📝 Subclassification of the SCs[1]
🚀 Telangana has become the 1st Indian state to operationalise the subclassification of the SCs.
👉🏽 Last year, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of subclassifying SCs and STs to grant separate quotas for the most marginalised groups within these communities.
📝 Silicon Photonics[2]
🚀 Replaces electrons with photons in silicon chips used in electronic devices ⇒ Photons (light) can carry information faster, with more data, using less energy.
💡4 parts of photon-based chip: Laser (makes the light), Waveguides (tiny paths for the light to travel), Modulators (add or remove info from the light), and Photodetectors (turn the light back into electricity).
⚠️ Challenge: A laser is required on the chip for silicon photonics, but lasers are typically manufactured separately and attached, which makes the process slower and more expensive.
🧪 Breakthrough: Scientists have discovered a method to grow a laser directly on a chip.
🤔 What exactly is a laser?
📝 Q-Shield[3]
🚀 World’s first platform that empowers enterprises to protect their critical infrastructure ⇒ Enables seamless cryptography management across any environment, including cloud, on-premises, or hybrid.
👉🏽 Launched by QNu Labs (one of the startups selected under the National Quantum Mission) ⇒ Incubated at IIT Madras Research Park in 2016.
🤔 What are critical infrastructures?
📝 India’s Hand & Power Tools Sector[4]
🚀 Unlocking $25+ Billion Export Potential – India’s Hand & Power Tools Sector: A recent report released by the NITI Aayog.
👉🏽 Anticipates that by 2035, India could capture 10% of the global power tools market (currently 0.7%) and 25% of the hand tools market (currently 1.8%) ⇒ Will create 35 lakh jobs.
⚠️Challenges: Higher raw material costs, lower labour productivity, elevated interest rates, higher logistics costs, regulatory constraints, and complex export procedures ⇒ Results in 14-17% cost disadvantage compared to China.
✅ Suggestions
(1) PPP modelled world-class hand tool manufacturing clusters: To offer plug-and-play facilities, worker housing, and improved connectivity.
(2) Market reforms: Rationalising import duties on critical raw materials, streamlining Quality Control Orders, simplifying the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme, and revising labour and building regulations.
💡China currently dominates the sector, accounting for nearly half of hand tool exports and 40% of power tool exports.
📝 QpiAI-Indus[5]
🚀 India’s 1st full-stack quantum computing system ⇒ Integrates advanced quantum processors, next-generation Quantum-HPC software platforms, and AI-enhanced quantum solutions ⇒ Features 25 superconducting qubits.
👉🏽 Launched by QpiAI (one of the 8 startups selected under the National Quantum Mission)
🤔 How do quantum computers differ from normal computers? Do they relate to quantum physics? Why are they named this way?
📝 Miscellaneous[6][7]
🚀 India’s exports in FY25: $820.93 billion ⇒ 5.5% growth compared to FY24.
🚀 15th BRICS Agriculture Ministers Meeting: Brazil ⇒ Will be attended by India’s Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.