Cabinet approves health coverage to all senior citizens of the age 70 years and above

by Today's Fables

Cabinet approves health coverage to all senior citizens of the age 70 years and above irrespective of income under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY)

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved the health coverage to all the senior citizens aged 70 years and above irrespective of income under the flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (ABPMJAY)

This aims to benefit approximately 4.5 Crore families with six (6) crore senior citizens with 5 Lakh rupees free health insurance cover on a family basis.

With this approval, all senior citizens of the age 70 years and above irrespective of their socio- economic status would be eligible to avail the benefits of AB PM-JAY. The eligible senior citizens would be issued a new distinct card under ABPMJAY. The senior citizens of the age 70 years and above belonging to families already covered under AB PM-JAY will get an additional top-up cover upto ₹5 lakh per year for themselves (which they do not have to share with the other members of the family who are below the age of 70 years).

All other senior citizens of the age 70 years and above will get a cover upto ₹5 lakh per year on a family basis. Senior citizens of the age 70 years and above who are already availing benefits of other public health insurance schemes such as Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), Ayushman Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) may either choose their existing scheme or opt for AB PMJAY. It has been clarified that senior citizens of 70 years and above who are under private health insurance policies or Employees’ State Insurance scheme will be eligible to avail benefits under AB PM-JAY.



AB PM-JAY is the world’s largest publicly funded health assurance scheme which provides health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to 55 crore individuals corresponding to 12.34 crore families. All members of the eligible families irrespective of age are covered under the scheme. The scheme has covered 7.37 Crore hospital admissions including 49 percent women beneficiaries. The public has benefited to the extent of over Rs. 1 Lakh crore under the scheme.

The expansion of cover to senior citizens of the age of 70 years and above was earlier announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in April 2024.

JSW Energy arm secures 200 MW wind-solar hybrid power project from MSEDCL

by Today's Fables

JSW Energy Limited is a top renewable energy company in India and a leading power generation company in India. Committed to the efficient utilization of all available resources, JSW Energy stands out in the private sector as a prime example of sustainable growth. The company expertly manages operations to enhance social and economic benefits while minimizing environmental impacts through cutting-edge innovation. Over the years, JSW Energy has grown steadily and strongly, becoming a prominent energy company in India. 

Today, JSW Energy not only has a significant presence across various Indian states but also holds stakes in natural resource companies in South Africa, showcasing its expansion in power generation and distribution on a global scale.

JSW Energy shares gained over 2.5% in the early deals on Tuesday, August 27, after the company said its subsidiary JSW Neo Energy Ltd has secured a fresh contract from the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) to establish a 200 MW wind-solar hybrid power project.

The letter of award comes as a part of MSEDCL’s Phase III tariff-based competitive bidding process, JSW Energy said in a regulatory filing.

With this new capacity addition, JSW Energy’s total locked-in generation capacity has increased to 17.2 GW, including 2.9 GW of hybrid capacity. The company’s current operational capacity stands at 7.5 GW, with a target to reach 10 GW by FY25.

JSW Energy’s portfolio now includes 7.5 GW of operational capacity, 2.3 GW under construction across wind, thermal, and hydro projects, and a renewable energy pipeline of 7.3 GW, with power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed for 2.3 GW.

Looking ahead, JSW Energy aims to expand its generation capacity to 20 GW and its energy storage capacity to 40 GWh by 2030. The company has also set a long-term goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 aligning with its strategy to become a comprehensive energy products and services provider.

On August 23, JSW Neo Energy Ltd received a Letter of Award (LoA) from state-owned NTPC Ltd for a 300 MW ISTS-connected Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Project. This project was part of NTPC’s Tranche-VI, which aims to develop 1,000 MW of ISTS-connected wind-solar hybrid power projects.

On the same day, JSW Energy announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, JSW Renew Energy Twenty Ltd, signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Ltd (BESCOM) for a 300 MW solar project. The project was awarded by Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd (KREDL).

 

Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah will attend the 54th Foundation Day celebrations of BPR&D

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Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah will attend the 54th Foundation Day celebrations of BPR&D as Chief Guest on Wednesday, 28th August, 2024 in New Delhi

On the occasion, the Home Minister will deliver the Dr. Anand Swaroop Gupta Memorial Lecture on “New Criminal Law – Citizen Centric Reforms.” Shri Amit Shah will also honour the recipients of the President’s Medal for Distinguished Service (PSM) and President’s Medal for Meritorious Service (MSM) for the years 2023 and 2024. During the function, the Home Minister will also release a special edition of the Bureau’s publication “Indian Police Journal” on new criminal laws.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and guidance of Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah, BPR&D is committed to transform the Indian Police Forces into SMART forces to successfully meet the challenges of policing as well as internal security by equipping them with the necessary intellectual, physical and organizational resources.

