relations, Christine St-Pierre, and Mr. Fadnavis was held on AI cooperation in the industrial and service sectors.