QUIZ – 2016: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 6 December 2016

Solution: b.

• ‘Universities’ and ‘Engineering Institutions’: Like any ranking system, the NIRF scheme is also open to questioning and criticism, and it certainly has its share of limitations. For example, it is quite puzzling as to how institutions with a sharp focus on narrow areas like Information Technology or Space Technology have qualified to be called “universities”, whereas many institutions with a broad base in all domains of engineering, sciences and humanities are listed as “Engineering Institutions”. Also, what is the point in giving a national rank to institutions that have barely graduated three or four batches?
• Diversity of views: Perhaps a matter of far more concern is that the entire NIRF exercise was carried out largely by members from the Central government institutions; there was not much effort made to elicit views from over 90 per cent of the institutions that belong to the State system (including those in the affiliation framework).
• Performance-per-rupee-logic: There is a suggestion in the NIRF document in the context of newly emerging private institutions, “ …to see how some of these institutions would perform on ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ on a per Rupee investment scale”. Surely the same performance-per-rupee logic must also apply while comparing Central and State university systems, both of which are public-funded?
• Caught in the vicious circle of low funding, poor performance, low ranks, lower funding, poorer performance, lower ranks, the State-level institutions are only going to be going down further in comparison with the Central and private universities. This would simply demoralise them as against motivating and encouraging them to do better, which is what a healthy ranking process should attempt.
• A ‘constructive solution’: It can however make sense if the performance index values for an institution are normalised with respect to the investments and resources that have gone into that institution.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Comparing-apples-and-oranges/article16765012.ece

—

Solution: d.

• The UNHCR runs an office in New Delhi along with certain field units too (ex: Chennai). Indian non-party to the 1951 refugee convention does not bar the UNHCR from carrying out work in India.
• The UN Refugee Convention (1951) grants certain rights to people fleeing persecution because of race, religion, nationality, affiliation to a particular social group, or political opinion. The rights they are entitled to follow principles of non-discrimination, non-penalisation, and non-refoulement. However, people migrating due to environmental disasters have no such recognition of their ‘refugee’ status in international law, leaving them without any basic rights of rehabilitation and compensation.

UNHCR: India;

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/The-nowhere-people/article16765025.ece

—

Solution: c.

Both questions based on the Senate of the Republic of France (because the Italian PM who recently resigned, did so as he sought to reduce the powers of the Senate – so that there could be greater stability and speed in decision-making – but this proposal, when put to vote, was rejected by Italians). Statement 1 related to point 3 in the infographic.

For more information related to point 4 (regarding elections to senate) of the infographic (need not be read in detail; a brief glance will suffice): Wikipedia;

Source: The Hindu;

Solution: a.

• BBC: Over the last two decades, India-Taiwan relations have progressed considerably despite not having diplomatic status to their ties. Their trade and economic contacts have improved. Taiwanese investments have been promoted in India and educational linkages have also expanded between the two. Although because of the constraints of one-China policy the two sides do not have diplomatic ties, their bilateral working relations have always generated a political context. Political leaders from both sides have intermittently visited each other. This exchange of visits, growth in trade and economic contacts and expanding educational contacts point to the upward trend in their engagement.
• China’s ‘One China’ Policy: China’s insistence that countries establishing formal diplomatic relations with it endorse a “One China” stance has been critical to Beijing’s foreign policy. The policy refers to the position that states conducting bilateral diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China (or conversely the Republic of China) acknowledge the existence of one state called “China.” Simply put, pick one: Beijing or Taipei. India, for its part, maintains formal diplomatic relations with Beijing and not Taipei, but has been hesitant to symbolically support the notion of “One China.” Normally, Beijing is highly sensitive to this issue

Source (Huge report, released early 2016;  we are just providing the link, no need to glance through it either, unless India-Taiwan relations related issue appears in the news): IDSA Report;

—

Improvisation: The Hindu;

Solution: b.

A controversial trade agreement sparked the “Sunflower Movement” in 2014 where students and activists occupied Taiwan’s parliament protesting against what they call China’s growing influence over Taiwan.

Improvisation: BBC;: