Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Delhi today after a gap of seven years. He will hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Xi has come with a big delegation of Chinese officials and businessmen. The focus is on resetting India-China ties in trade and investment. Modi had met Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Both Modi and Putin seek stronger ties in trade and defence, even as the Russian President called for BRICS to counter attacks by Western countries on Russia’s industries and pipelines. In talks with Pezeshkian, Modi called for protecting freedom of navigation and safety of seafarers. The Iranian President blamed US for carrying out attacks on its installations.
Modi told both Putin and Pezeshkian that efforts must began to end the Ukraine and Gulf conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy. Modi’s meeting with Putin was significant in the context of decades-old cooperation in defence, energy and space sectors. Modi’s take is that, unless peace returns in Ukraine and the Gulf, how can trade improve? There is complete uncertainty across the world because of tensions in Europe and the Gulf. It was Putin who began the Ukraine war, and it was Donald Trump who ordered bombings on Iran. Both the leaders probably did not know that it is easier to start a war, but difficult to end it.
India is now the world’s fastest economy. The results could have been more spectacular had the Ukraine and Gulf wars ended. Indian companies suffered losses because of these conflicts and the supply chains were disturbed. It is because of the resilience of the Indian economy that Modi managed to steer India’s boat in the midst of this turmoil. All the three, Russia, China and Iran have been at the receiving end of the US economic sanctions. They want BRICS to evolve as a counterforce against the West and the domination of US dollar to end. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE do not agree. India will not want the BRICS to become an “anti-West forum”. This is the reason why Modi is focusing on solving global economic problems. The objective of BRICS summit will be to ensure how member countries can help one another in navigating through the problems afflicting world trade.
Will AI spin out of human control?
US research firm Anthropic says, Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, in northern Yemen, tried to use the AI model to develop advanced missiles for their campaign against Saudi Arabia. From Ukraine to Gaza, Artificial Intelligence is transforming warfare. It is being used in remote battlefields. Anthropic said, the users of the accounts were blocked after being identified. They did not succeed in fielding an operational device but did carry out a failed test of a guided rocket.
The developer of the Claude chatbot said it identified a cell in northern Yemen pursuing three different weapons programs, including a multi-variant missile that glides at hypersonic speed and a warhead that uses mobile phone hardware to manoeuvre mid-course. It said the actors in Yemen used Claude Code instead of human software engineers to develop guidance, navigation and control software. Different warheads and guidance systems can be fitted on multi-variant missiles. It is a more economical way to build land, sea and air weapons.
A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it “could kill all humans” within the next 10 years. Evan Hubinger posted on X, the risk from the models which currently exist was “low” but he was “worried” the technology might develop and improve itself soon to the point where it posed an existential risk to humanity. He did not elaborate. His post was in response to another X post by Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher who has just quit Anthropic and previously worked at OpenAI.
Jacob Coxon wrote, “There will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resource.” It is a sad fact that security systems at this moment are inadequate to handle AI. Cyber security experts fear what will happen if AI spins out of control of humans? Will it pose a threat to human existence? All these years we have been watching sci-fi horror films, where rogue scientists built robot and soon it multiplied to thousands of other robots. This is no more cinema, nor is there a screenplay. If AI started taking autonomous decision without human orders, the situation can be scary.
When will Punjab get rid of drug menace?
BJP has decided to launch ‘Nasha Mukti Yatra’ across Punjab from September 18 to 30 to create awareness against drugs. BJP chief Nitin Nabin will launch the Yatra and Home Minister Amit Shah will conclude the campaign on September 30 in Jalandhar. Punjab is India’s only state badly crippled by drugs. Nearly 44.5 per cent of heroin seized across India were from Punjab last year. Synthetic drugs have now become the rage and its growth has been recorded at 400 per cent. The largest number of drugs-related arrests has been from Punjab. Entire families and even villages have suffered the drug menace. Parents watched their youths dying due to drugs, children bunking schools for drugs and others losing jobs.
Every government in the past decade or more had been promising to launch action against drugs on a war footing, but the menace continues. Will assembly polls due next year, most of the political parties will promise to get rid of this menace. But it is already assuming alarming proportions. Political parties must tell the people what concrete steps they intend to take against the scourge of drugs. Amit Shah’s record against drugs mafia is good. A record haul of drugs was seized throughout India, drug mafia gangsters were extradited from abroad. A similar action should take place in Punjab now.