QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 14 NOVEMBER 2017

Solution: d.

– We have moved up 32 places in the last two years in the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum;

– We have also moved up 21 places on the Global Innovation Index of WIPO in two years.

– We have moved 19 places on the Logistics Performance Index of 2016 of World Bank;

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=173445;

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Solution: b.

UN SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere;

UN SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture;

• IRRI’s Mission: IRRI is a premier research organisation dedicated to reducing poverty and hunger through rice science; improving the health and welfare of rice farmers and consumers; and protecting the rice growing environment for future generations.
• IRRI is an independent, nonprofit, research and educational institute, founded in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations with support from the Philippine government. The institute, headquartered in Los Baños, Philippines, has offices in 17 rice-growing countries in Asia and Africa.
• Working with in-country partners, IRRI develops advanced rice varieties that yield more grain and better withstand pests and disease as well as flooding, drought, and other harmful effects of climate change. More than half of the rice area in Asia is planted to IRRI-bred varieties or their progenies.

Additional Information: CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research, headquartered in France) is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secured future. IRRI is a member of the CGIAR consortium; it also is the lead centre on the CGIAR research program on rice.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=173455;

http://irri.org/about-us/our-organization;

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Solution: a.

Northeast is all set to get India’s first-ever “Air Dispensary” based in a helicopter and the Union Ministry of Development of Northeast (DONER) has already contributed Rs. 25 crore as part of the initial funding for this initiative.

As per the envisaged plan, Dr Jitendra Singh said, to begin with, helicopter will be based at two locations, namely Imphal in Manipur and Meghalaya in Shillong. Both of these cities have premier postgraduate medical institutes from where specialist doctors, along with the necessary equipment and paramedical staff, would be able to move into the helicopter and hold a dispensary/OPD in different locations across the eight States of North Eastern Region. On its way back, he said, the same helicopter can also transport a sick patient, requiring admission, to a city hospital. The experiment being introduced in the Northeast, at the behest of the Ministry of Northeast/DoNER, can also be emulated in other hill states having difficult topography like Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, the Minister added.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=173438;

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151915;

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Solution: b.

Bharat Net Project is the new brand name of National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) which was launched in October, 2011.

Telecom Service Providers recently signed up with the operator (BBNL) of the government’s optic fibre network — BharatNet — to take their high speed data services to thousands of villages in India as the Centre on Monday announced the launch of the second phase of the initiative designed to digitally connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats by March 2019.

Bharat Net is being funded through Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) was established with the fundamental objective of providing access to ‘Basic’ telegraph services to people in the rural and remote areas at affordable and reasonable prices. Subsequently the scope was widened to provide subsidy support for enabling access to all types of telegraph services including mobile services, broadband connectivity and creation of infrastructure like Optical Fibre Connectivity in rural and remote areas.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=173447;

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/reliance-jio-airtel-vodafone-idea-take-first-dive-into-bharatnet/articleshow/61626019.cms;

https://www.gktoday.in/gk/bharat-net-project/;

Solution: d.

The Youth Development Index (YDI), developed by the Commonwealth Secretariat, measures the status of young people in 183 countries around the world.

• The index is a comprehensive measure across five domains that are critical to youth development – education, health, employment, and civic and political participation – and builds on an earlier version created by the Commonwealth in 2013.
• In the latest available report (2016), India ranked 133^rd, below neighbouring countries like Nepal (77), Bhutan (69) and Sri Lanka (31) and trailing behind the South Asian average.

The Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports recently released the India Youth Development Index and Report 2017.

• The Index enables recognizing the high and low performing states, identifies the weak domains and informs the policy makers the priority areas of intervention for youth development in the states.
• The Index was constructed using the latest definition of youth as used in National Youth Policy – 2014 (India) and World Youth Development Report of Commonwealth (15 – 29 years) as well as using the Commonwealth Indicators in order to facilitate Global comparison.
• YDI for India adds a sixth domain, ‘social inclusion’, to assess the inclusiveness of societal progress as structural inequalities persist in Indian society.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/printrelease.aspx?relid=173434;

From 2016: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/india-ranks-poorly-at-133-in-global-youth-development-index-compiled-by-commonwealth-secretariat-3727154/;

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Solution: c.

• The role he envisaged for the government was that of a welfare state, but realised that other countries had taken up the task at more advanced stages of development. He was unimpressed with the slogans raised for socialism, and spoke often of the need for India to create wealth before debating over what to do with it, how to share it.
• Nationalisation he rejected completely; clear that industry ought to be the sole preserve of the business community. Nor was he a great believer in planning, especially of the kind practised in the developed and industrialised countries.
• He was not for controls. The indifference was, in part, because there simply wasn’t enough staff to implement them. He was working with an administration capacity depleted owing to the departure of a disproportionate number of officers that had opted to go to Pakistan and the posting of senior civil servants in the newly-established embassies across the world.
• To him, the profit motive was a great stimulant to exertion, not a stigma. He wholly approved of it, and advocated it for even the non-capitalist classes, the middle classes, the labour and even the agriculturists. That does not mean he did not recognise concentration of wealth as a social problem and unethical. He did, and in fact, appealed for a higher sense of civic consciousness and national duty to transcend all motives. His argument was that it was not merely ethical and patriotic, but even economically pragmatic, to channelise hoarded wealth in economic undertakings, where the returns were certain to be richer. He championed investment-led growth and said, “Spend less, save more, and invest as much as possible should be the motto of every citizen.”
• To the labour, he said, participate in creating wealth before claiming a just share, and advocated Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy on labour- employer relationships. The Mahatma’s methods, he said, could bring labour its legitimate reward through constitutional means.

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/printrelease.aspx?relid=171911;

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