Daily Current Affairs MCQ- June 4, 2024 - UPSC MCQ

The counting of votes General Election 2024, began at 8 am today.

About Votes Counting Process

• 642 million voters participated in the world's largest democratic exercise.
• Election Commission of India (ECI): The ECI oversees the entire process, ensuring transparency and fairness in the counting of votes

Supervision and Direction:

• Returning Officer (RO): Oversees counting, typically the District Magistrate nominated by the ECI.
• Assistant Returning Officers: Support ROs, especially when overseeing multiple constituencies.
• Counting Officials: Include supervisors, assistants, Group D employees, and micro observers.
  • Counting Supervisor: Usually a gazetted officer or equivalent.
  • Counting Assistant and Staff: Drawn from Group D employees.
  • Micro Observer: Ensures counting process integrity.

Access to Counting Hall:

• Allowed: Counting supervisors, assistants, micro observers, ECI-authorized individuals, public servants on duty, candidates, election agents, and counting agents.
• Not Allowed: Police officers, government ministers and mobile phones (except ECI Observer).

Counting Locations:

• Appointed by RO, preferably at their headquarters but can be outside the constituency.
• Separate halls for each Assembly constituency with a maximum of 14 counting tables per hall.

Counting Process:

• EVMs are stored in a Strong Room, opened in the presence of observers and candidates.
• Postal ballots: Postal ballots are counted first, followed by EVM counting. The process continues simultaneously until the final tallies are prepared.
• Result display: Control Units display results, which are recorded in Form 17C.

Result Announcement:

• They are announced after each round of EVM counting, followed by a parallel count by the ECI Observer.
• VVPAT slips are verified sequentially after all EVM rounds, taking about an hour per machine.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

The European Parliament elections this week will determine representatives who negotiate EU laws with member state governments, ensuring citizens' representation in the EU.

About the European Parliament:

• It is the directly elected legislative body of the European Union (EU).
• It is one of the EU's main institutions and represents the citizens of the EU member states.
• The Parliament is headquartered in Strasbourg, France, but its work is conducted in three locations: Strasbourg, Brussels (Belgium), and Luxembourg.
• Primary Functions:
  • Negotiating EU laws with member state governments.
  • Approving the EU budget.
  • Voting on international agreements and enlargements.
  • Approving or rejecting the appointment of the European Commission president and commissioners.
• Composition, Term and Leadership:
  • The EP comprises 720 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are elected by EU citizens every five years.
  • MEPs then elect their president for a term of two and a half years.
• Candidacy:
  • All candidates must be EU citizens.
  • Voters may choose from individual candidates or delegates from political parties.
  • Once elected, politicians from each nation join the European groups based on their political orientations.
• Restrictions for elected individuals: Elected MEPs cannot hold functions in national governments or other political bodies such as the EU Commission, the Court of Justice, or the Court of Auditors.
• Voting from abroad:
  • EU citizens can vote either in their country of origin or from abroad.
  • Voting from abroad is permitted in most member states except Czechia, Ireland, Malta, and Slovakia.
  • In Bulgaria and Italy, this right applies only to those living within the EU.
• Voting process:
  • Some member states use closed lists, while others allow voters to select individual candidates in a preferential system.
  • Electors abroad can vote at their national embassies, via mail, or electronically.

Hence option a is the correct answer.

Recently, ICAR has commercialised herbicide-tolerant (Ht) basmati rice varieties that can control weeds.

