QUIZ – 2020: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 24 January 2020

Solution: d)

The Ministry of Environment has notified the new Wetland Conservation Rules that prohibit setting up or expansion of industries, and disposal of construction and demolition waste within the wetlands. The ministry has also directed that each state and Union Territory will have to set up an authority that will define strategies for conservation and wise use of wetlands within their jurisdiction.

“The authority shall prepare a list of all wetlands of the State or UT within three months from the date of publication of these rules, develop a comprehensive list of activities to be regulated and permitted within the notified wetlands and their zone of influence.

It also directed the authority, to be headed by the state or UT’s environment minister, to undertake measures for enhancing awareness among stakeholders and local communities on values and functions of wetland.

The authority will also include one expert each in the fields of wetland ecology, hydrology, fisheries, landscape planning and socioeconomics to be nominated by the state government.

The wetlands are land areas covered by water, either temporarily\seasonally or permanently. Marsh, fen and peatland come under this category. The wetlands play a key role in hydrological cycle and flood control, water supply and providing food, fibre and raw materials.

The Centre had in September 2019, identified 130 wetlands for priority restoration in the next five years and asked states to submit their respective integrated management plan. The highest number of such identified wetlands are in Uttar Pradesh (16) followed by Madhya Pradesh (13), Jammu & Kashmir (12), Gujarat (8), Karnataka (7) and West Bengal (6).
The country’s space agency Isro had in 2011 come out with a national wetlands atlas on the basis of satellite image, mapping over two lakh wetlands covering around 4.63% of the total geographic area of India.
India’s prominent wetlands include Chilika lake areas (Odisha), Wular lake (J&K), Renuka (Himachal Pradesh), Sambhar lake (Rajasthan), Deepor Beel (Assam), East Kolkata wetlands (West Bengal), Nal Sarovar (Gujarat), Harika (Punjab), Rudra Sagar (Tripura) and Bhoj wetland (Madhya Pradesh) among others.

Solution: d)

Dengue is essentially a tropical disease that occurs in the countries around the Equator; hot weather and intermittent rainfall favour the sustenance of Aedes aegypti — the vector transmitting the dengue virus —and Aedes albopictus, a minor contributor. Aedes eggs can remain dormant for more than a year and will hatch once they come in contact with water. Urbanisation, poor town planning, and improper sanitation are the major risk factors for the multiplication of such mosquitoes. Aedes mosquitoes cannot fly beyond a hundred metres. Hence, keeping the ambience clean can help prevent their breeding. Further, these mosquitoes bite during the daytime, so keeping the windows shut in the day hours is also useful.

Dengue is mostly an asymptomatic infection, and only a very few develop severe disease. Those very young or very old and those who have a chronic ailment are at a greater risk of developing severe disease. But the worldwide case fatality rate is as low as 0.3%.

Despite the adequate and well-formed guidelines for the management of dengue cases by the WHO and the Indian government, the usage of complementary medicines like Nilavembu kudineer (a Siddha medicine) and papaya leaf extract are rampant among the people. Nilavembu sooranam, which reportedly contains about nine different substances, has been widely promoted for use to treat dengue fever despite the safety of and complex interactions among its different constituents not having been tested.

There are case reports where Andrographis paniculata, an active constituent of Nilavembu sooranam, showed anti-fertility effects in animal models, causing abortion. Even meta-analysis of various studies has shown that there is no credible evidence for the use of papaya extract in dengue fever.

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Solution: b)

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has unveiled a  ₹102 lakh crore national infrastructure pipeline, in accordance with the Narendra Modi government’s vision to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25.

 To achieve this objective, a Task Force was constituted to draw up the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) for each of the years from FY 2019-20 to FY 2024-25.

The central government and state governments would have an equal share of 39% each in the NIP. The private sector, on the other hand, would have 22% share which the government expects to increase to 30% by 2025.

Each Ministry/ Department would be responsible for the monitoring of projects so as to ensure their timely and within-cost implementation.

During the fiscals 2020 to 2025, sectors such as Energy (24%), Roads (19%), Urban (16%), and Railways (13%) amount to around 70% of the projected capital expenditure in infrastructure in India.

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Solution: d)

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Solution: c)

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information and routes calls to the appropriate recipients. An IVR system (IVRS) accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides the appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, email and other contact methods.

IVR systems can be used for mobile purchases, banking payments and services, retail orders, utilities, travel information and weather conditions.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched a Complaint Management System (CMS) — an online portal to facilitate bank customer grievance redressal processes. CMS will be accessible on desktops as well as on mobile devices. The RBI also plans to introduce a dedicated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System for tracking the status of complaints.