Daily Current Affairs MCQ - August 20, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

The Ministry of Power has proposed to amend rules for facilitating electricity producers to sell power to a third party, which it said can pare fixed costs and cut retail tariff for end consumers.

• The ministry circulated the draft Electricity (Late Payment Surcharge) Amendment Rules, 2021, seeking comments for the same.
• The power generating companies are being given an option to sell power to third parties and recover costs. To this extent, the fixed cost burden of the distribution licensee shall be reduced, the ministry stated.
• If a distribution licensee has any payment, including late payment surcharge, outstanding after the expiry of seven months from the due date as prescribed in the PPA (power purchase agreement), the generating company may sell power to any consumer or any other licensee or power exchanges, for the period of such default.
• The claim would be retained on payment of fixed charges or capacity charges from the distribution licensee, after giving a notice of at least 15 days to the distribution licensee.
• The claim, if any, shall be reconciled on an annual basis and shall be limited to only under-recovery of the fixed charges or capacity charges.
• Hence both statements are correct.

A nine-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh Empire, was vandalised in Lahore Fort.

• Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) seized Lahore in 1799 after he was invited to rule the city by its Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh elite.
• Lahore, once among the biggest and most developed of the cities of Punjab, was in a shambles at the time — the dying Mughal Empire was no longer able to extend it patronage and protection, it was battered by repeated assaults from bands of Afghan raiders, and weakened by infighting among some Sikh groups.
• Residents of Lahore complained of being forced to pay exorbitant taxes.
• Ranjit Singh brought peace and security to Lahore and revived its economic and cultural glory. He proclaimed himself maharaja of the Punjab in 1801, and proceeded to rule with religious tolerance for communities other than Sikhs.
• He carried out repairs to the Lahore fort — which was built by Emperor Akbar at the site of an older mud-brick structure and was subsequently beautified and expanded by Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb — and built a wall around it, and used a part of the fort as his residential quarters.
• As the founder of a mighty empire that sprawled over a large part of northwestern India, the Maharaja is identified by many with the identity of Punjab.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Taliban militants in Afghanistan have vandalised and blown up a statue of Shiite militia leader Abdul Ali Mazari in the province of Bamiyan, the unofficial capital of the Hazara ethnic group. Mazari, widely known as a champion of the Hazaras, was executed by the Taliban in 1995.

• The Hazaras are an ethnic and religious minority group largely found in the rugged and mountainous central Afghan region of Hazarajat.
• The Hazaras are one of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic minorities, accounting for about 10-12 per cent of the country’s 38-million strong population.
• They are targetted by the Taliban because they are primarily Shia Muslims, as opposed to most Afghans who follow the Sunni branch of Islam. Their distinct Asiatic features and use of a Persian dialect called Hazaragi also sets them apart from the rest of the country.
• They are believed to be descendants of the founder of the Mongol empire, Genghis Khan, and his army that overran the entire region during the 13th century.
• Around 1773, the mountainous region of Hazarajat in modern-day central Afghanistan was annexed and made a part of the territories of the Afghan Empire under Pashtun ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani.
• The Sunni Muslim majority under the Pashtun ruler resulted in marginilisation of the Shiite Hazara community, to the extent that in the 18th and 19th century, they were forced to leave fertile lowlands in central Afghanistan and make the arid mountainous landscape their new home.
• Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh launched Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC) 5.0 under Innovations for Defence Excellence - Defence Innovation Organisation (iDEX-DIO) on August 19, 2021.

• Thirty five Problem Statements – 13 from the Services and 22 from Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) – were unveiled under DISC 5.0.
• These are in areas such as Situational awareness, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Aircraft-trainer, Non-lethal devices, 5G network, Under-water domain awareness, Drone SWARMS and Data Capturing.
• iDEX will support five times more start-ups over the next five years as the aim is to accelerate progress, reduce costs and complete procurement in a time bound manner.
• The launch of DISC 5.0 by iDEX-DIO comes three years after the launch of DISC 1.0.
• The iDEX initiative was launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in April 2018 to achieve self-reliance and foster innovation & technology development in defence and aerospace sectors.
• Hence both statements are correct.

