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The world this week

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Here are the major events that went by in the last week which are important from the point of view of General Awareness.

Business News

Edtech start-up Unacademy was in news for its massive layoffs, the second one in the span of a year
  •            Founder: Gaurav Munjal, co-founder : Roman Saini
Short Seller Hindenberg accused by SEBI of violating Indian Law
    • Hindenburg founder: Nathan Anderson; Partner-investor: Mark Kingdon
  • What is SEBI? Securities and Exchange board of India, regulator of the Securities market in India.
  • What are finfluencers? Unregistered financial influencers, leveraging social media to lure potential clients.
What is GPAI (Global Partnership on AI)?
  • It is an international initiative established to guide the responsible development and use of AI. It was constituted in 2020. The GPAI, since its inception in 2020, was supported by a secretariat hosted by the OECD.
  • The OECD has its own Working Party on AI Governance (AIGO). Recently it has been announced that the GPAI will have an integrated partnership with OECD, bringing GPAI countries and OECD members under the latter’s brand.
  • US, Canada, Korea, France and many other countries have backed India’s demand to make GPAI the global AI regulator.
  •          About OECD: OECD stands for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Founded in 1961, it is an intergovernmental organization of 38 “High Income” countries that rank very high in the Human Development index.
  • It is a forum whose member countries describe themselves as committed to democracy and market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experience and seek answer to common problems, identify good practices and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members.
Koo app, Indian microblogging app, seen as a homegrown rival to X (formerly twitter) is shutting down.
  • Founder: Aprameya Radhakrishna , co-founder : Mayank Bidawatka

Defence

  • India develops SEBEX 2, the most powerful non- nuclear explosive in the world.
  • The destructive power of any explosive is measured in TNT (Trinitrotoluene) equivalence. SEBEX 2 has shown to have a TNT equivalence of 2.01. For comparison, BrahMos missile has a TNT equivalence of 1.50., whereas globally, warheads have a TNT equivalence ranging from 1.25- 1.30. Thus, SEBEX 2 marks a significant leap in destructive capability.
  • Developed by the Economic Explosives Limited (EEL) under the Make in India Initiative.

International Relations

External Affairs minister Dr. S. Jaishankar attends Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit

What is the SCO?

With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and emergence of 15 independent states, there were security concerns due to extremist religious groups and ethnic rivalries ( Stalin drew the state boundaries so as to make a major part of population minorities in countries like Kaazakhstan,Kyrgyztan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan). This caused security concerns that lead to the creation “Shanghai Five”, consisting of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, in 1996.

Building on this the SCO was created in 2001.

It expanded to include other important players and now includes a total of 9 members, which includes India, Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan.

Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia hold Observer status.

Technology

Super Apps

These are one stop, multi-service platforms. They allow users to avail multiple services like booking a cab, buying movie tickets, shopping for groceries,  paying utility bills etc.

Some examples of Super-apps: Tata Neu, MyJio, Adani One.

Perplexity

It is an AI powered chatbot, dubbed as “Google Killer”. It has seen investments from industry giants like Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Andrej Karpathy, etc.

Founders: Aravind Srinivas, Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho.

Sports

India Wins T-20 World Cup

Captain: Rohit Sharma

Head Coach: Rahul Dravid

Important Facts:

  • Venue: West Indies and USA
  • India became the first team to win the T-20 world cup without losing a single game.
  • India won all eight matches they played in the tournament and had one washout: the first-round game against Canada.
  • India is now the 3rd team to win the men’s T20 World Cup for the second time, having won the inaugural edition in 2007. West Indies were the first team with two titles, having won in 2012 and 2016, while England won in 2010 and 2022.
  • Player of the match: Virat Kohli

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