22 June 2024, The Indian EXPRESS
EC sets ball rolling for J&K Assembly polls, electoral rolls revision by Aug 20
Page no- 6
GS2-Salient Features of the Representation of People’s Act.
- The Election Commission (EC) has kicked off preparations for holding Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as in Haryana, Jharkhand, and Maharashtra.
- The poll panel announced Friday that revised electoral rolls in these states and Union Territory would be published by August 20.
Govt reaffirms support to Dalai lama after meet with US Congressional team sparks China anger
Page no- 6
GS2- Effect of Policies and Politics of Developed and Developing Countries on India’s interests
- Days after Beijing lashed out at the Dalai Lama meeting a US Congressional delegation, India reiterated its stance on His Holiness’ position, emphasising his “revered” status and the respect accorded to him by the Indian people.
- “The Government of India’s position on His Holiness the Dalai Lama is clear and consistent. He is a revered religious leader and is deeply respected by the people of India.
- His Holiness is accorded due courtesies and freedom to conduct his religious and spiritual activities,” the Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
NTCA seeks action plan from states on relocation of villages from tiger reserves
Page no- 8
GS2- Welfare Schemes for Vulnerable Sections of the population by the Centre and States and the Performance of these Schemes
- In a letter to the state wildlife departments Thursday, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had sought a timeline and action plan on relocation of villages situated inside the critical tiger habitats of tiger reserves.
- Under the Environment Ministry, NTCA oversees tiger conservation and Project Tiger. Sources said that the letter, written in light of a review of the status of voluntary village relocation from core areas, asked the state wildlife department to follow-up on the issue on a priority basis.
- The NTCA has stated there are about 600 villages comprising 64,801 families residing in core areas.
In the name of merit
Page no- 10
GS2- Indian Constitution—Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure
- The Indian Constitution promises social justice and permits the state to make special provisions in favour of the underprivileged.
- Governments of all political parties, including the BJP, have tried to expand reservation — more out of electoral compulsion than due to constitutional principles.
- However, a closer look at the judicial response to these reservation policies demonstrates that our judiciary, through the “strict scrutiny” doctrine, has been quick to nullify such policies with respect to Jats, Gujjars, Marathas, Patidars and Muslims.
- The judiciary has seemed more concerned with “merit” and “efficiency in administration”.
Bail in money laundering cases, and the ‘twin test’ under PMLA
Page no- 15
GS2- Indian Constitution—Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure
- A day after a trial court granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who is in jail on charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Delhi High Court stayed the order.
- A Bench headed by Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain on Friday heard an urgent plea by the Enforcement Directorate seeking a stay on the bail, and reserved its order until next week. The ED challenged the trial court’s order on the ground that the court had failed to apply the ‘twin test’ for grantING bail under PMLA.
What is Claude 3.5 Sonnet & how is it better than its rival AI models?
Page no- 15
GS3- Awareness in the fields of IT
- Anthropic, OpenAI’s biggest rival, has launched its latest AI model called Claude 3.5 Sonnet — the company’s first release in the upcoming Claude 3.5 AI model series.
- Anthropic has claimed that its latest offering outperforms its peers such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Google’s Gemini-1.5 Pro, Meta’s Llama-400b, and even the company’s proprietary models — Claude 3 Haiku and Claude 3 Opus.
- “Claude 3.5 Sonnet operates at twice the speed of Claude 3 Opus.
- This performance boost, combined with cost-effective pricing, makes Claude 3.5 Sonnet ideal for complex tasks such as context-sensitive customer support and orchestrating multi-step workflows,” Anthropic said in a statement.
11 candidates apply to verify EVM burnt memory: what is this process?
Page no- 15
GS2- Salient Features of the Representation of People’s Act.
- In a first, 11 candidates in the recently-concluded 2024 Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections have applied for verification of the burnt memory of the Ballot Units and Control Units of electronic voting machines (EVMs), and of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) units.
- Eight of the applicants contested the Lok Sabha election, the other three were candidates in Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
Manufacturing PMI rises to 60.9 in June, job creation fastest in 18 years: Survey
Page no- 19
GS3- Indian Economy and issues relating to Planning, Mobilization of Resources, Growth, Development and Employment
- Aided by gains in manufacturing and services sectors, business activity in the country got further strengthened in June with the pace of job creation fastest in over 18 years, according to a survey.
- According to the HSBC survey, the final Manufacturing, Services and Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) figure rose by 0.4 percentage point to 60.9 in June, compared to a downward revised figure of 60.5 in May.
