QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 08 October 2018

Solution: b.

France (UN): With threats to our environment increasingly impacting the survival of mankind and of our planet, it is urgent to act and build a sustainable future.

Experts have highlighted a clear legal challenge: international environment law is fragmented in many conventions and international declarations. That’s why France offers the international community an opportunity to develop a single and more coherent text.

The Global Pact for the Environment will be the first international legally binding document, gathering and harmonizing all environmental laws in one single document. Its objective is to be an essential tool for governments to help them implementing environmental rules and principles in their own country.

In the news (TH): Mr. Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron were among others conferred the Champions of the Earth Awards, the UN’s “highest environmental honour.” Mr. Modi and Mr. Macron’s prizes fall in the ‘Policy Leadership category’ for their “pioneering work in championing the International Solar Alliance and promoting new areas of cooperation on environmental action, including Macron’s work on the Global Pact for the Environment and Modi’s unprecedented pledge to eliminate single-use plastic in India by 2022.”

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Solution: a.

The  president  nominates 12 members  to  the  Rajya  Sabha  from  people  who have  special  knowledge  or  practical  experience  in  art,  literature,  science  and  social  service. (Such eminent persons can be Anglo-Indians too.)

Article 333: “.. notwithstanding anything in Article 170, the Governor of a State may, if he is of opinion that the Anglo Indian community needs representation in the Legislative Assembly of the State and is not adequately represented therein, nominate one member of that community to the Assembly.”

Improvisation: Th;

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Solution: a.

• Accommodative monetary policy (Investopedia) occurs when a central bank attempts to expand the overall money supply to boost the economy when growth is slowing (as measured by GDP). Accommodative monetary policy is also known as “easy monetary policy” or “loose credit policy.” Thus there is no scope for money supply to decrease with such a stance.
• A neutral stance affords a central bank “the latitude to swing either way” (money supply thus may decrease, keep steady or increase, depending on what the central bank decisions are with respect to repo rates, etc.)
• Improvisation (TH): “… what this stance indicates very clearly is that going forward there are only two actions in this particular rate cycle. Either we increase rate or we keep them steady.”

Solution: c.

TH: Judges should not impose their personal views, morality or rationality with respect to the form of worship of a deity, Justice Indu Malhotra on Friday wrote in her judgment, dissenting with the majority verdict to open up the Sabarimala temple for women of all age groups. “The manifestation is in the form of a Naishtik Brahmachari. The belief in a deity, and the form in which he has manifested himself is a fundamental right protected by Article 25(1) of the Constitution,” she held.

Justice Malhotra upheld the status of Ayyappa devotees as a separate religious denomination. She banked on the notifications issued by the Travancore Devaswom Board in 1955 and 1956, which refer to the devotees as “Ayyappans”. The worshippers constitute a religious denomination, or sect thereof, as the case maybe, following the “Ayyappan Dharma”. They are designated by a distinctive name wherein all male devotees are called “Ayyappans”; all female devotees below the age of 10 and above the age of 50 are called “Malikapurnams”. A pilgrim on his maiden trip is called a “Kanni Ayyappan”. The devotees are referred to as “Ayyappa Swamis”.

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Solution: d.

India, Germany, Japan and Brazil form the G4.

TH1; tH2;