13 August 2024, The Hindu
IIT Madras retains top spot in NIRF ranking for sixth consecutive year
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- Indian Institute of Technology, Madras is the best education institution in the country for the sixth time since 2019, according to the overall ranking based on parameters identified and defined in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).
- In the 2024 rankings, released here by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday, IIT Madras also retained first position in engineering for the ninth year since 2016.
- Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru is the top institution under both the universities and research categories, retaining both positions since 2016 and 2021 respectively.
- The ranks were given in 16 categories this year, three more than last year.
- Open universities, skill universities and State public universities are the three new categories. Mr. Pradhan said the Ministry is considering “sustainability” as a criteria, probably from next year.
Rescued bonded labourer builds school for underprivileged children
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GS 1: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
- A boy at Amragachi village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas will turn 17 on March 23, 2024. The teenager, however, is eagerly waiting for his next birthday in the year 2025, when he will turn 18 years old.
- Rescued as a ‘bonded labourer’ from Chennai in February 2023, the boy often has a conversation with his father about his future.
- His father, a farmer with less than a bigha land, consoles him. “You may go to work when you turn adult,” the father tells the Class X student outside their small hutment that requires an urgent repair.
Tungabhadra repairs on, water diverted to canals
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GS 3: Disaster and disaster Management
- Following the snapping of the chain link of a crest gate on Tungabhadra dam, the Karnataka government has decided to constitute a Dam Safety Committee to study the safety aspects of all the reservoirs in the State and submit a report.
- Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar, who also holds Major Irrigation portfolio, said the proposed committee would submit its report within a month.
Disinformation, AI and ‘cyber chakravyuh’
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GS 3: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
- The year 2024 had dawned with forebodings of a new wave of security threats, and security specialists the world over, had braced for a wave of attacks along a wide spectrum.
- Their concerns essentially stemmed from fears arising out of new threats posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its different manifestations, including Generative AI and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
- Together with the expanding horizons of disinformation and cyber threats, the outlook seemed distinctly gloomy.
- The 33rd Summer Olympic Games in France, during July-August 2024, were seen as a real and tempting target for digital, including cyber and other criminals.
- Experts across the world were, hence, bracing themselves for digital attacks of a kind they had not encountered hitherto, quite apart from those launched by known terror groups.
The top court as custodian of liberties
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GS 2: functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary
- Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s enlargement on bail by the Supreme Court of India, after an unconscionably long incarceration, is a welcome vindication of the apex court’s remit as custodian of individual liberties.
- In an eloquent exposition of its mandate, the Court reiterated that ‘a constitutional court has to lean in favour of constitutionalism and the rule of law of which liberty is an intrinsic part...’
- Citing its judgment in Arnab Manoranjan Goswami vs The State of Maharashtra and Ors. (2020), it reaffirmed that ‘liberty across human eras is as tenacious as tenacious can be’.
- Reiterating the salutary constitutional principle expounded as early as 1977 by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, that bail is the rule and jail an exception, the Court reaffirmed that the right to fair and speedy trial was implicit in the right to life under Article 21. It concluded that this right was denied to Mr. Sisodia.
More and better
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Prelims: General Science - Current events of national and international importance
- Since the Zika outbreak began on June 20, when the first case was reported from Pune, confirmed cases have been slowly but steadily rising.
- As of August first week, Maharashtra has reported 88 confirmed cases. Pune city, the epicentre, alone accounts for 73 cases, while six are from Pune rural.
- Of the total number reported so far, at 37, pregnant women alone account for half the number of confirmed infections.
- Though rare, people with Zika virus infection run a risk of suffering from Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disorder in which the immune system mistakenly attacks part of the peripheral nervous system.
- But a more harmful effect is seen in pregnant women who run a risk of giving birth to babies with a smaller than average head size, called microcephaly, and other neurological impairments.
- As in a January 2023 paper in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, a meta-analysis of babies born to 1,548 pregnant women infected with the Zika virus, from 13 studies in Brazil between 2015 and 2017, found the absolute risk of microcephaly to be 6.6% either at birth or during follow-up.
Power sector woes in Andhra Pradesh
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GS 3: Infrastructure - Energy
- The initial exuberance of the NDA government in Andhra Pradesh quickly faded as it realised the daunting task of moving the bifurcation-hit State forward.
- The government is concerned about the power sector, which, according to a White Paper released by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on July 9, was beset by a huge ‘legacy loss’ of ₹1,29,503 crore.
The tech that helps vehicles from bumping into each other
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GS 3: Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology
- Vehicular traffic is a mainstay of modern life.
- Either people want to get from one place to the next or they want to send things.
- As the demand for such transport has increased, so have the number of transport options people have invented and the number of places to deploy them in.
- Today, thus, we have traffic on the road, in the air, across various water bodies, and – in a dubitable sign of progress – in space.
- For better or for worse, we can’t roll this traffic back very much, so we have collision avoidance systems instead.
- In broad terms, a collision avoidance system (CAS) is a collection of technologies to help a vehicle steer clear of another vehicle or obstacles.
- For example, a CAS device fit on a train will be designed to help that train avoid colliding with another train.
Anti-terror operations continue in Kishtwar, Anantnag, Udhampur
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GS 3: Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal securit
- Anti-terror operations against three groups of “highly trained militants” in J&K’s Udhampur, Kishtwar and Anantnag districts failed to make headway for the third day on Monday (August 12, 2024).
- The search-and-cordon operation, which started on August 10 in Ahlan Gagarmandu area of Anantnag district, continued for the third day.
- Additional deployments were made to replenish the team involved in a combing operation against three to four militants hiding in a forest area, which falls between the Chenab Valley and the Kashmir Valley.
Manipur CM calls for survey to reorganise districts
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GS 2: Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein
- Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Monday (August 12, 2024) called for a Statewide survey to reorganise district boundaries.
- Criticising the way some of the State’s districts were created, he accused past governments of drawing boundaries that served their “political interests” and not administrative convenience.
- This comes even as the ethnic conflict between the valley-based Meitei people and the hills-based Scheduled Tribe Kuki-Zo-Hmar people has continued for over a year now, killing over 220 people, injuring thousands and internally displacing tens of thousands.
STT, PIT spikes lift net direct tax receipts to 22.5%
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.
- India’s net direct tax collections’ growth accelerated to 22.5% by August 11, from a 19.54% recorded a month ago, led by a 30% spike in Personal Income Tax (PIT) revenues and a 111% surge in Securities Transaction Tax (STT) receipts, even as corporate tax inflows grew a mere 5.9% from last year.
- Data from the Central Board of Direct Taxes showed that gross tax collections rose 24% by Sunday to ₹8.13 lakh crore, while refunds to taxpayers increased 33.5% to a tad over ₹1.2 lakh crore.
- Net revenues from direct taxes stood at almost ₹6.93 lakh crore, compared with around ₹5.66 lakh crore in the corresponding period a year ago.
