Friday, October 31, 2025

Elon Musk has unveiled Grokipedia, a new artificial intelligence-powered online encyclopedia developed by his company xAI. Designed to compete with Wikipedia, Grokipedia is directly linked to Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, which is available to premium users on his social platform X. Despite being in its early stage, Musk has boldly claimed that the new platform already outperforms Wikipedia in quality and reliability.

Launch and Early Development

Grokipedia went live on 27 October 2025 with version 0.1, which Musk described as “better than Wikipedia even at this stage.” He stated that version 1.0 would be “10 times better.” However, the site experienced downtime soon after launch, reportedly due to heavy user traffic or initial technical glitches. Once restored, Grokipedia was said to be hosting more than 885,000 articles.

AI Integration and Functionality

The encyclopedia is powered by xAI’s advanced algorithms and integrated with Grok, Musk’s conversational AI. Unlike Wikipedia, Grokipedia does not allow direct public editing. Instead, users can submit suggestions or corrections via a feedback form. The platform’s AI automatically compiles, verifies, and updates information, aiming to minimise human bias and misinformation.

Bias and Transparency Concerns

Musk has frequently criticised Wikipedia for being influenced by editors’ personal views. Grokipedia, he asserts, offers a more objective approach by relying on AI to manage content. Nonetheless, early users have raised concerns about selective information. Reports indicate that Grokipedia omits certain controversial details about high-profile figures such as US President Donald Trump and Musk himself, prompting discussions about the platform’s editorial transparency.

Exam Oriented Facts
Grokipedia was launched by xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company.
The platform is integrated with Grok, the AI chatbot available on X.
Version 0.1 went live on 27 October 2025 and reportedly hosts over 885,000 articles.
Users can suggest edits via a feedback form instead of direct page editing.

Future Prospects and Expansion Plans

Musk envisions Grokipedia as a self-evolving digital knowledge base driven by AI and user feedback. With plans for continuous updates, version 1.0 is expected to introduce enhanced data verification, broader topic coverage, and tighter integration with X. If successful, Grokipedia could reshape how online knowledge is curated and challenge Wikipedia’s long-standing dominance in the digital information space.

What is MegREAP Initiative?

R ooted in its natural wealth and community-driven governance, Meghalaya has launched an ambitious initiative — the Regenerative Economies through Accelerated & Inclusive Enterprises in Meghalaya (MegREAP) — as part of its vision to build a $10 billion green economy by 2028. The MegREAP cell, notified in August 2025 under the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA), aims to accelerate inclusive, climate-resilient growth through coordinated efforts across sectors.

Integrating Climate, Livelihoods and Markets

MegREAP functions as a collaborative platform bringing together departments, missions and partners to work at the intersection of climate, livelihood, finance and markets. It seeks to foster a regenerative model of development that values natural and cultural capital while improving livelihoods. Development Commissioner and MBDA CEO Sampath Kumar said that the initiative would “cultivate a mindset shift” among citizens, empowering communities to build resilient, self-sustaining economies aligned with the State’s environmental priorities.

Building on Meghalaya’s Green Legacy

Meghalaya’s environmental initiatives already include India’s first statewide Payment for Ecosystem Services programme and the formulation of forest management plans for over one lakh hectares of forests. The State has also established a Climate Change Council chaired by the Chief Minister to coordinate and oversee developmental and climate-related programmes. MegREAP builds upon these efforts to align local development with global climate and biodiversity goals.

Harnessing Community Ownership and Natural Capital

With 78 per cent of its area under forest cover, Meghalaya is among India’s greenest States. The MegREAP initiative seeks to transform this natural abundance into sustainable economic value by strengthening community ownership and linking local resources to broader markets. Wankit Swer, General Manager at MBDA, noted that MegREAP would leverage sectors such as eco-tourism, clean energy, forest-based enterprises, and sustainable agriculture to advance inclusive growth.

Exam Oriented Facts
MegREAP stands for Regenerative Economies through Accelerated & Inclusive Enterprises in Meghalaya.
The initiative was launched in August 2025 under the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA).
Meghalaya aims to become a $10 billion green economy by 2028.
Over 78% of Meghalaya’s area is under forest cover, among the highest in India.

Bamboo Villages: A Sustainable Enterprise Model

As part of MegREAP, MBDA is partnering with Common Ground — comprising Vrutti, Living Landscapes, and the Bamboo Village Trust — to develop Bamboo Villages across the State. The initiative aims to transform bamboo into a sustainable economic driver, supporting livelihoods while maintaining ecological balance. By integrating innovation with traditional practices, Meghalaya envisions a regenerative economy that ensures prosperity without compromising its ecological integrity.

Creative destruction

Highlighting innovation-driven growth, the Nobel Committee honoured the economic historian, Joel Mokyr, and the economists, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, for identifying its foundations

Creativity drives growth. Pioneering ideas and technologies raise productivity. But at a cost — they destroy older methods, products, and businesses unless they too innovate and adapt. This transformation or ‘creative destruction’ is the central theme of this year’s Nobel prize in economics.

