Daily Current Affairs MCQ- August 23, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

A special court sentenced Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment in a terror funding case.

• Enacted in 1967, UAPA is the primary counter-terror law in India.
• It was enacted to outlaw and penalise unlawful and terrorist activities, which pose a threat to the integrity and sovereignty of India.
• However, the terror law has come under sharp scrutiny recently with various courts finding application of the UAPA arbitrary.

Key provisions

• Wide ranging powers to Central Govt
  • It provides wide-ranging powers to the Central Government to designate organisations as terrorist organisations and
  • It also prescribes the penalties for taking part in the activities of such organisations.
• Applicability
  • It is also applicable if the offencesare committed outside India.
  • Both Indian and foreign nationals can be charged.
• Timeline
  • A charge sheet can be filed in maximum 180 days after the arrests.
  • The investigation has to be completed within 90 days.
  • If investigation is not completed with the stipulated time, the accused is eligible for default bail.
• Special court
  • The act establishes a special court designated to conduct trials.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Supreme Court, in a significant order has recognised sex work as a “profession” whose practitioners are entitled to dignity and equal protection under law.

• The Supreme Court has directed that police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adult and consenting sex workers.
• Notwithstanding the profession, every individual in this country has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
• The Bench ordered that sex workers should not be “arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised” whenever there is a raid on any brothel, “since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running the brothel is unlawful”.
• A child of a sex worker should not be separated from the mother merely on the ground that she is in the sex trade.
• Further, if a minor is found living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that the child was trafficked.
• Sex workers who are victims of sexual assault should be provided every facility including immediate medico-legal care, a three-judge Bench directed in an order which was passed after invoking special powers under Article 142 of Constitution.

Hence both statements are correct.

The demands for a “Bhil Pradesh”, a separate state for tribal people in western India, have of late begun to be raised again.

• Bhils or Bheels are an Adivasi ethnic group in West India. Bhils are listed as tribal people of the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan
• Bhils are one of the largest tribal group in India. They speak the Bhil languages.

What is ‘Bhil Pradesh’?

• The Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), a political party based in Gujarat, was formed in 2017.
• It envisions Bhil Pradesh as a separate state carved out of 39 districts spread over four states: 16 in Gujarat, 10 in Rajasthan, seven in Madhya Pradesh, and six in Maharashtra.

Mangarh massacre

• Bhil social reformer and spiritual leader Govind Guru first raised the demand for a separate state for tribals back in 1913 after the Mangarh massacre.
• The massacre, which took place six years before Jallianwalla Bagh and is sometimes referred to as the “Adivasi Jallianwala”, saw hundreds of Bhil tribals being killed by British forces on November 17, 1913 in the hills of Mangarh on the border of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

PARAM PORUL, a state-of the art Supercomputer at NIT Tiruchirappalli was dedicated to the nation under Phase 2 of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

• A MoU was signed between NIT Tiruchirappalli and Centre for Development in Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in 2020 to establish this 838 TeraFlops Supercomputing Facility under NSM.
• NIT, Tiruchirappalli has been carrying out research in the areas of societal interest such as Health, Agriculture, Weather, Financial Services. The facility installed under NSM will strengthen this research.
• PARAM PORUL system is based on Direct Contact Liquid Cooling technology to obtain a high-power usage effectiveness and thereby reducing the operational cost.

National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

• National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) is a joint initiative of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST).
• Under NSM, till date 15 supercomputers have been installed across the nation with compute capacity of 24 petaflops. All these supercomputers have been manufactured in India and operating with indigenously developed software stack.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Union Power Minister R. K. Singh has asked the Chief Ministers of all States and Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories to set up State Level Steering Committees for Energy Transition.

• These Steering Committees will work under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretaries of the States and Union Territories.
• The Principal Secretaries of Power and New and Renewable Energy Departments, Transport, Industries, Housing and Urban Affairs, Agriculture, Rural Development and Public Works Departments will act as members of these Committees.
• The States and Union Territories will work on the annual strategy of energy transition under the mandate of the committee.
• Some states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand have already constituted such committees.
• He added that the energy transition is the only means of reducing carbon emissions and fulfilling our commitments made at international forums. He also urged the States to make efforts for zero diesel in agriculture by 2024 by limiting the consumption of diesel in the agriculture sector.