Since its inception in the year 1970, BPR&D has been serving as the think tank of the Indian Police to foster excellence in policing in Research and Development. The focus of the institute is to develop policies and procedures for police and correctional services, explore ushering technologies for enhanced service delivery to the citizens, capacity building of law enforcement agencies, promote cooperation and coordination between states and central police organizations.

The inauguration ceremony will be attended by Union Home Secretary Shri Govind Mohan, Director General of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), Heads of central police organizations as well as senior officials of Home Ministry and other departments.

NVIDIA Launches NIM Microservices for Generative AI in Japan, Taiwan

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NVIDIA Launches NIM Microservices for Generative AI in Japan, Taiwan

Nations around the world are pursuing sovereign AI to produce artificial intelligence using their own computing infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks to ensure AI systems align with local values, laws and interests.

In support of these efforts, NVIDIA announced the availability of four new NVIDIA NIM microservices that enable developers to more easily build and deploy high-performing generative AI applications.

The microservices support popular community models tailored to meet regional needs. They enhance user interactions through accurate understanding and improved responses based on local languages and cultural heritage.

In the Asia-Pacific region alone, generative AI software revenue is expected to reach $48 billion by 2030 — up from $5 billion this year, according to ABI Research.

Llama-3-Swallow-70B, trained on Japanese data, and Llama-3-Taiwan-70B, trained on Mandarin data, are regional language models that provide a deeper understanding of local laws, regulations and other customs.

Training a large language model (LLM) on regional languages enhances the effectiveness of its outputs by ensuring more accurate and nuanced communication, as it better understands and reflects cultural and linguistic subtleties.

Nations worldwide — from Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Sweden to France, Italy and India — are investing in sovereign AI infrastructure.

The new NIM microservices allow businesses, government agencies and universities to host native LLMs in their own environments, enabling developers to build advanced copilots, chatbots and AI assistants.

High-Tech Highways: India Uses NVIDIA Accelerated Computing to Ease Tollbooth Traffic

by Today's Fables

India is home to the globe’s second-largest road network, spanning nearly 4 million miles, and has over a thousand tollbooths, most of them run manually.

Traditional booths like these, wherever in the world they’re deployed, can contribute to massive traffic delays, long commute times and serious road congestion.

To help automate tollbooths across India, Calsoft, an Indian-American technology company, helped implement a broad range of NVIDIA technologies integrated with the country’s dominant payment system, known as the unified payments interface, or UPI, for a client.

Manual tollbooths demand more time and labor compared to automated ones. However, automating India’s toll systems faces an extra complication: the diverse range of license plates.

India’s non-standardized plates pose a significant challenge to the accuracy of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems. Any implementation would need to address these plate variations, which include divergent color, sizing, font styles and placement upon vehicles, as well as many different languages.

The solution Calsoft helped build automatically reads passing vehicle plates and charges the associated driver’s UPI account. This approach reduces the need for manual toll collection and is a massive step toward addressing traffic in the region.

Automation in Action

As part of a pilot program, this solution has been deployed in several leading metropolitan cities. The solution provides about 95% accuracy in its ability to read plates through the use of an ANPR pipeline that detects and classifies the plates as they roll through tollbooths.

NVIDIA’s technology has been crucial in this effort, according to Vipin Shankar, senior vice president of technology at Calsoft. “Particularly challenging was night-time detection,” he said. “Another challenge was model accuracy improvement on pixel distortions due to environmental impacts like fog, heavy rains, reflections due to bright sunshine, dusty winds and more.”

The solution uses NVIDIA Metropolis to track and detect vehicles throughout the process. Metropolis is an application framework, a set of developer tools and a partner ecosystem that brings visual data and AI together to improve operational efficiency and safety across a range of industries.

Calsoft engineers used NVIDIA Triton Inference Server software to deploy and manage their AI models. The team also used the NVIDIA DeepStream software development kit to build a real-time streaming platform. This was key for processing and analyzing data streams efficiently, incorporating advanced capabilities such as real-time object detection and classification.

Calsoft uses NVIDIA hardware, including NVIDIA Jetson edge AI modules and NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs in its AI solutions. Calsoft’s tollbooth solution is also scalable, meaning it’s designed to accommodate future growth and expansion needs, and can better ensure sustained performance and adaptability as traffic conditions evolve.

INDIAN NAVY SIGNS MoU WITH BEML LTD.

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In a major push towards indigenisation of critical Marine Engineering equipment of the Indian Navy. BEML Ltd., a ‘Schedule A’ company under the Ministry of Defence and one of India’s leading Defence and Heavy Engineering manufacturers has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Navy.