About Direct Seeded Rice (DSR):

• It is a modern rice cultivation technique where rice seeds are directly sown into the field, replacing the traditional method of transplanting seedlings from a nursery.
  • It is an efficient, and sustainable method of rice cultivation that offers significant benefits for farmers, the environment, and the economy.
• About Herbicide-Tolerant Basmati Rice: ICAR commercialised non-genetically modified (non-GM) Ht basmati rice. These varieties allow direct application of the herbicide Imazethapyr due to a mutated ALS gene.
• Scientific debate: Research indicates that hand weeding at specific intervals (20 and 40 days after sowing) in DSR is more effective and yield-enhancing than the use of Imazethapyr.
  • ICAR’s research favours eco-friendly hand weeding over repeated herbicide applications for weed control and higher seed yield.
• Weed diversity and risks: Imazethapyr targets specific broadleaf weeds (BLW), not all weed types.
  • Herbicide-resistant weeds may evolve, threatening rice production and food security.
  • Similar challenges were seen with Bt-Cotton and pink bollworm resistance.
• Historical context: In the North Western Plains (e.g., Punjab, Haryana), DSR has been long used for growing Basmati rice.
  • Green Revolution promoted water-intensive transplanted rice, causing ecological issues.
• Innovations in DSR: From 2014 to 2017, innovations in DSR at IARI Karnal led to the adoption of TAR-VATTAR technology, which uses climatic factors and effective herbicides like Pendimethalin to reduce costs and save water.
• Recent adoption and impact: During COVID-19, the labour shortage saw a spike in DSR adoption in Punjab, proving its viability.
  • The Haryana government conserved water (e.g., 31,500 crore litres saved in 2022) by adopting DSR on a large scale.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

Recently, CSIR concluded the first phase of its longitudinal health monitoring project, Phenome India, and organised a special event, Phenome India Unboxing 1.0.

About 'Phenome India' Project:

• Phenome India-CSIR Health Cohort Knowledgebase (PI-CheCK) is an initiative by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), launched on 7th December 2023.
• Objective: The project aims to develop India-specific risk prediction models for cardio-metabolic diseases including diabetes, liver diseases, and cardiac diseases.
• This is the first-ever pan-India longitudinal health monitoring study focused on cardio-metabolic diseases.
• Participants: Nearly 10,000 participants including CSIR employees, pensioners, and their spouses from across 17 states and 24 cities have contributed to the study.
  • The collected data includes clinical questionnaires, lifestyle and dietary habits, anthropometric measurements, imaging/scanning data, and extensive biochemical and molecular data.
• Importance: The study is crucial for understanding the risk and incidence of cardio-metabolic disorders in the Indian population which may differ from those in Western populations due to ethnic diversity and varied lifestyle patterns.
• Precision medicine initiative: Through this project, CSIR is promoting Predictive, Personalised, Participatory, and Preventive (P4) healthcare, tailored specifically to the Indian phenotypic and genetic profiles.
• About the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR):
  • Established: In September 1942.
  • Headquarters: Located in New Delhi.
  • Funding: CSIR is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
  • Autonomous body: It operates as an autonomous body under the Societies Registration Act, of 1860.
• Objectives:
  • CSIR is primarily focused on scientific research and development in various fields such as aerospace, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, engineering, and medical sciences.
• Organisational structure:
  • President: The Prime Minister of India (Ex-officio)
  • Vice President: The Union Minister of Science and Technology (Ex-officio)
• Governing body:
  • Head: The Director-General leads the governing body.
  • Other Ex-officio member: The finance secretary (expenditures).
  • Term duration: Other members serve terms of three years.
• CSIR Advisory Board:
  • A 15-member body comprising prominent experts from various scientific and technological fields.
  • The board’s role is to provide science and technology insights to the governing body.
  • Member terms also span three years.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

The inaugural United Nations Global Supply Chain Forum, organized by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Government of Barbados, concluded successfully recently.

