OpenAI introduces IndQA, designed to evaluate AI systems on Indian culture, languages
Bengaluru (PTI): OpenAI on Tuesday introduced IndQA, a benchmark dataset designed to measure how well AI models understand and reason about questions on Indian culture, languages and context.
IndQA evaluates knowledge and reasoning about Indian culture and everyday life in Indian languages, it said.
According to OpenAI, IndQA includes 2,278 questions across 12 languages and 10 cultural domains, created in partnership with 261 domain experts from across India.
Unlike traditional benchmarks, IndQA's questions are natively written, not translated, reflecting the nuances of how people in India actually think, speak, and ask questions, it said.
"At OpenAI, we believe AI should be useful for all of humanity. That means AI must understand local cultures, languages, histories and contexts -- not just the Western world. India is a country of immense diversity, with many languages, traditions, and cultural nuances. For AI to be truly valuable here, it must understand that richness," Srinivas Narayanan, CTO, B2B Applications, OpenAI told reporters here.
Announcing the launch of IndQA, Narayanan said, it has been created with a curated dataset that captures India's cultural and historical context.
"This dataset helps our models understand Indian nuances more deeply. The experts also provide evaluation rubrics, so we can measure how well the AI performs on culturally grounded questions. Our goal is to take this as a playbook and use it in other countries too. We have been working with India in this way," he said.
Narayanan added that IndQA also underscores OpenAI's growing commitment to the Indian ecosystem, where local developers, educators, and creators are shaping how AI is being adopted and built for the world.
According to OpenAI, IndQA covers a broad range of culturally relevant topics, such as architecture and design, arts and culture, everyday life, food and cuisine, history, law and ethics, literature and linguistics, media and entertainment, religion and spirituality, and sports and recreation--with items written natively in Bengali, English, Hindi, Hinglish, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Punjabi.
Each datapoint includes a culturally grounded prompt in an Indian language, an English translation for auditability, rubric criteria for grading, and an ideal answer that reflects expert expectations, it added.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
'Ab kya hoga, ye rab jane...': Tharoor takes dig at failed US-Iran talks in Pakistan
 (3)_vb_24.jpeg)
New Delhi (PTI): Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday took a swipe at the "failed" US-Iran peace talks in Pakistan with an Urdu couplet, saying only god knows now what will happen.
"Ab kya hoga, ye rab jane; Na woh mane, na ye mane (only god knows what will happen now as both sides did not agree)," Tharoor said on X, tagging a post-talks video clip of US Vice President J D Vance, who led the American delegation at the negotiations in Islamabad.
The United States and Iran failed to reach a peace deal at their historic 21-hour talks in Pakistan, leaving the fate of a tenuous two-week ceasefire in doubt, with both sides attempting to hold each other responsible for the collapse of the negotiations.
अब क्या होगा, ये रब जाने
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 13, 2026
ना वो माने, ना ये माने https://t.co/DYrXpa7C8h
Vance said the Iranian side did not accept Washington's terms for ending the war even as the US presented its "final and best offer".
Hours after the talks collapsed, US President Donald Trump said on social media that the negotiations with Tehran failed as "Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions".
Trump said the US Navy will actively interdict any vessel in international waters found to have paid tolls to Iran for transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route that handles roughly 20 per cent of global oil and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas).
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of the Iranian negotiation team, said it is for the US to decide whether it can "earn our trust or not".
The Iranian foreign ministry, without elaborating, said the US side resorted to "excessive" and "illegal demands".
The failure to reach an agreement has dimmed the prospect of reopening the Strait of Hormuz to stabilise the global energy marke