The MoU was concluded at the Naval Headquarters at New Delhi between Rear Admiral K Srinivas, ACOM(D&R), Indian Navy and Shri Ajit Kumar Srivastav, Director of Defence, BEML. This initiative is a pivotal step in enhancing bilateral cooperation for indigenous design, development, manufacture, testing and product support of critical Marine Engineering equipment and systems.

Aligned with the Government of India’s Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative, the partnership aims to strengthen self-reliance in defence production and reduce dependence on foreign OEMs.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi congratulates RBI Governor Shri Shaktikanta Das on being rated “A+”

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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi today congratulated RBI Governor Shri Shaktikanta Das on being rated “A+”, for the second time in a row, in Global Finance Central Banker Report Cards 2024.

The Central Banker Report Cards, published annually by Global Finance since 1994, grade the central bank governors of nearly 100 key countries, territories and districts, as well as the European Union, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the Bank of Central African States and the Central Bank of West African States.

Grades are based on an “A+” to “F” scale for success in areas such as inflation control, economic growth goals, currency stability and interest rate management. (“A” represents an excellent performance, down through “F” for outright failure.)

“Central bankers have waged war against inflation over the past few years, wielding their primary weapon: higher interest rates. Now, countries around the world are witnessing the tangible results of these efforts, as inflation has dropped significantly,” said Global Finance founder and editorial director Joseph Giarraputo. “Global Finance’s annual Central Banker Report Cards honor those bank leaders whose strategies outperformed their peers through originality, creativity and tenacity.”

Chief Minister inaugurates Sri City Progress Celebrations

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The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, graced the Progress Celebrations-2024 in Sri City, a thriving industrial hub, marking a significant milestone in its development. Upon his arrival at the helipad, the Chief Minister was warmly received by Dr. Venkateswar, District Collector of Tirupati, Mr. L. Subbarayadu, Superintendent of Police, Tirupati, along with Mr. C. Sriniraju, Chairman, and Mr. Ravindra Sannareddy, Founder Managing Director of Sri City,

The Chief Minister participated in a vibrant ceremony, laying the foundation stone for eight new companies and inaugurating 16 manufacturing units. He also witnessed the signing of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between Sri City and five more companies, signalling a commitment to further growth. These new ventures represent a total investment of Rs. 1570 crore and are expected to create over 8,500 new jobs in the region.

He further inaugurated the newly built fire-station and laid the foundation for the new Hi-Tech Police Station, bolstering infrastructure and safety within the industrial hub.

During an interactive session with industry leaders, Mr. Naidu commended Mr. C. Sriniraju, and Mr. Ravindra Sannareddy for their vision and dedication in transforming an underdeveloped region into a global model for industrial development. “Sri City has emerged as one of the finest examples of industrial development in the country and beyond, a fact of which I am immensely proud,” he stated. He highlighted Sri City’s cooler climate and active greenery initiatives.

The Chief Minister reaffirmed his government’s commitment to supporting investors, focusing on enhancing both the ease and speed of doing business, and reducing costs. He announced that fire renewals for industries will now be required every five years, not annually, and promised timely payment of pending incentives, infrastructure improvements, and lower water and power tariffs.

Industries Minister Mr. T.G. Bharath announced that government is working on a new industrial policy making it easier, faster, and more affordable to invest in the state.

Expressing his heartfelt gratitude to the Chief Minister, Mr. Ravindra Sannareddy stated, “Sri City has crossed another significant milestone, marking a pivotal moment in its continued development. He added, “Under your dynamic leadership and forward-thinking industrial policy, Andhra Pradesh will continue as the preferred destination for global investments.”

The event was attended by numerous dignitaries, including Home Minister Mrs. V. Anitha, MLA Satyavedu Mr. Koneti Adimulam, and MLA Sullurupeta Dr. N. Vijayashree. Top government officials, including Mr. C. Dwaraka Tirumala Rao, IPS, DGP, Madireddi Pratap, IPS, DG, Fire Services, Dr. Yuvaraj, IAS, Secretary, Industries Department, Dr. Shemushi, IPS, DIG Anathapuram, Mr. M. Abhishikth Kishore, IAS, MD, APIIC, Dr. Ch. Sridhar, Director of Industries and other senior State Government officials, were also present.

