QUIZ – 2016: Insights Current Affairs Quiz – 12 & 13 October, 2016

Solution: a.

“The significance of this day, the 5th November, to tsunami awareness can be traced back to the year 1854. A villager in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, was concerned about an impending tsunami after a high-intensity earthquake on November 5, 1854. He set up a fire to rice sheaves on the top of a hill. Fellow villagers, who went atop to put off the fire, were saved even as a tsunami destroyed their village down below. This was the first documented instance of a tsunami early warning.”

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151595

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Solution: b.

“They were inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) who had to flee as their land was submerged by the Kaptai dam in the 1960s. Chakmas are Buddhist, Hajongs Hindu — and they also faced religious persecution in East Pakistan. Most of those who came were Chakmas; only about 2,000 were Hajong. They entered India through what was then the Lushai Hills district of Assam (today’s Mizoram). While some stayed back with Chakmas already living in the Lushai Hills, the Indian government moved a majority of the refugees to present-day Arunachal Pradesh.”

Primary Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/why-chakmas-and-hajongs-are-indias-nowhere-people/

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Improvisation: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151588

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Solution: d.

“Scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing have found that if you feed silkworms graphene (a form of carbon consisting of sheets one atom thick arranged in a honeycomb pattern), they will produce super-strong silk.”

12^th October, ‘Explained Page’, Indian Express

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04bsn7r

Solution: a.

“In March this year, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to make public a report by the high-level Pam Rajput committee on the status of women in India — the committee has sought a ban on gender discriminatory practices propagated by personal laws. It was only this month, however, that the Ministry of Law finally filed its affidavit where it took a stand that personal laws, regardless of the fact that they are meant to preserve the plurality and diversity of the country, “must be examined in the light of the overarching goal of gender justice and dignity of women”.

http://www.gktoday.in/pam-rajput-committee-on-status-of-women-in-india/

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http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/shayara-bano-law-board-triple-talaq-supreme-court-3077695/

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Solution: c.

Both statements are correct.

• The doctrine of judicial review, expressively provided for in Article 13 of the Indian Constitution, is a power that has been conferred on the Supreme Court (Article 32) as well as the High Courts (Article 226).
• The SC in the Kesavananda Bharati case held that the Parliament is empowered to abridge or take away any of the Fundamental Rights, as long as the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution is not violated. That is, a Constitutional amendment can be challenged on the ground that it violates a fundamental right that forms a part of the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution and hence, can be declared as void.

Primary Source: Chapter 7 – Fundamental Rights and Chapter 11 – Basic Structure of the Constitution, Indian Polity 4^th edition by M. Laxmikanth

Improvisation: http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/shayara-bano-law-board-triple-talaq-supreme-court-3077695/

Solution: c.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/stop-the-saudi-war-in-yemen/article9212035.ece

Solution: c.

• Seagrasses are flowering plants that form dense underwater beds in shallow water. Distinct from seaweed, the plants provide shelter and food for a large range of animals, including fish, marine mammals and birds. Many seagrass meadows have been lost because of human activities, say researchers.
• Seagrass, which is found in shallow waters of coastal regions on every continent except Antarctica, is declining globally at a rate of about 2% a year.
• The loss of seagrass puts the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people at risk and exposes many people to increasing levels of poverty. “Seagrass loss also places the viability of our remaining populations of green turtle, dugong (next question is based on this species, also known as ‘sea cow’) and species of seahorse at risk.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37606827

Solution: c.

Dugongs survive on Seagrass. “The dugong is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas), was hunted to extinction in the 18th century. The dugong is the only strictly marine herbivorous mammal, as all species of manatee use fresh water to some degree. In India, it is found off the Gujarat Coast (Gulf of Kutch), Tamil Nadu coast (Gulf of Mannar), Palk Bay and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.”

Q69, CS(P), 2015;

Improvisation: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37606827

Solution: a.

1. The Security Council recommends a candidate for appointment to the General Assembly, an issue to be “discussed and decided at a private meeting.”
2. The Secretary-General “shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council,” traditionally through a GA resolution.

• The appointment constitutes an “important question” requiring a two-thirds voting majority.
• The Secretary General will be appointed for five years, with the option of reappointment for a further five-year-term.
• The GA resolved that “it would be desirable for the Council to proffer one candidate only…and for debate on the nomination in the General Assembly to be avoided.”

Primary Source: http://www.unelections.org/?q=node/71

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Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/antnio-guterres-as-next-un-secretarygeneral-resetting-the-moral-compass/article9212039.ece

Solution: b.

The same question was posted here a few days ago.

• After the success of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)/cooking gas, the government has now decided to launch DBT for kerosene (DBTK), starting with pilots in the State of Jharkhand.
• The biggest hurdle is the lack of a streamlined and unified digital consumer database, which formed the backbone of the robust and rapid implementation of DBT for LPG. Here, the entire database across India was managed by just three public sector oil marketing companies, which are directly under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. This enabled easier coordination for a nationwide rollout of the scheme.
• In comparison, the database of subsidised kerosene beneficiaries falls under the Public Distribution System (PDS), which is managed and maintained by each State government. Coordination among the large number of State-level actors, especially in the case of a non-digitised PDS beneficiary database, can create barriers. While e-PDS is being implemented across India, a digital PDS beneficiary database is not yet available for all the States to enable implementation of DBTK.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/towards-a-kerosenefree-india/article9212049.ece