QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 05 & 06 March 2017

Solution: a.

GDP in India is measured in two ways: by the expenditure approach or the output approach.

• In the output approach, the CSO measures economic activity and arrives at the total value of goods and services produced under eight different heads. The problem with this approach is of timely availability of data for calculating the value of goods and services.
• Ideally, the same numbers should be reached by using either of the two approaches. But getting the real picture of Private Final Consumption Expenditure (required for measuring GDP by expenditure method) is difficult — and hence, a new “Discrepancies” head inserted under the expenditure approach takes care of the difference in value reached by employing the two approaches.

IE: Demonetisation and the ‘surprise’ over high GDP numbers;

Solution: a.

The most important reason is to make shooting more appealing to millennials — young people who reached adulthood in the early 21st century, and whose support and interest all sport needs to survive. The change will also make shooting television-friendly, an aspect where it lacks sorely at present. It will also take care of the complications involved in carrying weapons and ammunition by shooters while travelling from one country to another. The bullets that the shooters use are made of lead, which gets into the atmosphere every time a shot is fired. The chemical can potentially have an adverse effect on the nervous system. Thousands of bullets are used at each shooting range every day.

IE: Star wars at the range;

Solution: d.

• The GST levy may go up to 40% after the GST Council proposed raising the peak rate in the Bill to 20%, from the current 14%, to obviate the need for approaching Parliament for any change in rates in future.
• The model Goods and Services Tax Bill will replace the clause which states the tax rate “not exceeding 14%, with “not exceeding 20%” when it comes up for debate in Parliament during the second phase of Budget session beginning next week.
• The change in the peak rate will not alter the 4-slab rate structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28% agreed upon last year for the moment, but is only a provision being built into the model law to take care of contingencies in future.
• The revised draft of model GST law, which was made public in November 2016, provides for a maximum rate of tax under the new regime at 14% (14% central GST and an equal state GST, taking the total to 28 %).

GST levy may go up to 40 per cent;

Solution: b.

“Womenomics, the popular term for Japan’s efforts to bring more women into the workforce, clearly does not extend to the imperial throne. Women are barred from royal succession.”

• “Womenomics” has become a well-known term in Japan since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made it one the main pillars of his government growth strategy in 2013. The point of Womenomics is to pull more women into the work force, primarily to boost the economy and make up for the decline in the nation’s working-age population, which is projected to shrink by about a third by 2060.

TH: A game of thrones rigged against women;

Solution: a.

“The mobilisation of the armed forces in Urumqi (capital of Xinjiang Autonomous Region) followed the mid-February knife-attack near Hotan, in which eight people were killed. These killings are the result of an ethnic Uighur militancy, which has been draped as an identity and power contest between the indigenous Uighurs and Han settlers of Xinjiang.”

• According to Wikipedia, “The Turkistan Islamic Party or Turkistan Islamic Movement, formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, is an Islamic extremist separatist organization founded by Uyghur militants in western China. Its stated goals are to establish an independent state called “East Turkestan” in Xinjiang.

TH: A ‘people’s war’ against terror;

Solution: b.

The first statement is provided for in the original (and at present, in force) MTP Act; with respect to this provision, the only difference is that the length of pregnancy should not exceed 20 weeks in the original MTP Act whereas in the draft MTP amendment bill, the length is 24 weeks. Statement 2 is correct.

• “Had the draft Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill of 2014 been implemented as law, this case would not have come to court at all. The Bill amends Section 3 of the principle Act of 1971 to provide that “the length of pregnancy shall not apply” in a decision to abort a foetus diagnosed with “substantial foetal abnormalities as may be prescribed”.”
• “Besides increasing the legal limit for abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks, the draft Bill allows a woman to take an independent decision in consultation with a registered health-care provider. Under the 1971 Act, even pregnant rape victims cannot abort after 20 weeks, compelling them to move court.”
• “With the 2014 Bill in limbo, the Supreme Court has agreed to look into whether a wider interpretation ought to be given to phrases like “risk to the life of the pregnant woman” and “grave injury to her physical and mental health”.”

Page 4, Draft MTP Amendment Bill, 2014;

Improvisation: TH: The right to choice;

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Solution: c.

• Only about 50% of children aged nine months to 15 years in Tamil Nadu have been vaccinated by the measles-rubella (MR) combination vaccine since the campaign was launched.
• Unless and otherwise the vaccination coverage is increased to over 90%, there is a high possibility that the State would witness more rubella infections among older age groups (pregnant women, for instance).
• This would, in turn, lead to an increase in the number of newborns with congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) — hearing impairments, eye and heart defects and brain damage — when women get infected with rubella virus during the early stages of pregnancy.
• “When the rubella childhood immunisation coverage in communities is sub-optimal, there will more number of CRS cases than before as the infection shifts to an older age group. This is called the paradoxical increase in CRS,” says Dr. Jacob John.
• “There will be fewer CRS cases initially (one-three years) after immunisation. But in four-five years, as the infection shifts to an older age group, there will be more CRS cases than before.”
• “In order to avoid this we need high coverage during both the campaign and the universal immunisation programme (UIP),” he says. There is a compulsion that the UIP becomes more efficient than before.
• Greece and Brazil witnessed the paradoxical increase in CRS due to shift of age distribution of rubella cases (due to consistently low vaccination coverage).

TH: Low MR vaccine coverage in TN a worry;

Solution: d.

Q43, CS(P);

TH: Centre dithers on Western Ghats issue;

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Solution: b.

• Tens of thousands of eggs laid by Olive Ridley sea turtles this year in Gahirmatha Sanctuary in Odisha, one of the world’s largest nesting grounds, are getting destroyed due to shrinking coastal space.
• The Odisha Forest and Environment Department estimates that 6,04,046 turtles have come to lay eggs at Nasi II island of Gahirmatha from February 22. The turtles had largely given the island a miss in 2016, with only 50,000 coming to nest.
• A female sea turtle scoops beach sand out to lay 80 to 120 eggs, but its effort is undone when a second digs at the same place to lay its own. This season, turtles are estimated to have laid close to 60 million eggs along a 1,000-metre beach of Nasi II.
• What may have prompted the record-breaking mass nesting – this too could be asked as a question in the preliminary exam. In brief, it was the formation of a sand bar at the mouth of Rushikulya river which diverted fresh water away from the sea onto the coast (north of the mouth of the river), thereby reducing salinity of water along the coast. Reduced salinity attracts more small fish and insects (this is also food for turtles). And lesser salinity means reduced corrosive effect on egg shells (Information from this article).

Th: For Olive Ridleys, it’s paradise lost;