Clerical error turns ₹20,000 into $20,000, costs Kerala University nearly ₹16.5 lakh
Thiruvananthapuram: A clerical mistake during an international fund transfer has left Kerala University’s Centre for Latin American Studies facing a financial loss of nearly ₹16.5 lakh, making it one of the institution’s costliest administrative errors in recent years.
The error occurred in June 2023, when the institution paid money for four online lectures given by a Brazilian journalist. The Times of India reported that a bank employee misinterpreted the rupee symbol as a dollar sign and transferred the approved honorarium of ₹20,000 as $20,000, resulting in a significant debit from the university's account.
University officials said the transaction was carried out through the State Bank of India’s Tejaswini branch at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram. The amount was credited to the bank account of Kathleen Martinic, wife of the invited speaker Milan Sime Martinic.
The discrepancy was discovered in 2024 and the Centre informed the university authorities and contacted the lecturer. Gireesh Kumar, head of the Centre, said Martinic had initially assured officials that the excess amount would be returned. However, the refund was never received, despite later claims that the money had been sent back.
Efforts to recover the funds have since been complicated by Martinic’s death a few months after the transfer, which was made on June 15, 2023. Officials said this has significantly reduced the chances of recovering the money.
The funds were part of a ₹20 lakh grant sanctioned by the state government for a student exchange programme. After the money was received, Kathleen Martinic reportedly transferred it to the account of a consulting firm.
The Centre has approached the banking ombudsman, but the issue remains unresolved. While SBI has acknowledged the error, it has asked the university to help persuade the recipient to return the excess amount.
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Ambani, Adani pledge USD 210 bn for India's AI push
New Delhi (PTI): Conglomerates run by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani committed USD 210 billion investment to creating infrastructure that will help India emerge as an AI development hub.
At the India AI Impact Summit, Ambani announced a Rs 10 lakh crore (about USD 110 billion) investment in artificial intelligence over the next seven years in gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, leveraging up to 10 GW of green power surplus, and a nationwide edge-compute layer integrated with telecom and digital operator Jio's networks to deliver low-latency AI across India.
"Our resolve is clear: make intelligence as ubiquitous as connectivity," he said. "When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable."
Adani, on the other hand, unveiled a USD 100-billion investment to develop renewable-energy-powered, hyperscale AI-ready data centres by 2035 -- one of the world's largest integrated energy-compute commitments.
The initiative is expected to catalyse an additional USD 150 billion across server manufacturing, cloud platforms, and supporting industries, creating a projected USD 250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India.
India must architect its own artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure rather than rely on imports, Adani Group executive director Jeet Adani said on Thursday, warning that AI will redefine national sovereignty.
Other major investments announced at the Summit included USD 50 billion commitment by Microsoft by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South. "India, not surprisingly, is one of the largest," its vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said.
The firm had unveiled USD 17.5 billion investment in AI investments in India last year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new subsea cable initiative to boost AI connectivity between India, the US and other locations, alongside partnerships for cloud infrastructure platform support to over 20 million public servants across 800 districts.
Yotta Data Services, backed by a real estate group headed by Niranjan Hiranandani, announced over USD 2 billion spend on Nvidia's latest chips in an artificial intelligence computing hub it is setting up just outside the national capital.
While Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) signed up ChatGPT parent OpenAI as its first customer for its data centre unit under the global AI infrastructure initiative Stargate, infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro announced a proposed venture with Nvidia to build AI-ready data centre infrastructure, advanced computing platforms, and ecosystem enablement required to support large-scale AI workloads.
