Current Affairs – 6 May 2024
Artificial General Intelligence
In a recent interview, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, expressed his commitment to invest billions of dollars towards the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Blue Corner Notice
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is likely to issue a Blue Corner notice against a person who fled abroad after allegations of sexual abuse.
About Blue Corner Notice:
- It is a part of Interpol’s elaborate system of colour-coded notices, which enable countries to “share alerts and requests for information [on wanted persons/crimes] worldwide”.
- This sharing of critical crime-related information is crucial for tackling internationally spread out criminal activities.
- There are seven types of notices — Red Notice, Yellow Notice, Blue Notice, Black Notice, Green Notice, Orange Notice, and Purple Notice. Each has a different implication.
- Red Notice: To seek the location and arrest of persons wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence.
- Yellow Notice: To help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify persons who are unable to identify themselves.
- Blue Notice: To collect additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.
- Black Notice: To seek information on unidentified bodies.
- Green Notice: To provide warning about a person’s criminal activities, where the person is considered to be a possible threat to public safety.
- Orange Notice: To warn of an event, a person, an object or a process representing a serious and imminent threat to public safety.
- Purple Notice: To seek or provide information on modus operandi, objects, devices and concealment methods used by criminals.
- These notices are issued by the Interpol’s General Secretariat at the request of a member country’s Interpol National Central Bureau, and are made available for all member countries.
What is International Criminal Police Organization?
- It is commonly known as Interpol, facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control.
- Mandate: It is an international organization facilitating international police cooperation against cross-border terrorism, trafficking, and other crime.
- Governance: All decisions regarding the activities of INTERPOL are made by the General Assembly which is its supreme governing body which meets annually.
- Status: It is ‘NOT’ a unit or part of a united nation system. It is an independent international organization.
Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal
The Centre has appointed a new President of the Goods & Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT).
About Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal:
- It represents a specialised authority formed to resolve GST-related disputes at the appellate level.
- It is established under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (CGST Act) to hear various appeals under the said Act and the respective State/UT GST Acts.
- It will have one Principal Bench located at Delhi and 31 State benches located at various locations across States.
- Composition
- It consists of the President (Head), a Judicial Member, and 2 Technical Members (one from the state and another from the Centre).
- Further, there may be state benches consisting of two Judicial Members, a Technical Member (Centre) and a Technical Member (state).
- Eligibility
- The president must be a Supreme Court judge or have served the High Court as the Chief Justice.
- The Judicial member must be a High Court Judge or has served as an Additional District Judge or a District Judge for a period of 10 years.
- The Technical Member (Centre) must be an Indian Revenue Service member belonging to Group A or must be a member of All India Service with three years of experience in administering GST in the Central Government.
- Also, the Technical Member from the Centre should have completed twenty-five years in Group A services.
- The Technical Member (state) must be a state government officer or All India Service officer with the rank above Additional Commissioner of Value Added Tax; also, the rank should be above the First Appellate Authority.
- The Technical Member from the state must have completed twenty-five years in Group A Services or equivalent and three years administering GST or finance and taxation in the State Government.
- Age limit and Tenure: The president and judicial and technical members of GSTAT shall hold office for four years, or until he attains the age of 70 years and 67 years.
- It is equivalent to a Civil Court for trying a case. It can pass orders, hear cases, impose penalties, and revoke or cancel registrations.
Lakshya Aircraft
Aeronautical Development Establishment, a Bengaluru-based DRDO lab that developed the Lakshya aircraft, has been visited by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
About Lakshya Aircraft:
- It is an indigenously developed micro-light and pilot-less target aircraft. It designed and built by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a subsidiary of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), for the Indian Armed Forces.
- The Lakshya was inducted into the Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, and Indian Army in 2000, 2001, and 2003, respectively. It is a cost-effective re-usable high subsonic aerial target system powered by a gas turbine engine.
- The engine is designed and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore. It is required for evaluation and development trials of new surface-to-air and air-to-air weapon systems.
- It carries two tow targets of tow lengths of 1.5 km each, having radar, IR or visual signature augmentation, and a Miss Distance Indication Scoring System.
- These tow targets are used for training of land- or ship-based gun and missile crew and combat aircraft pilots in weapon engagement.
- It was designed to launch either from land or sea through a zero-length launcher and be recovered by a dual stage parachute system.
- The Lakshya can be controlled from the ground control station (GCS) through pre-programmed hardware and software systems.
- Designed to be reused for 15 missions, the aircraft can spiflicate airborne incoming enemy targets.