Daily Current Affairs MCQ- December 8, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

Indian skimmer is seen in huge flocks during winter in Coringa wildlife sanctuary (Kakinada).

• A thick, orange-yellow bill with a slightly longer lower mandible (jaw) is one of the most striking features of the Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis).
• The Indian skimmer grows to a length of 40-43 cm.

Distribution:

• More widespread in winter, the Indian skimmer is found in the coastal estuaries of western and eastern India.
• It occurs primarily on larger, sandy, lowland rivers, around lakes and adjacent marshes and, in the non-breeding season, in estuaries and coasts.
• About 20% of the total population of fewer than 2,500 birds nest along river Chambal.

Threat:

• Its population is declining primarily because of the degradation of wetland and riverine habitats.
• The damming of the Chambal River, in upstream Rajasthan, has adversely affected its population at National Chambal Sanctuary, Uttar Pradesh, due to the dropping water levels allowing predators and livestock access to breeding islands.

Conservation:

• IUCN: Endangered
• In 2020, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) have initiated a ‘Guardians of the Skimmer’ programme, which is a community-based conservation initiative.
• BNHS in collaboration with Bird Count India have also initiated ‘Indian Skimmer Count’-a citizen science initiative.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

According to the Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity recent data only one in four people has been vaccinated with at least one dose in low and middle income countries as of November 9, 2022. In comparison, in high income countries, three in four people have got at least one dose of the vaccine.

• The Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity is a joint effort by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Oxford with cooperation across the UN system.
• It combines the latest data on the global roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines with the “most recent socio-economic information to illustrate why accelerating vaccine equity is not only critical to saving lives but also to driving a faster and fairer recovery from the pandemic with benefits for all”.

Vaccine equity:

• It means everyone in the world has the same access to vaccines.

Efforts to reduce vaccine inequity:

• The COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership (COVAX), a collective international effort with ‘One Country Team’, ‘One Plan’, and ‘One Budget’.
• It was launched by WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi and the World Bank, to intensify country readiness and delivery support.
• It aimed at accelerating COVID-19 vaccination coverage in 34 low coverage countries, along with their governments.

Hence both statements are correct.

The US Department of Treasury recently removed India along with Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam from its Currency Monitoring List of major trading partners that merit close attention to their currency practices and macroeconomic policies.

• India had been on the list for the last two years.
• China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan are the seven economies that are a part of the current monitoring list.
• The countries that have been removed from the list have met only one out of three criteria for two consecutive reports.

Currency Manipulation:

• The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 of US requires its Treasury Department to report to the Congress in every six months if any country is manipulating its currencies to gain trade advantages over the US.
• One of the ways of manipulation involves any country artificially weakening its currency by selling it in exchange for a foreign currency, usually the US dollar.
• This artificial weakening of currency makes its own exports cheaper, thereby gaining an unfair trade advantage over another country’s exports.

Criteria:

• There are three criteria the US Treasury looks at in placing a country on the watch list:
  • Significant trade surplus with the US (at least $20 billion in 12 months)
  • A large current account surplus (at least 2 per cent of GDP over a 12-month period)
  • “Persistent", one-sided intervention (when net purchases of foreign currency totalling at least 2 per cent of the country’s GDP over a 12-month period are conducted repeatedly, in at least six out of 12 months).

The countries that meet two out of the three criteria are placed on the watch list.

Hence both statements are correct.

A study published recently in BMJ, which involves a larger cohort, found that pre-symptomatic transmission of monkeypox virus had taken place as long as four days before symptoms manifested.

• The monkeypox virus is an orthopoxvirus, which is a genus of viruses that also includes the variola virus, which causes smallpox, and vaccinia virus, which was used in the smallpox vaccine.
• Monkeypox causes symptoms similar to smallpox, although they are less severe.
• While vaccination eradicated smallpox worldwide in 1980, monkeypox continues to occur in a swathe of countries in Central and West Africa, and has on occasion showed up elsewhere.
• According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), two distinct clade are identified:
  • the West African clade and
  • the Congo Basin clade, also known as the Central African clade.
• Monkeypox is a zoonosis, that is, a disease that is transmitted from infected animals to humans.
• Cases occur close to tropical rainforests inhabited by animals that carry the virus.
• Monkeypox virus infection has been detected in squirrels, Gambian poached rats, dormice, and some species of monkeys.
• Human-to-human transmission is, however, limited. Transmission, when it occurs, can be through contact with bodily fluids, lesions on the skin or on internal mucosal surfaces, such as in the mouth or throat, respiratory droplets and contaminated objects.

Hence both statements are correct.

Tirupati district is dotted with anthropomorphic burial sites, said to be the largest as a collection in Andhra Pradesh.

• Anthropomorphic sites are those marked by a representation of human form above the megalithic burials.
• The most prominent one is the ‘pillared dolmen’ of the megalithic era, found at Mallayyagaripalle, nestling on a hillock between Chandragiri and Dornakambala, in Tirupati.
• The structure locally referred to as ‘Pandava Gullu’ or ‘Pandavula Banda’ in memory of the Pandavas, is estimated to be 2,500 years old.
• There is another endangered megalith monument in Palem village near Kallur, which resembles a bull’s horn. It is called locally as ‘Devara Yeddhu’.
• Another megalithic burial site in Venkatapuram is the ‘stone circle’, where the tomb is surrounded by round stones arranged in a circle.

Megalith:

• A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones.
• The word megalithic describes structures made of such large stones without the use of mortar or concrete, representing periods of prehistory characterised by such constructions.
• The construction of these structures took place mainly in the Neolithic period and continued into the Chalcolithic period and the Bronze Age.

