Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Editorial
For the fourth consecutive year, the government has expressed outrage and rejected the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) latest report, calling it “biased and motivated”.
In its report released, the independent congressional body has called for India to be designated a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for its “worsening” record on religious freedoms.
The report has targeted the Indian government for “promoting and enforcing religiously discriminatory policies”, naming laws that deal with conversion, interfaith relationships, wearing the hijab and cow slaughter, as well as the CAA and the NRC.
All of these, it alleges, have impacted minorities including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and Adivasis (indigenous peoples and Scheduled Tribes) negatively.
The USCIRF has also catalogued acts of violence and the vilification of minorities and criticised the “suppression of critical voices” by intimidation that includes surveillance, demolition of property, detentions and the targeting of NGOs through laws curtailing foreign donations.
It has criticised the U.S. State Department for not having designated India as a CPC, and has called for sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials.
In the only such sanction imposed on India, the U.S. had, in 2005, revoked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s U.S. visa after a USCIRF recommendation on the 2002 Gujarat riots. In its response, the External Affairs Ministry has told the USCIRF to “desist” from such reports and to “develop a better understanding of India.”
Explainer
The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Policies and Agreements)
After intense last-minute negotiations in the past few weeks on how to bring general-purpose artificial intelligence systems (GPAIS) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT under the ambit of regulation, members of European Parliament reached a preliminary deal this week on a new draft of the European Union’s ambitious Artificial Intelligence Act, first drafted two years ago.
As artificial intelligence technologies become omnipresent and their algorithms more advanced — capable of performing a wide variety of tasks including voice assistance, recommending music, driving cars, detecting cancer, and even deciding whether you get shortlisted for a job — the risks and uncertainties associated with them have also ballooned.
Many AI tools are essentially black boxes, meaning even those who designed them cannot explain what goes on inside them to generate a particular output.
Complex and unexplainable AI tools have already manifested in wrongful arrests due to AI-enabled facial recognition; discrimination and societal biases seeping into AI outputs; and most recently, in how chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) like Generative Pretrained Trasformer-3 (GPT-3) and 4 can generate versatile, human-competitive and genuine looking content, which may be inaccurate or copyrighted material.
Recently, industry stakeholders including Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak signed an open letter asking AI labs to stop the training of AI models more powerful than GPT-4 for six months, citing potential risks to society and humanity.
“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the letter said. It urged global policymakers to “dramatically accelerate” the development of “robust” AI governance systems.
The legislation was drafted in 2021 with the aim of bringing transparency, trust, and accountability to AI and creating a framework to mitigate risks to the safety, health, fundamental rights, and democratic values of the EU.
It also aims to address ethical questions and implementation challenges in various sectors ranging from healthcare and education to finance and energy.
The legislation seeks to strike a balance between promoting “the uptake of AI while mitigating or preventing harms associated with certain uses of the technology”.
News
India slips in press freedom index, ranks 161 out of 180 nations (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Reports/Governance)
India’s ranking in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index has slipped to 161 out of 180 countries, according to the latest report released by the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In comparison, Pakistan has fared better when it comes to media freedom as it was placed at 150, an improvement from last year’s 157th rank. In 2022, India was ranked at 150.
Sri Lanka also made significant improvement on the index, ranking 135th this year as against 146th in 2022. Norway, Ireland and Denmark occupied the top three positions in press freedom, while Vietnam, China and North Korea constituted the bottom three.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) comes out with a global ranking of press freedom every year. RSF is an international NGO whose self-proclaimed aim is to defend and promote media freedom. Headquartered in Paris, it has consultative status with the United Nations.
The objective of the World Press Freedom Index, which it releases every year, “is to compare the level of press freedom enjoyed by journalists and media in 180 countries and territories” in the previous calendar year.
RSF defines press freedom as “the ability of journalists as individuals and collectives to select, produce, and disseminate news in the public interest independent of political, economic, legal, and social interference and in the absence of threats to their physical and mental safety”.
IMD forecasts a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal next week (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday said that a cyclone was likely to form in the Bay of Bengal by early next week, but its strength, direction and impact were yet to be gauged.
A cyclonic circulation is likely to develop over southeast Bay of Bengal around May 6, there is a possibility of the circulation to move northwards towards central Bay of Bengal. Further details will be given after the low-pressure is formed.
A low-pressure area is usually a precursor to the development of a cyclone, and according to the IMD’s calculations, it is expected to take shape on May 7.
A preliminary analysis available on the IMD website based on its weather models suggests that the cyclone could form by May 9 and grow to a “severe cyclonic storm” by May 10.
The IMD has a five-step classification for cyclones with the relatively weakest classified as a “cyclonic storm” (65-68 kmph) and the strongest a “super cyclonic storm” (>222 kmph). A “severe cyclonic storm” (89-117 kmph) is just one step above a “cyclonic storm”.
Depending on the location of the storm and existing weather conditions, it is possible for the storm to gain or reduce in strength. Cyclones are more frequent in India’s neighbourhood around May, October and November — or coincident with the advent and departure of the monsoon.
This will be the first cyclone to form this year and it will be called Cyclone Mocha. The name was proposed by Yemen, after the Red Sea port city, following an international convention on naming cyclones.
Seafaring vessels and the fishing community should avoid the waters of southeast Bay of Bengal after May 7 because it will be turbulent.
Highly pathogenic bird flu virus puts the Centre on alert (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Housing one of the largest livestock reserves across the world, India is at “risk and vulnerable” to the ongoing outbreaks of avian influenza (H5N1) worldwide, a worry compounded by the threat of mammalian transmission.
Across the world, the virus is being detected among wild birds and other species, which makes the chance of it mutating and becoming harmful greater,” warns the World Economic Forum (WEF) in its latest paper on pandemic and preparedness.
We are concerned about it. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that we need to be prepared all the time. If we are caught off guard, anything can happen. The Central government is now reviewing the H5N1 situation daily.
H5N1, a highly pathogenic subtype of avian influenza, was detected by the ICAR-National Institute of High Security Animal Disease, Bhopal in the samples received from the Government Poultry Farm at Bokaro, Jharkhand on February 17, 2023. India has now initiated the animal pandemic preparedness programme.
India has been dealing with influenza since 2006-07 and there is no vaccine for high-pathogenic avian influenza. Currently we have checked 1,500 samples from hotspots such as waterbodies and poultry farms.
Out of this only one case was found positive from Alappuzha in Kerala. There is nothing to panic about, but we need to be vigilant. We must strengthen our bio-security measures.
Business
‘Adapting to climate change to cost India ₹85.6 lakh crore by 2030 (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The cumulative total expenditure for adapting to climate change in India is estimated to reach ₹85.6 lakh crore (at 2011-12 prices) by 2030, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Department of Economic and Policy Research (DEPR) said in its Report on Currency & Finance 2022-23.
India’s goal of achieving the net zero target by 2070 would require an accelerated reduction in the energy intensity of GDP by about 5% annually and a significant improvement in its energy-mix in favour of renewables to about 80% by 2070-71.
India’s green financing requirement is estimated to be at least 2.5% of GDP annually till 2030 to address the infrastructure gap caused by climate events, and the financial system may have to mobilise adequate resources and also reallocate current resources to contribute effectively to the country’s net-zero target.
Results of a climate stress-test reveal that public sector banks (PSBs) may be more vulnerable than private sector banks.. Globally, however, measurement of climate-related financial risks remains a work in progress.
A pilot survey of key stakeholders in the financial system in India suggests that notwithstanding rising awareness about climate risks and their potential impact on the financial health of entities, risk mitigation plans are largely at the discussion stage and yet to be widely implemented.