Highlighting innovation-driven growth, the Nobel Committee honoured the economic historian, Joel Mokyr, and the economists, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, for identifying its foundations and self-renewing mechanisms. In a series of illuminating charts, the Committee described how, over the past two centuries, the world economy has defied its earlier stagnation, achieving growth that not only endured but also remained exceptionally stable. This was built upon innovation and progress.

The recognition resonates with today’s context of low global growth and surging expectations from the next wave of productivity driven by Artificial Intelligence. The laureates’ research, combining history and neoclassical economics while encompassing culture, institutions, politics, and the dynamic conflict between opposing forces, finds universal relevance — whether in advanced economies facing long-term productivity decline, such as the United Kingdom and Europe — the base of Mokyr’s meticulous book, A Culture of Growth (2016) — or those aspiring to rapidly climb up the ladder like India.

Mokyr traced the cultural shift in mid-17th-century Europe towards valuing new ideas and intellectual progress supported by institutions that enabled their spread and by the fusion of scientific knowledge with practical engineering (for example, the Royal Society in Britain). Political trust in creativity and change — exemplified by the British Parliament’s ability to manage entrenched elites — facilitated this transformation. These “prerequisites” led to subsequent discoveries and inventions, beginning with the Industrial Revolution and the self-reinforcing spiral of growth thereafter. Open societies that embraced change, Mokyr showed, explained Europe’s industrial lead over Asia as well as Britain’s enduring growth and China’s lag, where creative ideas were constrained.

Aghion-Howitt validated ‘creative destruction’ as the foundation of economic growth, formalisng its dynamics in 1992. Their model described the constant replacement of old processes, products, and technologies by new ones, creating conflict between opposing forces. Old firms must either adapt or perish, which involves spending on innovation and research and development to survive. When competition is weak, incumbents can survive by excluding new entrants and ideas because markets are protected and social, political, or commercial incentives align to preserve the status quo. Like Mokyr’s historical analysis, Aghion and Howitt linked innovation-driven growth to incentives and market structures.

Creative destruction is by nature ruthless, ubiquitous, yet often clearer in hindsight. Although the canvas is lengthy and vast, the technological advancements of the 1990s, particularly in information and communications,vividly demonstrate its unfolding in recent times.

With its culture of risk-taking and enterprise, supported by government beliefs and an enabling ecosystem, the United States of America occupies the world’s technology frontier, beginning with the internet boom, a wave of tech firms-led innovations in e-commerce, cloud computing, streaming services, electronics and computer software, social media, electric vehicles, GPU design and manufacturing, and AI. Many older firms and business models collapsed in this process: Amazon and other online marketplaces displaced brick-and-mortar retail; Netflix rendered video rental and cable TV firms obsolete; fintech and mobile banking squeezed traditional banks; and digital platforms disrupted print media. Markets, business models, and jobs were reshaped through the integration of these technologies even as concentration in the tech sector rose and, with it, unemployment and inequality, highlighting the role of policies.

Though not an inventor, India experienced similar transitions from fixed to mobile phones, terrestrial to satellite television, physical to online commerce, and postal to courier services. Each shift compelled adaptation, technology uptake, and the creation of new firms, while many others, often public entities, ceased to exist or linger with government support. The computerisation and telecom revolution spearheaded by the government in the mid-1980s laid the early groundwork, while India’s specific skill advantages facilitated the use of these technologies, transforming work processes across the economy.

None of this was painless. Jobs were lost, transformed, and often fewer. Nor was it free of resistance — banking and worker unions opposed computerisation and automation; entrenched interests lobbied against change. The ongoing tussle between established and new firms displays this underlying churn. For example, in the transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, there are frequent reports of lobbying against policies, subsidies, norms and so on that might benefit new entrants.

Perhaps the most visible illustration of creative destruction in daily life is retail trade where frictions between physical and online stores and their quick-commerce variants are constant. The outcomes are discernible: improved service and home delivery by small stores; tighter cash-flow and stock management through direct manufacturer connections; the displacement of traditional trade by modern business models; new investments in logistics, warehouses, and distribution centres; and the transformation of shop assistants into delivery agents. Many small retailers have expanded market reach, connecting to distant customers and reshaping markets, while consumers benefit from greater choice and convenience.

Economic efficiency clearly rises with such changes. Yet productivity growth, that which cannot be explained by additions to the workforce and capital stock addition, is a long-term phenomenon that is not immediately visible. Policies and incentives can also blunt its effects. For instance, raised or selective tariffs, the absence of a level playing field, discretionary regulation favouring a few, the forced exits of foreign entities with adverse decisions or rulings, and barriers to competition imposed by powerful domestic firms can be counterproductive. These suggest a half-hearted tolerance for creative destruction.

