Test: May 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 3 - UPSC MCQ

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) has four verticals: “In-situ” Slum Redevelopment (ISSR); Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS); Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) and Beneficiary-led individual house construction/enhancements (BLC).

Under the BLC vertical, a beneficiary receives a financial assistance of Rs 2.5 lakh from the government to build his or her house. The PMAY-U guidelines define a beneficiary family as a family comprising of “husband, wife and unmarried [sons and/ or unmarried daughters.]”

“The beneficiary family should not own a pucca house (an all-weather dwelling unit) either in his/her name or in the name of any member of his/her family in any part of India”.

Under the scheme guidelines, an adult earning member (irrespective of marital status) can be treated as a separate household. However, to avail the scheme, he or she should not own a pucca house (an all-weather dwelling unit) in his /her name in any part of India.

Under the PMAY-G, a beneficiary can avail the BLC component for the enhancement of his or her existing house.

Geotagging is a process of adding geographical identification to various media like photography. Under the PMAY-U guidelines, it is mandatory for the state government to ensure that all houses built under the scheme are geotagged to the Bhuvan HFA (housing for all) application, which has been developed by the government for the monitoring of the scheme.

Bhuvan is an Indian Geo Platform developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It is a web-based application which allows users to access various map related services.

The first photograph of Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole about 26,000 light years from Earth and situated at the centre of the Milky Way, was revealed by astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

A black hole is formed when stars collapse, leading to a space in the universe with an escape velocity — the speed at which an object must travel to override a planet or an object’s gravitational force. For instance, for a spacecraft to leave the surface of the Earth, it needs to be travelling at a speed of about 40,000 km per hour which is so great that even light cannot escape it.

Because light cannot get out, black holes are invisible and can only be tracked with the help of spatial telescopes and special tools. The light cannot go out as the gravity inside a black hole is very strong because a lot of matter being squeezed into a small space.

• Kisan Vikas Patra, popularly known as KVP, is a small savings scheme that is offered in the form of certificates in Indian Post Offices. This savings plan is a fixed-rate savings plan that aims to increase your money once a set length of time has passed that is during 124 months (10 years and 4 months).
• The account can be opened by any adult or on behalf of a minor. Also, a minor who is above the age of 10 in his own name. While three individuals together can open a joint account.
• Interest rate for the quarter ending June 30, 2022 is 6.9 % which is compounded annually.
• There is no upper limit and the minimum is Rs. 1000 in multiples of Rs. 100. One can open any number of accounts.
• KVP can be pledged or transferred as security.
• The scheme is not eligible for tax deductions under Section 80C of the Internal Revenue Code, and the returns are fully taxable. Nonetheless, withdrawals after the maturity period are exempt from TDS (Tax Deducted at Source).

Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 is an Act to consolidate the laws relating to food and to establish the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India for laying down science based standards for articles of food and to regulate their manufacture, storage, distribution, sale and import, to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for human consumption and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. It seeks to harmonise Indian standards with the international standards like CODEX and facilitates international trade in food articles.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) would be extended to India’s neighbouring countries.

Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) was established in December 2020 as a joint initiative of the Union Health Ministry of Health and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) (under the Ministry of Science and Technology) with the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to expand the whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease, across India with the aim of understanding how the virus spreads and evolves.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) recently approved a proposal to continue the Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (RGSA), a scheme for improving the governance capabilities of panchayati raj institutions, till 2025-2026.
• The approved scheme of RGSA will help more than 2.78 lakh rural local bodies…to develop governance capabilities to deliver on SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] through inclusive local governance with focus on optimum utilisation of available resources.
• The scheme would work towards “poverty free and enhanced livelihood in villages; healthy village, child friendly village; water sufficient village; clean and green village; self-sufficient infrastructure in village; socially secured village; village with good governance; engendered development in village”.
• No permanent posts would be created under the scheme but “need-based contractual human resources may be provisioned for overseeing the implementation of the scheme and providing technical support to States/UTs”.

