Daily Current Affairs Quiz: January 26, 2024

Notes:
Archaeologists found 11th and 16th-century stone inscriptions in Pazhnchervazhi village near Kangayam in Tamil Nadu, featuring ‘Grantham’ and Tamil scripts. Grantham, a historical script, once scribed Sanskrit across South East Asia and Tamil Nadu. Originally named for literary works in Sanskrit, it later influenced Malayalam and became Arya Ezhuthu. Grantha’s prevalence in South India highlights its historical significance in language evolution, particularly in the borrowing of words and grammar rules by Malayalam from Sanskrit.

Notes:
The Election Commission of India marks its 75th year on January 25, 2024, coinciding with the 14th National Voters’ Day (NVD). Since 2011, NVD is observed annually on January 25 to raise electoral awareness and encourage citizens to participate. The event, celebrated at various levels across the country, aims to facilitate voter enrolment, particularly among young voters. The theme for NVD 2024 is ‘Nothing Like Voting, I Vote For sure,’ emphasizing the significance of electoral participation.

Notes:
Wandering albatrosses, the world’s largest flying birds with a 3.5-meter wingspan, face extinction due to threats like longline fishing and plastic ingestion. Climate change poses an additional risk to their nesting sites in the Southern Hemisphere. These oceanic nomads spend most of their 60-year life at sea, breeding on subantarctic islands like Marion and Prince Edward. With a vulnerable conservation status, urgent measures are needed to protect these majestic birds and their unique habitats.

Notes:
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns of ‘Disease X,’ a potential new pandemic with unknown characteristics, listed in the WHO’s Blueprint since 2018. This hypothetical pathogen, belonging to any of 25 virus families, lacks known treatments and could be 20 times deadlier than the recent SARS-Covid virus.

Notes:
CoRover.ai, a key player in Conversational AI, has unveiled BharatGPT, India’s first Large Language Model (LLM). Designed for 22 Indian languages, BharatGPT addresses linguistic diversity challenges. As an Indigenous Generative AI platform, it seamlessly integrates voice and text modes, offering a unique solution. Notably, BharatGPT supports voice in 12 languages and text in 22 languages, achieved through collaboration with the National Hub of Language Technology under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s National Language Translation Mission.