Finally, resistance to modernisation can deter or stall creative destruction when compensatory measures or safety nets are absent, especially when vulnerable groups stand to lose — the reversal of agricultural market reforms in 2020 is an example. In a post-award interview, Aghion highlighted the importance of inclusive innovation, ensuring that the benefits of innovation-driven growth are broadly shared rather than captured by top earners. A dynamic economy, he explained, must combine flexible labour markets and social security with good education and low barriers to facilitate new firm entry. The guidance is as relevant for India as for the US.

Renu Kohli is Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress.

Source: The Telegraph, 28/10/25

How cloud seeding works, and the idea behind combating air pollution with it

What conditions are needed for cloud seeding, and why have earlier proposals for it come under criticism? We explain.

At around 3 pm on Tuesday (October 28), a small aircraft known as the Cessna 206H conducted a cloud seeding trial in Delhi amid the recent spike in air pollution. The aircraft took off from an airstrip at IIT-Kanpur and landed in Meerut. It then flew over Delhi and covered areas including Burari, Mayur Vihar, and north Karol Bagh for the experiment.

Delhi Environment Manjinder Singh Sirsa said in a video posted on X that this was likely the first major attempt in India to reduce pollution “scientifically” in this manner. He said light rains were expected within four hours of the experiment. If successful, and if weather conditions permit it, similar experiments will continue in Delhi throughout the winter season, till February.

What is cloud seeding?

A 2024 document by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, defined it as a technique “used to modify suitable clouds with ‘seed’ particles to increase rainfall.” Globally, it was first tested in the 1940s. Generally, water vapour condenses around small particles in the air to form the droplets that make up a cloud. These droplets collide and grow; as they get heavy and the cloud gets saturated, it rains. the seed particles are “cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), a particle on which water vapour condensates” or “ice nuclei particles, a particle on which water freezes”, the 2024 document said. CCNs have an affinity for water vapour to form cloud droplets or ice particles, respectively. Ice crystals grow faster than drops, and they enlarge and fall.

But how is cloud seeding carried out?

To induce rain artificially, clouds are usually injected with salts like silver iodide, potassium iodide, or sodium chloride, which is the ‘seed’. These salts are expected to provide additional nuclei around which more cloud droplets can form. They are dispersed into the cloud either using aircraft or through generators on the ground.

The IITM noted that rockets, drones or flares can be used for dispersal. In Delhi’s case, flares were deployed, which are pyrotechnic material and burning agent compressed inside a tube and attached to the wings of an aircraft. These flares dispense the seeding material into the clouds.

What conditions are required for cloud seeding?

Firstly, cloud cover and clouds of a certain type are necessary. M Rajeevan, former secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, earlier told The Indian Express, “Cloud seeding can only happen if there is a sufficient number of clouds and a particular depth to these clouds. Inside, there needs to be an adequate number of cloud droplets. Cloud seeding is done to increase the radius of the cloud droplets so that they will grow bigger and because of gravity, they will come down as rainfall. But with a clear sky, you can’t do it.”

In winter, clouds form over Delhi when a western disturbance moves over the region. These are storms that originate in the Caspian or Mediterranean Sea and bring non-monsoonal rainfall to northwest India.

However, they may be inadequate for the purposes of cloud seeding. Sachchida Nand Tripathi, Professor at IIT Kanpur, had said, “In winter, you don’t see the kind of clouds that are needed for seeding, but western disturbances are the way through which clouds form. Even if clouds are there, you need to see what their height is, what their liquid water content is.” Several monitoring tools are being used to understand cloud characteristics, including their moisture content.

Finally, what is the rationale for using cloud seeding to improve air quality?

In India, cloud seeding has mostly been tried to deal with drought-like conditions, with varying results. The IITM document mentioned experiments conducted over 100 km inland from the west coast of India over many years (Murthy et al., 2000). They found that certain conditions produced an increase in rainfall of 24% at 4% level.

Generally, rain ends up washing away some pollutants, such as PM 2.5 and PM 10. An earlier article from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explained the process thus: “As a raindrop falls through the atmosphere, it can attract tens to hundreds of tiny aerosol particles to its surface before hitting the ground. The process by which droplets and aerosols attract is coagulation, a natural phenomenon that can act to clear the air of pollutants like soot, sulfates, and organic particles.”

Gufran Beig, founder project director of the government’s System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), earlier said, “There should be a significant amount of rain so it washes away pollutants. It will only be temporary, but if at all it is successful, it will break the flow of pollutants.”

Apart from concerns about the efficacy, doubts have been cast over the strategy to target the effect rather than the cause of air pollution — vehicular pollution, industrial emissions, and dust around the year, with stubble burning, weather conditions and fireworks during the winter months worsening the situation in areas in and around Delhi.

Source: Indian Express, 28/10/25

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Friday, October 31, 2025

Vol. 60, Issue No. 42, 18 Oct, 2025