Daily Current Affairs MCQ- July 21, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

India abstained on a vote at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as the Council decided to set up an international commission of enquiry into Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

• The resolution “strongly condemned” aggression by Russia in Ukraine. Russian troops recently captured Zaporizhzhia Nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
• India was among 13 countries of the 47-member council that abstained from the resolution. Thirty-two countries voted for the resolution that asked the HRC president to appoint three human rights experts for a year. Only Russia and Eritrea voted against the resolution.

UNHRC?

• What is it? The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system.
• Location: It meets at the UN Office at Geneva.
• Establishment: It was founded in 2006. It replaced the former United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) that had been strongly criticised for allowing countries with poor human rights records to be members.
• Membership: The Council is made of 47 Member States, which are elected by the UN General Assembly. The Council's Membership is based on equitable geographical distribution.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in collaboration with Sulabh International is organizing an event “Swacchagraha” under the aegis of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to encourage the mass awareness with the core thought of “Swachhta, Swadhinta and Sulabh” on March 5, 2022 in New Delhi.

• During the event, Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh Sanitation, Social Reform & Human Rights Movement will address the audience.
• The event will also feature performance by Dhruva –The Sanskrit Band.
• This is the world’s only music band that is based on India’s oldest own tradition of Vedic–gaan and Stotra–gaan in Sanskrit language.

Stotra

• Stotra is a Sanskrit word that means "ode, eulogy or a hymn of praise”.
• It is a literary genre of Indian religious texts designed to be melodically sung, in contrast to a shastra which is composed to be recited.

Hence both statements are correct.

Union Minister of Railways inspected the trial of ‘Kavach’ working system between Gullaguda-Chitgidda Railway stations on Lingampalli-Vikarabad section in Secunderabad Division of South Central Railway.

• The KAVACH is an indigenously developed ATP system by Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in collaboration with Indian industry.
• KAVACH is meant to provide protection by preventing trains to pass the signal at Danger (Red) and avoid collision.
• It activates the train braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions. In addition, it prevents collision between two Locomotives equipped with functional KAVACH system.
• It is a state of the art electronic system of Safety Integrity Level - 4 standards.
• ‘Kavach’ is one of the cheapest, Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certified technologies with the probability of error is 1 in 10,000 years.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Government has approved the scheme - Modernisation Plan-IV for Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in continuation of the scheme “Modernisation Plan-III for CAPFs.

• The Modernisation Plan-IV will run from 01.02.2022 to 31.03.2026.
• Modernisation Plan-IV for CAPFs with a total financial outlay of Rs.1,523 crore is to be implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• It aims to equip the CAPFs with modern state-of-the-art weapons and equipment as per their operational requirement, keeping in view their deployment pattern in different theatres. Besides, upgraded IT solutions will also be provided to CAPFs.
• Implementation of the scheme will equip CAPFs to improve the overall operational efficiency/preparedness which will positively impact the internal security scenario in the country.

Hence both statements are correct.

The High Level Committee (HLC) under the Chairmanship of the Union Home Minister, Shri Amit Shah, has approved additional Central assistance under the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to five States and one Union Territory, which were affected by floods/ landslides during 2021.

• The NDRF was set up in accordance with Section 46 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
• It is meant to “meet the expenses for emergency response, relief and rehabilitation” for any disaster situation.
• The NDRF is placed in the “Public Account” of GOI under “reserve funds not bearing interest”.

Hence both statements are correct.

Indian researchers have conclusively refuted a recent claim of the discovery of a radio wave signal from cosmic dawn, the time in the infancy of our Universe when the first stars and galaxies came into existence.

