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Remembering and forgetting in Karnataka

👉During the electoral campaign, historical figures have been plucked out of rich and complex contexts👈 History has been weaponised afresh in the electoral war zone of Karnataka. What set the ball rolling was the first idiomatic reference by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to the historic face-off between Pulakeshin II (the great Chalukyan king) and Harshavardhana of Kanauj in the early seventh century, in which the former prevented the conquest from the north. Since then, we have been witness to a kind of deep mining of Karnataka history to serve two distinct purposes: reel in the votes of specific caste communities and construct a narrative of Hindutva unity. 👉All about Tipu In the last few weeks, historical figures have been plucked out of rich and complex contexts to be beaten into swords, flintlocks, arrows, or simply blunt objects with which to bludgeon the electoral opponent. Here, the favourite (and easiest) beating boy has, predictably, been Tipu Sultan (r. 1...
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Ancient climatic changes and central INDIA'S 🇮🇳 rare forest owlet

Century-old debate on its relationship with other owlets resolved Between four and six million years ago, long before humans evolved, drastic climatic changes in the Indian subcontinent led to the evolution of a new bird: central India’s now-endangered and rare forest owlet. Scientists have also found that it belongs to the same genus as the commonly-seen spotted owlet, finally settling a century-old debate on its genetic relationship with other Indian owlets. The taxonomy of the forest owlet (Heteroglaux blewetti), which resembles the spotted owlet Athene brama, has always been a mystery. Taxonomists placed it in a separate genus Heteroglaux and sometimes in Athene; others saw it as more closely related to another species, the jungle owlet. For the first time, a team of scientists obtained permits to carefully take some feathers from forest, spotted and jungle owlets in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. From the feathers, they extracted DNA (...
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Curbing misuse: on SC ruling on the anti-atrocities law

💥Protecting innocent persons is fine, as long as the SC/ST Act is not de-fanged Will laying down procedural safeguards to curb false accusations work against the interest of protecting the oppressed from discrimination and caste-based atrocities? This is the salient question that arises from the Supreme Court verdict that has taken note of the perception that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, is being rampantly misused to settle personal scores and harass adversaries. On the face of it, it is difficult to fault the court’s approach. It is settled law that the mere scope for misuse of an Act is not a ground to invalidate it. Constitution courts seek to preserve the spirit of such legislation on the one hand and to evolve guidelines to prevent its misuse on the other. This is precisely what the two-judge bench has aimed to do. It has ruled that Section 18, which bars grant of anticipatory bail to anyone accused of violating its pro...
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Daily Current Affairs including static notes - 12 JUNE

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‘Govt. set to unveil 500 cr. credit enhancement fund (GS 3 Eco) The government is set to unveil a 500-crore credit enhancement fund next month to facilitate infrastructure investments by insurance and pension funds. Details:  India is launching a dedicated fund to provide credit enhancement for infrastructure projects which will help in upgrading credit ratings of bonds issued by infrastructure companies and facilitate investment from investors like pension and insurance funds. The initial corpus of the fund, to be sponsored by IIFCL (India Infrastructure Finance Company), will be 500 crore, and it will operate as a non-banking finance company. There is a “mismatch” at present, where bonds floated by infrastructure finance firms are typically rated BBB, whereas regulatory agencies mandate a rating of at least ‘AA’ for investments by the long-term pension and insurance funds. IIFCL will hold a 22.5% stake in the NBFC, while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AII...
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👀DAILY HINDU EDITORIAL WORD BYTES -1-> 12 JUNE👀

💥 Daily Word Bytes - 1  from editorial  - AI garage? — on kickstarting artificial intelligence 💥 artificial intelligence (noun) – an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence Hindu Editorial usage  :  The NITI Aayog has published an ambitious discussion paper on kickstarting the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in India. buy-in (noun) – agreement, contract, acceptance (of something (idea) that someone suggests). Hindu Editorial usage  :  To realise India’s potential in the field, a strong buy-in from policymakers is needed ambitious (adjective) – determined, purposeful/forward-looking, aggressive. Hindu Editorial usage  :  The NITI Aayog has published an ambitious discussion paper on kickstarting the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in India. kick-start (verb) – revive, revitalize, resuscitate. Hindu Editorial usage  :  The NITI Aayog ...
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