DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS 28 JUNE
National mission on natural language translation soon
News Important for – General Studies – 2 I Education
The Ministry of Electronics and IT has proposed next three years for natural language translation, one of the key missions identified by the Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC).
About the mission
- The proposal is part of the 100-day action plan charted out by MeitY.
- The aim of national mission on natural language is to make science and technology accessible to all by facilitating access to teaching and researching material bilingually in English and in one’s native Indian language.
- To achieve this, the government plans a combination of speech-to-speech machine translation and text-to-text machine translation.
- The government is planning to set up an ecosystem which involved the Central and State agencies and start-ups.
- The scheme is implemented by Meity along with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Department of Science and Technology.
Objective of the mission
- It will help generate employment for educated unemployed.
- The mission would help not just students but also teachers, authors, publishers, translation software developers and general readers.
About PM-STIAC
- The PM-STIAC is an overarching body, it recognises challenges in certain areas of science and technology.
- It also creates a road map to deal with these challenges and presents the recommendations to the Prime Minister.
- Other missions identified by the body are Quantum Frontier, Artificial Intelligence, National Bio-diversity mission, electric vehicles, Bio Science for Human Health and deep ocean exploration.
Source link:
U.S. demands the withdrawal of high tariffs of India
News Important for – General Studies – 2 I International Relations I Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India.
Context
India has increased tariffs on 28 U.S. goods imported in India.
Analysis
· India has levied tariffs on 28 goods including walnuts, pulses and almonds.
· The move was in retaliation for the March 2018 tariffs the Trump administration on national security grounds as steel and aluminium from a number of countries, including India.
· India will be a part of trilateral talks with U.S.A. and Japan where trade relations among the countries will be discussed.
· Other issues such as Indian policies regarding data localisation will also be a part of discussion.
- The talks will be held alongside the G-20 summit to be held in Osaka.
Source link:
Lok Sabha passes Bill on homoeopathy council
News Important for – General Studies – 3 I Issue related to Health.
Context
The Lok Sabha has passed the Homoeopathy Central Council (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It enables the government to extend the tenure of the Board of Governors for a further period of one year.
The Homeopathy Central Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019
- It is under Ministry of Law and Justice.
- The Homoeopathy Central Council (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 was introduced on March 2, 2019.
- It amends the Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973, which sets up the Central Council of Homoeopathy.
- The Central Council regulates homoeopathic education and practice in India.
- The 1973 Act was amended in 2018 to provide for the supersession of the Central Council.
- The Central Council was required to be reconstituted within one year from the date of its supersession.
- In the interim period, the central government constituted a Board of Governors, to exercise the powers of the Central Council.
- The Ordinance amends the Act to increase the time period for supersession of the Central Council from one year to two years.
Source link:
India and Japan growing relations
News Important for – General Studies – 2 I International Relations I Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India.
Context
The prime minister of India has met his counterpart to talk on various important issue of national importance.
- India and Japan held talks on the global economy, fugitive economic offenders and disaster management.
- India also announced that President of India would participate in the coronation ceremony of Emperor Naruhito in October.
- The ties between both the countries are growing stronger. Projects as Bullet train and North east area development all involve Japanese engagements.
- Both the leaders met for the first time since the start of Japan’s Reiwa era and India’s election.
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Sculpture of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh unveiled
News Important for – General Studies – 1 I History, Important personality.
Context
The Sculpture of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh unveiled in Lahore at his 108th death anniversary.
About the sculpture
- The sculpture is the result of collaboration between Fakir Khana Museum and Sarkar Khalsa Foundation.
- sculptors chose a horse called Kahir Bahar, gifted to the Maharaja by Dost Mohammad for the image of Maharaja.
About Maharaja Ranjeet singh
- Ranjit Singh was born on November 13, 1780 in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan.
- At that time, Punjab was ruled by powerful chieftains who had divided the territory into Misls.
- Ranjit Singh overthrew the warring Misls and established a unified Sikh empire after he conquered Lahore in 1799.
- He was given the title Lion of Punjab (Sher-e-Punjab) because he stemmed the tide of Afghan invaders in Lahore, which remained his capital until his death.
- His general Hari Singh Nalwa built the Fort of Jamrud at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, the route the foreign rulers took to invade India.
- At the time of his death, he was the only sovereign leader left in India, all others having come under the control of the East India Company in some way or the other.
Works done under him
- He combined the strong points of the traditional Khalsa army with western advances in warfare to raise Asia’s most powerful indigenous army of that time.
- He also employed a large number of European officers, especially French, to train his troops.
- He appointed French General Jean Franquis Allard to modernise his army.
- In 2016, the town of St Tropez unveiled the maharaja’s bronze statue as a mark of respect.
- During the Battle of Chillianwala, the second of the Anglo-Sikh wars that followed Ranjit Singh’s death, the British suffered the maximum casualties of officers in their entire history in India.
Vast empire and reign
- Ranjit Singh’s trans-regional empire spread over several states.
- His empire included the former Mughal provinces of Lahore and Multan besides part of Kabul and the entire Peshawar.
- The boundaries of his state went up to Ladakh — Zorawar Singh, a general from Jammu, had conquered Ladakh in Ranjit Singh’s name — in the northeast, Khyber pass in the northwest, and up to Panjnad in the south where the five rivers of Punjab fell into the Indus. During his regime, Punjab was a land of six rivers, the sixth being the Indus.
Secular rule
- The maharaja was known for his just and secular rule; both Hindus and Muslims were given powerful positions in his darbar.
- The Sikhs take pride in him for he turned Harimandir Sahib at Amritsar into the Golden Temple by covering it with gold.
- Right at the doorstep of the sanctum sanctorum of the temple is a plaque that details how in 1830 AD, the maharaja did sewa over 10 years.
- He is also credited with funding Hazoor Sahib gurudwara at the final resting place of Guru Gobind Singh in Nanded, Maharashtra.
- His throne is displayed prominently at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Source Links:
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/honouring-an-iconic-punjab-maharaja/article28192172.ece
Desert-dwelling carnivorous dinosaur’s bones found in Brazil
News Important for – General Studies – 3 I Biodiversity, Scientific Research
Context
A desert-based carnivorous dinosaur who used his claws to capture small prey and was found 90 million years ago has been unearthed in southern Brazil.
- The scientific name of the dinosaur is Vespersaurus paranaensis.
- He is just over a metre and a half in length.
- The Vespersaurus was a theropod, a group of two-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs.
- Footprints now believed to belong to this new species of the dinosaur were discovered in Cruzeiro do Oeste in the 1970s.
- Vespersaurus was well adapted to the desert type of climate.
Source link:
NASA to open sealed moonrock samples
News Important for – General Studies – 3 I Scientific Research, Space Science
Context
NASA to study the pristine samples at its restricted lab which is a home to hundreds of kilos of moon rocks collected Apollo astronauts
About
- The step will also mark the 50th anniversary of humanity’s first footsteps on the moon.
- NASA aims to send astronauts on the lunar surface again by 2024.
- The lab preserves samples brought back from brought back from 1969 through 1972 lunar samples by th e12 moonwalkers totalling 382 kg.
- Some of the soil and bits of rock were vacuum-packed on the moon and never exposed to Earth’s atmosphere or frozen or stored in gaseous helium following splashdown and then left untouched.
Source link:
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/nasa-to-open-sealed-moon-rock-samples/article28191440.ece
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