• In 2018 a team of researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and MIT in the US detected a signal from stars emerging in the early universe using data from the EDGES radio telescope. The study published in the journal Nature created much excitement in the astronomy community around the world.
• ASU/MIT team had claimed the discovery of a radio wave signalling the birth of the First Stars, which was also hailed by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb as worthy of two Nobel prizes. However, the world awaited confirmation from independent researchers.
• Utilising the indigenously invented and built SARAS 3 radio telescope, researchers from Raman Research Institute refuted this claim. The SARAS 3 radio telescope is invented and built by the astronomers at RRI. The RRI findings are now published in Nature Astronomy.
• Raman Research Institute (RRI) is an institute of scientific research located in Bangalore, India.
• It was founded by Nobel laureate C. V. Raman.
• It is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The only Start-up company in India for Daylight Harvesting Technologies “Skyshade Daylights Private Limited” Hyderabad signed an MoU with Technology Development Board, a statutory body of Department of Science & Technology on Daylight Harvesting Technology in order to reduce carbon footprint and improve the building energy efficiency.

• Daylighting is basically bringing natural sunlight inside the rooms.
• The solar energy spectrum has 45% energy as visible light and this can be used to harvest building illumination for about 9-11 hours a day.
• The proposed technologies, harvest huge quantities of sunlight for a building and make available for building illumination which reduces electrical lighting energy consumption by 70-80%, besides reducing air-conditioning (cooling load) consumption.

Hence both statements are correct.

Among Indians waiting to be evacuated from Ukraine following the Russian invasion are students of medicine enrolled in colleges located across the country — from Kharkiv in the east to Lviv in the west.

• For about three decades now, Indian students have been heading out to Russia, China, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, the Philippines to pursue a medical degree.
• The medium of education for these students is English, a language they are comfortable with, and the amount spent on living and the medical degree are far more affordable than paying for an MBBS seat in private medical colleges in the country.

Medical colleges in India

• There are certainly far more MBBS aspirants than there are MBBS seats in India. In NEET 2021, as per a National Testing Agency press release, 16.1 lakh students registered for the exam, 15.4 lakh students appeared for the test, and 8.7 lakh students qualified.
• Union Minister of Health, told the Lok Sabha in December 2021, that as per data from the National Medical Commission (NMC), in 2021-22, there were 596 medical colleges in the country with a total of 88,120 MBBS seats.
• Additionally, these colleges are also not distributed evenly across the country, with States such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala having many more colleges.
• The costs of an MBBS degree in a Government college tot up to a few lakhs of rupees for the full course, but in a private medical college, it can go up to ₹1 crore for the five-year course.
• From 2003, the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana has been working to augment facilities for quality medical education in the country.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Recently, forest officials installed GPS transmitters on the northern river terrapin in the Indian Sundarbans. However, In just six weeks after the release, at least three of the 10 turtles of the critically endangered Batagur baska species have travelled hundreds of kilometres and are now in Bangladesh.

• The northern river terrapin (Batagur baska) is a species of riverine turtle native to Southeast Asia.
• It is one of Asia's largest freshwater and brackwater turtles, reaching a carapace length of up to 60 cm and a maximum weight of 18 kg. Its carapace is moderately depressed.
• The species is currently found in Bangladesh and India(in the Sunderbans), Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia.
• It is strongly aquatic but uses terrestrial nesting sites, frequenting the tidal areas of estuaries, large rivers, and mangrove forests.
• It is classified Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and considered extinct in much of its former range, principally due to exploitation as a food item (including egg harvesting).

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has renewed calls for NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, despite the repeated rejection of the idea by western leaders concerned about triggering a wider war in Europe.

• A no-fly zone would bar all unauthorized aircraft from flying over Ukraine.
• Western nations imposed such restrictions over parts of Iraq for more than a decade following the 1991 Gulf War, during the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1993-95, and during the Libyan civil war in 2011.

Why won’t NATO take this step in Ukraine?

• Military analysts say there is no chance that the US, Britain and their European allies will impose a no-fly zone because it could easily escalate the war in Ukraine into a nuclear confrontation between NATO and Russia.
• Declaring a no-fly zone could force NATO pilots to shoot down Russian aircraft.
• In addition to fighter planes, NATO would have to deploy refueling tankers and electronic-surveillance aircraft to support the mission.
• To protect these relatively slow, high-flying planes, NATO would have to destroy surface-to-air missile batteries in Russia and Belarus, again risking a broader conflict.

Hence both statements are correct.