Hence both statements are correct.

After wheat, the Government of India has decided to restrict the export of sugar to 10 million tonnes.

• The Union Department of Food and Public Distribution said the decision was in the wake of “unprecedented growth in exports of sugar” and the need to maintain sufficient stock of sugar in the country.
• It is for the first time in six years that the Centre is regulating sugar exports.
• The move will come into effect from June 1.
• According to the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the industry has signed contracts to export over 8.5 million tonnes of sugar. Of these, around 7.1 million tonnes have been physically exported out of the country till the end of April.
• In the last year, the country had exported 4.3 million lakh tonnes till April, 2021.

Hence both statements are correct.

In a bid to cool inflation in edible oils, the Centre allowed duty-free import of 20 lakh tonnes each of crude soyabean oil and crude sunflower oil for this year as well as 2023-24.

• Retail inflation in edible oils and fats was 18.8% in March and 17.3% in April, and sunflower oil imports have been constricted due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict since February 24.
• The Finance Ministry has notified the duty structure changes which will become operational from May 25, stating that this would provide significant relief to consumers.
• Ukraine was the world’s largest sunflower oil exporter before the conflict began and India has been striving to tap alternative supplies from rival Russia and countries such as Argentina.
• Last October, the government reduced the basic import duties on edible oils amid runaway prices. The import duty on crude palm oil was slashed to 2.5%, from 10%, while those on crude soya and sunflower oils were cut to 2.5%, from 7.5%.

Hence both statements are correct.

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated India’s ‘First Lavender Festival' in Bhaderwah.

• He described Bhaderwah as the birthplace of India's Purple Revolution and said that Bhaderwah is the potential destination of Agri-tech StartUps of the country.
• India’s first National Institute of High Altitude Medicine is also being built in Bhaderwah.
• Bhaderwah (also Bhadarwah Valley) is a town, tehsil and sub-division in the district Doda of Jammu.

Lavender

• Lavandula (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae.
• The flowers may be blue, violet or lilac in the wild species, occasionally blackish purple or yellowish. Lavender has been used over centuries in traditional medicine and cosmetics.
• CSIR-AROMA Mission, under the Ministry of Science & Technology aims to develop and disseminate the aroma-related science and technology to reach the end user/clients of CSIR: Farmers, industry and society.

Hence both statements are correct.

Delhi Customs Zone, a field formation under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, inaugurated project ‘NIGAH’ at ICD Garhi Harsaru, Gurugram.

• Project NIGAH is an initiative to track container by using ICTM (ICD Container Tracking Module) which will help in better visibility of the container movement inside the ICD.
• It will help Customs to expedite long standing containers and monitor timely clearances, thereby enhancing Ease of Doing Business along with ensuring lead preventive checks.

Hence both statements are correct.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said India will emerge as the leader of green hydrogen by taking advantage of the current energy crisis across the globe.

• The ‘green’ depends on how the electricity is generated to obtain the hydrogen, which does not emit greenhouse gas when burned.
• Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis using renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind or hydel power.

Steps in India

• In Apr Oil India Limited (OIL) commissioned India’s first 99.99% pure green hydrogen plant in eastern Assam’s Jorhat.
• India has just begun to generate green hydrogen with the objective of raising non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030.
• The National Hydrogen Mission was launched on August 15, 2021, with a view to cutting down carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable sources of energy.

Hydrogen can be ‘grey’ and ‘blue’ too.

• Grey hydrogen is generated through fossil fuels such as coal and gas and currently accounts for 95% of the total production in South Asia.
• Blue hydrogen, too, is produced using electricity generated by burning fossil fuels but with technologies to prevent the carbon released in the process from entering the atmosphere.

Hence both statements are correct.