DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Pacific Ring of Fire or Circum-Pacific Belta long seismically active belt along the Pacific Ocean is home to about 75% of the world’s volcanoes.

Recently Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy sparked a debate, urging young Indians to work 70 hours per week.

What are the arguments in favour of 70 hour work week?

• Economic productivity- A long work week boost economic productivity, leads to employment opportunities and overall economic growth.
• Worker efficiency- It will increase the productivity and efficiency of the Indian workforce, which is currently one of the lowest in the world.
• This would meet market demands, generate profit in a competitive global market.
• Developed country- It is necessary for India to become a developed country and uplift the living standards of its people.
• Skill acquisition- It will enable young Indians to learn new skills, acquire more knowledge, and innovate more solutions for the country’s problems.
• Success stories- It will help India emulate the success stories of Japan and Germany, which worked hard and long hours to rebuild their nations after the Second World War.

What are the arguments against the 70 hour work week?

• One size does not fit all- 89% of the Indian workforce is engaged in informal employment, compared to just 4.2% in Germany and 8% in Japan.
• Hence comparing these countries with India in labour productivity in not viable.
• Exploitation- A prolonged work week can lead to the exploitation of the working class and deprives their rights and benefits.
• Health impacts - It can negatively impact mental and physical health, resulting in stress, burnout, fatigue, sleep deprivation and other health problems.
• Work-life balance- As per ILO, companies that implement work-life balance policies benefit from increased retention of current employees, improved recruitment, lower rates of absenteeism and higher productivity.
• Counterproductive- It can reduce quality and efficiency of the work output, increase the chances of errors and accidents, lowers the morale and motivation of the workers.
• Economic inequality- Rich benefit from long work hours of working class which may widen the inequality between working class and rich.
• Productivity- Productivity is an attribute of skill, not time, and that reducing working hours can improve leisure and quality of life without reducing output value.
• Working more than eight hours a day also leads to lower hourly output.
  • Belgium has given the workers the right to work four days a week without a salary reduction to create a more dynamic and productive economy.
• Outdated- 70 hour work week is outdated as it does not suit the changing needs and preferences of the modern workforce, which values flexibility, autonomy and work-life balance.
• Lacks funding- Worker productivity depends on the amount of capital and the quality of institutions that support investment and innovation, hence just increasing working hours will have no impact on productivity.
• Labour productivity- India’s average annual working hours stayed above 2,000 from 1970 to 2020, while the labour productivity increased marginally from 2 dollars per hour to 9 dollars in the same period.
• Hence the need of the hour is to increase productivity through technology rather increasing working hours.

Recently, the World’s 1^st Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit was held at Bletchley Park, a historic site in UK where the Enigma code was cracked during World War II.

What is AI?

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
• Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision.

What is the London Summit on AI?

• AI safety summit- A meeting of 28 nations, including the U.S. and China, to discuss the risks and benefits of AI and how to regulate its development and use.
• The summit is centred around ‘frontier AI’, which is defined as “highly capable foundation models that could possess dangerous capabilities sufficient to pose severe risks to public safety.
• Aim- To address the safety and ethical issues of AI, especially the advanced large language models (LLMs) that can generate natural language texts.
• Two pronged agenda-
  • Identifying risks of shared concern and building the scientific understanding of them
  • Building cross-country policies to mitigate the concerns
• Key takeaways of the Summit
  • Bletchley Declaration was signed at the summit, pledging to work together to understand and manage the potential catastrophic effects of AI, especially the cutting-edge frontier AI that could threaten humanity's existence.
  • The summit discussed the establishment of an international register of frontier AI models that will allow governments to assess the risks involved.
  • The world's first AI Safety Institute has been launched in the UK, tasked with testing the safety of emerging types of AI.

What are the key highlights of Bletchley Declaration?

• International Cooperation- The declaration underscores the necessity for a united front in addressing the challenges and leveraging the opportunities that AI presents on a global stage.
• Safety Standards- It includes shared commitment to reducing risks associated with AI and ensuring that these technologies are developed with a safety-first approach.
• Ethical AI- The declaration ensures that AI technologies respect human rights, privacy, and democratic values, fostering a human-centric approach to AI.
• Transparency and Accountability- Both are seen as a cornerstone for building public trust and understanding, essential for the successful integration of AI technologies into society.
• Knowledge Sharing- It aims at accelerating the global understanding and mitigation of AI-related risks, promoting a culture of shared learning and continuous improvement in AI safety practices.

What are the global regulatory landscapes in Artificial Intelligence?

• USA- US had recently released a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.
• European Union- It is discussing the promulgation of world’s 1^st comprehensive framework for regulation, which will define rules to govern the development and use of AI across EU.

EU plans to set European Board for Artificial Intelligence to audit and administer the new rules.

• China- It outlined a broad set of principles for international cooperation and global governance of AI.
• India- Niti Aayog published a series of papers on the subject of Responsible AI for All.
• United Nations - UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres has announced the creation of an advisory body that would address the international governance of AI with technology executives, government officials and academics.

Recently, a prisoner in Jammu and Kashmir was released on bail after he was tagged with a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device to monitor his movements.

GPS trackers are a precondition for bail in several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia. It is the 1^st time this technology has been used in India for this purpose.

• GPS Tracker – It is a small, portable unit that allows users to monitor and track its location.
• It connects to a series of satellites to determine location and consists of 3 segments.

The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radio navigation system owned by USA.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) refers to a constellation of satellites providing signals from space that transmit positioning and timing data to GNSS receivers. It typically includes GPS, GLONASS, Baidu, Galileo, and any other constellation system.

• Space Segment – GPS consists of 27 satellites that orbit the Earth (24 are operational, and 3 are backup satellites) and orbit the earth every 12 hours.
• User Segment – It has GPS receivers to receive the signals sent by GPS satellites and use them to determine the user's position in space and time.
• Control segment - Different tracking stations are located around the globe which pick up microwave carrier signals transmitted by the satellites.

In geometry, trilateration is defined as the process of determining absolute or relative locations of points by measurement of distances, using the geometry of circles, spheres or triangles.

• Recently, the National Ayurveda Day was observed on 10^th November.
• It is celebrated in India every year on the occasion of Dhanwantari Jayanti (Dhanteras) since 2016.
• Focal theme for 2023 is 'Ayurveda for One Health', with the tagline, 'Ayurveda for everyone, every day' focusing on human-animal-plant-environment interface.

Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Science (CCRAS), under the Ministry of Ayush is the coordinating agency for Ayurveda Day programs.

• Also known as korai paai in Tamil, these mats are crafted from the dry grass cultivated along the banks of the Cauvery in Tamil Nadu.
• During summer, straw mats are cool to sleep on, and they turn warm to sleep on in cold weather.

It is an inseparable element in traditional gifts in Tamil weddings.

• Aim - To encourage Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across the country to voluntarily submit key data through a user-friendly data entry form on the portal
• Initiative of - Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• The Ministry through Digital India Corporation will provide handholding support to ULBs in the data submission process.

• It is located in the Neelam Valley of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir along the Line of Control (LoC).
• It's situated on the banks of the Kishanganga River.

It is regarded as one of the 18 Maha Shakti Peethas and a major centre of learning.

• It is a green alga that lives in saline-soda lakes.
• It is an extremophilic alga resorting to physiological adaptation to highly saline-alkaline/hyperosmotic conditions.

It was spotted for the 1^st time in India in the Sambhar Lake.