A record 5 crore claims have been settled so far in the fiscal year (FY) 2024–2025, according to a statement released by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) on Thursday.

This is the most claims that a government agency has ever settled. The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has crossed the 5-crore claims settlement mark in the fiscal year 2024–2025, according to Labor Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, who made the announcement on Thursday.

The retirement fund authority has processed more than 5.08 million claims totaling Rs 2,05,932.49 crore in the current FY25. The 4.45 lakh claims totaling Rs 1,82,838.28 crore that were resolved in the most recent fiscal year 2023–2024 are far less than this.

Mandaviya emphasized that this outstanding number was made possible by a number of revolutionary reforms that EPFO started. The modifications improved the procedures for settling claims and decreased member complaints.

“We have taken important steps, such as raising the cap and categories of auto-settled claims, making member profile modifications easier, streamlining PF transfers, and raising KYC compliance rates. The effectiveness of EPFO has greatly increased as a result of these adjustments,” the minister said.

The auto-claim settlement mechanism, which guarantees that claims be settled within three days of submission, has been a key facilitator of quicker claim processing. “In FY 2024–2025, 5.08 crore claims were resolved, and Rs 2.05 lakh crore was paid out in total. 4.45 crore claims were resolved and Rs 1.82 lakh crore was paid in the most recent fiscal year“, EPFO said.

The EPFO is settling record claims in the current fiscal year due to the process’s simplicity and adoption of reforms. EPFO has expanded the scope and scope of automatic claim settlement. Three days are allotted for payment under automatic claim settlement. Compared to 89.52 lakh in the previous fiscal year, the number of such claims has doubled to 1.87 crore this year.

In addition, members now have the option to self-correct their profiles thanks to the EPFO. Additionally, the Provident Fund (PF) transfer procedure has been simplified and now requires less employer permission.

Due to the streamlining of the PF transfer procedure, 48% of claims are now submitted straight to the EPFO without the employer’s consent. A mechanism that operates automatically handles 44% of PF transfers. Only 8% of the time is the employer’s consent needed.

The EPFO allows its members to self-correct their profiles; 97.18 percent of connections are accepted by the member voluntarily. Permission from the employer is only needed in 1% of cases. In just 0.4% of situations, the EPFO officials’ approval is necessary.

The EPFO reports that the number of rejected claims has drastically decreased, with only 0.21% of claims currently being denied.

Lata Mangeshkar, India’s nightingale, composed many classic tunes. Three years have passed since the singer departed for paradise on February 6. Ramkripal Namdev, an artist from Jabalpur, celebrated Lata Mangeshkar’s illustrious journey by painting a variety of moments from her life.

He assembled about 1436 pictures of the singer to make a stunning painting. Additionally, this picture is listed in the Limca Book of Records. Furthermore, the picture has been included in both the India Book of Records and the Asia Book.

According to Ramkripal Namdev, he used to enjoy Lata Mangeshkar’s music and thought her voice was so lovely that it inspired him to paint her.

Additionally, Ramkripal Namdev stated that he brought one of his paintings to Lata Mangeshkar. He was unable to meet the singer, but he used her secretary to send her his painting. Lata Mangeshkar was persuaded by the artist that signing the painting would be a very kind gesture, but she declined, claiming that the artwork was so exquisite that signing it would take away from its beauty. Afterwards, the singer eventually signed the painting after Ramkripal Namdev gave it to him.

Despite being a novice painter, Ramkripal Namdev created the painting. He called it life’s greatest accomplishment. The artist added that Lata Mangeshkar’s paintings have been exhibited in a number of the nation’s largest cities as part of their “Chitra Latika” series. These include the Ravi Shankar Rawal Art Bhavan in Ahmedabad, the Hiralal Rai Art Vivika in Jabalpur, the Lalit Kala Akademi in Delhi, the Jamini Roy Art Gallery in Kolkata, the Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai, and the Pu L Deshpande Art Gallery.

The Indian playback singer and sporadic music composer Lata Mangeshkar (born Hema Mangeshkar; 28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was born. She is regarded as one of the Indian subcontinent’s greatest and most significant vocalists. Over the course of an eight-decade career, she earned honorific names like “Queen of Melody,” “Nightingale of India,” and “Voice of the Millennium” for her contributions to the Indian music business.

