Test: September 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 4 - UPSC MCQ

• India’s monsoon rainfall, already 7% more than what is normal, has started to withdraw, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) saying that the system had begun retreating from parts of southwest Rajasthan and Kutch.
• The withdrawal of the Southwest monsoon was based on meteorological conditions such as anti-cyclonic circulation (dry air that is the opposite of a cyclone), the absence of rainfall in the last five days and water vapour imagery indicating dry weather conditions over the region.
• The monsoon withdrawal is a long drawn process and extends into mid-October though the IMD considers September 30 to be the final day of monsoon rain over India. The rain after that is categorised as ‘post monsoon’ rainfall.

The government had first proposed the Ambedkar Circuit, or Panchteerth, in 2016. Panchteerth would include Janma Bhoomi, Ambedkar’s birthplace in Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow; Shiksha Bhoomi, the place in London where he stayed while studying in the UK; Deeksha Bhoomi in Nagpur where he embraced Buddhism; Mahaparinirvan Bhoomi or the place of his demise in Delhi; and Chaitya Bhoomi, the place of his cremation, in Mumbai.

• Unlike laws governing other agencies, particularly the CBI, the PMLA allows the ED to take cognizance of any offence under its wide-ranging schedule across the country, with or without the consent of state governments.
• It has, therefore, been able to register money laundering cases against politicians or activists based on FIRs filed by state police forces — something the CBI is unable to do unless requested by the state government, or ordered by a court or the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

The periodic warming and cooling of surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean — a phenomenon described as El Niño Southern Oscillations, or ENSO — is known to trigger widespread changes in atmospheric conditions, and has a major influence on global weather patterns, including the Indian monsoon. La Niña refers to the ENSO phase in which sea-surface temperatures are cooler than normal. The warmer phase is known as El Niño. A result of interactions between ocean and wind systems, El Niño and La Niña have almost opposite impacts on weather events.

• In the Indian context, La Niña is associated with good rainfall during the monsoon season. This is the opposite of El Niño which is known to suppress monsoon rainfall. Thus, a continued spell of La Niña could lead to expectation of another year of good, or normal, rainfall during the monsoon.
• But, even though powerful, ENSO condition is only one of the several factors affecting monsoon rainfall in India. There is no one-on-one correlation between the ENSO condition and the amount of rainfall. Also, the influence of ENSO is at a macro level. There are wide variations in rainfall at the local level, which are getting exacerbated by climate change.

• Members of the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes are shut out from applying under the 10% quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) introduced through the 103rd Constitutional Amendment. 
• People belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities in the State list but not in the Central list will be eligible to apply for posts and services of the Government of India under the EWS quota criteria, provided they fulfill all other requirements, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has said in a list of FAQs it has put out on how to recruit under the 10% reservation provided for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).

• Carbon dating cannot be applied in all circumstances. Specifically, it cannot be used to determine the age of non-living things. Also, the age of things that are more than 40,000-50,000 years cannot be arrived at through carbon dating.
• There are other methods to calculate the age of inanimate things, but carbon dating can also be used in an indirect way in certain circumstances. For example, the age of the ice cores in glaciers and polar regions is determined using carbon dating by studying the carbon dioxide molecules trapped inside large ice sheets. The trapped molecules have no interaction with the outside atmosphere and are found in the same state as when they were trapped.

The doctrine of “essentiality” was invented by a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in the ‘Shirur Mutt’ case in 1954. The court held that the term “religion” will cover all rituals and practices “integral” to a religion, and took upon itself the responsibility of determining the essential and non-essential practices of a religion.
The “doctrine of essentiality” is often used in relation to Article 25.

Considerable success was achieved in 2022 in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh as the CRPF launched Operation Octopus, Operation Double Bull, Operation Thunderstorm and Operation Chakarbandha in the three States. The operations led to the arrest or surrender of 592 Maoists.

The conference was held from July 1 to 22, 1944. Agreements were signed that, after legislative ratification by member governments, established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, later part of the World Bank group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This led to what was called the Bretton Woods system for international commercial and financial relations.

• The UN General Assembly (UNGA), the United Nation’s chief policy-making and representative organ, was created in 1945. It meets from September to December every year, and then again between January and August.
• Each of the 193 member states of the UN has an equal vote in the General Assembly.
• At the beginning of each regular session in September, the Assembly holds its main event — the general debate, where representatives of each member state are provided the opportunity to raise any issues that concern them.

• India presently has two research stations at Antarctica namely ‘Maitri’ and ‘Bharati’.
• Himadri is India’s first permanent Arctic research station located at Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Norway. It is located at the International Arctic Research base, Ny-Ålesund.

• The BrahMos is a medium-range stealth ramjet supersonic cruise missile.
• BrahMos is a joint venture between the DRDO and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya and the missile derives its name from Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers. The range of the missile was originally capped at 290 km as per obligations of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Following India’s entry into the club in June 2016, DRDO officials had stated that the range would be extended to 450 km and to 600 km at a later stage.

• The government has the power to control the prices of certain medicines, those needed in public interest, through the Drug Prices Control Order. The National List of Essential Medicines forms the primary basis for considering a drug as essential and controlling its prices. Additionally, the prices of drugs other than those included in the NLEM may also be controlled through the DPCO.
• Once a drug is included in the NLEM, its prices are controlled by the central government and cannot be changed by companies themselves.
• The new list (NLEM-2022) has added 34 medicines that were not in the NLEM-2015.
• The list has also included at least four drugs that are still under patent.

