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.
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Karnataka legislative session to focus on leadership row, farmers’ issues, flood relief
Belagavi (PTI): The 10-day winter session of the Karnataka Legislature, starting December 8 here, is expected to focus on the Congress leadership tussle, farmers’ grievances, and flood relief.
The unified opposition of the BJP and JD(S) has drawn up a strategy to corner the ruling Congress on multiple issues.
BJP leaders have announced plans to move a no-confidence motion following the leadership row between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar.
Siddaramaiah has asserted that he will complete the full five-year term, while Shivakumar has claimed he was promised the chief ministership midway through the Congress government’s tenure.
The power tussle intensified after the government completed two-and-a-half years on November 20.
Following a war of words on social media, the two leaders later presented a united front through ‘breakfast diplomacy’. However, the fight is far from over, as the party's high command held a meeting in New Delhi on Saturday to discuss the issue in detail.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal told reporters in Delhi on Saturday that the party had discussed Karnataka and that further meetings are expected. Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil said on Thursday that the government has not received any notice of a no-confidence motion from the opposition.
Farmers’ protests have given the opposition additional ammunition to target the government.
About a month ago, sugarcane growers staged an unprecedented strike, blocking roads to demand Rs 3,500 per tonne against the state government’s offer of Rs 3,200 per tonne.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah sought the Centre’s intervention, citing flaws in the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP), which remains frozen at Rs 31 per kilogram, leaving mills unable to pay farmers.
He urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revise the sugar MSP, ensure mills can pay farmers, provide assured ethanol offtake for Karnataka distilleries, and issue a central notification for handling and transportation costs to enable transparent, farmer-friendly pricing.
To calm the agitating farmers, the state government offered an additional Rs 100 per tonne, shared equally by the state and mills, raising the net cane price to Rs 3,200-3,300 per tonne.
After the sugarcane strike, maize growers have also protested, demanding procurement at Rs 3,000 per quintal.
The current MSP is Rs 2,400 per quintal, and farmers are seeking a Rs 600 bonus. Ahead of the session, the state government announced increasing maize procurement from 20 quintals per farmer to 50 quintals at Rs 2,400 per quintal.
The session will also see the tabling of 21 bills, including measures to check hate speech and hatred crimes, a law against misinformation, the Daily Wage Employees Welfare (Amendment) Bill, and the Karnataka Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill.
Other key bills include the Karnataka Scheduled Castes (Sub-Categorisation in Reservation) Bill, the Karnataka Domestic Workers (Social Security and Welfare) (Amendment) Bill, and the Karnataka Apartment Ownership (Regulation) Bill.
Law and order issues may also come up during the session in light of recent incidents of robbery and dacoity across the state.