Mostly in Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi, Mangeshkar recorded songs in more than 36 Indian languages as well as a few international languages. Beginning her career in 1942, Lata Mangeshkar recorded up to 50,000 songs in 14 different languages during the course of her career. She achieved the Guinness World Record by recording 30,000 songs in the 1960s.

Honours
Padma Bhushan (1969)
Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1989)
Maharashtra Bhushan (1997)
Padma Vibhushan (1999)
Bharat Ratna (2001)
Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour (2006)

Ramkripal Namdev is a remarkable artist with a distinct painting technique. This artist from Jabalpur has drawn Gandhiji and Lataji in a very unique way, and three renowned recording institutes have recognized his name. He has been awarded diplomas and recognized for his exceptional accomplishment by the Asia Book of Records, India Book of Records, and Limca Book of Records. His eleventh solo exhibition is this one. He has previously participated in solo and group exhibits in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Jabalpur.

Paintings from the “Chitralatika” series about the life of the late Lata Mangeshkar ji, Bharat Ratna.
by Ramkripal Namdeo, artist and record holder for Asia Book, India Book, and Limca Book

Google is using its second-generation AI models to update its Gemini AI chatbot. An experimental version of the flagship Gemini 2.0 Pro model is being made available to Gemini Advanced customers as part of the upgrade, while the Gemini 2.0 Flash model is now accessible to all users.

The Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite model, which Google says is its most economical AI model to date, has also been unveiled. Additionally, the Gemini app will now feature Google’s experimental Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking mode. This mode, which was first available in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI in December of last year, provides better reasoning skills than the Gemini 2.0 Flash model.

Google has said that the revised Gemini 2.0 AI will be widely accessible to everyone as the competition to develop new and improved AI models intensifies. With Gemini 2.0 Flash, developers can now create production applications.

Additionally, the business is launching an experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Pro, which is its greatest model to date in terms of sophisticated prompts and coding performance. It is accessible through Vertex AI, Google AI Studio, and the Gemini app for Gemini Advanced users.

Our most economical model to date, Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, is being made available to the public in preview form in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI. Lastly, users of the Gemini app will be able to access 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental through the desktop and mobile model dropdown, Koray Kavukcuoglu, CTO, Google DeepMind, announced on behalf of the Gemini team.

Google stated that it will keep making investments in strong safeguards that allow for safe and secure use as the Gemini model family grows in capability.

“We’re also using automated red teaming to evaluate safety and security threats, such as those from indirect prompt injection, a kind of cyberattack where hackers conceal malicious instructions in data that an AI system is likely to retrieve,” the company stated.

Multimodal input with text output will be available in all of these models at release, and additional modalities will be prepared for widespread use in the upcoming months.

With superior comprehension and reasoning of global information, the experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Pro exhibits the best coding performance and the capacity to manage challenging prompts.

The business said that it has the capacity to call tools like Google Search and execute code, and that it has our largest context window at 2 million tokens, which allows it to thoroughly study and comprehend enormous volumes of data.

Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite
The most economical Gemini model to date is Google’s new 2.0 Flash-Lite variant. Similar to the 2.0 Flash model, it supports multimodal input and has a context window with one million tokens, but it still has the same speed and cost as the 1.5 Flash model. The public can now preview Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite using Vertex AI and Google AI Studio.

2.0 The Gemini app’s Flash Thinking Experimental
The Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental mode will be added by Google to the Gemini app and will be accessible through the desktop and mobile model dropdown menus. This mode, which was formerly exclusive to Google AI Studio and Vertex AI, aims to improve reasoning by clearly illustrating its mental process.

Millions of people were unable to access ChatGPT, one of OpenAI’s most well-known artificial intelligence (AI) applications, due to a worldwide outage on Thursday.

On Thursday, a large number of irate users complained that ChatGPT was not functioning for them on the social media site X. Reports from several nations suggest that the problem is widespread, as evidenced by the complaints.

The outage has impacted thousands of customers, according to Downdetector, a platform that monitors internet disruptions. Early this morning, ChatGPT outage reports suddenly increased, according to the website’s data, and the number keeps growing as more users experience problems.

While some users claim the AI is not responding to commands at all, others are having trouble logging in. The outage is based on user-submitted complaints, as confirmed by Downdetector’s heat map, a technique that employs color to depict data values.

Almost 90% of users have complained about troubles with the ChatGPT app, and some users are also having trouble with the website. Regarding the cause and scope of the outage, OpenAI has not yet released an official statement.

