Doctrine of Harmonious Construction
Why in News: The Supreme Court recently established eight principles by interpreting Sections 3 and 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963, in a manner that doesn’t endorse the delay of 5659 days in filing an appeal.
About Doctrine of Harmonious Construction
- Interpretive Rule: Essential for understanding statutes.
- Conflict Resolution: Calls for reconciling discrepancies within statutes or between provisions to ensure coherence.
- Objective: Recognizes the legislative intent behind statutes and aims to maintain their effectiveness.
Key Principles
- Operational Integrity: Legislature intends all provisions to be operative.
- Avoidance of Nullification: Strives to prevent one provision from nullifying another.
- Preservation of Effectiveness: Courts aim to uphold the efficacy of all provisions.
- Conflict Resolution: Prioritizes interpretations that avoid conflicts and maintain consistency.
- Judicial Responsibility: When reconciliation is impossible, courts must adjudicate to ensure statutory coherence.
- Landmark Case: Commissioner of Income Tax v. M/S Hindustan Bulk Carriers (2000)
Guiding Principles:
- Courts endeavor to harmonize conflicting provisions.
- Avoidance of nullification unless reconciliation is unattainable.
- Interpretations should give effect to both provisions as much as possible.
- Redundancy of provisions is contrary to the essence of harmonious construction.
- Preservation of statutory effectiveness is paramount.
Source: TH
GPT-4 Vision
Why in News: After its inception, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has made significant advancements and has recently unveiled API access to GPT-4, which incorporates vision capabilities.
About GPT-4 Vision
- Introduction to GPT-4V: Also known as GPT-4V, this feature enables users to direct GPT-4 to analyze images.
- Multimodal Advancement: OpenAI sees this as a stride towards creating a chatbot that can process a mix of image, text, and audio inputs.
- Visual Question Answering (VQA): Users can input images and inquire about them, a task termed visual question answering.
Features
- Large Multimodal Model (LMM): GPT-4V is a Large Multimodal Model, capable of processing various input types like text and images or text and audio.
- Visual Processing Capabilities: GPT-4V can handle diverse visual content such as photos, screenshots, and documents, identifying objects, interpreting data in visualizations, and more.
- Text Interpretation in Images: It can analyze both handwritten and printed text within images, bridging the gap between visual comprehension and textual analysis.
Potential Application Fields
- Research and Academia: Beneficial for researchers and academics, particularly in interpreting historical documents and manuscripts.
- Web Development: Developers can translate visual designs into website code, even from sketches.
- Data Analysis: Valuable for unlocking insights from visuals and graphics, aiding data interpretation.
Source: IE
Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC)
Why in News: In a recent development, the US White House formally instructed NASA to establish a standardized time system for the Moon. This system will serve as a reference point for international organizations and private enterprises to synchronize their operations on the lunar surface.
About Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC)
- Precision for Space Missions: LTC ensures accurate timekeeping for lunar spacecraft and satellites, crucial for their precise mission requirements.
- Communication Coordination: It synchronizes communication between satellites, astronauts, bases, and Earth, facilitating seamless operations.
Need for LTC
- Time Dilation on the Moon: Due to lower gravity, time on the Moon passes slightly faster relative to Earth, causing discrepancies in time measurements.
- Potential Issues: These differences can pose challenges for spacecraft docking, data transfer, communication, and navigation.
Earth’s Time Standard Mechanism
- Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): The world’s clocks and time zones are based on UTC, set by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris.
- Atomic Clock Precision: UTC is determined by over 400 atomic clocks worldwide, measuring time based on the resonant frequencies of atoms like cesium-133.
- Local Time Conversion: Countries adjust their local time by adding or subtracting hours from UTC based on their longitudinal position relative to the Greenwich meridian.
Funding Winter
Why in News: In 2023, funding from major international investors such as Accel, Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, and Softbank experienced a significant decline, averaging around an 80% decrease. This downturn occurred within the Indian startup ecosystem during what was termed as the “funding winter.”
About Funding Winter
Funding winter signifies a period of market correction in capital influx, reducing the likelihood of startups attaining high valuations in the near to medium term.
- Challenges for Founders: Start-up founders face difficulties in securing funding and achieving overly optimistic valuations.
- Investor Caution: Investors tend to shy away from firms lacking a clear path to profitability, necessitating adjustments to start-up valuations.
- Prioritizing Profitability: Start-ups must realign their focus on maximizing profits amidst the funding winter.
Effects of Funding Winter
- Capital Preservation Measures: Start-ups adopt strategies to conserve working capital due to minimal investor funding expectations.
- Halting Expansion Plans: Advertising expenses, capital outlays, and expansion initiatives are halted to enhance firm sustainability.
- Cost Minimization: Only essential expenses vital for firm survival are incurred, with rigorous measures to eliminate unnecessary costs.
Nature of Funding Winter
- Cyclical Phenomenon: Funding winter is not novel but rather a recurrent effect influenced by various market factors.
- Factors Influencing: It can arise from broad market conditions like geopolitical unrest, monetary policies, or sector-specific issues.
- Unpredictable Duration: The duration of a funding winter is uncertain and can persist for an extended period, contingent on multiple influencing factors.
Source: BS
