QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 01 August 2017

Solution: c.

• Regarding Statement 1: The amendment Bill seeks to remove immunity provided to whistle-blowers from prosecution under the draconian Official Secrets Act (OSA) for disclosures made under the WBP law. Offences under the OSA are punishable by imprisonment of up to 14 years. Threat of such stringent penalties would deter even genuine whistle-blowers. The basic purpose of the WBP Act is to encourage people to report wrongdoing. If whistle-blowers are prosecuted for disclosing information as part of their complaints and not granted immunity from the OSA, the very purpose of the law would be defeated.
• Regarding Statement 2: The amendment bill tries to bring the WBP act in line with the RTI Act. The amendments ignore the fact that the two laws have completely different objectives. The RTI Act seeks to provide information to people, while the WBP Act provides a mechanism for disclosures to be made to competent authorities within the government to enable inquiry into allegations of corruption and provide protection to whistle-blowers.

TH: Don’t shoot the messenger;

Solution: a.

“In a significant development, India has decided to provide a financial assistance of $5,00,000 (₹3.2 crore) to the Philippines to aid its fight against the Islamic State (IS)-affiliated terror groups in the troubled Mindanao province. This is the first time India is sending aid to another nation to help it fight terrorism, thereby becoming an important marker in New Delhi’s attempts to burnish its credentials as an emerging security provider to the wider Asian region.”

Th: The Manila Envelope;

Solution: a.

The same question was posted here earlier.

• The Statement of Objects and Reasons to the Constitution (84^th Amendment) Act, 2001 states, “There have been consistent demands, both for and against undertaking the exercise of fresh delimitation. Keeping in view the progress of family planning programmes in different parts of the country, the Government, as part of the National Population Policy strategy, recently decided to extend the current freeze on undertaking fresh delimitation up to the year 2026 as a motivational measure to enable the State Government to pursue the agenda for population stabilisation.”
• Ch-22, Indian Polity by M Laxmikanth: “This ban on readjustment was extended for another 25 years (ie, upto year 2026) by the 84th Amendment Act of 2001, with the same objective of encouraging population limiting measures.”

TH: Dilemmas of delimitation;

Solution: d.

• BBC: Cirrus ice clouds extend their thin and wispy tendrils in the upper troposphere, at altitudes of about 5-15 kilometres. Researchers say that these thin clouds are known with confidence to have a net warming effect on our planet, since their ice crystals re-emit infrared radiation absorbed from the sun-warmed surface back down towards ground. So if we can make cirrus thinner still, we’ll let out more heat and cool the globe.
• BBC: One of the largest Geo engineering experiments, known as Lohafex, was an Indian-German experiment in 2009 which involved dumping six tonnes of an iron solution into the South Atlantic to encourage plankton to bloom – trapping carbon which would then be sent to the seabed when the organisms died. Results showed limited success.
• Large volcano eruptions inject ash particles and sulphur-rich gases into the troposphere and stratosphere and these clouds can circle the globe within weeks of the volcanic activity. The small ash particles decrease the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth and lower average global temperatures. The sulphurous gases combine with water in the atmosphere to form acidic aerosols that also absorb incoming solar radiation and scatter it back out into space.

TH: Beating back climate change;

Solution: d.

“A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta recorded in its short order that, “that no firecrackers manufactured by the respondents shall contain antimony, lithium, mercury, arsenic and lead in any form whatsoever. It is the responsibility of the Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO) to ensure compliance particularly in Sivakasi.”…”

Th: SC bans five toxic chemicals ;