GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Niti Aayog has called for easing of access to export finance and a concerted push to boost e-commerce exports to realise the potential of the country’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

1: Dimension- Significance of MSME

• The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sector plays an important role in the growth of the Indian economy. The share of MSME Gross Value Added (GVA) in All India Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around 30%.
• In developing countries like India, where majority of the population resides in the rural areas, these MSMEs are crucial - socially and economically.
• Because, these enterprises are wide dispersed across rural areas, they are extremely important for rural economic development.
• Further, these enterprises play a key role as a place for entrepreneurship and business skill development, especially in rural areas due to their easy accessibility.

1: Dimension- Issues faced by MSMEs (highlighted by NITI Aayog)

• Constant obstacles: The Aayog said small firms have encountered difficulties in tapping into export markets due to the inherent obstacles posed by economies of scale.
• Cumbersome compliance process: It proves more challenging for small enterprises to enter foreign markets, adhere to compliance requirements, achieve cost-effective production, and efficiently manage logistics for clients.
• Lack of access to finance is regularly seen as a key bottleneck for MSMEs.
• India has not been able to tap into e-commerce to work around market access barriers, unlike China. In 2022, China’s e-commerce exports by MSMEs were worth $200 billion, which is 100 times that of exports by Indian MSMEs.

2: Dimension-Measures to catalyse a radical transformation of MSME

• Seamless Process: There is need of modifying the business environment to facilitate seamless exports through e-commerce platforms, coupled with addressing essential ease-of-doing-business factors.
• Green Channel: As part of six key recommendations, Niti Aayog called for "green channel" clearances of MSME e-commerce exporters.
• Better access: For better access to finance, there is need of promotion of Export Credit Guarantee can help improve working capital availability for MSMEs.

European Union lawmakers gave final approval to a landmark law governing artificial intelligence (AI) to limit its use in businesses and organizations in Europe for everything from health care decisions to policing.

1: Dimension- Need of AI Act

• The rapid rise in AIhas created many opportunities globally. However, these rapid changes also raise profound concerns.
  • Concerns related to AI: Privacy, Transparency, Accountability, Job Disruption, Safety, Inequality, Manipulation and Disinformation, Human Dignity and Autonomy, Cultural and Social Impact, Environmental Impact.
• The AI Act can make AI trust worthy.

2: Dimension- Objectives of the EU AI Act

• The Act is the world’s first major set of regulatory ground rules to govern the mediatized AI at the forefront of tech investment.
• The main idea of the law is to regulate AI based on its capacity to cause harm to society. The higher the risk, the stricter the rules.
• The first-of-its-kind law imposes blanket-bans some “unacceptable” uses of the technology while enacting stiff guardrails for other applications deemed “high-risk.”
  • Areas of high-risk: Critical infrastructure, education and vocational training, employment, essential services such as healthcare or banking, as well as law enforcement, migration and border management, justice, and democratic processes.
• The EU AI Act outlaws social scoring systems powered by AI and any biometric-based tools used to guess a person’s race, political leanings or sexual orientation.
• It also bans the use of AI to interpret the emotions of people in schools and workplaces, as well as some types of automated profiling intended to predict a person’s likelihood of committing future crimes.
• The law further outlines a separate category of ‘high-risk’ uses of AI, particularly for education, hiring and access to government services, and imposes a separate set of transparency and other obligations on them.
• It also requires all AI-generated deepfakes to be clearly labelled, targeting concerns about manipulated media that could lead to disinformation and election meddling.

EU's Landmark AI Law and the "Brussels Effect"

• Impact on India: The final approval could have significant implications for India, particularly in terms of global regulatory standards and market access.
  • The "Brussels Effect" phenomenon, whereby EU regulations become de facto global standards, may compel multinational companies operating in India to comply with the EU AI Act in order to access the lucrative EU market.
  • This could prompt India to consider aligning its own AI regulations with the EU standards to maintain competitiveness and facilitate international trade.
• Regulatory Void in India's Surveillance Systems: India's current deployment of surveillance systems, including facial recognition technology, lacks adequate regulatory oversight, raising concerns about potential privacy violations and discriminatory practices.
  • While India has historically pursued independent legislative efforts, it has drawn inspiration from international regulations like the GDPR.
  • The EU's AI Act may serve as a benchmark for India as it navigates the development of its own regulatory framework for emerging technologies, including AI and surveillance systems.

The Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) is all set to meet in Puducherry after four years

About the Panel

• The distribution of Cauvery water has been a long-standing dispute between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It dates back to two agreements in 1892 and 1924 between the erstwhile Madras Presidency and the Princely State of Mysore.
• The Union government set up the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in 1990, which delivered its verdict in 2007.
• However, the verdict did not settle the dispute as both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka filed petitions to review the decision.

