IIIT, Hyderabad Bags Top Honours at CVPR AI Conference

Hyderabad: Artificial intelligence (AI) that can make complex 3D models ‘lighter,’ without affecting their quality and help computers understand videos, using much smaller datasets, earned researchers from the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT, Hyderabad) top honours at the computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR) 2026 conference, one of the world’s leading AI conferences.

The institute’s centre for Visual Information Technology (CVIT) won a best paper award and a best paper runner-up award, besides presenting several papers on computer vision, image generation and document intelligence. The conference received more than 16,000 submissions, with only about a quarter accepted.

Master’s graduate Darshan Singh won the best paper award for developing a method that improves how AI understands videos using structured descriptions instead of massive datasets. “CLIP is already good at connecting images and text. But video captions often leave out important details. By using semantic role labels, we were able to train a strong video-understanding model using only a small amount of data,” Singh said.

Dual degree graduate Kunal Bhosikar received the best paper runner-up award for research on simplifying AI-generated 3D models. “Today’s AI systems can generate incredibly detailed 3D models from images, videos and even text prompts. But these models contain thousands of tiny triangles, making them expensive to store and process,” Bhosikar said, adding that the technique removes unnecessary triangles while preserving the shape and texture, making them much faster to use.

He also presented another paper aimed at protecting photographs from unauthorised 3D reconstruction. “We developed an almost invisible digital patch that disrupts AI reconstruction pipelines, while remaining unnoticed by humans,” he explained.

Among the other papers, Vaibhav Agrawal presented SeeThrough3D, which helps AI understand when one object is hidden behind another while generating images. “Current AI image generators are not very good at understanding occlusion, when one object partially blocks another. Our work allows artists to control the position and pose of every object more accurately,” Agrawal said.

Another team led by Prof. Ravi Kiran developed RoadTones, which teaches AI to describe the same road incident differently depending on the audience.

The institute also presented research on scientific communication and document intelligence, while an earlier CVIT paper received the EgoVis distinguished paper award. Professor C.V. Jawahar delivered the keynote address at the workshop.

Hyderabad to host first national OBC students’ convention

Hyderabad: Hyderabad will host the first national OBC students’ convention on August 7, where student leaders, academics, social activists and public representatives from across the country will discuss issues related to social justice and adopt a future roadmap for the OBC movement.

Announcing the convention, the All India OBC Students Association (AIOBCSA) said delegates would deliberate on the caste census, reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) in proportion to their population, reservation in promotions, fellowships, equal opportunities in higher education, welfare of OBC students and the establishment of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule centres in universities.

AIOBCSA national president G. Kiran Kumar said the convention, being organised as part of the 200th birth anniversary celebrations of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, would culminate in the release of the Hyderabad Declaration, outlining a roadmap for the future of the OBC movement.

Shailesh Vagerwal is new Chairman and MD of BDL

Hyderabad: Shailesh Vagerwal on Thursday assumed charge as chairman and managing director of Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL), the Hyderabad-headquartered defence public sector undertaking, succeeding at a time when the company continues to expand its role in India’s missile and defence manufacturing programmes.

An officer of the Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS), Vagerwal has nearly three decades of experience in the defence manufacturing sector, particularly in ammunition and explosives production.

Before joining BDL, he served as chief general manager of ordnance factory Khamaria, Jabalpur, a unit of Munitions India Limited. Earlier, he has held key positions at ordnance factories in Dum Dum and Itarsi too and at the corporate office of Munitions India Limited in Pune.

Vagerwal holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MBM engineering college, Jodhpur and a Master of Science in explosive ordnance engineering from Cranfield University, UK.

BDL, a ministry of defence enterprise, is one of the country’s leading manufacturers of missiles, underwater weapons and allied defence systems for the armed forces.