CBDT issues clarification in respect of Income-tax clearance certificate (ITCC)

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Section 230 (1A) of the Income-tax Act, 1961(the ‘Act’) relates to obtaining of a tax clearance certificate, in certain circumstances,by persons domiciled in India. The said provision, as it stands, came on the statute through the Finance Act, 2003 w.e.f. 1.6.2003. The Finance (No.2) Act, 2024 has made only an amendment in Section 230(1A) of the Act, vide which, reference of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 (the ‘Black Money Act’) has been inserted in the said Section. This insertion has been made to also cover the liabilities under the Black Money Act in the same manner as the liabilities under the Income-tax Act,1961 and other Acts dealing with direct taxes for the purpose of Section 230(1A) of the Income-tax Act,1961.

There appears to be a mis-information about the said amendment emanating from incorrect interpretation of the amendment. It is being erroneously reported that all Indian citizens must obtain income-tax clearance certificate (ITCC) before leaving the country. This position is factually incorrect.

As per section 230 of the Act, every person is not required to obtain a tax clearance certificate. Only certain persons, in respect of whom circumstances exist which make it necessary to obtain a tax clearance certificate,are required to obtain the said certificate. This position has been in the statute since 2003 and remains unchanged even with the amendments vide Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024.

 In this context, the CBDT, vide its Instruction No. 1/2004, dated 05.02.2004, has specified that the tax clearance certificate under Section 230(1A) of the Act, may be required to be obtained by persons domiciled in India only in the following circumstances:

  1. where the person is involved in serious financial irregularities and his presence is necessary in investigation of cases under the Income-tax Act or the Wealth-tax Act and it is likely that a tax demand will be raised against him, or
  2. where the person has direct tax arrears exceeding Rs. 10 lakh outstanding against him which have not been stayed by any authority.

Further, a person can be asked to obtain a tax clearance certificate only after recording the reasons for the same and after taking approval from the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-tax or Chief Commissioner of Income-tax.

In view thereof, it is reiterated that the ITCC under Section 230(1A) of the Act, is needed by residents domiciled in India, only in rare cases, such as (a) where a person is involved in serious financial irregularities or (b) where a tax demand of more than  Rs.  10 lakh is pending which is not stayed by any authority.

AI Chases the Storm: New NVIDIA Research Boosts Weather Prediction, Climate Simulation

by Today's Fables

As hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather events occur with increased frequency and severity, it’s more important than ever to improve and accelerate climate research and prediction using the latest technologies.

Amid peaks in the current Atlantic hurricane season, NVIDIA Research today announced a new generative AI model, dubbed StormCast, for emulating high-fidelity atmospheric dynamics. This means the model can enable reliable weather prediction at mesoscale — a scale larger than storms but smaller than cyclones — which is critical for disaster planning and mitigation.

Detailed in a paper written in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Washington, StormCast arrives as extreme weather phenomena are taking lives, destroying homes and causing more than $150 billion in damage annually in the U.S. alone.

It’s just one example of how generative AI is supercharging thundering breakthroughs in climate research and actionable extreme weather prediction, helping scientists tackle challenges of the highest stakes: saving lives and the world.

NVIDIA Earth-2 — a digital twin cloud platform that combines the power of AI, physical simulations and computer graphics — enables simulation and visualization of weather and climate predictions at a global scale with unprecedented accuracy and speed.In Taiwan, for example, the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction predicts fine-scale details of typhoons using CorrDiff, an NVIDIA generative AI model offered as part of Earth-2.

CorrDiff can super-resolve 25-kilometer-scale atmospheric data by 12.5x down to 2 kilometers — 1,000x faster and using 3,000x less energy for a single inference than traditional methods.

That means the center’s potentially lifesaving work, which previously cost nearly $3 million on CPUs, can be accomplished using about $60,000 on a single system with an NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU. It’s a massive reduction that shows how generative AI and accelerated computing increase energy efficiency and lower costs.

The center also plans to use CorrDiff to predict downwash — when strong winds funnel down to street level, damaging buildings and affecting pedestrians — in urban areas.

Now, StormCast adds hourly autoregressive prediction capabilities to CorrDiff, meaning it can predict future outcomes based on past ones.

A Global Impact From a Regional Focus

Global climate research begins at a regional level.

Physical hazards of weather and climate change can vary dramatically on regional scales. But reliable numerical weather prediction at this level comes with substantial computational costs. This is due to the high spatial resolution needed to represent the underlying fluid-dynamic motions at mesoscale.

Regional weather prediction models — often referred to as convection-allowing models, or CAMs — have traditionally forced researchers to face varying tradeoffs in resolution, ensemble size and affordability.

CAMs are useful to meteorologists for tracking the evolution and structure of storms, as well as for monitoring its convective mode, or how a storm is organized when it forms. For example, the likelihood of a tornado is based on a storm’s structure and convective mode.

NVIDIA researchers trained StormCast on approximately three-and-a-half years of NOAA climate data from the central U.S., using NVIDIA accelerated computing to speed calculations.