Meanwhile, X is being inundated with remarks and memes about the matter from irate users.

A user jokingly stated, “Today, I lost access to ChatGPT for 20 minutes, and it felt like it was 2015 and Google Search had gone offline for a couple of hours.” “Everyone coming to X to confirm chatgpt down” was added by another user along with a meme. “ChatGPT down once more? “Shocked, but not shocked!” a user exclaimed.

According to another X user, “Chatgpt is always down in the middle of doing my assignment.” “Watching everyone freak out when Chatgpt is down and they have to use their brains we truly r doomed,” One user commented.

ChatGPT remained unavailable until this report was filed. Meanwhile, ChatGPT has experienced technical difficulties before, like the outage that occurred today.

A similar worldwide outage occurred on January 23 of last year, blocking users from accessing the AI chatbot on the web and the app. Over a thousand user complaints were reported by Downdetector during that downtime, and many irate customers took to X to voice their worries about the issue.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will travel to India for the second time on 5th Feb’25. Altman will attend a business conference in New Delhi and meet with government officials on this trip. Altman’s arrival to handle several significant challenges for OpenAI puts the company in a precarious position.

Because OpenAI trained its AI systems using ANI’s content without the required authorization or payment, the American company is currently in legal hot water with the Indian news organization. OpenAI denied Indian court jurisdiction in this case and stated that their data comes from publicly available sources.

Sam Altman stated, “India is the company’s second-largest worldwide market and a crucial market for artificial intelligence (AI) as the country starts an exciting AI journey.”

At an event, the proprietor of ChatGPT AI models was speaking in front of Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Union Minister for Railways, Electronics, and IT.

India should dominate the AI model race, according to Altman, who recently launched a large $500 billion project called “Stargate” that will construct new AI infrastructure in the US over the next four years in collaboration with SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX.

India is a crucial market for artificial intelligence. Our second-largest market is this one. Although models are still expensive, they are feasible. Naturally, India ought to be a leader there,” he said the audience.

Additionally, he explained that his previous statement regarding India’s capacity to create large language models (LLMs) was “taken out of context.”

Young entrepreneurs in the nation are reportedly very interested in obtaining the next level of innovation that will lower costs, along the lines of “we did the Chandrayaan mission, why can’t we do the same in the LLM space,” said Minister Vaishnaw.

According to the minister’s announcement last month, the nation is expected to introduce its own safe and secure domestic AI model at a reasonable price within six months.

In the future, India will become a more dependable technical powerhouse with ethical AI solutions thanks to the Indian AI model. The IndiaAI goal is now closer to adapting native AI solutions for the domestic environment using Indian languages, supported by a state-of-the-art shared computing infrastructure.

The Union Minister expressed anticipation that the Indian AI model will likely be available within six months, considering the rate at which scientists, researchers, developers, and programmers are working on several foundational models in this area.

The AI model starts with a computing capacity of about 10,000 GPUs. The final 8693 GPUs will be added shortly. Researchers, students, and developers will initially gain a lot from it. After subsidizing 40% of the cost, the government has chosen to make it available to people for less than Rs 100 per GPU.

After a 40% government subsidy, India’s AI model will cost less than Rs 100 per hour, compared to international models that cost between $2.5 and $3 per hour to use. It is around two-thirds of what ChatGPT has and nine times more than China’s DeepSeek, an open-source model.

Altman encounters a number of challenges throughout his tour. The legal dispute with ANI and the rivalry from DeepSeek in the market provide two major challenges for OpenAI.

Because his prior skepticism over the construction of powerful AI models outside of the United States continues to affect his interactions with Indian stakeholders, Altman has encountered further difficulties.

India defeated South Africa by nine wickets to win the ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup 2025, with Trisha Gongadi taking center stage with bat and ball. At the Bayuemas Oval in Kuala Lumpur, Trisha, who finished as the tournament’s top run scorer, bowled South Africa out for 82 with 3/15. After that, she scored 44 not out to lead the run-chase and lead India to victory and a successful 2023 trophy defence.

After guiding India to victory in the 2025 U19 Women’s T20 World Cup at the Bayuemas Oval, captain Niki Prasad said the team lived up to their promise of dominating the competition, retaining their title with an undefeated record.

South Africa were unable to score quickly enough in their innings and lost frequent wickets as India’s spin bowlers took control, but this event marks good progress from the first competition two years ago, where they failed to move beyond the Super Six stage.

