Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 11 January 2023

::NATIONAL::

Nickel Alloy Coatings

• Scientists at the Centre for Engineered Coatings at International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), an autonomous Research and Development Centre of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, has developed a lab-scale process to deposit novel nanostructured Nickel alloy coatings.

About:

• A new method of deposition of Nickel alloy coatings on high-performance materials in engineering applications can replace environmentally toxic chrome coatings. 
• The coatings obtained are also highly corrosion-resistant and useful for the plastic ware industry.
• The process uses pulsed current electroplating, which is environmentally benign with high production capacity. 
• They have used electric current in the form of pulses of duration of a few milliseconds for electroplating purpose.
• The process consists of environment-friendly electrolyte consisting of nickel and tungsten ions that is the source of strengthening elemental tungsten (W) and nickel (Ni). 
• The pulsed current is applied between the components to be coated, acting as cathode and non-consumable anode.

Benefits:

• The pulsed current effect was used for nano-crystalline coatings wherein high instantaneous current density for a very small duration resulted in a high rate of nucleation.
• The coatings were virtually porosity free, crack free with minimal hydrogen uptake.
• The use of pulsed current resulted in the nano-crystallization of nickel tungsten alloy coatings with high hardness (700-1200 HV) and wear resistance.
• The coatings were extremely corrosion-resistant and could withstand up to 700 hrs of salt spray.
• The coatings can withstand temperatures up to 500°C without thermal softening and can improve the life of die components by at least two times than conventional chrome plating.

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VSHORAD missile systems

• The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to critical procurements for the defence forces, including that of the VSHORAD (IR Homing) missile system.

About:

• The DAC also approved procurement of the HELINA Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, launchers and associated support equipment for the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) with the Army and the Brahmos Launcher and Fire Control System (FCS) for the Shivalik class of ships and Next Generation Missile Vessels (NGMVs) for the Navy.
• The AoN is the first step in the long and complex defence procurement process. Not all AoNs accorded necessarily materialise into a final order.
• The three capital acquisition proposals—two of the Army and one of the Navyand will be procured under the Buy (Indian-IDDM) category.
• The ministry added that procurement of VSHORAD, as a robust and quickly deployable system, will strengthen India’s air defence capabilities.
• Aside from the VSHORAD missile systems, the DAC also gave its approval to procure the HELINA Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, launchers and associated support equipment for their integration to the Army’s ALHs as part of their weaponization process.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

World Spice Congress

• 14thedition of the World Spice Congress (WSC) to be held in Mumbai from 16-18 February 2023.

About:

• Since its inception in 1990, the WSC could successfully bring together the global perspectives in the spice sector to its ambient ranging from the traditional food and beverages to the most advanced examinations for nutraceuticals and nootropics. 
• The WSC is organized by the Spices Board with active participation of Spice Trade Associations in India like the Indian Spice & Foodstuff Exporters’ Association –Mumbai, Indian Pepper and Spice Trade Association –Kochi, Indian Chamber of Commerce-Kolkata and Federation of Indian Spice Stakeholders - Unjha, Gujarat.

The business sessions of WSC 2023 will focus on topics such as:

• India - The Spice Bowl for Global Market
• Perspectives on addressing Food safety & Quality Requirements for Spices (Presentation/Panel Discussion with Regulatory Authorities);
• Strengthening Global Spice Trade-Country Perspective & Opportunities
• Crops & Markets - Forecasts & Trends
• Spice Market outlook by International Spice Trade Associations

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The event will have:

• Awards Nights – Distribution of the prestigious Awards for excellence in export of spices
• Spice Experience Zone
• Authentic Indian Experiences– Cultural, Culinary
• Tech Talk Sessions and Product Launches

ChatGPT

• As per researchers, ChatGPT and other AI tools could be used to generate phishing emails and malicious code easily and at a much larger scale.

About:

• ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models.
• It is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand and generate natural language text.
• It is trained on large amounts of text data and uses an algorithm called a transformer to learn how to generate text that is similar to human conversation.

Key findings: 

• First, the researchers first asked the chatbot to create a phishing email impersonating a hosting company. 
• ChatGPT provided output, even though it warned the researchers that the content might violate its content policy. 
• The researchers then asked ChatGPT to create an iteration of the same mail, but one that asked users to download a malicious Excel file, instead of clicking on a link. 
• Just like before, ChatGPT provided satisfactory output, despite generating a warning notice. 
• ChatGPT also created a malicious VBA (Visual Basic for Application) code. While the initial output was barely workable, the researchers finally got basic but usable malicious code after multiple iterations.

::Economy::

SBI Ecowrap study on Gini Coefficient

• SBI EcowrapS analysed the impact of share of Rice and wheatprocurement on Gini Coefficient for 20 and 9 States respectively.

About:

• Gini coefficient is a statistical measure to gauge the rich-poor income orwealth divide.
• It ranges from 0 (or 0%) to 1 (or 100%) with which 0 representsperfect equality, and 1 represents perfect inequality.
• Values over 1 are theoretically possible due to negative income or wealth.
• A general rise in Gini Coefficient indicates that government policies arenot inclusive and may be benefiting rich as much as or even more thanpoor.
• Gini figure below 0.40 is generally considered to be within tolerable limits.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI)

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI)is a cutting-edge technological advancement that utilises machine learning and artificial intelligence to create new forms of media, such as text, audio, video, and animation. 

Application:

• It can craft sales, marketing, and brand messaging.
• GitHub, Copilot6 and ChatGPT1 can generate code and help with developer productivity.
• It can sift through numerous legal research materials and produce a pertinent, specific, andactionable summary.
• It will help health professionals with their medical diagnosis.
• It will also help to create and simulate complex engineering, design, and architecture.

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