The President gave her assent to the Uniform Civil Code, Uttarakhand, 2024 under Article 201 of the Constitution of India.

• Uttarakhand is the first state in the country after Independence to adopt the UCC.
• The Bill, which has kept tribals out of its ambit, has a complete ban on practices like halala, iddat, and talaq (customs related to marriage and divorce in Muslim Personal Law).
• The UCC Bill also made it mandatory to register marriage and divorce, failing which the couple concerned will be deprived of the benefits of all government facilities.
• In case of divorce or domestic dispute between husband and wife, the custody of the child up to 5 years of age will remain with the mother.
• UCC will give equal rights to all citizens.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the ‘Pradhan Mantri Samajik Utthan and Rozgar Adharit Jankalyan’ (PM-SURAJ) national portal.

What is PM-SURAJ Portal?

• The PM-SURAJ portal symbolizes the ministry’s dedication to placing the underprivileged at the forefront of development initiatives.
• The PM-SURAJ national portal will extend credit support to eligible individuals across the nation, with assistance channelled through banks, NBFC-MFIs, and other relevant organisations.
• PM-SURAJ will help in providing financial assistance directly to beneficiaries, eliminating middlemen and commissions.
• Furthermore, Ayushman health cards and personal protective equipment (PPE) kits were distributed by the ministry to sewer and septic tank workers (Safai Mitras) under the National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE).

A new form of cybercrime known as “digital arrest” scams is emerging, where fraudsters impersonate law enforcement officials to deceive individuals into believing they are facing imminent digital arrest for fabricated legal violations.

What is digital arrest?

• Digital arrest is a new form of cybercrime where fraudsters pretending to be law enforcement officials deceive targets into believing their aadhaar card SIM, or bank account has been used for criminal activities.
• They make victims believe that they will be arrested if they don’t agree to be interrogated over video call and then extort money.

A US-based AI lab, Cognition, has announced the launch of what it calls the world's first fully autonomous AI software engineer, named Devin.

• The new AI assistant could change the way code is written and the way apps are deployed.
• Devin, which according to the start-up, is "a tireless, skilled teammate," is trained to perform a number of tasks, including building and deploying apps and finding and fixing bugs in codebases.
• Besides this, the AI chatbot can recall relevant context at every step, learn over time, and fix mistakes.
• Devin is equipped with common developer tools including the shell, code editor, and a browser, and it can perform tasks independently.
• Devin is a software development assistant in the vein of Copilot, which was built by GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

The Supreme Court froze the Assam government’s move to withdraw a nearly 26-year-old notification constituting the Pobitora wildlife sanctuary, which hosts one of the largest rhino populations in the country. The Assam government had established a committee to redraw the boundary of the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary.

• Covering an area of 38.81 sq km, the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary was notified by the Assam forest department in March 1998.
• According to a census carried out in 2022, the sanctuary has a population of 107 rhinos, which is the highest density of the species in the world.

During a wildlife expedition in the Kaeng Krachan National Park, Thailand, a team of researchers made a remarkable discovery- a previously unknown species of scorpion.

This new species belongs to the subgenus Euscopiops and has been named Euscorpiops Krachan after the national park in Thailand, where it was found.

• The new species presents most features exhibited by scorpions of the subgenus Euscorpiops. 
• They are 'very small in comparison to most other species of the subgenus'.
• They are brownish in colour; however, females are darker than males. They also have eight eyes and eight legs.

A new plant species, Begonia tripurensis, was discovered in Dumboor Lake, Tirthamukh, Gomati district.

• It is discovered in the moist deciduous forest of Tirthamukh near Dumboor Lake, Tripura, India.
• It is similar to B. scintillans, B. chindwinensis and B. thomsonii but differs in plant size, hair characters, petiole length, flowers, stamens and fruits. 
• The North Eastern Region of India is a hotspot for the genus Begonia. Tripura boasts moist to dry deciduous forests, Sal forests, secondary bamboo forests, and grasslands.

Marine researchers on a mission to record life hidden in the world’s oceans have reported they found about 100 potential new species — including one mystery starlike creature.

• Research location: Bounty Trough, a little-explored part of the ocean off the coast of New Zealand, east of South Island. 
• The team collected almost 1,800 samples from depths as far down as 3 miles (4,800 meters), finding species of fish, squid, mollusk and coral that they believe are new to science.
• The team found a new species of fish known as an eelpout that was “instantly recognized as being different to the others.