Remote Sensing has wide range of application such as monitoring of ocean circulation and current systems; measuring the temperature and wave height of ocean; track hurricanes, earthquakes, erosion, and flooding; monitor land use, map wetlands, and chart wildlife habitats.

• Black Fungus (also called Mucormycosis) is a rare and fatal fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes. It often affects the sinuses, lungs, skin, and brain.
• These molds live throughout the environment and are transmitted through inhalation, inoculation or ingestion of spores from the environment. It does not spread between people or between people and animals so it is not zoonotic.

Benefits of wastes to energy plants:

• In terms of volume, usually waste-to-energy plants incinerate 80 to 90 percent of waste, thus helping large cities from choking due to unmanageable waste.
• Waste to energy generates clean, reliable energy from a renewable fuel source, thus reducing dependence on fossil fuels, the combustion of which is a major contributor to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
• Sometimes, the residue ash is clean enough to be used for some purposes such as raw materials for use in manufacturing cinder blocks or for road construction.
• Some waste-to-energy plants convert salt water to potable fresh water as a by-product of cooling processes.
• Waste-to-energy plants cause less air pollution than coal plants.
• It is carbon-negative – processing waste into biofuel releases considerably less carbon and methane into the air than having waste decay away in landfills or the lake.

Coalbed methane (CBM) is an unconventional form of natural gas found in coal deposits or coal seams.
CMB is formed during the process of coalification, the transformation of plant material into coal.

• CBM can be used
• In Power generation.
• As Compressed natural gas (CNG) auto fuel.
• As feedstock for fertilisers.
• Industrial uses such as in cement production, rolling mills, steel plants, and for methanol production.

CBM production behaviour is complex and difficult to predict in the early stages of recovery.
Another concern is the effect water discharges from CBM development could potentially have on downstream water sources.
Disposal of the highly salinized water that must be removed in order to release the methane creates a challenge, as its introduction into freshwater ecosystems could have adverse effects.

• Under Article 341 of the Constitution, the President may “specify the castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes which shall…be deemed to be Scheduled Castes”.
• The first order under this provision was issued in 1950, and covered only Hindus. Following demands from the Sikh community, an order was issued in 1956, including Sikhs of Dalit origin among the beneficiaries of the SC quota. In 1990, the government acceded to a similar demand from Buddhists of Dalit origin, and the order was revised to state: “No person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of Scheduled Caste.”
• The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) website states, “The rights of a person belonging to a Scheduled Tribe are independent of his/her religious faith.” Following the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, several Christian and Muslim communities have found place in the Central and state lists of OBCs.

• On September 20, the American meteorologist Vernon Dvorak passed away at the age of 100. In the era of advanced satellite technology, Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), this key technique, named after him, continues to be widely relied upon by forecasters till date.
• Dvorak was an American meteorologist best credited for developing the Dvorak (read as Do-rak) technique in the early 1970s. The technique has been upgraded multiple times since then.
• The updated technique, would improve the tropical storm forecasts by many folds as they would have access to sharper and detailed images than ever before.
• The Dvorak technique was a cloud pattern recognition technique based on a concept model of the development and decay of the tropical cyclone.
• From the satellite images thus obtained, the Dvorak technique helps forecasters to do a pattern recognition from the observed structure of the storm, locate its eye and estimate the intensity of the storm.
• It is the Dvorak technique which gives the best estimates of the cyclone intensity — a vital component while issuing weather warnings.

Provisions of the Constitution:

• The relevant Constitutional provisions stand on two legs, which are mutually supportive. On the one hand, there is the principle of Equality, which prohibits the State from discrimination against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them under Article 15(1), and guarantees “equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State” under Article 16(1), in addition to prohibition against discrimination against any citizen on the same grounds as in Article 15(1), specifically with respect to employment or appointment under the State.
• The other leg is the special provisions, which under Article 15(4) empowers the State to “make any provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes”, and under Article 16(4) provides “for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any backward class of citizens, which in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State”.

The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) releases its annual Special 301 Report. It provides the outcome of an annual review of the global state of intellectual property (IP) rights protection and enforcement.

It identifies the trading partners that do not adequately or effectively protect and enforce intellectual property (IP) rights. It aims to improve the environment for authors, brand owners, and inventors around the world. For countries that fail to address U.S. concerns, USTR takes appropriate actions against them which may include enforcement actions under Section 301 of the Trade Act.

Conditions Precedent for the Successful Working of Democracy:

• Absence of glaring inequalities
• Presence of an opposition
• Equality of law and administration
• Observance of constitutional morality
• Avoidance of tyranny of majority over minority
• A functioning of moral order in society
• Public conscience

The electoral bond scheme is designed to allow an individual, or any “artificial juridical person”, including body corporates, to purchase bonds issued by the State Bank of India during notified periods of time. These instruments are issued in the form of promissory notes, and in denominations ranging from ₹1,000 to ₹1 crore.

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are cylindrical molecules consisting of rolled-up sheets of single-layer carbon atoms, namely, graphene. Carbon nanotubes are used in applications that require high strength, electrical conductivity, durability, lightweight properties, and thermal conductivity as compared to the other conventional materials. Rapid demand for CNT in integrated circuits, lithium batteries, fuel cells, drug delivery, solar PV cells, hydrogen storage, and field emission displays is contributing to market growth.