A multilingual, spatially mapped news aggregation engine developed at IIIT-H is evolving into a powerful tool to track governance and the quality of urban life across the country, with Hyderabad as its first live testbed.

In the world of e-governance, pictures often speak louder than reports. Maps, charts and visual dashboards help administrators see patterns such as distribution of government initiatives, where crimes are rising, which districts face repeated civic issues, and how different regions compare in real time – all that would otherwise remain buried in spreadsheets. By turning complex data into intuitive visual form, pictorial and spatial representations have become a cornerstone of modern, data-driven governance.

It is this belief – good governance begins with good visualisation – that lies at the heart of a new research platform being developed at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H). Born out of a request from the Telangana government, the project began as a spatial mapping of a news aggregation engine: a system designed to collect news from multiple newspapers, translate it across Indian languages, and plot every report on a map to show where issues were emerging across the state.

A Multilingual Map of Civic Issues
“At the core, what we are building is a news app,” explains Akhila Venigalla, lead developer, Product Labs, IIIT-H. “We collect articles from multiple newspapers – Eenadu, Mana Telangana, The Times of India and Hans India – and currently focus on the districts of Telangana.”

Most of these reports are originally in Telugu.  “We translate the Telugu news into English, and if required, also into Hindi as of now,” Akhila says, adding, “BHASHINI models, part of Government of India’s national language AI initiative, allow us to support translatability across different Indian languages.” Each translated report is then spatially plotted on a map based on where the incident occurred, transforming scattered headlines into a geographic picture of governance.

Turning Headlines into Signals
Instead of treating news as mere text, the system analyses its sentiment and administrative relevance. “If the news is positive, it shows up in green on the map. If it’s negative, it’s in red. If it’s neutral, it’s yellow,” Akhila explains. Every report is also mapped to departments such as the Police, Revenue, Health, and Urban Development, helping officials and analysts see not just what is happening, but where and in which sector. There is also an option for officials to flag these reports and assign them to the concerned persons in the department(s) for appropriate inquiry or follow-up. 

From News to Neighbourhoods
As the platform matured, a new question arose: Can the same data help ordinary citizens decide where to live? This has led to the development of a livability index layered on top of the news map. For any selected location, the system now pulls in indicators such as: Air Quality Index, water quality, nearby hospitals, schools and supermarkets and environmental and green-cover metrics.  “We get the address, the air quality, the water quality,” Akhila explains. “And we categorize how good it is to stay there – accessibility to green lung spaces, proximity to hospitals and so on.” 

Crucially, the team is designing the system to reflect individual priorities. For instance, a retiree’s priorities might differ from a young working professional’s. The former might value peace and quiet in lieu of the presence of schools and colleges. In such a case, the air quality index would get higher weightage for the retiree. The long-term goal is to allow users to customise these weights, creating a personalised livability score.

An Internship Project That Grew Bigger
While the news platform was built in response to a government request, the livability module had humbler beginnings. It began as a project by an intern, Vishal Joy in Product Labs. “Nobody specifically gave me this requirement. In India, we do not have an objective metric to compare cities or areas within cities. This is a clear gap in our understanding which needs to be addressed. Finding livability information for any location in India was an enjoyable challenge due to the lack of high quality livability data available,” he mentions, adding that the pursuit was driven by his love for his home town of Bangalore. “There’s no doubt that Bangalore has issues and we tried to give direction to development by pinpointing which areas lacked what features. This felt like giving back to my home city in a small way!”

Why News and Housing Belong Together
The link, argues the team, is deeply practical. “If I see frequent news about protests in a particular area,” explains Vishal, “or history shows too many such incidents, I might not want to stay there. I might prefer a calmer, more peaceful location.” This is when news becomes not just information but an indicator about long-term quality of life.

What began as a government-requested, spatially mapped news aggregation engine is now evolving into a city-scale decision-support platform that brings together governance, and everyday urban life. All to answer a question with data rather than guesswork: Is this a good place to live in?