17th December, 2024 Current Affairs

NATIONAL
LAUNCH OF BHARATGEN

• BharatGen is a multimodal multilingual large language model initiative, developing advanced generative AI models tailored to India's linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity. To ensure that generative AI models adequately represent India's diverse linguistic landscape, BharatGen has launched an initiative called “Bharat Data Sagar”, focusing on primary data collection. This data collection attempts to meet the requirement that training data is available for Indian languages that are lesser represented in data corpora.
• BharatGen is building partnerships with research groups across the country, to ensure that the generative AI models being developed can be extended by partners and made available to the larger research and non-academic community for further development and usage. BharatGen is also developing partnerships with the government, industry and start-ups for applications geared towards efficient administration and public at large, including marginalized and underrepresented communities in the country.
• In order to promote cultural identity and regional development, BharatGen provides technologies and tools that will support the development of region-specific content by seamlessly translating across local languages and dialects.
• BharatGen includes a consortium of top AI researchers across premier academic institutions in India that include IIT Bombay, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Mandi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Indore, and IIT Madras. These research groups are partnering with the government, industry and startups to develop models, keeping in mind the linguistic and cultural diversity of India and inclusivity for citizens and to ensure equitable technological access across different socio-economic groups in the country.

INTERNATIONAL
Moldova Joins International Solar Alliance

• Moldova has officially joined the International Solar Alliance (ISA), signaling its commitment to renewable energy and sustainability.
•  The ISA Framework Agreement was signed in New Delhi by India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Mihai Popșoi. Moldova’s inclusion comes after Armenia became the 104th full member last month, marking the continued global expansion of the ISA.
• The ISA is an inter-governmental treaty-based organization founded during COP21 in Paris in 2015 by Indian PM Narendra Modi and French President François Hollande. It promotes solar energy adoption globally by addressing barriers like technology costs and financing. The ISA Framework Agreement became operational in December 2017, making it the first inter-governmental body headquartered in India. Membership has expanded to 120 signatories, with 100 full members.
•  Headquartered in India, ISA unites countries to overcome challenges in solar energy financing, technology, and scalability, aiming to mobilize over USD 1,000 billion in investments by 2030.

Israel Expands Settlements in Golan Heights Amid Regional Shifts

• Israel recently approved a settlement expansion plan in the Golan Heights, allocating over $11.13 million to boost population and infrastructure in the region. This decision comes amidst rising regional tensions following political changes in Syria, particularly the fall of the Assad regime. Israel aims to double the population in this strategically significant territory.
• The Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981, remains unrecognized as Israeli territory by most of the international community. The plateau holds strategic value for defense and water resources. Currently, the region houses about 50,000 residents, including 20,000 Israeli settlers and an equal number of local Druze Arabs and Alawites.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
INCOIS Upgrades SARAT for Enhanced Sea Rescue Operations

• The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has recently upgraded its Search and Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT) to improve the effectiveness of sea rescue operations. Originally introduced in 2016, SARAT has become a vital tool for the Indian Coast Guard and other agencies. The upgraded version, SARAT 2, comes with advanced features that provide more accurate predictions for missing objects and individuals at sea, optimizing rescue operations.
• SARAT was launched in 2016 to aid in search and rescue operations at sea. The tool is designed to predict the drift of objects based on environmental factors like wind, currents, and waves. The recent upgrade (SARAT 2) incorporates user feedback and sophisticated technological advancements to improve search efficiency.
• SARAT 2 includes colour-coded search regions and high-resolution visuals that allow for quicker identification of high-probability areas.