• Space debris can include natural space debris such as meteoroids, or man-made ones which can include defunct spacecrafts and satellites, stages of rockets which have launched payloads, dead satellites, satellite explosions and collisions.
• Most pieces of space debris burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, the process starting from around a height of 100 km from Earth’s surface to 20 km. However, sometimes, very heavy pieces may not burn completely, and some part of the object may make it down to the surface, either hitting a landmass or a waterbody.
• Tracking space debris has become an area of interest for many astronomers. NASA, for example, says that “large orbital debris (> 10 cm) is tracked routinely by the US Space Surveillance Network” as objects as small as 3 mm can be detected by ground-based radars, “providing a basis for a statistical estimate of their numbers”.
• The first reported incident of damage from space debris was in 1978 after the crash of the then USSR’s nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite, which fell over Canada nearly four months after the take-off, requiring extensive clean-up of radioactive material.
• Under the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, countries can claim compensation from other countries for damages incurred from space debris.

The expression “minorities” appears in some Articles of the Constitution, but is not defined anywhere.

Central Government notifies minority communities at the national level in consultation with various stakeholders under Section 2 (c) of National Commission for Minorities (NCM), Act, 1992. The six communities notified as minority communities under Section 2(c) of the NCM Act, 1992 are Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains. Notification of any community specific to a State as minority community with in a State comes under the purview of the State concerned.

The onset of the monsoon over Kerala marks the beginning of the four-month, June-September southwest monsoon season over India, which brings more than 70 per cent of the country’s annual rainfall. The onset of the monsoon is a significant day in India’s economic calendar.

Is it unusual for the monsoon to hit the Kerala coast early?
Neither early nor late onset of the monsoon is unusual, even though the forecast for this year is for earlier than would be usually expected.

Does an early onset foretell a good monsoon?
No, it does not — just as a delay does not foretell a poor monsoon. The onset is just an event that happens during the progress of the monsoon over the Indian subcontinent.

A delay of a few days, or perhaps the monsoon arriving a few days early, has no bearing on the quality or amount of rainfall, or its regional distribution across the country, during the four-month monsoon season.

And does a delayed onset mean cascading delays across the country?
A delay in onset over Kerala can potentially delay the arrival of the monsoon in other parts of the country, especially in the southern states, which normally start getting rain within days of the monsoon reaching the Kerala coast.
But again, a delayed onset over Kerala does not automatically or invariably mean delays in the arrival of the monsoon over the entire country.

The primary reasons for the failure of public sector enterprises is no secret. Cost overruns, inter alia, is one of the major reasons. In some cases, project completion time is exceeded, leading to elevated project cost so much so that either the project itself becomes unviable at the time of its launching or delays its break even point. Besides, optimum input-output ratio is seldom observed in a majority of government infrastructural projects leading to their overcapitalisation. A reluctance to implement labour reforms, a lack of inter-ministerial/departmental coordination, poor decision-making, ineffective governance and excessive government control are other reasons for the failure of public infrastructural assets.

The labour force participation rate essentially tells us what percentage of people who are within the working-age (15 to 59 years) group want to be part of the workforce. A low labour force participation rate undermines a country’s overall productivity and wellbeing because fewer people are making themselves available for economic activity.

Due to greenhouse gas emissions, global warming is already 1°C higher than the pre-industrial levels. There is vast evidence that this has serious consequences for ecosystems and human being. The IPCC’s special report on Oceans and Cryosphere (published in 2019) reveals that the ocean is 0.8 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial age. It is more acidic, and less productive because of the carbon emission that was sunk by the oceans.

The impact of ocean warming would be an increase in the frequency of tropical cyclone winds and rainfall, as well as an increase in extreme waves, all of which would be accompanied by a rise in relative sea level. 

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all UN Member States. The UPR is a State-driven process, under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, which provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations.

As one of the main features of the Council, the UPR is designed to ensure equal treatment for every country when their human rights situations are assessed. The ultimate aim of this mechanism is to improve the human rights situation in all countries and address human rights violations wherever they occur. Currently, no other universal mechanism of this kind exists.

Eight core industrial sectors that support infrastructure such as coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement, and electricity have a total weight of nearly 40% in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

Going by the annual report (2020-2021) of the Department of Public Enterprises, Government of India, there are 256 operationally-run central public sector undertakings (CPSUs), employing about one million people. Out of these, 96 have been conferred the Ratna status (72, 14, and 10 are Miniratnas, Navaratnas, and Maharatna companies, respectively).

