Daily Current Affairs MCQ - July 6, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

During his four-day visit to the UK and Italy, Indian Army Chief Manoj Naravane will inaugurate the Indian Army Memorial at Cassino in Italy, about 140 km away from Rome.

• The memorial commemorates over 3,100 Commonwealth servicemen who took part in the effort to liberate Italy in World War II. Apart from this, 900 Indian soldiers were also commemorated on this memorial.
• Under Benito Mussolini, Italy had joined Nazi Germany in 1936 and in 1940 it entered WWII (1939-1945) against the Allies.
• But in 1943, Mussolini was overthrown and instead, Italy declared war on Germany. The invasion of Italy by the Allies coincided with an armistice that was made with the Italians.
• Indian Army was the largest volunteer force during WWII, with over 2.5 million Indians participating.
• These troops fought the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) as part of the Allies.
• Three infantry divisions of the Indian Army took part in the Italian campaign. These were the 4th, 8th and 10th Indian Divisions.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Filmmaker Karan Johar recently announced his decision to produce the biopic of Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair.

• Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair (1857 – 1934) was an acclaimed lawyer and judge in the Madras High Court. He wrote Gandhi and Anarchy (1922).
• He served as a President of the Indian National Congress in 1897 at the meeting held at Amravati.
• In 1902 Lord Curzon appointed him a member of the Raleigh University Commission. In 1904 he was appointed as Companion of the Indian Empire by the King-Emperor and in 1912 he was knighted. In 1915 he became part of the Viceroy’s Council, put in charge of the education portfolio.
• Nair was known for being a passionate advocate for social reforms. In Budasna v Fatima (1914), he passed a radical judgement when he ruled that those who converted to Hinduism cannot be treated as outcastes.
• But what really stood out in his long glorious career is a courtroom battle he fought against the Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer.
• Nair had accused O’Dwyer in his book, ‘Gandhi and anarchy’ for being responsible for the atrocities at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Consequently, he was fighting against an Englishman, in an English court that was presided over by an English jury.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Taloja jail superintendent Kaustubh Kurlekar was transferred in a recent order by the Maharashtra prison department.

• Taloja Central Prison was set up in 2008 in Raigad district as an alternative to the Mumbai Central Prison which housed most of the undertrials in cases of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and was usually crowded over three times its capacity.
• Spread over 27 hectares, the large open space in the jail surrounded by mountains was to also serve in segregating rival gangs which often led to conflicts in other city prisons.
• While the jail was to be at the outskirts of a city, over the years, the area has become an extended suburb of the satellite city of Navi Mumbai.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Ministry of Environment have jointly decided to give more powers to the tribal communities in managing the forest resources. A “Joint Communication” to this effect has been signed.

• The Joint Communication, pertains to effective implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, which is commonly known as Forest Rights Act (FRA).
• The Act recognizes and vests the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling scheduled tribes (FDSTs) and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFDs) who have been residing in such forests for generations but whose rights could not be recorded.
• It provides a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and vesting in respect of forest land.
• The act identifies four types of rights:
  • Title rights
  • Use rights
  • Relief and development rights
  • Forest management rights
• Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry has initiated a project on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

• The task has been assigned to Quality Council of India (QCI).
• ONDC aims at promoting open networks developed on open sourced methodology, using open specifications and open network protocols independent of any specific platform.
• ONDC is expected to digitize the entire value chain, standardize operations, promote inclusion of suppliers, derive efficiencies in logistics and enhance value for consumers.
• An advisory council has been constituted to advise the Government on measures needed to design and accelerate adoption of ONDC. Additional Secretary (ITeC), DPIIT shall be the convenor of the Advisory Council.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), or the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being their total elimination. It was adopted on 7 July 2017, opened for signature on 20 September 2017, and entered into force on 22 January 2021.

For those nations that are party to it, the treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as assistance and encouragement to the prohibited activities. For nuclear armed states joining the treaty, it provides for a time-bound framework for negotiations leading to the verified and irreversible elimination of its nuclear weapons programme.

69 nations did not vote, among them all of the nuclear weapon states and all NATO members except the Netherlands.

Reserve Bank of India released its latest Financial Stability Report (or FSR). Published twice each year, the FSR is one of the most crucial documents on the Indian economy as it presents an assessment of the health of the financial system.

The FSR also allows the RBI to assess the macro-financial risks in the economy. Macro-financial risks refer to the risks that originate from the financial system but affect the wider economy as well as risks to the financial system that originate in the wider economy.

A part of the Arctic’s ice called “Last Ice Area”, located north of Greenland, has melted before expected. Scientists had believed this area was strong enough to withstand global warming.

The area is important because it was thought to be able to help ice-dependent species as ice in the surrounding areas melted away. The area is used by polar bears to hunt for seals who use ice to build dens for their offspring. Walruses too, use the surface of the ice for foraging.

• An Aurora is a display of light in the sky predominantly seen in the high latitude regions (Arctic and Antarctic). It is also known as a Polar light.
  • They commonly occur at high northern and southern latitudes, less frequent at mid-latitudes, and seldom seen near the equator. Hence, statement 1 is not correct.
• While usually a milky greenish color, auroras can also show red, blue, violet, pink, and white. These colors appear in a variety of continuously changing shapes.
• Auroras are not just something that happens on Earth. If a planet has an atmosphere and magnetic field, they probably have auroras.
• Auroras are caused when charged particles ejected from the Sun’s surface - called the solar wind - enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Hence, statement 2 is correct.
• The typical aurora is caused by collisions between charged particles from space with the oxygen and nitrogen in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
• The electrons - which come from the Earth’s magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by Earth’s magnetic field - transfer their energy to the oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules, making them “excited”.
• When a large number of electrons come from the magnetosphere to bombard the atmosphere, the oxygen and nitrogen can emit enough light for the eye to detect, giving us beautiful auroral displays.
• In the northern part of our globe, the polar lights are called aurora borealis or Northern Lights, and are seen from the US (Alaska), Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
• In the south, they are called aurora australis or southern lights, and are visible from high latitudes in Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.

• The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) inclusive framework is an OECD initiative, approved by the G20, to identify ways of providing more standardised tax rules globally. Hence, statement 1 is not correct.
• India has ratified the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting ("Multilateral Instrument" or "MLI") - outcome of the OECD/G20 Project to tackle BEPS. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.