Why Bangalore should look forward to 2012

New year brings with itself new enthusiasm and new hopes. DNA gives you a glimpse into the areas that promise enthusiasm in 2012 and the areas that are hanging on a hope against hope hopen.

Health sector set to get healthier
The health sector will open up its bouquet of advancement with technology in the year 2012. Introduction of robotic surgery, a 22nd-century technology made available in 21st century, in the city is definitely going to change the trend of surgeries in the coming year.
The first robotic surgery centre in Karnataka, and one of the first few in the country, is already operational at Manipal Hospital in Bangalore. This technology allows surgeons to perform delicate operations by controlling the machine’s robotic arms, which translate the doctor’s hand movements into smaller and smoother strokes.
It has revolutionised the field of surgery by allowing the surgeon to perform less-invasive and complex surgical procedures that was once possible only with open surgery.
In the field of cardiac care, more advanced surgical procedures are expected. Good news is that the coming year will see a Narayana Hrudayalaya branch in Whitefield.

Mysore will see the beginning of yet another Health City.

The period of 2010-2011 has seen a demand for best-of-the class maternity facilities and child-care institutions. This trend will continue in 2012 in a more diversified way. The city will see new boutique hospitals launching their facilities to provide more comfort and less painful pre-natal experience to the expectant mothers. CloudNine is opening up two branches, one each at Old Airport Road and Malleswaram in 2012. With this, the city will have more competition and more players in the area.

Buying houses will become easier
As the curtains come down on 2011, the coming year brings with it a lot of promise for the realty sector. The real estate industry faced many setbacks in 2011, particularly with the RBI consistently hiking interest rates and the poor performance of the global economy, both having a direct impact on the real estate business.

However, buyers and developers will have something to look forward to and smile about in the New Year. Analysts predict the RBI would soften the home loan rates, which would come into effect by the second half of the year. “The RBI is likely to review and bring down the interest rates in January,” says MR Jaishankar, chairman & managing director, Brigade Group. The move would bring much relief to the sector.

With the property prices largely expected to remain range-bound, with slight negative bias, it could be the perfect time for home buyers to invest, says Aditya Verma, EVP & COO, Makaan.com. “This will give more opportunity to the home buyer to look for his dream house, without the need to worry about a price rise.”

Though the last year was a quiet one in terms of launches, 2012 will buck the trend, as developers are set to announce a slew of launches, particularly in the mid-segment of Rs40 lakh to Rs60 lakh, as well as luxury apartments. Plenty of choice to choose your perfect home! East, North, and South Bangalore are the areas to watch out for in 2012.

Govt may allow FDI to rescue aviation sector
Though the year 2011 marked 100 years of civil aviation in India, there was nothing much to write about the aviation sector. 

One of the country’s largest private airlines, Kingfisher, scrapped its Kingfisher Red service, which was connecting smaller cities in the country. Besides this, services of the airline were also disrupted a few times with the ATF suppliers refusing to provide fuel as it had not cleared its dues.

To top it all, Air India pilots also went on strike in April in 2011. These are among the issues which will be under scrutiny in 2012. Passengers will be hoping that the airlines would keep up their promise and ensure that they would not be left in the lurch as they were several times in 2011.

The New Year could also see the possibility of the government allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the aviation sector to bail out the bleeding industry, whose bubble seems to have burst after the initial euphoria witnessed in the second half of the last decade.

There is a possibility that the government may allow 24% FDI in the aviation sector.

The New Year will also see the expansion work of the Terminal-1 building at the Bengaluru International Airport. Though its completion is expected only in 2013, a majority of the work would be completed this year itself.

The state government’s dream of building airport in tier-II cities of the state will also be executed during 2012.

India’s defence sector to gain in strength
On the defence front, the year 2012 promises to be one in which home-grown technologies will take a centre stage in securing the future of the country.

Starting with the first flight of India’s first carrier-borne Naval flight aircraft—the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Navy, which is expected to take place in Bangalore in the very first week of the New Year—a number of indigenous efforts will be put to test in 2012.

Among them is the testing of the inter-continental ballistic missile, Agni-5, in February. The Agni-5 has a range of 5,000 kilometres, which means it can reach many of China’s major cities. Possessing this strategic capability will mean that India will be on par with its bullying neighbour as far as missile technology is concerned.

The suspense over who will emerge the winner (between the two short-listed vendors, the Eurofighter and Dassault’s Rafale) in the mother of all defence deals will be in public domain in the first week of 2012. The deal for medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) is worth about $10.4 billion.

The signing of the deal and the subsequent induction of MMRCA into the Indian Air Force would mean that apart from boosting air superiority over its adversaries, the loss of life and aircraft would be minimised as many obsolete aircraft would be phased out.

A controversial subject like the revoking of the Armed Force Special Powers Act in the trouble-torn Jammu and Kashmir and greater transparency in the numerous multi-crore defence deals along with higher efficiency of the defence Public Sector Undertakings would be among the topics of discussion in 2012.