National
PARAM ANANTA, Supercomputer at IIT Gandhinagar
⇒ PARAM ANANTA, a state-of the art Supercomputer at IIT Gandhinagar dedicated to the nation under National Supercomputing Mission, was commissioned on May 30, 2022 by Smt Sunita Verma, Group Coordinator & Scientist ‘G’, MeitY along with senior officials.
- National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) is a joint initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST).
Background:
» A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between IIT Gandhinagar and Centre for Development in Advanced Computing (C-DAC) on 12th October 2020 to establish this 838 TeraFlops Supercomputing Facility under NSM.
» PARAM ANANTA supercomputing facility is established under Phase 2 of the NSM.
- While majority of the components used to build this system have been manufactured and assembled within the country, along with an indigenous software stack developed by C-DAC, in line with the Make in India initiative.
About PARAM ANANTA:
- PARAM ANANTA system is based on Direct Contact Liquid Cooling technology to obtain a high power usage effectiveness and thereby reducing the operational cost.
- The system is equipped with a mix of CPU nodes, GPU nodes, High Memory nodes, High throughput storage and high performance Infiniband interconnect to cater the computing needs of various scientific and engineering applications.
- Multiple applications from various scientific domains such as Weather and Climate, Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Molecular Dynamics, Material Sciences, Computational Fluid Dynamics etc. have been installed on the system for the benefit of researchers.
- PARAM ANANTA Supercomputing Facility will be of great benefit to IIT Gandhinagar to pursue the Research and Development (R&D) activities in multidisciplinary domains of science and technology at the Institute.
The West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022
⇒ The West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, was passed by the state legislative assembly on 13 June 2022, seeking to replace the governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of state-run varsities.
- In the 294-member Assembly, the Bill was passed by 182-40 votes.
The enactment of the law will effectively mean that governor Jagdeep Dhankhar will be replaced by chief minister Mamata Banerjee as the chancellor of the state-run universities.
Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission Public Dashboard
⇒ The National Health Authority (NHA) under its flagship scheme of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has launched a public dashboard for near real-time information on the scheme.
- The ABDM public dashboard is a one-stop solution for information on the mission’s progress up to state/UT level.
Key Points:
- The ABDM public dashboard displays detailed information on the core registries under the mission – Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) numbers, Healthcare Professionals Registry and Health Facility Registry.
- The ABDM public dashboard gives a transparent view of the number of ABHA generated on national as well as state/ UT level.
- ABHA number generation facility is also available via several popular digital health applications like CoWIN, PMJAY, Aarogya Setu, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, e-Sushrut Railway Hospital, etc.
- The ABDM Dashboard also displays each partner’s performance and the number of health records linked by each partnering app.
International
Chair of the WTO's committee
⇒ Indian government officer Anwar Hussain Shaik has been made the chair of the WTO’s committee on Technical Barriers on Trade. He will take this role from Elisa Maria Olmeda de Alejandro from Mexico.
Key Points:
- WTO (World Trade Organisation) is a 164-member multilateral body which formulate rules for global exports and imports and adjudicates disputes between countries on trade-related issues. India is a member since 1995.
- The Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement aims to ensure that technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures are non-discriminatory and do not create unnecessary obstacles to trade.
- TBT Committee work involves two broad areas review of specific measures and strengthening implementation of the TBT Agreement.
- WTO members use this committee to discuss specific trade concerns, specific laws, regulations or procedures that affect their trade, usually in response to notifications.
Sports
2022 Men's Hockey Asia Cup
⇒ The 2022 Men’s Hockey Asia Cup was held at the GBK Hockey Field in Jakarta, Indonesia from 23 May to 1 June 2022. It was the 11th edition of the Men’s Hockey Asia Cup.
- It was the quadrennial international men’s field hockey championship of Asia organized by the Asian Hockey Federation.
Result:
South Korea won the 2022 Men’s Hockey Asia Cup after a final win over Malaysia. It was South Korea’s fifth title.
Performance of India:
India were the defending champions. Young Indian men’s hockey team won the bronze medal by defeating Japan 1-0 in the Asia Cup.
- Indian player Uttam Singh was awarded as the Best young player.
- Champions: South Korea (5th title)
- Runner-up: Malaysia
- Third place: India
» The top three teams not already qualified for the 2023 Men’s FIH Hockey World Cup.
Death
Professor Bhim Singh
⇒ Professor Bhim Singh, founder of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, passed away in Jammu on 31 May 2022. Singh was 80.
Bhim Singh was a human rights activist, author, and Supreme Court advocate. He was re-elected unopposed as a senior executive member of the Supreme Court Bar Association in December 2016.
He was the Convenor of the Council for Promotion of Dogri Language, Culture and History a body which awards the Dogra Ratan awards. In 2011 the President of India Pratibha Patil, presented the awards at the General Zorawar Singh Auditorium.