Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 18, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Legendary classical musician Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan dies at 89.

• Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan (1931 – 2021) was an Indian classical musician in the Hindustani classical music tradition, belonging to the Rampur-Sahaswan Gharana.
• He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1991, followed by Padma Bhushan in 2006 and Padma Vibhushan in 2018
• In 2003 he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

Nine former officials who served the state of Michigan in the US, including the state’s former governor Rick Snyder, were charged in connection with a criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis.

• The Flint water crisis is an ongoing public health crisis that began in 2014 when the City of Flint in Michigan changed its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint river.
• This switch caused the water distribution pipes to corrode, as a result of which lead and other contaminants were leached into the municipal drinking water.
• This led to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a serious type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria and other health complications in thousands of its residents.
• According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people can get sick from this if they breathe in mist or accidentally swallow bacteria-containing water into the lungs.
• While the water supply was switched back in 2015, the damage was long-lasting and many residents of the city continued to suffer.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sought inputs from telcos and other industry experts on the sale and use of radio frequency spectrum over the next 10 years, including the 5G bands.

• 5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
• 5G mainly works in 3 bands, namely low, mid and high frequency spectrum — all of which have their own uses as well as limitations.
• While the low band spectrum has shown great promise in terms of coverage and speed of internet and data exchange, the maximum speed is limited to 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
• The mid-band spectrum, on the other hand, offers higher speeds compared to the low band, but has limitations in terms of coverage area and penetration of signals.
• The high-band spectrum offers the highest speed of all the three bands, but has extremely limited coverage and signal penetration strength.
• Internet speeds in the high-band spectrum of 5G has been tested to be as high as 20 Gbps (giga bits per second), while, in most cases, the maximum internet data speed in 4G has been recorded at 1 Gbps.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off eight trains from different parts of the country to Kevadia in Narmada district. Out of these eight trains, the Janshatabdi Express from Ahmedabad-Kevadia has a Vistadome coach.

• The Vistadome coach is a state-of-the-art coach made by Indian Railways, designed to provide passengers with travel comfort as well as an enhanced viewing experience of their surroundings.
• The Vistadome coach in the Janshatabdi Express has been manufactured at the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• It is for the first time that the Vistadome coach has been made on the Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) platform, made for passenger coaches for trains in India.
• Some of the features of the Vistadome coach are an observation lounge with a large window for passengers to experience the scenic route to Kevadia.
• The 44 recliner-180 degree rotatable seats ensure people can enjoy the view from both windows to their right and left, there are automatic sliding doors at both gates of the coach, glass rooftops offer a panoramic view, while there are five large windows on each side.

Russia announced that it was leaving the Open Skies Treaty (OST).

• First proposed in 1955 by former US President Dwight Eisenhower as a means to deescalate tensions during the Cold War, the landmark treaty was eventually signed in 1992 between NATO members and former Warsaw Pact countries following the demise of the Soviet Union.
• It went into effect in 2002 and had 35 signatories, including key players US and Russia, along with one non-ratifying member (Kyrgyzstan).
• It is an accord between countries that allows participants to fly unarmed reconnaissance flights over any part of their fellow member states.
• Under the treaty, a member state can “spy” on any part of the host nation, with the latter’s consent. A country can undertake aerial imaging over the host state after giving notice 72 hours before, and sharing its exact flight path 24 hours before.
• In November, the United States left the OST first after accusing Russia of violating the pact– allegations that Russia denied. Moscow has now blamed Washington for its own decision of leaving the treaty.

US-based Electric car maker Tesla has incorporated a fully owned subsidiary in Bengaluru as a first step to set up an R&D unit and a manufacturing plant for its electric vehicles in the country.

• According to disclosures with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Tesla has registered its 100 per cent subsidiary, as - Tesla India Motors and Energy Pvt Ltd.
• According to the MCA filings, it is a private unlisted company with an authorised capital of Rs 15,00,000 and a paid-up capital of Rs 1,00,000.
• It will enter India with the Model 3 Sedan, expectedly priced at around Rs 60 Lakh.
• The vehicle is fully electric and is powered by a 60kw hour lithium-ion battery pack with a range of 500 km. In a span of only 3.1 seconds, the Sedan speeds up from 0 to 60mph and has a top speed of around 250 km.

In Indonesia, heavy rain is hampering the search operation for survivors following a powerful earthquake on Sulawesi island.

• Sulawesi is an island in Indonesia.
• It is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.
• Within Indonesia, it is smaller than Sumatra and larger than Java Island.
• Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where tectonic plates collide, and the country has a history of devastating earthquakes and tsunamis.

India and Japan signed MoU to enhance cooperation in the field of Information and Communications Technologies.

The Department of Telecom and Japan's Ministry of Communications will enhance mutual cooperation in the field of 5G technologies, telecom security, submarine optical fiber cable system to islands of India, spectrum management, smart cities, high altitude platform for broadband in unconnected areas, disaster management and public safety etc.

More than half of Indian Army personnel seem to be under severe stress, according to the findings of a study by United Service Institution of India (USI), a Service think tank. The research was undertaken during 2019-20 by Col. AK Mor, Senior Research Fellow at the USI.

• The Army has been losing more personnel every year due to suicides, fratricides and untoward incidents than in response to any enemy or terrorist activities
• There has been a significant increase in Indian Army personnel's stress levels during approximately last two decades due to operational and non-operational stressors.
• Prolonged exposure of Indian Army personnel to Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism (CI/CT) environment has been one of the contributory factors for increased stress levels.
• While operational stressors are well understood and accepted by Army personnel, the study says that non-operational stressors that add on “have compounding adverse effects on health and combat efficiency of soldiers and thus affecting their respective units too.”
• In this regard, officers experience comparatively much higher cumulative stress levels, compared to the Junior Commissioned Officers (JCO) and Other Ranks (OR) and the stress causative factors are also different.
• Various management measures implemented by the Army and Defence Ministry in the last 15 years have not been able to achieve the desired results.

Capital markets watchdog SEBI relaxed the framework for follow-on public offers (FPOs), which will help promoters of companies raise funds more easily through this route.

• The applicability of minimum promoters’ contribution norm and the subsequent lock-in requirements for the issuers making the FPO have been done away with by the regulator, as per a notification.
• Earlier, promoters were mandated to contribute 20% towards a FPO.
• Besides, in case of any issue of capital to the public, the minimum promoters’ contribution was required to be locked-in for three years.
• SEBI said the relaxation would be available for those companies which are frequently traded on a stock exchange for at least three years. Also, such firms should have redressed 95% of investor complaints.