Hence both statements are correct.

According to State Bank of India, current account deficit likely to be lower at 3% for this fiscal as against the minimum consensus of 3.5%, citing rising software exports, remittances and a likely $5-billion jump in forex reserves via swap deals.

• Balance of Payments (BoP):
  • The Balance of payments (BoP) records the transactions in goods, services and assets between residents of a country with the rest of the world.
  • There are two main accounts in the BoP –
    • the current account and
    • the capital account.
• Current Account:
  • The current account records exports and imports in goods and services and transfer payments.
  • Trade in services denoted as invisible trade (because they are not seen to cross national borders) includes both
    • factor income (payment for inputs-investment income, that is, the interest, profits and dividends on our assets abroad minus the income foreigners earn on assets they own in India) and
    • non-factor income (shipping, banking, insurance, tourism, software services, etc.).
  • Transfer payments are receipts which the residents of a country receive ‘for free’, without having to make any present or future payments in return. They consist of remittances, gifts and grants. They could be official or private.
  • The balance of exports and imports of goods is referred to as the trade balance.
  • Adding trade in services and net transfers to the trade balance, we get the current account balance.

Hence both statements are correct.

With winter setting in, several migratory bird species have started flocking to the wetlands.

• Delhi-NCR accounts for almost one-third of the total bird species found in India.
• The region has about 1,800 species of fauna out of which 446 are bird species.
• There are nine protected areas, including one national park, six wildlife sanctuaries, one reserve forest and one conservation reserve.
• There are eight important bird areas, including Okhla Bird sanctuary (Gautam Budh Nagar), Sultanpur National Park (Gurgaon), Hastinapur Wildlife Sanctuary (Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bijnor), Basai Wetlands (Gurgaon) etc. None of them are in Delhi.
• Some of the major migratory ducks are Northern shoveler, Gadwall, Greylag geese, Pallas’s gulls, brown-headed and black-headed gulls, coots, etc.
• India is a winter home for most of the Siberian birds such as the Siberian Cranes, Greater Flamingo, and Demoiselle Crane, also numerous species of birds from other regions of the world.
• They migrate to India every year during the winter and summer season for food, breeding, and nesting.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The UN-backed conclave will open in Thiruvananthapuram on November 16, featuring prominent voices against drug abuse from India and abroad.

• It is organised by Fourth Wave Foundation (FWF) in partnership with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and World Federation Against Drugs (WFAD).
• Theme: ‘Children Matter-Right to a Drug-Free Childhood’ is the central theme of the meet.
• Fourth Wave Foundation’s initiative against substance abuse named ‘VENDA’ (No to Drugs), strongly advocates the ‘alternative pursuit’ model in Kerala on the lines of Icelandic Model (IM).
• Major activities of ‘VENDA’ include empowerment programmes for children, football training, summer camp, football tourney ‘Venda Cup’ and awareness classes for parents, teachers, counsellors, police and excise officers.
• ‘VENDA’ is active in districts that have a very high number of drug-addicted teens found by the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR) survey conducted by the Narcotic Control Bureau.
• The increasing relevance of the Icelandic Model (IM) of intervention in bringing teenagers affected by drug use disorders back to normal life through alternative pursuits will be a key topic of deliberations at the International Forum on ‘Right to Drug-free Childhood’.
  • Around 30 years ago, Iceland was the hotspot of teenage drug consumption in Europe.
  • Today, the country stands first on the European list of de-addicted teenagers.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently senior BJP leader Prakash Javadekar and state education minister V Sivankutty traded allegations over erstwhile Travancore Diwan Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer.

• Sir Chetput Pattabhiraman Ramaswamy Iyer, popularly known as ‘Sir CP’, was the Diwan of the erstwhile Travancore princely state from 1936 to 1947.
• He was a lawyer who served as the Advocate-General of Madras Presidency from 1920 to 1923.
• Serving as Adviser to the prince between 1931 and 1936, Sir CP was personally requested by Sri Chithira Thirunal in 1936 to be the Diwan of Travancore, an offer he accepted and served at the position for 10 years.
• Maharaja Sri Chithira Thirunal, who wished to stay independent when Britain announced its intention to quit India on June 3, 1947, was supported by Sir CP, who declared his intention of forming an independent state of Travancore that would be open to the idea of signing a treaty with the Indian union.
• His policies led to a massive uprising, the Punnapra-Vayalar revolt, which was suppressed by the Travancore army and navy.
• The anger and discontent culminated into an assassination attempt on Sir CP on July 25, 1947, at a concert commemorating the anniversary of Swati Thirunal.
• On July 30, 1947, Travancore joined India.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Tribal Affairs Ministry intends to go ahead with its plan to build new Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) on 15 acres of land in all sub-districts which have Scheduled Tribe communities of more than 20,000 people, who make up at least 50% of their total population, despite a Parliamentary panel saying that this criteria is “impractical”.

• Implementing ministry: Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
• Background: The scheme of EMRSs was introduced in the year 1997-98 to ensure tribal students get access to quality education in the remote tribal areas.
• Features:
  • The schools would focus to provide quality upper primary, secondary and senior secondary level education to ST Students in these areas.
  • Apart from school building including hostels and staff quarters, provision for a playground, students' computer lab, teacher resource room etc. are also included in the EMRSs.
• Revamp of scheme: In 2018, Union Cabinet revamped the scheme with following features.
  • EMRSs will be setup in every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal persons.
  • There will be an Autonomous Society under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs similar to Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti to run the EMRSs.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.