Matter Regarding Declaration Of Ram Setu As National Monument Sub Judice: Centre

The matter regarding the declaration of Ram Setu as a national monument is sub judice, the government informed Parliament on Monday.

Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy said this in a written response to a query in Lok Sabha.

In his response, he also said, "No other proposal for declaration of site submerged in seas to be of national importance is pending at present".

He was asked whether there are requests for the declaration of sites located or submerged in seas in the country like Adam's Bridge as national monuments pending a decision with the government of India.

"The matter regarding the declaration of Ram Setu as a national monument is sub judice. No other proposal for declaration of site submerged in seas to be of national importance is pending at present," he said in his response.

The declaration of monuments and sites is done under section 4 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) Act, 1958. Central government issues a notification of its intention to declare any ancient monument to be of national importance by giving two months' notice, inviting views or objections from the public, Mr Reddy said.

After considering the views or objections received during the period, the central government may declare the ancient monument to be of national importance by publishing a notification in the official gazette, he said.

There are 3,697 monuments and sites declared as of national importance under the AMASR Act, 1958 in the country.

In his response, he also shared the expenditure incurred on their maintenance during the last three years which stood at Rs 260.83 crore (in 2020-21), Rs 269.57 crore (in 2021-22), and Rs 391.93 crore (in 2022-23).

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70-Year-Old Woman Severely Injured After Being Attacked By Pit Bull In Haridwar

A 70-year-old woman in the district was seriously injured on Sunday after being attacked by a pit bulldog, police said.

A doctor said the woman was bleeding profusely when she was brought to the Roorkee Civil Hospital from where she was referred to AIIMS, Rishikesh, considering her serious condition.

There are wound marks all over the woman's body, said Dr Vandana at the Civil Hospital.

The elderly woman's son has filed a complaint against the owner of the dog at the Civil Lines police station.

The woman, a resident of Dhandera, was going to see someone in the neighbourhood when she was attacked by the pit bull, Roorkee Civil Lines police station in-charge R K Saklani said.

The police are registering a case based on the complaint, he said. 

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Four Booked For Fire At Pune Candle Making Unit That Killed Seven

A case was registered against four persons on Saturday in connection with a fire in a candle manufacturing unit in Pimpri Chinchwad in Pune a day earlier that killed seven and left 11 seriously injured, a police official said.

The fire took place at around 2:45pm on Friday in the factory at Talawade that makes sparkling candles used in birthday celebrations.

Based on a complaint by one Balasaheb Vaidya, a case was registered against Sharad Sutar, Shubhangi Sutar, Jannat Shikalgar, and Nazir Amir Shikalgar, the Dehu Road police station official said.

"Sutar owned the factory, while Nazir Shikalgar owned the land on which the unit had come up illegally. They have been booked under Indian Penal Code and Explosives Act provisions for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, negligent act with combustible matter, and other offences," he said.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government announced compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the family of the dead.

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"Open Letters To Chief Justices Malicious": Supreme Court Bar Association Chief

A senior lawyer of the Supreme Court has written to Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, drawing his attention to the practice of writing "open letters" by some people and addressed to Chief Justices to "exert undue pressure on the administration of justice".

Senior lawyer Adish C Aggarwala, who is also the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, in the letter said such open letters are mostly carried in the media. "... Such letters are written demonstratively with respect to a few selected cases and at the behest of some influential litigants," Mr Aggarwala said.

He cited examples from the past: "A letter was written to the then Chief Justice of India stating without any basis that certain commercial matters were being listed before 'benches of preference'. A letter is written by the same member of the Bar to the then Chief Justice of India wherein he complained that while being present virtually, he was not being allowed to speak at the retirement function of a Supreme Court judge..."

In the letter, Mr Aggarwala alleged undignified behaviour against judged by some lawyers a few days before their retirement has become a common phenomenon. "... It is aimed at attracting publicity and creating an element of uneasiness among judges, and to attract some select clientele whose brief lacks anything on merit," Mr Aggarwala said, adding due to this misbehaviour by some senior lawyers, the Bar suffers disgrace and the harmony between the Bar and the Bench gets disturbed.

"The administration cannot waste its precious time entertaining every letter making wild and imaginary accusations. The assignment of cases is not open to question on the judicial or the administrative side and, as a corollary, it is neither required to be by way of a speaking order nor is it required to be justified by responding to any person calling it into question," the senior lawyer said.

"The writing of such letters is therefore malicious, and calculated to embarrass the administration. The time has come where one should put an end to the practice of writing of such letters... It is essential to curb every attempt to scandalise the court mechanisms with insinuations and falsehood, aimed at mischievously shaking the confidence of the public in our courts," Mr Aggarwala said.

