Daily Current Affairs MCQ - June 8, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

GIPMER, a Delhi government hospital recently banned its nursing staff from speaking in Malayalam in the hospital and warned of “serious action” if they do not talk in English or Hindi.

• Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken.
• Malayalam has official language status in Kerala, Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé)
• It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India and is spoken by 2.88% of Indians.
• Due to Malayali expatriates in the Persian Gulf, Malayalam is also widely spoken in the Gulf countries.
• Malayalam was designated a "Classical Language in India" in 2013.

Script

• The earliest script used to write Malayalam was the Vatteluttu script.
• The current Malayalam script is based on the Vatteluttu script, which was extended with Grantha script letters to adopt Indo-Aryan loanwords.
• It bears high similarity with the Tigalari script, a historical script that was used to write the Tulu language.

Hence both statements are correct.

It has been decided that in the 5 North-Western States and UTs i.e., Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission will be expedited.

• In these 5 states, every rural household will be provided with tap water connections by 2022, instead of by 2024.
• To enable these States/ UTs to achieve this goal by 2022, Union Minister of Jal Shakti has approved Central allocation of Rs. 8,216.25 Crore in 2021-22. This is more than 4 times of the allocation to these States/ UTs in 2020-21.
• With this massive increase in allocation, and speed of implementation, these 5 States/UTs are set to achieve ‘Har Ghar Jal’ status by 2022.

Background

• On 15th August, 2019, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi announced Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM) to provide safe piped drinking water to every rural household in the country by 2024.
• In this period, Goa, Telangana, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry has become ‘Har Ghar Jal’ i.e. every rural household in these States/ UTs is having tap water supply.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The report titled, “State of India's Environment 2021,” released by the Centre for Science and Environment, said 2,03,000 kg of COVID-19 biomedical waste was produced daily in May this year and it was roughly 33% of India's non-COVID biomedical waste.

As per Bio-medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, Bio-medical waste is required to be segregated in 4 colour coded waste categories, and the same is treated and disposed as per the methods prescribed under Schedule I of the Rules.

Common methods of treatment and disposal of bio-medical waste are by

• incineration/plasma pyrolysis/deep-burial for Yellow Category waste;
  • washing, disinfection followed by recycling for Blue Category glass waste.
  • sterilization and shredding, disinfection followed by burial in concrete pit/recycling through foundry/encapsulation for White Category sharps waste; and
  • autoclaving/microwaving/chemical disinfection for Red Category waste;

Hence option (d) is the correct answer.

Kenya recently launched its newest mega infrastructure project, the Lamu port, which is a part of an ambitious transport corridor between Lamu (a small archipelago north of Mombasa in Kenya), South Sudan and Ethiopia.

• The Lamu port is going to be Kenya’s second deep-water port after Mombasa.
• The port is part of the wider US $23 billion Lamu Port South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor and has been constructed by China Communications Construction Company, with the first three of the planned 32 berths coming at a cost of US $367 million.
• This transport corridor is touted to comprise a standard gauge railway line; an oil pipeline and refinery; road network; international airports at Isiolo, Lamu, Lokichogio; the port of Lamu at Manda Bay; and resort cities.

Hence option (a) is the correct answer.

The Interpol has launched a new global database named ‘I-Familia’. It will identify missing persons or unidentified human remains around the world through DNA of relatives.

• The International Police Organisation is commonly known as Interpol.
• It is an international organization facilitating international police cooperation against cross-border terrorism, trafficking, and other crime.
• Membership: INTERPOL has 194 member countries, making us the world's largest police organization. State of Palestine is its member.
• Governance: All decisions regarding the activities of INTERPOL are made by the General Assembly which is it’s ’s supreme governing body which meets annually.
• It is ‘NOT’ a unit or part of united nation system. It is an independent international organization.
• HQ: Lyon in France.
• Founded in: 1923.
• Each country hosts an INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB), which links national police with our global network. in India, CBI is the NCB.
• Interpol notices: These are international alert/requests circulated by Interpol allowing police in member countries to share critical crime-related information. There are eight types of notices, seven of which are colour-coded by their function. An eighth Special Notice is issued at the request of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Hence option (b) is the correct answer.

Both statements are correct. Statement 1: It is built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and commissioned into the Naval service at Visakhapatnam naval base in 2001. Sandhayak is the Indian Navy's 5th hydrographic survey ship in the series indigenously designed and constructed. Statement 2: It is the lead ship of the Sandhayak class of survey ships and operates as a hydrographic survey ship in the Indian Navy, under the Eastern Naval Command. Why in the news? Recently, INS Sandhayak was decommissioned at Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam after serving the nation for 40 glorious years.

According to Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Chief Minister of Assam, the Raimona reserve forest in Kokrajhar district has become the 6th national park of Assam. Raimona National Park: It is a part of a contiguous forest patch having an area of 422 km2. It comes under the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) across the border with Bhutan. It covers the northern part of Ripu Reserve Forest which is the westernmost buffer to Manas Tiger Reserve.

Recently, Interpol has launched a new global database named “I-Familia” to identify missing persons through family DNA and help the police solve cold cases in member countries. About: Interpol applied cutting-edge scientific research and used the DNA of relatives to identify missing persons or unidentified human remains around the world. According to Interpol, I-Familia is the 1st global database that does not require knowledge of the missing person’s genetic ancestry and provides standardised guidelines on what constitutes a match.

Recently, Maharashtra launched a ‘state annual priority sector credit plan’ worth Rs 4,60,881 crore along with an ‘overall annual credit plan’ worth 18,10,779 crore. About: It was launched during the quarterly State Level Bankers Committee (SBLC) meeting of Maharashtra. The Maharashtra government has set an annual credit lending target of Rs 1.19 lakh crore for the agriculture sector by banks for the financial year 2021-2022. Out of this, Rs 60,860 crore was set for crop loans during Kharif and rabi seasons.

Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually released the “Report of the Expert Committee on Road Map for ethanol blending in India 2020-2025”. The theme of the report is ‘promotion of biofuels for better environment’. Apart from this, he also launched a Pilot Project of E 100 ethanol dispensing stations at 3 locations in Pune, for the production and distribution of ethanol across the country, because ethanol has a better impact on the environment as well as on the lives of farmers.