29 June 2024, The Hindu
Somanathapur to be the focus of Mysuru tourism circuit
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GS 1: Indian Culture – Salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture
- The Tourism Department in Karnataka has plans to promote the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Somanathapur as part of Mysuru tourism circuit in a big way before Dasara this year.
- This will be through cross-promotion of the 13th-century heritage site at popular places of tourist interest like the palace, zoo or the Chamundi Hills so that visitors can get an idea of the temple and plan a visit.
A fresh start
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GS 2: Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies
- The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council was convened last week for the first time in nearly nine months.
- With 11 new State Ministers on board and a recalibrated NDA government at the Centre, the Council began afresh with a loaded agenda of clarifications, tweaks, forbearances, and other procedural changes, based on industry feedback and vetted by officials, that awaited its nod.
- Acknowledging that it could not conclude deliberations on all that had accumulated on its plate, the Council has resolved to meet again in August to take up the rest of the items.
- Yet, it is quite creditable that the Council could, over an afternoon preceded by Union Budget consultations with States, arrive at a consensus on a flurry of issues aimed at easing the lot of taxpayers, reducing litigation, and even providing tax relief on some items.
India slams ‘deeply biased’ U.S. report on religious freedom
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GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- India on Friday slammed the U.S. State Department’s report on International Religious Freedom for 2023 as “deeply biased” and said it reflected “one-sided projection of issues”.
- During the weekly press briefing, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the report questioned the “integrity” of certain legal judgments of the Indian courts and highlighted the United States’s own record in handling domestic hate crimes.
Screen all pregnant women for gestational diabetes with point-of-care test, say experts
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- Researchers from India, London and Africa have proposed that the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) used to determine if a pregnant woman has developed gestational diabetes be replaced by an HbA1c test that can also be used at the point of care.
- They have recommended that this be administered in early pregnancy, during the first trimester itself.
- In a paper published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, authors argued that HbA1c offers a simple screening test for gestational diabetes, allowing those at highest risk to receive early intervention and greatly reduces the need for OGTTs.
- Researchers used the results from STRiDE, a prospective cohort study, set up in seven centres in south India and seven in western Kenya. Participants were also included from the PRiDE cohort in the U.K..
India achieves ‘outstanding outcome’ in FATF evaluation
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GS 2: International Relations- Important International institutions, agencies, their structure and mandates
- India has achieved an outstanding outcome in the Mutual Evaluation conducted during 2023-24 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said the government on June 28.
- The Mutual Evaluation Report of India, which was adopted in the FATF plenary held in Singapore from June 26 and June 28, places India in the “regular follow-up” category, a distinction shared by only four other G-20 countries.
Need to eliminate biases in algorithms as AI on the rise: Das
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday emphasised on the need to eliminate biases in algorithms as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is on the rise.
- Delivering the inaugural address at the 18th Statistics Day Conference organised by the RBI, he said the use of statistics had been ever growing as a preferred tool for drawing inferences in diverse fields and the discipline had moved beyond collection of facts to focusing more on interpretation and drawing inferences, taking into account the level of uncertainty.
