Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 9, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar launched Government's Digital Calendar and Diary App in New Delhi.

• Government calendar that has adorned the walls in the past will now adorn mobile phones.
• Digital calender is an environment-friendly initiative.
• It is available in Hindi and English, but it will be available in 11 languages from 15th of this month.
• The calender has a theme for every month and it will also have all informations of 100 revolutionary programmes of the government.
• The GOI Calender and the Diary App is available for download on both Google Play store and iOS App Store.
• The app has been designed and developed by Bureau of Outreach and Communication, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The app will do away with the need for a new calendar every year.

The National Internet Exchange of India, NIXI has announced that it will offer a free Internationalized Domain Name, IDN in any of the preferred 22 official Indian language along with every IN domain booked by the registrant.

• Applicant will also get a free email in local language. This offer has been created to stimulate the adoption of भारत IDN domain name and proliferation of local language content.
• This offer is valid for new .in users who register up to 31st of January. This offer is also extended to those existing in users who renew their domain in the month of January 2021.
• National Internet Exchange of India, NIXI is a not for profit organization.
• It is working since 2003 for spreading the internet technology to the citizens of India through the activities like Internet Exchanges through which the internet data is exchanged amongst ISPs and between ISPs and CDNs, managing and operating Internet protocol IPv4 or IPv6 etc.
   

Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NHPC Limited for providing its technical expertise in developing renewable energy projects.

• Under the MoU, IREDA will undertake Techno-Financial due diligence of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency and conservation projects for NHPC.
• IREDA will help NHPC develop an action plan to create and acquire Renewable Energy projects for the next five years.
• IREDA is under administrative control of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. NHPC Limited is the PSU under the Ministry of Power.

In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre has merged J&K cadre for all India Services Viz; IAS, IPS and IFS officers with that of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT), also called the Union Territory cadre, through an ordinance.

• The President has promulgated an ordinance to amend J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 and make IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service officers of existing cadre of J&K a part of AGMUT cadre.
• The move will allow officers posted in these states and UTs to work in J&K and vice versa.
• The move will help tackle the shortage of All India Services Officers in J&K owing to an earlier rule fixing the ratio of direct recruits in Civil Services to promotions from J&K State Civil Services (Kashmir Administrative Service) at 50:50 instead of 67:33 formula followed in other states.

India will be chairing three-key subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The Permanent Representative of India announced this at the United Nations Security Council, TS Tirumurti.

• The panels are, Counter-Terrorism Committee (for 2022), Taliban Sanctions Committee, and Libya Sanctions committee.
• India will chair the Counter-Terrorism Committee of UNSC in 2022. Chairing of this committee has a special resonance for India, which has been at the forefront of fighting terrorism, especially cross border terrorism, and has also been one of its biggest victims.
• Taliban Sanctions Committee has always been a high priority for India keeping in mind its strong interest and commitment to peace, security, development, and progress of Afghanistan.
• India will be assuming the Libya Sanctions Committee chair at a critical juncture when there is an international focus on Libya and on the peace process.

Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of the Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) India Forum-2021 is being organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

• The NCAVES Project, funded by EU, has been jointly implemented by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD).
• India is one of the five countries taking part in this project - the other countries being Brazil, China, South Africa and Mexico.
• In India, the NCAVES project is being implemented by the MoSPI in close collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).
• The project's participation has helped MOSPI commence the compilation of the Environment Accounts as per the UN-SEEA framework and release environmental accounts in its publication “EnviStats India” on an annual basis since 2018.
• Under the NCAVES project, the India-EVL Tool has been developed, which is essentially a look-up tool giving a snapshot of the values of various ecosystem services in the country's different States, based on about 80 studies conducted across the country.

PM Modi has expressed grief over Professor Chitra Ghosh's demise, the youngest daughter of Sarat Chandra Bose and niece of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

• Sarat Chandra Bose (1889 – 1950) was an Indian barrister and independence activist.
• He was brother of Subhas Chandra Bose.
• In 1936, Sarat Chandra Bose became the President of the Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, and served as a member of the All India Congress Committee from 1936 till 1947.
• From 1946 to 1947, Bose would lead the Congress delegation to the Central Legislative Assembly.
• He strongly supported the Indian National Army's formation by Subhas Bose and actively participated in the Quit India movement.
• Following his brother's reported death in 1945, Bose led efforts to provide relief and aid to INA soldiers' families through the INA Defence and Relief Committee.
• In 1946, he was appointed Member of the Interim Government for Works, Mines and Powers – the position of a minister in a national executive council led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and presided over by the Viceroy of India.
• After India's independence, Bose led his brother's Forward Bloc and formed the Socialist Republican Party, advocating a socialist system for Bengal and India.

Under the ICAR’s initiative ‘Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav’, Cleanliness drive was carried out recently in Ibrampur, Veling and Parra villages.

• The flagship programme of India's prime minister, “Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav” was launched in 2015.
• This scheme aims to provide farmers with required information, knowledge, and advisories regularly by adopting villages. The programme aims to promote scientists' direct interface with the farmers to hasten the lab to land process.
• It is implemented by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), an autonomous body responsible for coordinating agricultural education and research in India. It reports to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture.

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation (MAHA –METRO) are working together to conserve water and protect the environment by installing DRDO's eco-friendly biodigester units (a non-sewered sanitation technology) in its facilities.
• A MOU was inked on January 5, 2021 between MAHA-METRO and DRDO. DRDO will render technical support for the implementation of its advanced biodigester Mk-II technology for the treatment of human waste (night soil) in the metro rail network.
• DRDO’s biodigester is an indigenous, green and cost-effective technology, with a rare distinction of having one of the largest numbers of DRDO-licensees (ToT holders).
• Indian Railways has already installed about 2.40 lakh biodigesters in its fleet of passenger coaches. Now for MAHA-METRO, the technology has been revamped and further improved in a bid to save the water and space.

The Supreme Court asked the Centre to “delete” its three-year-old law which allowed seizure and subsequent confiscation of livestock from people who depended on these animals for a livelihood, even before they were found guilty of cruelty towards them.

• The supreme court warned the government that it would “stay” the implementation of a 2017 law, which allowed authorities to seize cattle on a mere suspicion that they suffered cruel treatment at the hands of their owners or were being primed for slaughter.
• The law prescribes these animals and would then be lodged in gaushalas as “case property” to await the court’s verdict. In short, a farmer, a livestock owner or a cattle trader loses his animals before being found guilty of the charge of cruelty.
• It ruled that these rules are contrary to Section 29 of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, under which only a person convicted of cruelty can lose his animal.
• The law under question is the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Care and Maintenance of Case Property Animals) Rules, 2017 notified on May 23, 2017. The rules were framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
• The 2017 Rules allow a Magistrate to forfeit the cattle of an owner facing trial under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The animals are then sent to infirmaries, gaushalas, pinjrapole, etc. These authorities can further give such animals for “adoption”.