• An urban heat island is a local and temporary phenomenon experienced when certain pockets within a city experience higher heat load than surrounding or neighbouring areas on the same day. The temperature variation can range between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius.
• Rural areas have relatively larger green cover in the form of plantations, farmlands, forests and trees as compared to urban spaces. This green cover plays a major role in regulating heat in its surroundings.
• On the contrary, urban areas lack sufficient green cover or gardens and are often developed with highrise buildings, roads, parking spaces, pavements and transit routes for public transport. As a result, heat regulation is either completely absent or man-made.

• Zero tillage is the process where the crop seed will be sown through drillers without prior land preparation and disturbing the soil where previous crop stubbles are present.
• Zero tillage not only reduce the cost of cultivation it also reduces the soil erosion, crop duration and irrigation requirement and weed effect which is better than tillage. Zero Tillage (ZT) also called No Tillage or Nil Tillage.
• Mixed farming is a type of farming which involves both the growing of crops as well as the raising of livestock.
• Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice involving growing two or more crops in proximity. 
• Vertical farming is the practice of growing produce in vertically stacked layers. The practice can use soil, hydroponic or aeroponic growing methods. Vertical farms attempt to produce food in challenging environments, like where arable land is rare or unavailable.

A registered party is recognised as a national party only if it fulfils any one of the three conditions listed below:

• A party should win 2% of seats in the Lok sabha from at least three different states.[8]
• At a general election to Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, the party polls 6% of votes in any four or more states and in addition it wins four Lok Sabha seats.
• A party gets recognition as a state party in four states.
• A party gets at least 8% of total valid votes polled in 4 or more states ( with or without any seats)

• The Taj Mahal incorporates characteristics of Indo-Islamic and Timurid architecture, and is often seen as a natural progression of Mughal architecture from older monuments such as Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi.
• It was built between 1632 and 1648 on the orders of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.
• Floral designs made of semi-precious stones on the walls, this type of decoration was called pietra dura.
• This method became more popular during the reign of Shah Jahan. The pietra dura method was used on a large scale in the Taj Mahal by Shah Jahan.

• Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast mining is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.
• This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunnelling into the earth, such as long wall mining. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface.
• Most of the coal production in India comes from opencast mining, contributing over 83% of the total production.

• The Sargasso Sea, located entirely within the Atlantic Ocean, is the only sea without a land boundary. It is bounded by four ocean currents forming an ocean gyre.
• It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its characteristic brown Sargassum seaweed and often calm blue water.
• The sea is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream, on the north by the North Atlantic Current, on the east by the Canary Current, and on the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current, the four together forming a clockwise-circulating system of ocean currents termed the North Atlantic Gyre.

Among the Outer Space Treaty’s main points are that it prohibits the placing of nuclear weapons in space, limits the use of the Moon and all other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes only, and establishes that space shall be free for exploration and use by all nations, but that no nation may claim sovereignty of outer space or any celestial body.

The treaty, however, does not prohibit the launching of ballistic missiles, which could be armed with weapon of mass destruction (WMD) warheads, through space. The treaty repeatedly emphasizes that space is to be used for peaceful purposes.

• The NFHS is a large survey conducted in a representative sample of households throughout India which started in 1992-93 and is repeated at an interval of about four to five years. It is the Indian version of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), as it is known in other countries.
• The NFHS is not the only survey that the Health Ministry conducts. In the last five years, it has conducted the National NCD Monitoring Survey (NNMS), the National Mental Health Survey (NMHS), the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), the alcohol survey, the Comprehensive National. Nutrition Survey (CNNS) and many others.

• Carbon dating of excavated finds in Tamil Nadu pushes evidence of iron being used in India back to 4,200 years ago.
• Before this, the earliest evidence of iron use was from 1900-2000 BCE for the country, and from 1500 BCE for Tamil Nadu. The latest evidence dates the findings from Tamil Nadu to 2172 BCE.
• The dates when humans entered the Iron Age vary from one region of the world to another. In India, too, the date has been revised with successive findings over the decades.
• Iron is not known to have been used in the Indus Valley, from where the use of copper in India is said to have originated (1500 BCE).
• The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Chalcolithic) and the Bronze Age. 

• The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has said that it is in discussions with India on procurement of wheat as several countries face food security challenges amid the Ukraine war.
• The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations. It is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.
• The operations are entirely funded through the generous voluntary contributions of donor governments, institutions, corporations and individuals.
• WFP is an executive member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, a consortium of UN entities that aims to fulfil the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), with a priority on achieving SDG 2 for “zero hunger” by 2030.