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Ranveer Singh's One Word Review Of Deepika Padukone's Fighter Teaser Is Everything

Ever since the Fighter teaser released today, Bollywood celebs couldn't keep calm. Directed by Siddharth Anand, Fighter is headlined by Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor. The actors are playing Air-Force officers in the film. Ranveer Singh reviewed the teaser in one word. He wrote below Deepika Padukone's post "Booom" and dropped a series of fire emojis. Sharing the teaser, Deepika Padukone wrote, "Fighter Forever."  Neha Dhupia commented, "...and you are not Joking!!! This looks insane." Sophie Choudry wrote, "Ufff!! Can't wait." Take a look at the post here:

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A post shared by दीपिका पादुकोण (@deepikapadukone)

Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh often comment on each other's posts. Ranveer Singh shared a string of pictures of himself from The Archies screening recently. Ranveer Singh matched a white shirt with black pants for the event. He added a dash of style with black shades and a white blazer. Sharing the pictures, Ranveer only dropped a black heart in the caption. Deepika Padukone wrote in the comments section, "Obsessed!" and dropped a heart emoji. Take a look:

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A post shared by Ranveer Singh (@ranveersingh)

Deepika and Ranveer celebrated their fifth marriage anniversary together in Europe last month. Ranveer Singh shared a picture from their vacation diaries in which Deepika can be seen kissing him on his cheek. Ranveer wrote in the caption, "5 of (infinity emoji)!!" Take a look:

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A post shared by Ranveer Singh (@ranveersingh)

On the work front, Deepika Padukone has had a successful year. She will be seen in Siddharth Anand's film Fighter, alongside Hrithik Roshan. She will also star in Kalki 2898 - AD with Prabhas and Amitabh Bachchan. She was a part of two blockbusters of the year - Pathaan and Jawan. Ranveer Singh was last seen in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani with Alia Bhatt.

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2 Men Pose As 'Tantriks', Rape Woman In UP, Arrested: Cops

A 23-year-old woman was raped by two youths posing as 'tantriks' in a village here, police said on Thursday, adding that the accused have been arrested.

Posing as 'tantriks', Rahul (23) and Manoj (24) met the woman here on Wednesday evening and said they would help in getting her marriage fixed and relieve her of all problems, SHO Ratnesh Kumar said.

They asked her to go inside a shed so that they could start the rituals and raped her, he said.

Police were informed after the woman raised an alarm. Police reached the spot and the accused were caught immediately.

Additional Superintendent of Police Ashutosh Mishra said that the woman has been sent to the district hospital for medical examination and legal action is being taken against the arrested youths. 

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Google Unveils AI Model 'Gemini' Billed As Better-Than-ChatGPT

Google on Wednesday infused its Bard chatbot with a new-generation artificial intelligence model called Gemini, which it touts as being able to reason better than ChatGPT and other rivals.

The search engine juggernaut is aiming to take the generative AI lead from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI as that company deals with the aftermath of a boardroom coup that saw chief executive Sam Altman fired and then rehired within a matter of days.

Google has for years discreetly developed AI powers but was caught off guard when OpenAI late last year released ChatGPT and teamed up with Microsoft to make its capabilities available to users worldwide.

"This is incredible momentum, and yet, we're only beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible," Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a release.

"This new era of models represents one of the biggest science and engineering efforts we've undertaken as a company."

It is the first AI model to outperform human experts in certain benchmarks involving problem solving, math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics, Google DeepMind vice president of product Eli Collins said during a briefing.

A demonstration showed Gemini recognizing what it was shown, from a person acting out a "Matrix" movie scene to someone drawing a duck and then holding up a rubber duck.

Gemini commented on what it was shown, making comparisons, drawing conclusions, and offering suggestions.

Performance of an "Ultra" version of Gemini "far exceeds" that of other state-of-the-art models in 30 benchmark tests measuring capabilities such as image understanding or mathematical reasoning, according to Collins.

A "Pro" version of Gemini built into Bard is designed to handle a wide range of tasks. A "Nano" version is tailored for smartphones, coming first to Google's top-of-the-line Pixel 8 handset.

Google raced out its own Bard chatbot earlier this year, continually updating the chatbot based on people's feedback, according to Bard vice president Sissie Hsiao.

"All of that rapid innovation is bringing us to what we see as a truly transformative moment," Hsiao said during the briefing.

"With Gemini, Bard is getting its biggest upgrade yet."

AI collaborator

Bard will use Gemini for more advanced reasoning, planning, and understanding capabilities, a demonstration showed.

It will be available in English in more than 170 countries and territories, with more languages added soon, according to Hsiao.

Gemini-infused Bard will be expanded to be "multi-modal," meaning it will be able to work with auditory and visual input as well as text prompts, executives said.

"With Gemini we are one step closer to our vision of bringing you the best AI collaborator in the world," Hsiao said.

Gemini ramps up the quality of Bard's performance, whether in writing poetry or computer code to shopping queries or research projects, according to Hsiao.

The "Ultra" version of Gemini designed to handle highly complex tasks will be released early next year, Google said.

"I'm in awe of what it's capable of," Collins said of Gemini.

"This is the start of a new era for us at Google as we continue to rapidly innovate and advance the model's capabilities."

Google in September integrated Gmail, YouTube and other tools into its Bard chatbot as tech giants seek to persuade users that generative AI is useful and not dangerous or just a fad.

Those capabilities closely match offerings from Microsoft that infuse its Office 365 apps with AI powers, though those come at an extra cost to customers and are not available through the chatbot on its search engine Bing.

The staying power of generative AI chatbots, once the initial excitement has faded, is yet to be confirmed.

Moreover, integration of the OpenAI-based chatbot into Microsoft's search engine earlier this year failed to make an impact on Google's overwhelming dominance of search.

Governments and tech companies however insist that generative AI is technology's next big chapter and have ramped up spending on new products, research, and infrastructure.

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