Newsletters
@Evening: ⏩ New India On The Move, While Opposing Forces Stay Old (And Outdated)
1. 🆕 What's New: 📰 Catch-up
Twenty-one islands in the Andaman & Nicobar chain were named after Param Vir Chakra awardees today, on the occasion of Parakram Diwas.
Tamil Nadu BJP is planning to start a Tamil TV channel to provide an alternative to the Dravidian media ecosystem.
Law Minister endorses retired HC judge's comment that SC "hijacked" the Constitution by deciding to appoint judges themselves.
Paleontologists make rare discovery of 256 dinosaur egg fossils in India.
Darker days for crisis-hit Pakistan as major cities suffer power outage.
2. 🤔 Tweet for thought: ➡️ New India vs Old India ⬅️
The Bharat Jodo Yatra, the BBC documentary, questioning the surgical strikes — these are backward-looking, whichever way you look at it, in 2023.
One is yet another attempt to resurrect a long-failing political ambition, another is a look-back over two decades with little to show for other than to set an unfavourable discourse for the future, and the third thing... well.
As scholar Padma Bhushan Dr David Frawley says in his tweet: "No new ideas, no positive agenda, no vision for the future. No recognition of the New India."
That sums up very well, these attempts like the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the BBC documentary.
Relevant reading for the Swarajya reader — A Yatra To Nowhere and Auntie Beeb’s Blunders
3. 📚 Word-watching: 🤖✍️ An entire book written up by AI
Know about the first-ever case of an entire book written by a machine? Anand Parthasarathy has written about it for Swarajya.
An Indian startup has claimed to have created rules and algorithms that allowed artificial intelligence (AI) to author a book.
The 122-page book titled Bridging the AI Gap: Why Some Leaders Create Immense Value Through AI While Others Don’t is available for purchase.
>> As a part of our AI research lab at Fluid AI, Raghav Aggarwal and I had the immense pleasure of creating an AI that authored its own book! When AI was first coming up, it was first projected that AI will never be able to replace creativity and it might take till 2030 for it to come close to humans. We've hit that landmark 8 years early! — Fluid AI founder Abhinav Aggarwal
It apparently took just three days to write the book.
The book focuses on how companies are able to generate immense value through AI while many others don’t. It also explains the business uses of AI and how users can learn the technology.
Parthasarathy's take: I downloaded and read the Kindle edition of the book. It is impossible to judge whether it is written by a human or a machine — except for one quirk: AI numbers the first chapter ‘0’ rather than ‘1’.
Full disclaimer: A human being wrote this newsletter :)
🎧 Swarajya audiobook: 🗣️ Dr Subhash Kak on Indian history
Dr Subhash Kak and Abhijit Chavda are in conversation for a Swarajya audiobook on Indian history.
Dr Kak — a Padma Shri awardee — is an author and scientist, and previously a contributor to Swarajya.
He is the Regents Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University and a member of the Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Council.
Abhijit Chavda is the host of a podcast called "The #AskAbhijit Show."
Dr Kak talks about coming to history as a scientist; the Sanskrit language; the Mahabharata era; the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, Zen and Vendanta; when India was really born, and so on.
4. 📷 Picture Speaks: ⚓ Indian Navy gets a (small) shot in the arm
Hello, INS Vagir. Welcome to the fleet!
The fifth submarine of the Kalvari class was commissioned into the Indian Navy today, with the Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R Hari Kumar in attendance.
It was built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, in collaboration with the Naval Group of France.
>> The submarine will boost the Indian Navy’s capability to further India’s maritime interests in deterring the enemy, and conducting Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) to provide decisive blow in the times of crisis. — the Indian Navy
"Vagir" means sand shark, which represents stealth and fearlessness, two qualities synonymous with the ethos of a submariner, the Navy said.
How it came to be. India had ordered six Scorpene-class boats in a deal worth $3 billion in 2005.
The deal saw a delay of nearly five years.
The first submarine, the Kalvari, was supposed to be commissioned in 2012, but it happened eventually, in 2017.
Vagir's value. The induction of INS Vagir will plug the gap in the Indian Navy’s declining submarine fleet.
Most of our submarines are two to three decades old.
The Navy operates around 15 submarines, seven of which are Russian-made Kilo-class, four German-made U-209s, and five latest Kalvari-class submarines (the last one in trial stages).
There's a need for more to protect our seas.
5. 💡 Culture Cutlet: ⏳ Ram Setu designation in process
The Centre recently told the Supreme Court that it was looking into the issue of declaring the Ram Setu as a national heritage monument.
A PIL on the matter had been filed by former Rajya Sabha lawmaker Subramanian Swamy.
The court granted Swamy the liberty to move before it again if dissatisfied.
"I do not want to meet anybody... We are in the same party, it was there in our manifesto. Let them decide in six weeks or whatever," Swamy said.
He also took shots at the PM on Twitter: "What kind of Hindu is Modi who hesitates on making Ram Setu a Heritage Monument ? I , me, myself only?"
What's Ram Setu? Also known as Adam's bridge, it is a chain of limestone shoals between Pamban Island, off the south-eastern coast of Tamil Nadu, and Mannar Island, off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka.
Ancient Indian scriptures, including the epic Ramayana, say that the Ram Setu was built by Lord Rama, with the help of an army of monkeys and local tribes, to reach Sri Lanka and rescue his wife from the demon king Ravana.
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