Afghanistan set to begin work on TAPI pipeline

News:

• Afghanistan said work would begin on a $10 billion gas pipeline traversing South Asia.

About TAPI Pipeline:

• It is running through Turkmenistan (T), Afghanistan (A), Pakistan (P), and India (I).
• It is being developed by the Galkynysh – TAPI Pipeline Company Limited with participation of the Asian Development Bank.
• It has been repeatedly delayed because of security issues in conflict-ravaged Afghanistan.
• The pipeline will see around 33 billion cubic metres of natural gas each year extracted from the Galkynysh gas field (world’s second largest gas field) in southeast Turkmenistan.
• It will be pumped through a 1,800km pipeline traversing Afghanistan, including Herat and Kandahar in the south, before crossing into restive Balochistan province in Pakistan and ending in Fazilka in Punjab (India).
• Pakistan and India will each purchase 42% of the gas deliveries, and Afghanistan 16%, while Kabul will also benefit from lucrative transit fees of around $500 million per year.
• This project will benefit not only the economies of the countries participating but also the countries of the whole region.

Ramon Magsaysay Award

News:

• The winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for Emergent Leadership this year is Farwiza Farhan, an Indonesia conservationist working to preserve the rich bidoveristy in Sumatra Island’s Leuser Ecosystem.
• Among the five winners of the Ramon Magsaysay award this year is Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a doctor working to counter the lingering effects of the Vietnam War on the health of the nation.
• Among the five winners of the Ramon Magsaysay award this year is Phuntsho Karma, former Bhutanese monk and scholar dedicated to conserving Bhutan’s unique cultural heritage and leading it into the future.

About Ramon Magsaysay Award:

• It is considered one of Asia’s top honours, awarded in recognition of “greatness of spirit shown in selfless service to the peoples of Asia.”
• The award was instituted by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 1957 in honour of the late President of the Philippines Ramon Magsaysay.
• It was first awarded in 1958.
• Till 2008, it was awarded in six categories: government service, public service, community leadership, peace and international understanding, emergent leadership, and (journalism, literature, and creative communication arts).
• Except for emergent leadership, which was launched in 2000, all the other categories have now been discontinued.
• To date, 322 people and 26 organisations hailing from 22 Asian nations have been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
• Indian winners:
• Among Indian winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award in Emergent Leadership are Arvind Kejriwal
• Indian Forest Servcies Officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi
• Carnatic classical musician T.M Krishna and social worker Nileema Mishra, who founded the Sister Nivedita Rural Science Center (Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan) in the village of Bahadarpur, Maharashtra.
• Last year’s winner was Bangladeshi social worker Korvi Rakshand who established the JAAGO Foundation to increase access to quality education among underpriveleged children.
• Additionally, many engaged in conservation efforts have won the Ramon Magsaysay in other categories, including Ladakhi environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk.
• 2024 awardees:
• The other awardees this year are noted Japanese filmmaker and co-founder of Ghibli studios Hayao Miyazaki
• Bhutan’s Phuntsho Karma, a former Buddhist monk, scholar and social worker
• Vietnamese doctor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, who works with the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA)
• Rural Doctors Movement from Thailand
• The 2024 awardees will be honoured in a ceremony in Manila this November.

Ayushman Bharat Becomes Bigger

Context:

• World’s Largest Health Insurance Scheme extends free health cover to all Senior Citizens above 70 years

News:

• Union Cabinet approved a major expansion of the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY).
• Under this decision, all senior citizens aged 70 and above will receive health coverage, regardless of their income.
• With this approval, every senior citizen in this age group will have access to the scheme’s benefits, regardless of their socio-economic status.

Key New Developments:

• New Distinct Card: Eligible senior citizens aged 70 and above will receive a new, distinct card under the AB PM-JAY scheme.
• Top-Up Coverage: Senior citizens within families already covered by AB PM-JAY will receive an additional top-up cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per year. This top-up will be for them, and they will not have to share it with other family members under the age of 70.
• Family Coverage: Senior citizens who are not part of an existing AB PM-JAY family coverage will be provided with a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per year on a family basis.
• Choice of Schemes: Senior citizens who are already benefiting from other public health insurance schemes like the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), or Ayushman Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) have the option to either continue with their current scheme or opt for AB PM-JAY.
• Eligibility with Private Insurance: Senior citizens who are covered by private health insurance policies or the Employees’ State Insurance scheme are also eligible to benefit from AB PM-JAY.

Ayushman Bharat:

• Launched in 2018, Ayushman Bharat is a landmark health initiative designed to provide universal health coverage, particularly for rural and vulnerable populations.
• The mission aims to implement transformative interventions that address health needs comprehensively across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.
• It consists of two interrelated components:
• Ayushman Arogya Mandir: The first component of Ayushman Bharat involves establishing Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAM), previously known as Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs).
• These Ayushman Arogya Mandirs offer a broad spectrum of healthcare services, including preventive, promotive, rehabilitative, and curative care.
• Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY): It is the world’s largest publicly funded health assurance scheme.
• It provides health coverage of up to Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission: Launched in 2021, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to establish a robust digital health ecosystem through active collaboration between public and private sectors.
• The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), formerly known as the National Digital Health Mission, aims to support universal health coverage in an efficient, accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely, and safe manner.
• Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA): A key part of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) designed to support India’s integrated digital health infrastructure.
• It provides a 14-digit unique number that simplifies the digital access and sharing of health records.
• It streamlines interactions with verified healthcare providers and facilitates seamless access to lab reports, prescriptions, and other health records.