South Africa won the toss and decided to bat first in dry circumstances in a match between the tournament’s two undefeated teams, immediately positioning their top player, Jemma Botha, in the middle. The opener’s innings was always going to be vital to their chances of defeating India, and she hit 37 off 24 balls in the semi-final match against Australia, a knock that proved essential to winning.

Parunika Sisodia clean bowled Simone Lourens at the end of the second over with an angled delivery that nipped back into middle and leg stump, giving India a response. A string of first-over boundaries, including a one-bounce four down the ground, was a great way to get things started. The defending champions needed a nerve-setter, but Botha was the crucial wicket, and it was always going to take something exceptional to take it.

Botha tried a heave into the leg side in an attempt to mimic a Shabnam Shakil delivery. Instead, wicket-keeper Kamalini G lunged, extending to her right, and grabbed onto a fantastic one-handed catch, giving her a heavy edge and causing her to glance back in dismay. South Africa’s innings lost momentum as a result, and India quickly took control.

The spin spinners held South Africa to a standstill after Aayushi Shukla bowled Diara Ramlakan the very next delivery. The slow, spin-friendly pitch made it nearly impossible to find boundaries, and South Africa managed just 13 runs between the fourth and tenth overs. Despite absorbing the pressure, wicketkeeper Karabo Meso and captain Kayla Reyneke fell in consecutive overs while trying to make big strokes.

When she was stumped off a well-flighted Trisha delivery, South Africa lost steam, despite Mieke van Voorst’s late-game explosion of an 18-ball 23, which included three fours. Another wave of wickets followed, leaving South Africa all out for 82. The best bowlers were Trisha (3-15), Sisodia (2-6), and Shukla (2-9) and the tournament’s top wicket-taker Vaishnavi Sharma (2-23) all contributed.

South Africa came very near to taking the crucial wicket in the opening over because they knew they had to knock India out to win the title. Nthabiseng Nini took the new ball and found Trisha’s outside edge, but the ball sped to the boundary and was painfully just out of wicket-keeper Meso’s reach.

In the second over, Trisha toyed with danger by hitting a cover drive on the up that narrowly missed the defender. Then, to add insult to injury, he smashed another ball over the infield for a one-bounce four. The opener proceeded to score at her tournament-average strike rate of 149.7, adding three more fours in the fourth over.

Soon after, Kamalini (8) was brilliantly taken in the deep by Lourens, giving South Africa their first wicket. However, Trisha kept up her aggressive play, hitting eight boundaries in her innings and becoming the first player to reach 300 runs in a single tournament edition with a single in the ninth over.

In the 12th over, Sanika Chalke hit the winning runs with a four to the square leg boundary, igniting wild celebrations in the Indian side. Chalke also smashed four boundaries in a breezy 26 not out to support Trisha.

“I believe we all made an effort to remain composed and grounded. We simply continued to perform our duties. We could have chosen batting as well if we had won the toss. However, we simply wanted to get out there and get the job done. Our support staff deserves all the praise for fostering the children and making this possible. We have the best facilities thanks to BCCI.Being here and ensuring that India maintains its leadership position makes me very delighted. Playing in the World Cup and doing this for India is a unique opportunity. I stated at the beginning of the tournament that our goal was to dominate and keep India at the top. We will undoubtedly leave a legacy of ICC victory trophies and winning a lot of trophies for India,” said Niki after the match ended.

“I want to thank my support personnel and team. I use my strengths when I bowl. Today, I did the same thing. In this game, we simply continued doing what we had done in the previous games. Mithali di is someone I admire. I adore her. After the final concluded, Trisha Gongadi remarked, “I hope even the upcoming World Cups come to India.”

Scores in Brief

South Africa v India – Bayuemas Oval, Kuala Lumpur
South Africa 82 all out in 20 overs (Mieke van Voorst 23, Jemma Botha 16; Gongadi Trisha 3/15, Parunika Sisodia 2/6)
India 84 for one in 11.2 overs (Gongadi Trisha 44 not out, Sanika Chalke 26 not out; Kayla Reyneke 1/14)
Result: India won by nine wickets

World Cancer Day is observed annually on February 4th to increase awareness of the disease. Central government under Narendra Modi was introduced the Ayushman Bharat policy in 2018, is turning out to be a game-changing effort.