National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and the National Institute for Urban Affairs (NIUA) had organised ‘Re-Imagining Urban Rivers’, a national level thesis competition in September 2020, under a joint project that the two organizations are implementing to promulgate river- sensitive development in our cities.

• This is a first of its kind initiative to engage young minds to research and envisage solutions for urban river issues.
• The purpose of this sponsored thesis competition is to tap into the intellect and creativity of students to arrive at innovative solutions for re-imagining the outlook and management of rivers that flow through cities and their associated features.
• The competition had three themes - Re-imagining water bodies and/or wetlands, developing eco-friendly riverfront projects and Promoting River tourism.
• Students from leading institutes across the country presented their thesis in the grand finale of the competition on 19th Aug 2021 at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
• Second edition of the Sponsored Thesis Project Competition was launched recently.
• This year’s themes will be ‘Reducing River pollution’, ‘Rejuvenating water bodies’, ‘Creating a vibrant river zone’, ‘Generating river-related economy’ and ‘Engaging citizens in river management activities.’

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

• The Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism is a proposed treatywhich intends to criminalize all forms of international terrorism and deny terrorists, their financiers and supporters access to funds, arms, and safe havens.
• The convention has been under negotiation by the United Nations General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee established by Resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996 on Terrorism and the United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee (Legal), but as of 2021 consensus has not yet been reached for the adoption of the convention.

NISAR mission, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and ISRO for a joint earth-observation satellite. NISAR, which will use two synthetic aperture radars (SAR) to monitor the entire Earth in a 12-day cycle, is the most important mission as yet involving the GSLV Mk-II rocket.

NISAR mission aims to measure the Earth’s changing ecosystems and dynamic surfaces to provide information about biomass, natural hazards, sea-level rise and groundwater. It will help researchers and user agencies to systematically map the surface of the earth. ISRO wants to use it for a variety of purposes including agricultural mapping, and monitoring of glaciers in the Himalayas, landslide-prone areas and changes in the coastline.

As part of the collaboration, NASA will provide one of the synthetic aperture radars (L-band) while the other (S-band) will come from ISRO. NASA will also provide communication and control systems while the launch and related services would be the responsibility of ISRO.

As of now, NISAR is scheduled for launch in early 2023 from the Sriharikota facility.

• GSLV MkIII, chosen to launch Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, is a three-stage heavy lift launch vehicle developed by ISRO. The vehicle has two solid strap-ons, a core liquid booster and a cryogenic upper stage.
• GSLV Mk III is designed to carry 4 ton class of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) or about 10 tons to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is about twice the capability of the GSLV Mk II.
• Missions like Gaganyaan and Chandrayaan-3 will be launched on GSLV Mk-III.
• GSLV Mk-III too uses an indigenously-developed cryogenic engine in the upper stage, but, unlike the one in Mk-II, this is not a reverse-engineered Russian engine. Instead, the cryogenic engine used in GSLV Mk-III, called CE20, has been the result of over three decades of research and development, starting from scratch, and uses a different process to burn fuel. It is closer to the designs used in the Arianne rockets that were used by ISRO earlier to send its heavier satellites into space.

A zoonosis is an infectious disease that has jumped from a non-human animal to humans. Zoonotic pathogens may be bacterial, viral or parasitic, or may involve unconventional agents and can spread to humans through direct contact or through food, water or the environment.

Various studies indicate that more than two-thirds of existing and emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.

• The transboundary impact of viral outbreaks in recent years such as the Nipah virus, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Avian Influenza.

Brucellosis is a zoonotic infection caused by the bacteria of the genus Brucella.

What is Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005?

It is an act to provide for more effective protection of the rights of Women guaranteed under the Constitution who are victims of violence of any kind occurring within the family and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

• It is the first significant attempt in India to recognise domestic abuse as a punishable offence, to extend its provisions to those in live-in relationships, and to provide for emergency relief for the victims, in addition to legal recourse.
• The Act provides a definition of “domestic violence” for the first time in Indian law, with this definition being broad and including not only physical violence, but also other forms of violence such as emotional/verbal, sexual, and economic abuse.
• It is a civil law meant primarily for protection orders, rather than criminal enforcement.