Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 6, 2022 - CLAT MCQ

• A new study has found that converting annual crops to perennial bioenergy crops can induce a cooling effect on the areas where they are cultivated. Hence statement 1 is correct.
  • The researchers simulated the biophysical climate impact of a range of future bioenergy crop cultivation scenarios. Eucalyptus, poplar, willow, miscanthus and switchgrass were the bioenergy crops used in the study.
  • The study also demonstrated the importance of the crop type choice, the original land use type upon which bioenergy crops are expanded, the total cultivation area and its spatial distribution patterns.
• Crops from which Biofuels are produced or manufactured are called Biofuel crops or Bioenergy Crops. “Energy crops" is a term used to describe biofuel crops.
  • Wheat, corn, main edible oilseeds/edible oils, sugarcane, and other crops are among them. Hence statement 2 is correct.
• Biofuels have a number of advantages over fossil fuels, including the ability to burn cleaner and emit fewer pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, into the sky. They're also environmentally friendly, and energy corporations frequently mix Biofuels with gasoline.

Mutation, Variant and Strain

• When a virus replicates it doesn’t always manage to produce an exact copy of itself.
  • This means that, over time, the virus may start to differ slightly in terms of its genetic sequence.
  • Any changes to the viral genetic sequence during this process is known as a Mutation.
• The words ‘mutation’ and ‘variant’ are sometimes used interchangeably, but they mean quite different things. A mutation is a single change in the genetic material of the virus (RNA in this case). A variant is the whole sequence of the virus (the genome), which may contain one or more mutations. Hence, statements 1 and 2 are correct.
• When a new variant has different functional properties to the original virus and becomes established in a population, it is sometimes referred to as a New Strain of the virus.
  • All strains are variants, but not all variants are strains.

• Savanna, also spelled savannah, vegetation type that grows under hot, seasonally dry climatic conditions and is characterised by an open tree canopy (i.e., scattered trees) above a continuous tall grass understory (the vegetation layer between the forest canopy and the ground).
• The largest areas of savanna are found in Africa, South America, Australia, India, the Myanmar (Burma)–Thailand region in Asia, and Madagascar.
• In general, savannas grow in tropical regions 8° to 20° latitudes from the Equator. Hence statement 1 is not correct.
• Conditions are warm to hot in all seasons, but significant rainfall occurs for only a few months each year—about October to March in the Southern Hemisphere and April to September in the Northern Hemisphere.
• Mean annual precipitation is generally 80 to 150 cm although in some central continental locations it may be as low as 50 cm .
• The dry season is typically longer than the wet season, but it varies considerably, from 2 to 11 months. Mean monthly temperatures are about 10 to 20 °C in the dry season and 20 to 30 °C in the wet season.
• Grasses and trees that grow in the savanna have adapted to life with little water and hot temperatures. Hence statement 2 is correct.
  • Grasses, for example, grow quickly in the wet season when water is abundant and turn brown in the dry season to conserve water.

The open-source software repository service GitHub is in the news after it was used to create and share an offensively named app that sexually harassed Muslim women in India.

• The app used pictures of the women stolen from their social media handles and invited “users” to bid for them.
• IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that GitHub has blocked the user, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In), the nodal agency for monitoring cyber security incidents, has been asked to form “a high-level committee” to investigate.
• GitHub is the world’s largest open-source developer community platform where users upload their projects and code for others to view, edit, and tweak.
• The idea of GitHub is this: any developer can upload whatever software code or app code or software idea they have on the platform, and have others collaborate with them to help improve it, find errors, and fix problems.
• The platform uses the software Git, which was created in 2005 by Linus Trovalds, the developer of the open-source operating system Linux, to track changes in a set of files and for coordination in software development.
• Hence both statements are correct.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with the framework for facilitating small-value digital payments in offline mode, a move that would promote digital payments in semi-urban and rural areas.

• The framework incorporates feedback received from the pilot experiments on offline transactions conducted in different parts of the country between September 2020 and June 2021.
• An offline digital payment does not require Internet or telecom connectivity.
• Under this new framework, such payments can be carried out face-to-face (proximity mode) using any channel or instrument like cards, wallets and mobile devices.
• Such transactions would not require an Additional Factor of Authentication. Since the transactions are offline, alerts (by way of SMS and / or e-mail) will be received by the customer after a time lag.
• There is a limit of ₹200 per transaction and an overall limit of ₹2,000 until the balance in the account is replenished. The RBI said the framework took effect ‘immediately’.
• Hence both statements are correct.

The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai came into the 60th year of its existence on January 3 this year.

• The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) (sometimes also referred to as Matscience) is a research centre located in Chennai.
• It is funded mainly by the Department of Atomic Energy.
• IMSc is a national institute for fundamental research in frontier disciplines of the mathematical and physical sciences: theoretical computer science, mathematics, theoretical physics, and computational biology.
• The institute operates the Kabru supercomputer.

Timeline

• On January 3, 1962, Matscience was founded in Chennai by Alladi Krishnaswamy.
• In 1984, the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) took charge of the institute.
• In 1986, computer scientist P.S. Thiagarajan and several other computer scientists joined to start the institute’s Theoretical Computer Science division.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

To bridge the gap between projected budgetary requirements and budget allocation for defence and internal security and to provide greater predictability for enabling critical defence capital expenditure, the Commission has recommended setting up of a dedicated non-lapsable fund, the Modernisation Fund for Defence and Internal Security (MFDIS), with four specific sources: (a) Transfers from the Consolidated Fund of India, (b) disinvestment proceeds of DPSEs, (c) proceeds from the monetisation of surplus defence land and (d) proceeds of receipts from defence land likely to be transferred to state governments and for public projects in the future.

• Agni-P is a two-stage canisterised solid propellant missile with dual redundant navigation and guidance system and has a range of upto 2000 km.
• Agni-P as a new generation advanced variant of Agni class of missiles with improved parameters, including manoeuvring and accuracy. Canisterisation of missiles reduces the time required to launch the missile while improving the storage and ease of handling.
• Agni-V, an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with a range of over 5,000 km, had been tested several times and validated for induction.
• The Navy has been pushing for a second Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-II) based on its force structure centred around three carriers. The country’s first IAC (IAC-I) Vikrantis currently undergoing sea trials.

The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) in collaboration with Association of Healthcare Providers of India (AHPI), which comprises more than 12,000 private hospitals, has launched an accreditation programme that will enable hospitals to get a “breastfeeding-friendly” tag. This programme is called “Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)”.

The initiative is only for private hospitals and is based on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s MAA programme for government hospitals launched in 2016.

Provision of mother’s breast milk to infants within one hour of birth ensures that the infant receives the colostrum, or “first milk”, which is rich in protective factors.

The Congress government in Rajasthan is preparing an ambitious road map in the New Year for mining of lignite in Bikaner district’s Gudha West and the installation of a new lignite-based thermal power plant in its vicinity.

• The joint action plan is expected to significantly enhance the State’s power generation capacity.
• Lignite mining capacity of 10 lakh tonnes was available in Gudha West, where there was a plan to set up a power plant of 125 to 135 MW capacity in 2005 as well.
• The Central Government’s Neyveli Lignite Corporation is already generating electricity in its power plant at Gudha East, while the power is being produced by the private sector in Bikaner district’s Barsingsar village.
• Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat.
• It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat content.
• Lignite is mined all around the world and is used almost exclusively as a fuel for steam-electric power generation.
• The combustion of lignite produces less heat for the amount of carbon dioxide and sulfur released than other ranks of coal. As a result, environmental advocates have characterized lignite as the most harmful coal to human health.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.