Current Affairs - Technology

BHASHINI, under the Digital India initiative, has partnered with Indian Railways to bring multilingual AI solutions to key platforms like NTES and RailMadad. This collaboration aims to improve public access to railway services by integrating technologies such as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS), Text-to-Text Translation, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The partnership facilitates real-time communication and service delivery in 22 Indian languages, promoting digital inclusion and linguistic accessibility. It represents a strategic effort to bridge language barriers and enhance passenger experience, particularly for those more comfortable interacting in regional languages.

Starlink, the satellite internet venture by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has officially received the GMPCS (Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite) licence from India’s Department of Telecommunications. This regulatory approval allows Starlink to provide satellite-based broadband services across the country, making it the third operator in India’s satellite communication market after OneWeb and Jio Satellite Communications. With a trial spectrum expected soon, Starlink is poised to demonstrate its compliance with India’s security and technical standards before launching full-scale operations. This development strengthens India's growing focus on next-generation connectivity solutions in remote and underserved regions.

Russia has developed and patented a pioneering technology that enables the launching of automatic spacecraft, including UAVs, directly from an orbital station. This innovation marks the creation of the world’s first drone platform in space, equipped with robots for maintenance tasks. The technology is set to be tested on the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) and has future applications planned for lunar exploration. This advancement highlights Russia’s ongoing efforts to expand capabilities in space technology and autonomous operations beyond Earth.

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a novel metal-based nanozyme designed to prevent abnormal blood clotting. This breakthrough is particularly significant in addressing conditions such as Pulmonary Thromboembolism (PTE) and thrombosis associated with COVID-19. Nanozymes are artificial nanomaterials that mimic the activity of antioxidant enzymes to control reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby helping to regulate platelet activity and prevent dangerous clot formations. The IISc team’s innovation could pave the way for advanced treatments in managing life-threatening clotting disorders.

BharatGen is a newly launched multimodal AI model developed in India that supports 22 Indian languages. This initiative was introduced at the BharatGen Summit and is part of the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). Led by the TIH Foundation for IIT & IoE at IIT Bombay, BharatGen aims to foster innovation in AI that is ethical, multilingual, and deeply connected to Indian cultural values. The model's support for 22 languages ensures it can cater to a wide and diverse population, promoting inclusivity and better accessibility in AI technologies across the country.