This is primarily observed to increase awareness of cancer, promote early identification, prevention, and treatment for a large number of people in the nation and around the world, and lower the number of cancer-related deaths.

Launched on September 23, 2018, the Indian government’s nationwide public health insurance program, Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), intends to give low-income workers in the nation free access to health insurance coverage. This program is available to the poorest 50% of the population.

Later on, it was broadened to encompass all elderly residents over 70, irrespective of their financial situation. The program guarantees that even the most impoverished residents can obtain life-saving medical treatment by lowering the cost of healthcare.

On World Cancer Day, Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi, who most recently starred in the streaming series “Showtime,” has a message for the Indian populace.

“My son Ayaan’s cancer diagnosis completely upended our world, but thanks to his strength and the amazing support we received, we learned how important early detection and prompt treatment are in this battle,” he added. He then praised government programs like PMJAY and Ayushman Bharat.

Tahira Kashyap, a filmmaker, writer, and cancer advocate, praised the Ayushman Bharat and Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) program for enabling treatment for a large number of people, irrespective of their financial situation.

“On World Cancer Day, I want to commend the Ayushman Bharat and PMJ Initiative for making timely cancer treatment accessible to so many regardless of their financial background,” said Tahira, who received a cancer diagnosis in 2018 at the age of 35.

“Cancer is a journey that truly tests your strength, resilience, and faith,” she continued. However, survival depends on early diagnosis and reasonably priced treatment, and millions of people can now look forward to a better future because of such government programs. Together, we can defeat cancer, therefore let’s keep encouraging one another and spreading knowledge on early breast cancer detection.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made history when She announced the Budget 2025, promising that anyone making up to Rs 12 lakh a year, including regular deductions (totaling Rs 12.75 lakh), would not be subject to income tax.

By announcing an increase in tax rebates in Budget 2025, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman provided a significant boost to the nation’s struggling middle class. Under the new tax system, the previous income tax refund cap was Rs 7 lakh.

Up to Rs 12.75 lakh of individual income will be tax-free when the standard deduction of Rs 75,000 is taken into account. But only income from salaries is covered by this; income from other sources, such capital gains, is still subject to taxes.

Under the new tax regime, the income tax exemption limit increased from Rs 7 lakh annually to Rs 12 annually, which is the largest increase since the UPA era in 2005. The income tax exemption limit was Rs 1 lakh in 2005 under the UPA government, and it took seven years for the Manmohan Singh administration to double it to Rs 2 lakh in 2012.

PM Modi raised the income tax exemption ceiling by 25% to Rs 2.5 lakh in 2014 in response to the middle-class, salaried taxpayers’ long-standing demand.

In an effort to meet the demands of India’s youthful, ambitious workforce, the Modi administration implemented a simpler new tax system in FY 2020–21 that offered taxpayers reduced tax rates without any common deductions or exemptions.

In a post on X, Union Home Minister Amit Shah praised the significant increase in the income tax exemption limit that was revealed in the Union Budget 2025–2026 and stated, “PM Modi always has the middle class in mind.”

There is no income tax up to Rs 12 lakh. The middle class’s financial well-being will be greatly improved by the proposed tax exemption. On this occasion, congratulations to all the beneficiaries.

About 1.5 crore people with incomes between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 12 lakh would benefit from the change since they would no longer be required to pay taxes on their salaried income. It is important to remember that the government has raised the tax refund cap rather than the fundamental exemption.

For taxpayers, the income threshold for a refund under Section 87A has been raised from Rs 7 lakh to Rs 12 lakh. The reimbursement amount under clause (a) of Section 87A’s first proviso has also been increased from Rs 25,000 to Rs 60,000.

You would therefore be required to pay taxes in accordance with the tax slabs if your salaried income exceeds Rs 12 lakh (or Rs 12.75 lakh when the standard deduction is taken into account).

Here are the Revised Tax slabs:

Income Range (Rs)                                                             Tax Rate

Upto Rs 4 Lakh                                                              No Tax
Rs 4 Lakh –  Rs 8Lakh                                                      5%
Rs 8 Lakh – Rs 12 Lakh                                                   10%
Rs 12Lakh – Rs 16 Lakh                                                   15%
Rs 16 Lakh – Rs 20 Lakh                                                 20%
Rs 20 Lakh – Rs 24 Lakh                                                25%
Above Rs 24 Lakh                                                           30%