Daily Current Affairs MCQ- November 21, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

According to a global threat assessment report presented at a convention of the conservation agencies in Panama City, the seizure of rhino horns by weight has increased after 2017 despite a reduction in poaching.

The Greater One-horned Rhinoceros:

• The greater one-horned rhino (or “Indian rhino”) is the largest of the rhino species
• It is identified by a single black horn and a grey-brown hide with skin folds.
• This species of rhino is commonly found in Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and in Assam, India.
• Protection Status:
  • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
  • CITES: Appendix I
  • Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I

It is one of the five species of Rhinos. The other four species are:

• White rhino: It is native to northern and southern Africa
• Black rhino: It is native to eastern and southern Africa
• Javan rhino: It is also known as Sunda rhino or lesser one-horned rhino
• Sumatran rhino: Critically Endangered species of rhino

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Union Finance Minister has recently urged the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) to expand its operations and explore ways to crowd in private capital for projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline, PM Gati Shakti and National Infrastructure Corridor.

Bodies involved: 

• NIIF is an investor-owned fund manager, anchored by the Government of India (GoI) in collaboration with leading global and domestic institutional investors. 
• The Indian government has 49 % stake in NIIF with the rest held by marquee foreign and domestic investors.  

History: 

• NIIF was set up as an alternative investment fund (AIF) in 2015 with a planned corpus of ₹40,000 crore.

Headquarters: Mumbai.

Objective: To provide long-term capital to the country’s infrastructure sector.

Funds managed: 

• NIIF currently manages three funds each with its distinctive investment mandate namely
  • (1) Master fund,
  • (2) Fund Of Funds and
  • (3) Strategic Fund.
• The funds are registered as Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). 

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) and the Reserve Bank of India have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding for collaboration in the field of regulation and supervision of regulated entities.

• The MoU facilitates technical cooperation and exchange of information.
• The agreement aims to strengthen the safety, stability and soundness of respective financial ecosystems, thereby ensuring conducive environments for optimal business development and economic growth.
• While RBI is the central bank and monetary authority of India, the International Financial Services Centres Authority is a unified regulator responsible for development and regulation of financial products, financial services and financial institutions in the International Financial Services Centre (s), established across the country.

International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA):

• The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) has been established on April 27, 2020 under the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act, 2019.
• It is headquartered at GIFT City, Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Role of IFSCA:

• The IFSCA is a unified authority for the development and regulation of financial products, financial services and financial institutions in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in India.
• At present, the GIFT IFSC is the maiden international financial services centre in India.
• Prior to the establishment of IFSCA, the domestic financial regulators, namely, RBI, SEBI, PFRDA and IRDAI regulated the business in IFSC.
• The main objective of the IFSCA is to develop a strong global connect and focus on the needs of the Indian economy as well as to serve as an international financial platform for the entire region and the global economy as a whole.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

4th edition of Indian Chemicals Council (ICC) Sustainability Conclave recently started in New Delhi.

• Theme:
  • Theme of the two-day event is ‘boardrooms to Community-ESG, Carbon Neutrality, Operational Safety, Greener Solutions’.
• The Conclave aims to promote sustainability in the management of the entire life cycle of chemicals.
• Initiative:
  • It is being organized jointly with United Nations Environment Program and International Council of Chemical Associations with support of Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

India and Australia convened their fifth bilateral Cyber Policy Dialogue recently in New Delhi.

• The Cyber Policy Dialogue was held under the auspices of the India-Australia Framework Arrangement on Cyber and Cyber-Enabled Critical Technology Cooperation and Plan of Action 2020-2025 for a comprehensive and deeper cyber cooperation.
• It provides a bilateral platform to discuss a range of high-profile issues of mutual interest.
• Discussions:
  • Discussions at this Dialogue included strategic priorities, cyber threat assessment, next generation telecommunications (including 5G technology) capacity building and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, and the latest developments in cyber at the United Nations.
• Australia and India agreed to explore opportunities for further collaboration with the private sector and academia.
• Cyber Bootcamp:
  • Both countries will jointly conduct a Cyber Bootcamp, as well as Cyber and Tech Policy Exchanges, in collaboration with Indo-Pacific partners.
• The sixth India-Australia Cyber Policy Dialogue will be held next year.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

A study spanning 13 years has shed interesting light on flowering in Melocanna baccifera.