Conclusion:

• Ayushman Bharat represents a groundbreaking shift in India’s healthcare landscape by seamlessly integrating comprehensive care across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.
• Through its umbrella features, the scheme not only addresses immediate health needs but also emphasizes preventive care and health promotion, making healthcare more accessible and equitable.
• As Ayushman Bharat continues to evolve, it is set to further transform India’s health sector by expanding access to quality healthcare services, reducing the financial burden on families, and improving overall health outcomes.
• This comprehensive approach will likely lead to a more inclusive and efficient healthcare system, setting a precedent for health reforms and driving long-term improvements in public health across the country.

Birth of young lion-tailed macaque in Mysuru zoo raises hopes of breeding vulnerable species

News:

• A lion-tailed macaque (LTM), an endangered species, has given birth to a young macaque at the Chamundi Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre for the Wild Animals, Mysuru.
• Mysuru Zoo has been identified for the Central Zoo Authority’s conservation breeding programme of the primate (LTM).
• This is the first birth of a young macaque since the project was launched.
• The birth is considered important since the species, found in the Western Ghats, is highly endangered, and its numbers are falling in the wild.
• The Indian Gaur, Grey Wolf, Wild Dog, Grey Jungle Fowl, and Giant Squirrel are the other species for which the Mysuru zoo is carrying out conservation breeding.
• The zoo has the reputation of captive breeding several species of animals, including giraffes.

About lion-tailed macaque (LTM):

• In the wild, lion-tailed macaques are only native to India. There, they live in the Western Ghats hills and mountains of southwestern India, where they live in tropical rainforests and on elevated mountainsides.
• LTMs are found in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (Western Ghats).
• Their tail resembles a lion’s tail which is where the name ‘lion-tailed macaque’ comes from.
• They are social animals, living in groups of four to thirty animals.
• Lion-tailed macaque males are larger than the females.
• Lion-tailed macaques use some seventeen different vocal calls to communicate with each other.
• Their tail is also a major component of their communication.
• Habitat loss has placed the primate in the IUCN red list of endangered species.
• This is because humans are chopping down the forests to construct things like tea and coffee plantations and roads.

Microsoft-backed AI firm G42 unveils Hindi LLM NANDA

News:

• Microsoft-backed G42, the UAE-based AI tech holding group has unveiled a Hindi large language model (LLM) called NANDA.
• The name NANDA is inspired by one of India’s highest peaks (Nanda Devi).
• The model was trained on Condor Galaxy, one of the world’s most powerful AI supercomputers for training and inferencing built by G42 and Cerebras.
• Last year, the firm launched JAIS AI model, what they claimed was the world’s first open-source Arabic LLM.

About LLMs (Large Language Models):

• Large language models (LLMs) are a category of foundation models trained on immense amounts of data making them capable of understanding and generating natural language and other types of content to perform a wide range of tasks.
• LLMs are a class of foundation models, which are trained on enormous amounts of data to provide the foundational capabilities needed to drive multiple use cases and applications, as well as resolve a multitude of tasks.
• LLMs represent a significant breakthrough in NLP (Natural Language Processing) and artificial intelligence, and are easily accessible to the public through interfaces like Open AI’s Chat GPT-3 and GPT-4, which have garnered the support of Microsoft.
• Other examples include Meta’s Llama models and Google’s bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT/RoBERTa) and PaLM models.
• LLMs are designed to understand and generate text like a human, in addition to other forms of content, based on the vast amount of data used to train them.
• They have the ability to infer from context, generate coherent and contextually relevant responses, translate to languages other than English, summarize text, answer questions (general conversation and FAQs) and even assist in creative writing or code generation tasks.
• They are able to do this thanks to billions of parameters that enable them to capture intricate patterns in language and perform a wide array of language-related tasks.
• LLMs are revolutionizing applications in various fields, from chatbots and virtual assistants to content generation, research assistance and language translation.
• As they continue to evolve and improve, LLMs are poised to reshape the way we interact with technology and access information, making them a pivotal part of the modern digital landscape.
• LLMs operate by leveraging deep learning techniques and vast amounts of textual data.
• They augment conversational AI in chatbots and virtual assistants (like IBM watsonx Assistant and Google’s BARD) to enhance the interactions that underpin excellence in customer care, providing context-aware responses that mimic interactions with human agents.
• LLMs also excel in content generation, automating content creation for blog articles, marketing or sales materials and other writing tasks.
• In research and academia, they aid in summarizing and extracting information from vast datasets, accelerating knowledge discovery.
• LLMs also play a vital role in language translation, breaking down language barriers by providing accurate and contextually relevant translations.
• They can even be used to write code, or “translate” between programming languages.
• Moreover, they contribute to accessibility by assisting individuals with disabilities, including text-to-speech applications and generating content in accessible formats.
• From healthcare to finance, LLMs are transforming industries by streamlining processes, improving customer experiences and enabling more efficient and data-driven decision making.
• List of some of the most important areas where LLMs benefit organizations:
• Text generation: Language generation abilities, such as writing emails, blog posts or other mid-to-long form content in response to prompts that can be refined and polished. An excellent example is retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
• Content summarization: Summarize long articles, news stories, research reports, corporate documentation and even customer history into thorough texts tailored in length to the output format.
• AI assistants: Chatbots that answer customer queries, perform backend tasks and provide detailed information in natural language as a part of an integrated, self-serve customer care solution.
• Code generation: Assists developers in building applications, finding errors in code and uncovering security issues in multiple programming languages, even “translating” between them.
• Sentiment analysis: Analyze text to determine the customer’s tone in order understand customer feedback at scale and aid in brand reputation management.
• Language translation: Provides wider coverage to organizations across languages and geographies with fluent translations and multilingual capabilities.

Conclusion:

• LLMs stand to impact every industry, from finance to insurance, human resources to healthcare and beyond, by automating customer self-service, accelerating response times on an increasing number of tasks as well as providing greater accuracy, enhanced routing and intelligent context gathering.