Current affairs 18 March 2023

Falcon LLM, a rival of ChatGPT launched in Abu Dhabi.

• The Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi (UAE) has launched Falcon LLM, a large language model (LLM) with 40 billion parameters.
• It was trained on one trillion tokens and built by the AI and Digital Science Research Center's AI Cross-Centre Unit.
• The model outperforms GPT-3 and requires only 75% of its training compute, as well as lower percentages of other large language models' training compute.
• LLMs have a wide range of applications, including chatbots.

Defense ministry approved to buy worth Rs 70,500-crore indigenous arms.

• An apex body of the defense ministry for clearing weapons procurement, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) met under the chairmanship of DM Rajnath Singh.
• The DAC has accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for capital acquisitions worth Rs 70,500 crore under Buy Indian-IDDM (Indigenously Designed, Developed, and Manufactured) — a new procurement category.
• It includes 307 Advanced Towed Artillery Gun Systems and 60 indigenous marine utility helicopters.

Solar Energy capacity tripled in last 5 years from 21651 to 64380 MW.

• Union Minister of Renewable Energy & Power, R. K. Singh informed in the Lok Sabha, that Solar projects of an aggregate capacity of 64,380 MW have been installed in the country (as of 28.02.2023).
• India's solar capacity has increased from 21,651 MW to 64,380 MW, an increase of 197% in the last 5 years.
• The Government has set a target of achieving 500 GW of installed capacity from non-fossil fuels (including around 270 GW of solar capacity) by 2030.

Bengaluru receives "healthy city" award for smoking laws.

• Bengaluru won the Partnership for Healthy Cities award and a cash prize of $ 150,000 for effectively enforcing smoke-free laws at a summit held in London.
• The focused effort from smoke-free Bengaluru resulted in a reduction of public-place smoking from 18.2% (2017) to 13.3% (2021).
• The display of no-smoking signs in the city also increased from 23.1% (2017) to 75%.
• The global summit brought together officials from over 50 cities to discuss public health concerns.

India’s KR Parvathy appointed as UN Resident Coordinator in Tajikistan.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed India's Kavilmadam Ramaswami Parvathy as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Tajikistan.
• She has served in leading roles at the World Food Programme in Türkey and Afghanistan.
• She has more than 30 years of experience in the development and humanitarian sectors, focusing on strategic planning, performance, risk management, people management, conflict analysis, and humanitarian access negotiations.