Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 5, 2022 - CLAT MCQ

• DRDO is the R&D (Research and Development) wing of the Ministry of Defence with a vision to empower India with cutting-edge defence technologies. Hence statement 1 is not correct.
• Its pursuit of self-reliance and successful indigenous development and production of strategic systems and platforms such as Agni and Prithvi series of missiles, Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, multi-barrel rocket launcher, Pinaka, air defence system, Akash, a wide range of radars and electronic warfare systems, etc. have given quantum jump to India's military might, generating effective deterrence and providing crucial leverage.
• It was formed in 1958 from the amalgamation of the Technical Development Establishment (TDEs) of the Indian Army and the Directorate of Technical Development & Production (DTDP) with the Defence Science Organisation (DSO). Hence statement 2 is correct.
  • It is a network of more than 50 laboratories which are deeply engaged in developing defence technologies covering various disciplines, like aeronautics, armaments, electronics, combat vehicles, engineering systems etc.

• Open source software (OSS) is software that is distributed with its source code, making it available for use, modification, and distribution with its original rights. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
  • Source code is the part of software that most computer users don’t ever see.
• It’s the code computer programmers manipulate to control how a program or application behaves.
  • OSS typically includes a licence that allows programmers to modify the software to best fit their needs and control how the software can be distributed. Hence, statement 2 is correct.
• The idea of making source code freely available originated in 1983 from an ideological movement informally founded by Richard Stallman, a programmer at MIT.
  • Examples of Linux, Mozilla Firefox, VLC media player, SugarCRM, etc.

• India is Israel's third-largest trade partner in Asia and seventh largest globally.
  • Both countries currently have USD 4.14 billion of trade (April 2020 – February 2021), a figure that doesn't include the defence trade which has been increasing. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
  • Israeli companies have invested in India in energy, renewable energy, telecom, real estate, water technologies, and are focusing on setting up Research & Development centres or production units in India.
  • The first recipients of grants from the Israel-India Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) were announced in July 2018, including companies working to better the lives of Indians and Israelis through efficient water use, improving communications infrastructure, solar energy use, and life-changing surgeries.
    • The fund aims to help Israeli entrepreneurs enter the Indian market.
• Israel has been among the top four arms suppliers to India for almost two decades now, notching military sales worth around USD 1 billion every year.
  • The Indian armed forces have inducted a wide array of Israeli weapon systems over the years, which range from Phalcon AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) and Heron, Searcher-II and Harop drones to Barak anti-missile defence systems and Spyder quick-reaction anti-aircraft missile systems.
  • The acquisitions also include a host of Israeli missiles and precision-guided munitions, from Python and Derby air-to-air missiles to Crystal Maze and Spice-2000 bombs. Hence, statement 2 is correct.
  • At the 15^th Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting on Bilateral Defence Cooperation between India and Israel, both countries agreed to form a Task Force to formulate a comprehensive Ten-Year Roadmap to identify new areas of cooperation.
• In 2020, an Israeli team arrived in India with a multi-pronged mission, codenamed Operation Breathing Space to work with Indian authorities on the Covid-19 response. Hence, statement 3 is correct.

Soil Organic Matter (SOM) is mainly composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen but also has small amounts of nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur, potassium, calcium and magnesium contained within organic residues.

After carbon enters the soil in the form of organic material from soil fauna and flora, it can persist in the soil for decades, centuries or even millennia. Eventually, SOC can be lost as CO2 or CH4 emitted back into the atmosphere, eroded soil material, or dissolved organic carbon washed into rivers and oceans.

ARIIA is an initiative of the Ministry of Education (MoE) to systematically rank all major higher educational institutions in India on indicators related to innovation, start-up and entrepreneurship development among students and faculties.

ARIIA evaluates institutions on parameters such as patent filing and granted, number of registered students and faculty start-ups, fund generation by incubated start-ups, specialised infrastructure created by institutions to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, etc.

ARIIA-2021 ranking has been announced in various categories which include Centrally funded technical institutions (eg. IITs, NITs, etc), State universities, State stand-alone technical colleges, private universities, private stand-alone technical colleges, non-technical government and private universities and institutions.

In the year 2021 the participation was almost doubled to 1,438 institutes and quadrupled over the first edition.

Operating ratio, simply put, is amount of money the Railways has to spend to earn ₹100. Lower operating ratio implies better financial health.

THE COMPTROLLER and Auditor General of India in its report on Railways’ finances noted that the Indian Railways’ operating ratio of 98.36% in 2019-2020 does not reflect its true financial performance and if the actual expenditure on pension payments is taken into account, the ratio will be 114.35 %.

China launched the core module of its space station, kicking off a series of key launch missions that aim to complete the construction of the station by the end of next year.

• The Long March-5B Y2 rocket, carrying the Tianhe module, blasted off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of the southern island province of Hainan.
• The Tianhe module will act as the management and control hub of the space station Tiangong, meaning Heavenly Palace, with a node that could dock with up to three spacecraft at a time for short stays, or two for long
• Tianhe has a total length of 16.6 meters, a maximum diameter of 4.2 meters and a take-off mass of 22.5 tonnes, and is the largest spacecraft developed by China.
• The space station will be a T shape with the core module at the centre and a lab capsule on each side.
• The station will operate in the low-Earth orbit at an altitude from 340 km to 450 km. It has a designed lifespan of 10 years, but experts believe it could last more than 15 years with appropriate maintenance and repairs.
• The Chinese space station is expected to be a competitor to the aging International Space Station (ISS) which is a modular space station in low Earth orbit.
• It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies which included NASA, (US), Roscomos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).
• Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has said that a minimum 20% of the compensation of mutual fund managers and other key personnel in an asset management company (AMC) should be in the form of units of the mutual fund schemes they manage.

• Key personnel here refers to the likes of chief executive officer, chief investment officer, research head and their direct reporters.
• The compensation of fund managers — at least the variable pay component — is linked to performance. What SEBI has done here is crystallise the rules and extend it beyond fund managers to so-called key employees. Moreover, SEBI has specified the rules of allocation of this 20% by saying that is should be proportional to the assets under management of the schemes in which an employee has a role or oversight.
• The regulator has also specified that these units offered by way of compensation are locked-in for three years.
• Hence both statements are correct.

WHO unveils global immunization strategy to save 50 million lives by 2030.

• A UN-led global immunization strategy was unveiled to reach more than 50 million children who have missed lifesaving jabs against measles and other diseases because of COVID-19 disruption.
• WHO, along with UNICEF and the vaccine alliance Gavi, said their new global strategy has the potential to save 50 million lives within less than a decade.
• WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, to avoid multiple outbreaks of life-threatening diseases like measles, yellow fever and diphtheria, it must be ensured that routine vaccination services are protected in every country in the world.
• A WHO survey showed more than one third of countries were still seeing disruptions to their routine immunisation services.
• The joint statement said, around 60 mass vaccination campaigns were currently postponed in 50 countries, putting 228 million people, mostly children, at risk of diseases such as measles and polio.
• Hence both statements are correct.

Central Farm Machinery Training & Testing Institute, Budni (Madhya Pradesh) has tested the first-ever electric Tractor in the Institute.

• The institute received the application for an electric tractor under Confidential Test initially.
• Accordingly, the institute has tested the tractor & released the Draft Test Report in February, 2021.
• Central farm Machinery Training & Testing Institute, Budni (MP) has obtained the NABL Certificate of Accreditation for CMVR Test Laboratory on 30th March, 2021.
• Electric tractor will be more environment friendly than other types of tractors.
• Hence both statements are correct.