About UN Global Supply Chain Forum:

• It was the inaugural edition of the forum, which was held from May 21 to 24, 2024, in Barbados.
• It was hosted by UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in collaboration with the Government of Barbados.
• Over 1,000 participants from around the world convened to tackle the pressing issues of global disruptions, geopolitical tensions, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on global trade.
• It gathered key figures, including trade and transport Ministers from several small island developing states (SIDS).
• Representatives from various UN agencies, major ports like the Port of Seattle, and industry leaders in shipping and logistics were also present.
• The forum underscored the complexities and opportunities in decarbonizing global shipping, with a particular focus on developing countries rich in renewable energy resources.
• Efforts to incentivize low- or zero-carbon fuels, establish safety frameworks for new fuels, and enhance port readiness for handling various fuels were identified as critical steps in driving sustainable freight transport and logistics.
• One of the major outcomes of the forum was the launch of the “Manifesto for Intermodal, Low-Carbon, Efficient and Resilient Freight Transport and Logistics.”.
• This manifesto calls for a significant transformation in freight transport to achieve global climate targets and improve socio-economic resilience, emphasizing the transition to zero-emission fuels, optimized logistics, and sustainable value chains.
• Digital technologies were highlighted as key to enhancing global supply chain resilience.
• Ministers from SIDS advocated for international financial support and investment in green and sustainable technologies to enhance energy efficiency and combat marine pollution.
• A significant achievement of the forum was the launch of the UN Trade and Development Trade-and-Transport Dataset, developed in collaboration with the World Bank.
• This comprehensive repository provides global data on over 100 commodities and various transport modes, offering a holistic view of trade and transport costs.
• The next forum is set to take place in Saudi Arabia in 2026.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Preston curve refers to a certain empirical relationship that is witnessed between life expectancy and per capita income in a country. 

About Preston Curve:

• It is a graphical representation that shows the relationship between a country's per capita income (usually measured as GDP per capita) and its average life expectancy.
• It was first proposed by American sociologist Samuel H. Preston in his 1975 paper, “The changing relation between mortality and level of economic development”. 
• Preston found that people living in richer countries generally had longer life spans when compared with people living in poorer countries.
• This is likely because people in wealthier countries have better access to healthcare, are better educated, live in cleaner surroundings, enjoy better nutrition etc.
• When a poor country begins to grow, its per capita income rises and causes a significant increase in life expectancy initially as people are able to consume more than just subsistence calories, enjoy better healthcare, etc. 
• For example, the average per capita income of Indians rose from around ₹9,000 per year in 1947 to around ₹55,000 per year in 2011. During the same period, the average life expectancy of Indians rose from a mere 32 years to over 66 years.
• However, the positive relationship between per capita income and life expectancy begins to flatten out after a certain point.
• In other words, an increase in the per capita income of a country does not cause much of a rise in the life expectancy of its population beyond a point, perhaps because human life span cannot be increased indefinitely.

Hence option d is the correct answer.

Scientists recently unearthed living stromatolites—ancient geological structures made from algae—on Sheybarah Island, nestled on the northeastern shelf of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. 

About Stromatolites:

• Stromatolites, or stromatoliths, are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding, and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria (commonly known as blue-green algae).
• As sediment layered in shallow water, bacteria grew over it, binding the sedimentary particles and building layer upon millimetre layer until the layers became mounds.
• These structures are usually characterized by thin, alternating light and dark layers that may be flat, hummocky, or dome-shaped. 
• Stromatolites were common in Precambrian time (i.e., more than 542 million years ago).
• Most stromatolites are marine, but some forms from Proterozoic strata more than 2 ½ billion years old are interpreted as inhabiting intertidal areas and freshwater ponds and lakes.
• Living stromatolites are found in only a few salty lagoons or bays on Earth.
• Western Australia is internationally significant for its variety of stromatolite sites, both living and fossilised. 
• Shark Bay in Western Australia is one of only two places in the world where living marine stromatolites exist. 
• Importance:
• Stromatolites provide some of the most ancient records of life on Earth by fossil remains which date back more than 3.5 billion years ago.
• Further, these biotic structures were instrumental in the Great Oxygenation Event over two billion years ago, introducing oxygen into the atmosphere and transforming the planet's habitability.
• Being photosynthetic, cyanobacteria produce oxygen as a by-product. Photosynthesis is the only major source of free oxygen gas in the atmosphere.
• As stromatolites became more common 2.5 billion years ago, they gradually changed the Earth's atmosphere from a carbon dioxide-rich mixture to the present-day oxygen-rich atmosphere.
• This major change paved the way for the next evolutionary step, the appearance of life based on the eukaryotic cell (cell with a nucleus).

