QUIZ – 2016: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 11 November 2016

Solution: d.

“As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepare to discuss the conclusion of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement after their talks on Friday, all eyes will be on whether India will accept a “nullification” or “termination” clause. The deal, which will open up access for India to cutting edge nuclear energy technology, reactors and critical parts, has been held up for years over the clause, which stipulates that it would be cancelled if India were to conduct a nuclear test.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indiajapan-nuclear-deal-will-india-accept-a-nullification-clause/article9330228.ece

Solution: b.

The SYL is meant to redirect some of River Satluj’s waters to the Yamuna canal, hence the name SYL.. “The creation of Haryana from the old (undivided) Punjab in 1966 threw up the problem of giving Haryana its share of river waters… To enable Haryana to use its share of the waters of the Sutlej and its tributary Beas, a canal linking the Sutlej with the Yamuna, cutting across the state, was planned.”

http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/punjab-sutlej-yamuna-canal-link-haryana-4368049/

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Solution: a.

“The policy of NFU came into being soon after India tested nuclear weapons in May 1998 under the prime ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the first NDA government. The NFU policy committed to only by India and China among the nuclear weapon states has been the corner stone of India’s nuclear doctrine.”

Primary Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/parrikar-feels-nuclear-policy-has-to-be-unpredictable/article9331295.ece

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

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Solution: c.

• The move does not stem the flow of unaccounted income in the future. A new black money economy will very likely surface with the new notes.
• Black money can be held also in the form of 50 and 100 rupee notes and other lower denominations, not only 500 and 1000. Thus this move will not bring all black money under the government/bank’s radar.
• Statement 3 is correct. “The very fact of property firms, lesser builders and jewellers being highly visible and small in number makes it that much easier for the long arm of the law to control them. For this to take place though, action by the tax authorities alone will not suffice. It would require the Central government to step in and legislate that all transactions in gold and property go through banks. There could be hue and cry following this of course, but you can’t govern crime by being sensitive to the grief of criminals.”

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/demonetisation-the-new-colour-of-money/article9330318.ece

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Solution: b.

Question being repeated. India hosted COP 8.

http://unfccc.int/bodies/body/6383.php

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Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/making-climate-rules-at-marrakech/article9330342.ece

Solution: b.

• In the spring of 1967 a land dispute broke out in Naxalbari, in the Darjeeling district. There was a history of land scarcity, and of conflicts over land – with plantation workers seeking plots of their own, and indigenous sharecroppers seeking relief from usurious landlords.
• In the Naxalbari area, the rural poor were mobilized by a krishak samiti (peasants’ organization) owing allegiance to the CPM. Its leader was a middle-class radical named Kanu Sanyal, whose rejection of his social milieu in favour of work in the villages had won him a considerable following.
• From late March 1967 the samiti organized a series of demonstrations against land- lords who had evicted tenants and/or hoarded grain. These protests became more militant, leading to skirmishes with the police, which turned violent. The peasant leaders decided to take to arms, and soon landlords were being beheaded.
• Naxalbari quickly came to enjoy an iconic status among Indian revolu- tionaries. The village gave its name to the region and, in time, to anyone anywhere who would use arms to fight the Indian state on behalf of the op- pressed and disinherited.
• While the first sparks of revolution were being lit in Naxalbari, another group of Maoists were preparing for action in Andhra Pradesh (Telangana region and Srikakulam district, bordering Odisha).

Chapter 19, ‘Leftward Turns’, India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha;

Improvisation: The Forgotten War

Solution: d.

A mains-oriented question. Statement 2 is a view which Maoist sympathisers would possibly reject, but as civil services aspirants, it is a view that is acceptable.

• Between the first phase of Naxalism (1967 to 1972) and today’s Maoist movement, vast changes have occurred in the taxonomy of Naxalism. Till the turn of the century, the movement retained at least some of its original ideological underpinnings and intellectual effervescence.
• Today, it has metamorphosed into a highly rigid and militaristic movement, more intent on terrorising segments of population than on supporting people’s causes.
• It maintains its own small arms factories where it fashions much of its weaponry. It has a well-established arms trail to obtain state-of-the-art weapons from sources outside the country.
• It is extremely adept in the use of IEDs, and in resorting to unconventional methods to deploy them. This had led to large-scale security force casualties (in 2010 in an IED explosion in Dantewada, 76 CRPF personnel were killed).
• Over the past decade, the Maoists seemed to have had the better of the exchanges with security forces/civilians in terms of casualties — averaging a ratio of three security forces/civilians killed for every Naxalite. The jury is still out whether — in part at least — this transformation is a reaction to a shift in tactics on the part of the administration of employing a combination of counter-terrorist and counter-insurgency techniques.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/maoists-turmoil-in-india-the-forgotten-war/article9330325.ece

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