• The Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI), Thiruvananthapuram, conducted the study between 2009 and 2022 at its Bambusetum where the species was introduced during 1988-1996.
  • The study was funded by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), the Department of Science and Technology, the Government of India, and the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) under the Kerala government.

Melocanna baccifera:

• It is a tropical bamboo species known for its association with the occurrence of ‘bamboo death,’ ‘rat floods’ and famines in northeast India.
• Researchers detected a correlation between the sugar content in the fruit of Melocanna baccifera and the frenzied feeding and population boom in rats during ‘Mautam’, the cyclical, mass bamboo flowering that occurs once in 48 years.
• Called ‘Muli’ in northeast India, Melocanna baccifera is the largest fruit-producing bamboo and is native to the northeast India-Myanmar region.
• During its gregarious flowering, the bamboo produces large fruits which draw animal visitors/predators.
  • They include pollen predators (honey bees), fruit predators (millipedes, slugs and snails, fruit borers, monkeys, rats, porcupines, wild boars and palm civets), seedling predators (rabbits, deer), and insect/pest predators (ants, mantis).
  • During this period, they also multiply rapidly, a phenomenon dubbed as ‘rat flood.’
  • Once the fruits are gone, they start devouring standing crops, causing famines that have claimed thousands of human lives.
• Earlier, it was presumed that ‘high protein in fruits/seeds’ was attracting the rats. However, a JNTBGRI study in 2016 that was part of the research found that the fruit actually contains very little protein. The predation is mainly due to the high content of sugars.

Hence both statements are correct.

The BASIC group, comprising India, China, Brazil and South Africa, recently said in a statement that “unilateral measures and discriminatory practices, such as carbon border taxes, that could result in market distortion and aggravate the trust deficit amongst Parties, must be avoided”.

• A carbon border adjustment tax is a duty on imports based on the amount of carbon emissions resulting from the production of the product in question. As a price on carbon, it discourages emissions. 
• The carbon border tax involves imposing an import duty on a product manufactured in a country with more lax climate rules than the one buying it.

European Union’s stand:

• The European Union (EU) has proposed a policy — called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism — to tax products such as cement and steel, that are extremely carbon intensive, with effect from 2026.
• EU claimed that the tax will benefit the environment and provide a level playing field to companies, those opposing it call the tax unfair and protectionist.

BASIC group’s stand:

• They say it puts the burden of climate compliance on developing countries, when historically, they have done much less to pollute the environment and yet are often more vulnerable to effects of climate change.

‘Carbon leakage’:

• Some developed nations, in efforts to cut emissions, impose high costs on carbon-intensive businesses in their own countries.
• Businesses can potentially sidestep this simply by moving production to a country with less stringent rules, a practice called carbon leakage.

Hence both statements are correct.

Ten years after the enactment of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which deals specifically with child sexual abuse, an analysis of POCSO cases across India has found gaps in its implementation – including increasing pendency of cases and a high rate of acquittals.

• The analysis, titled ‘A Decade of POCSO’, was carried out by the Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, in collaboration with the Data Evidence for Justice Reform (DE JURE) program at the World Bank.

Findings:

• Acquittals: The analysis has found that 43.44% of trials under POCSO end in acquittals while only 14.03% end in convictions.
• For every one conviction in a POCSO case, there are three acquittals.
• Acquittals are significantly higher than convictions for all the states studied.
  • For instance, in Andhra Pradesh, acquittals are seven times more than convictions; and in West Bengal, acquittals are five times more than convictions.
  • In Kerala, the gap between acquittal and conviction is not very high with acquittals constituting 20.5% of the total disposals and convictions constituting 16.49%.
• As per data published by the National Crime Record Bureau in 2021, in 96% of the cases filed under the POCSO Act, 2012, the accused was a person known to the child victim – in 48.66% of cases, the accused is either a friend or a romantic partner of the victim.
• The study has found on average, it takes 509.78 days for a POCSO case to be disposed of – whereas it has been stipulated under the Act that such cases need to be disposed of within a year.
• Delhi has the highest number of POCSO trials in the country with 13.54 cases per 100,000 population in 2018 – which does not necessarily mean the number of incidents of sexual offences is higher, but that there is increasing awareness and reporting of cases.
• Time taken:
  • Chandigarh and West Bengal are the only states where the average time taken for convictions is within one year.
  • States like Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Sikkim, Chandigarh and the NCT of Delhi seem to have a much higher reporting of POCSO cases.
• Pendency:
  • Uttar Pradesh has the highest pendency with more than three-fourths (77.77%) of the total POCSO cases filed between November 2012 and February 2021 pending.
  • On the other hand, at 80.2%, Tamil Nadu has the highest disposal percentage.
• Support Persons:
  • According to the study, “support persons” are not being appointed in most POCSO cases.
  • The Supreme Court had also noted that in 96% of cases, a support person was not provided to the victim.
    • A support person may be a person or organisation working in the field of child rights or child protection, an official of a children’s home or a shelter home having custody of the child, or a person employed by the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU), who hand holds the victim through the entire legal process.
• POCSO courts:
  • The analysis further notes POCSO courts have not been designated in all districts.
  • As of 2022, 408 POCSO courts have been set up in 28 States as part of the Government’s Fast Track Special Court’s Scheme.
  • There is a lack of Special Public Prosecutors appointed specifically to handle POCSO cases.

November 18, 2022, is the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Rezang La, one of the few bright spots in the War of 1962 with China.

• The Battle of RezangLa is an epic battle Indian Army ever fought in hostile conditions in eastern Ladakh region.
• RezangLa showed sheer tenacity and valour of the soldiers of ‘Charlie Company of 13 Kumaon Regiment of the Indian Army.
• Sixty years ago on the morning of November 18th, fierce fight broke when over Five thousand Chinese with heavy artillery support have attacked Charlie Company, protecting the airfield of Chushul.
• 120 brave soldiers of Charlie Company of 13 Kumaon Regiment led by commanding officer Major Shaitan Singh had delivered the heaviest blow to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, by killing over thousand Chinese soldiers in the fight.
• As many as 114 soldiers of C company died fighting. 
• The bravery of Indian soldiers in this battle forced China to declared ceasefire.

Battle of Walong:

• Walong is one of India’s easternmost villages in Arunachal Pradesh.
• In the 1962 India-China War, the Indian Army defended against China in all sectors except one — Arunachal Pradesh’s Walong.
• The Battle of Walong was the only counterattack India could manage in the war.
• Indian Army held back the Chinese troops for 27 days, which forced the Chinese to deploy its reserve division from Tawang to Walong.

The Battle of Asal Uttar was one of the largest tank battles fought during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) recently released the revamped draft data protection Bill.

The first draft of the Bill was presented by an expert panel headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna in July 2018.

Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022:

• The new Bill now being called the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, has provisions on ‘purpose limitations’ around data collection, grounds for collecting and processing personal data, relaxation on cross-border data flows, and imposes significant penalties on businesses for violating provisions of the Bill.
• Cross-border data flows: The proposed legislation offers significant concessions on cross-border data flows, in a departure from the previous Bill’s contentious requirement of local storage of data within India’s geography.
  • According to the new draft, the Centre will notify regions to which data of Indians can be transferred.
• Penalties: The draft also proposes to impose significant penalties on businesses that undergo data breaches or fail to notify users when breaches happen.
  • Entities that fail to take “reasonable security safeguards” to prevent personal data breaches will be fined as high as Rs 250 crore.
  • If an entity fails to notify users about a data breach, the fine could go as high as Rs 200 crore.
• Data localisation: The new Bill would relax data localisation requirements and allow data flows to trusted geographies.
• Exemptions:
  • National security-related exemptions have been kept intact in the new Bill.
  • The Centre has been empowered to notify such exemptions in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, maintenance of public order or preventing incitement to any cognisable offence relating to any of these.
  • The government could also exempt certain businesses from adhering to provisions of the Bill on the basis of number of users and the volume of personal data processed by the entity.
  • This has been done keeping in mind startups of the country who had complained that the previous version of the Bill was too “compliance intensive”.
• Data Protection Board: The Bill also proposes to set up a Data Protection Board to ensure compliance with the Bill.
  • It can impose a penalty of up to ₹500 crore if non-compliance by a person is found to be significant. 

Hence only statement 1 is correct.