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Supreme Court recently observed that the extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India is an exception to the doctrine of merger and the rule of stare decisis to do complete justice between the parties.

About Doctrine of Merger:

• It is a common law doctrine founded on the principle of maintenance of decorum and propriety in the functioning of courts and tribunals.
• The doctrine of merger provides that when an appellate court passes an order, the order passed by the lower court is merged with that order.
• The underlying logic is that there cannot be more than one decree or operative order governing the same subject matter at a given point of time.
• The doctrine solves the issue of which order must be enforced and given importance if there are multiple orders passed by both subordinate and superior courts on a single issue. 
• It clarifies and provides that in this situation, the order passed by the superior court or the successive order would prevail and that the order of the lower court would be merged with the order passed by the superior court.
• The doctrine is not recognized statutorily but is a statement of judicial propriety and seeks to instil discipline in the functioning of subordinate adjudicating authorities, whether judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative.

What is the Doctrine of Stare Decisis?

• The doctrine of Stare Decisis refers to the concept that courts must follow previously made judicial decisions in cases where the same legal issues are brought before them in subsequent matters.
• It means that courts refer to previous, similar legal issues to guide their decisions.
• Such previous decisions that courts refer to are known as “precedents”.
• Precedents are legal principles or rules that are created by the decisions given by courts.
• Such decisions become an authority or an example for the judges to decide similar legal cases/issues in the future.
• The doctrine of Stare Decisis creates an obligation on courts to refer to precedents when taking a certain decision.

Hence option b is the correct answer.

Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR), Maharashtra, recently reported the first photographic record of a spot-bellied eagle owl.

About Spot Bellied Eagle Owl:

• The spot-bellied eagle-owl, also known as the forest eagle-owl, is a large bird of prey with a formidable appearance.
• Scientific Name: Ketupa nipalensis
• Distribution:
• It can be found in a variety of habitats, including tropical and subtropical forests, woodlands, and savannas.
• It is commonly found in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and parts of Southeast Asia.
• Features:
• It is a large species of owl.  It measures about 50 to 65 cm in length and weighs 1500 to 1700 grams.
• Its wingspan can reach up to 1.7 meters.
• The most distinguishing feature is its striking colouration. The upperparts of its body are a rich chocolate brown, speckled with white spots.
• The feathers on its wings and tail are barred with alternating shades of brown and white, creating a stunning pattern that helps it blend in with its surroundings.
• The underside of the owl is where it gets its name; its belly and breast are a light cream colour, covered in bold black spots.
• It is primarily nocturnal.
• It is an apex predator, feeding on a variety of prey, including rodents, small mammals, reptiles, and insects.
• It is a solitary bird that is territorial and maintains a home range.
• Conservation Status:
• IUCN Status: Least Concern
• Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Schedule IV 
• CITES: Appendix II.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

A new study published recently shows that the January 15, 2022, eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai Volcano could cause unusual weather for the rest of the decade.

About Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai (HTHH):

• It is a submarine stratovolcano in the Tongan archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean.
• The HTHH volcano includes the small islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai, along with shallow reefs along the caldera rim of a much larger submarine edifice in the western South Pacific Ocean, west of the main inhabited islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. 
• It is located about 30 km south of the submarine volcano of Fonuafoʻou and 65 km north of Tongatapu, the country's main island.
• The volcano is part of the highly active Tonga–Kermadec Islands volcanic arc, a subduction zone extending from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji.
• The Tonga-Kermadec arc was formed as a result of the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Indo-Australian Plate. 
• It has erupted regularly over the past few decades.

Hence option a is the correct answer.