HYDERABAD: Now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be used in the State to help cotton farmers. The Agriculture Department has signed an MoU with the Wadhwani Institute for AI to assist cotton farmers beat pest infestations. Wadhwani has developed an AI solution that equips smallholding cotton farmers with the scientific knowledge of an agriculture expert, with the help of a smartphone. The solution, delivered via an app, provides real-time localised advisory and surveillance. It enables farmers to catch pest infestations early and take corrective measures to avoid significant crop damage.

There are more than 5.8 million cotton farmers in India according to the country's Textile Ministry. Every year, they face heavy losses due to pests attacking their crops. In 2017, farmers in the state of Maharashtra faced a loss of ₹15,000 crores ($2.1 billion) as 50% of the crop was under attack from pests. As a result, more than 55% of pesticide in India goes towards cotton farming. However, the wrong usage of these chemicals can damage the crop or reduce the quality.

On August 15, India's Independence Day, it's customary to sing Jana Gana Mana: the Indian national anthem, originally composed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore and adopted as the anthem after India gained full independence. This year, together with Prasar Bharati and Virtual Bharat, we offered Indians a new take on the familiar with Sounds of India, an AI-powered web app. Using the app, you sing Jana Gana Mana into your phone, karaoke-style, and it transforms your voice into one of three traditional Indian instruments. The day culminated in a rendition of the national anthem, combining many of the voices that Indians submitted through the app. The Sounds of India experiment was made possible by machine learning models built with Google's TensorFlow platform to convert sounds into musical instruments (in this case, the Bansuri, the Shehnai, and the Sarangi).

Apple and Google's common coronavirus contact tracing solution for smartphones has continued to attract a lot of attention and debate over the past week, and understandably so. It's an unprecedented partnership between the world's dominant smartphone operating system makers, but people are worried about privacy and the notion that tracking tools deployed in the name of coronavirus will outlive the crisis. Debate over Apple and Google's contact tracing solution seems to have opened up an old argument between people who see a tech solution for every problem and those who say tech can't solve all our problems, and can even cause new ones. These debates certainly carry over to the kind of AI being deployed right now and the important question of when a company should ship or shelve a coronavirus solution. A lot of AI solutions are being rushed out in an attempt to save lives and speed up the day when we'll return to something resembling normal life, and you've been able to read about many of these in our coverage.

TOKYO: Last year, an anguished young farmer in Maharashtra's Amravati district flattened his entire cotton crop spread over three acres of land. What drove him to take the extreme step? His crop was damaged by the dreaded pink bollworm pest, a wily worm that eats away cotton bolls and causes extensive crop damage. Sadly, he is not the only cultivator in the state dealing with the problem. Thousands of farmers in Maharashtra have been grappling with the pink bollworm menace for several years despite switching to the genetically-altered BT seeds, which are supposed to resist the pest.

When Rahul Kumar, a daily-wage earner from Patna, got his chest X-ray done after months of coughing, a doctor told him he was suffering from tuberculosis (TB). But when he sought a second opinion, he was told he was fine. "I was asked to get more scans done, but I don't have the money or time to run around for multiple tests," says Kumar, 31. Kumar is one of a large demographic of TB patients in India in whom the disease either goes undetected, or who simply drop off the long and expensive treatment cycle. This, in turn, leads to a greater spread of the disease -- and the possibility of mutated, drug-resistant versions.

The Central TB Division of the Health Ministry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to explore the application of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence technology in its fight against tuberculosis (TB). The MoU was signed by Vikas Sheel, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry and P Anandan, CEO of Wadhwani AI. As part of the collaboration, Wadhwani AI would support the National TB programme by helping it become AI-ready. This would include, developing, piloting, and deploying AI-based solutions. "It would support the programme in vulnerability and hot-spot mapping, modelling novel methods of screening and diagnostics and enabling decision support for care-givers apart from supporting the Revised National TB Programme (RNTCP) in adoption of other AI technologies," a press statement from the Ministry stated.

How many doctors does it take to tell you how you're doing? The answer could soon be, none. Scientists and researchers across India are exploring the applications of artificial intelligence in health care -- from helping diagnoses illnesses to monitoring critical care. "Artificial intelligence -- or cyber-physical systems, as I like to call them -- can collect digitised data or generate data, analyse and make decisions based on it," says professor Ashutosh Sharma, secretary of the union government's department of science and technology. "A big advantage of AI in healthcare is that it can help where there is a scarcity of human resources, which is the case in many rural areas," adds Dr P Anandan, CEO at the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI).

Can India's seemingly insurmountable socioeconomic problems be tackled using artificial intelligence (AI)? The answer may lie somewhere in the future--but one Indian-American billionaire duo has decided to make a start. Last month, US-based philanthropist brothers Romesh Wadhwani (70) and Sunil Wadhwani (64) established India's first AI research institute in Mumbai, looking to deliver scaleable, tech-led solutions to the country's ills like inadequate healthcare and educational facilities by honing the AI ecosystem. Their institute, Wadhwani AI, was launched on Feb. 18 by prime minister Narendra Modi and is located in Mumbai University's Vidyanagari campus in Kalina. With over four decades of experience in the US, running various tech enterprises and philanthropic organisations, the Wadhwanis expect the institute to mirror the likes of San Francisco-based non-profit OpenAI and MIT's Allen Institute for AI.

How many doctors does it take to tell you how you're doing? The answer could soon be, none. Scientists and researchers across India are exploring the applications of artificial intelligence in health care -- from helping diagnoses illnesses to monitoring critical care. "Artificial intelligence -- or cyber-physical systems, as I like to call them -- can collect digitised data or generate data, analyse and make decisions based on it," says professor Ashutosh Sharma, secretary of the union government's department of science and technology. "A big advantage of AI in healthcare is that it can help where there is a scarcity of human resources, which is the case in many rural areas," adds Dr P Anandan, CEO at the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Wadhwani AI).