Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 22, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb has of late made it his style statement to sport the Risa. The Biplab Deb government is now eyeing to promote Risa as the signature textile of Tripura nationally.

• Risa is a customary handwoven cloth used by Tripura’s indigenous tribal communities.
• The Risa is used as a head gear, stole, female upper cloth or presented to honour a distinguished recipient.

Cultural Significance:

• Apart from its beautiful designs, the Risa plays a host of crucial social utilities.
• Adolescent Tripuri girls are first given rise to wear when she reaches 12-14 years in an event called Risa Sormani.
• It is also used in religious festivals like the Garia Puja, a customary festival of the tribal communities, or as a head turban by male folks during weddings and festivals.
• Risa is one of the three parts of a customary Tripuri female attire, the other two being the Rignai and Rikutu.
• The Rignai is primarily used to cover the lower part of the body and literally translates into ‘to wear’.
• The Rituku covers the upper half of the body, wrapping it all around. However, it is also used like a ‘chunri’ or a ‘pallu’ of the Indian saree. It is also used to cover the head of newly married Tripuri women.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp recently updated its privacy policy, triggering a mass digital migration of users from the messaging platform to its rivals. The switch gained momentum after Elon Musk urged his followers on Twitter to install the Signal app.

• Signal is a cross-platform centralized encrypted messaging service developed by the Signal Technology Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC. The non-profit Signal Foundation was launched in 2018 with initial funding of $50 million from Brian Acton.
• It uses the Internet to send one-to-one and group messages, which can include files, voice notes, images and videos. It can also be used to make one-to-one and group voice and video calls.
• Signal uses standard cellular telephone numbers as identifiers and secures all communications to other Signal users with end-to-end encryption.
• On 7 January 2021, Signal saw a surge in new user registrations due to a WhatsApp privacy policy change and a Signal endorsement by Elon Musk and Edward Snowden via Twitter.
• Between 12 and 14 January 2021, the number of Signal installations listed on Google Play increased from over 10 million to over 50 million.
• On 15 January 2021, due to new users' surge, Signal was overwhelmed with the new traffic and was down for all users. The service was later restored.

A large scale Joint Military exercise ‘Exercise Kavach’ involving assets of Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Indian Coast Guard is being conducted in the coming week under the aegis of the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC).

• The exercise involves synergised application of maritime surveillance assets, coordinated air and maritime strikes, air defence, submarine and landing operations.
• Concurrently Joint Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) exercise involving various technical, electronic and human intelligence from three services will be conducted.
• The tri-services exercise aims to fine tune joint war-fighting capabilities and SOPs towards enhancing operational synergy.
• The Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) is the only Joint Forces Command of the country.

India Science, Nation’s Science & Technology OTT (Over-the-top) channel has completed its second year of existence successfully on January 15th, 2021.

• Managed by Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organization of the Department of Science & Technology, this channel was formally launched on January 15, 2019.
• With an aim to create scientific awareness & temper amongst the citizens of the country through the latest technology prevalent today like OTT, it was important for Vigyan Prasar to keep pace with it.
• On mobile phones, INDIASCIENCE MobileApp is downloadable from Google PlayStore and Apple App Store. On RelianceJio, it is available through JioTV, JioSTB, and JioChat. It is also available through YouTube.
• With the impending launch of the India Science Jio Phone App, it expects a windfall gains in both reach and interactivity in the coming months.

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched a Regulatory Compliance Portal to minimize Regulatory Compliance Burden for Businesses and Citizens.

• This portal's objective launched on 1st January 2021 is to act as a bridge between citizens, industries, and the Government to minimize burdensome compliances.
• It will also act as a first-of-its-kind central online repository of all Central and State-level compliances.
• All Central Ministries/Departments and States/UTs would examine laws/regulations/rules under their purview and implement an Action Plan to rationalize and simplify all the processes and remove burdensome compliances. These details would be captured and tracked on the Regulatory Compliance Portal.
• Industry stakeholders from Trade bodies such as CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM would also be able to submit compliances and proposed recommendations. Concerned Government authorities will assess this and suitable action would be undertaken to minimize the regulatory compliance burden.

Archaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest known cave art — a life-sized picture of a wild pig that was painted at least 45,500 years ago in Indonesia.

• The Sulawesi warty pig painting was found in the limestone cave of Leang Tedongnge
• The cave painting uncovered in South Sulawesi consists of a figurative depiction of a warty pig, a wild boar that is endemic to this Indonesian island.
• The cave is in a valley that is enclosed by steep limestone cliffs, and is only accessible by a narrow cave passage in the dry season. The isolated Bugis community living in this hidden valley claim Westerners had never before visited it.
• The previously oldest dated rock art 'scene' at least 43,900 years old, was a depiction of hybrid human-animal beings hunting Sulawesi warty pigs and dwarf bovids

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in India will establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), to accelerate quantum computing-led research and development and enable new scientific discoveries.

• The Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.
• AWS will provide hosting with technical and programmatic support for the Lab.
• The lab is World’s first quantum computing applications lab on AWS to support a national government’s mission to drive innovation.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis.

The Supreme Court recently upheld the validity of Section 32 A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

• The Supreme Court held that the successful bidders for a corporate debtor under the IBC would be immune from any investigations being conducted either by investigating agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or other statutory bodies SEBI.
• While upholding the validity of Section 32A of IBC, the court said it was important for the IBC to attract bidders who would offer reasonable and fair value for the corporate debtor to ensure the timely completion of corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP).
• The rules provide the protection to successful bidders and a corporate debtor's assets under Section 32A of the IBC.
• However, the apex court has also said that such immunity would be applicable only if there is an approved resolution plan and a change in the management control of the corporate debtor.
• Since the IBC came into being in 2016, the implementation of resolution plan of several big ticket cases has been delayed because of challenges mounted by its own agencies and regulators.
• With the Supreme Court upholding Section 32 A's validity, these cases are expected to be completed soon.
• This will give confidence to other bidders to proceed with confidence while bidding on such disputed companies and their assets.
   

China said its construction of a village across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh was “beyond reproach” because it had “never recognised” Arunachal. India’s Ministry of External Affairs said earlier this week it was aware of the construction “along the LAC”.

• The village was built between November 2019 and November 2020 and located a couple of kilometres across the LAC, beyond what India sees as the border separating Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet, on the banks of the Tsari Chu river in Upper Subansiri district in Arunachal.
• The village's site is close to where China had attacked an Assam Rifles post in 1959, in what is known as the Longju incident. It is at least 2 km south of the McMahon Line, which China doesn’t recognise. After the 1962 war, India stopped patrolling the area.
• Another village built last year, called Pangda, was built 2-3 km inside what Bhutan sees as its territory, in another disputed area.
• The Subansiri River is a trans-Himalayan river and a tributary of the Brahmaputra River that flows through Tibet's Shannan Prefecture and the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
• It is formed by joining three streams Lokong Chu, Chayal Chu and Tsari Chu.

Union Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers chaired a meeting on upcoming 12.7 lakh MMTPA capacity urea plant at Namrup. The Namrup-IV unit is important for ensuring local development and creating job opportunities.

• Namrup is a small town situated close to the foothills of the great Patkai Mountain Range (Purvanchal Range connecting to Myanmar) in the extreme south-eastern part of Assam.
• The river Dihing or Disang flows through it.
• Administratively Namrup is located within Dibrugarh district and is today an important industrial town of Assam.
• Namrup is the first place in India where a natural gas based fertilizer factory was established - It made use of natural gas, water (in the form of steam) and Nitrogen (from air) to produce urea.