Daily Current Affairs MCQ - March 15, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Opposition parties in poll-bound Assam slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for referring to 17th-century Ahom general Lachit Borphukan as a freedom fighter.

• Lachit Borphukan (1622 - 1672) was a commander and Borphukan (Phu-Kon-Lung) in the Ahom kingdom, located in present-day Assam.
• He is known for his leadership in the 1671 Battle of Saraighat that thwarted a drawn-out attempt by Mughal forces under the command of Ramsingh I to take over Ahom kingdom.
• On 24 November each year, Lachit Divas (Lachit Day) is celebrated state-wide in Assam to commemorate the heroism of Lachit Borphukan and the victory of the Assamese army at the Battle of Saraighat.
• The best passing out cadet of the National Defence Academy has conferred the Lachit Borphukan gold medal every year from 1999.
• He died in April 1672, almost two centuries before the freedom movement began.
• Assam was a sovereign region for more than 600 years from 1228-1826.

The Centre has reconstituted an advisory committee to chalk out a plan for studying the mythical Sarasvati river for the next two years, after the earlier panel’s term ended in 2019.

• The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on March 10 issued a notification for “reconstitution of the Advisory Committee for the Multidisciplinary Study of the River Sarasvati”.
• The ASI had first set up the committee on December 28, 2017 for a period of two years.
• The committee would continue to be chaired by the Culture Minister.
• It would include officials from the Culture, Tourism, Water Resources, Environment and Forest, Housing and Urban Affairs Ministries; representatives of the Indian Space Research Organisation; officials from the governments of Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan; and an ASI official.
• The committee would review the work done by the previous panel and then formulate a plan. The committee would advise the Government Departments conducting research.

Center has dissolved the Commission for Air Quality Management.

• The commission was headed by M.M. Kutty, a former Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• The dissolution happened despite the nodal Union Environment Ministry submitting the paper work to the Union Cabinet Secretariat, required to give legal backing to the commission.
• The body came into being in last October on the back of an ordinance — a temporary measure — and the law requires that a formal Bill be presented to Parliament within six weeks of it reconvening — in this case — January 29 when the Budget Session began. Before a Bill is tabled in Parliament it needs to be approved by the Union Cabinet.
• However in spite of several Cabinet meetings since January, it wasn’t taken up for discussion due to which, the tenure of the body expired, without ever making it to Parliament. It is still technically possible to revive the body during the ongoing Parliament session.

Pointing out that the right to dissent should be the central focus of press freedom, independent journalist P. Sainath struck a dissenting note in the report submitted by the Index Monitoring Cell (IMC).

• The Index Monitoring Cell (IMC) was set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry with stakeholders to improve India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index and to evolve an objective yardstick to gauge media freedom.
• The 15-member committee, which had four meetings between May and December last year, has four journalists and government functionaries.
• Chaired by Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, Principal Director General of the Press Information Bureau, the committee has 10 government employees.

Recommendations of report

• Among the key recommendations is the decriminalising of defamation. India is one of the few countries in the world to criminalise defamation.
• The panel has also recommended that consent of the Press Council of India is a prerequisite before filing an FIR against the media or a publication.

Having left the European Union’s flagship Erasmus scholarship programme after Brexit, the UK launched its own replacement called the Turing scheme to enable UK students to study abroad.

• Named after the celebrated English mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing, the scheme will enable schools, colleges and universities in the UK to apply for government funding to allow students to study and work across the globe, including in India.
• The scheme, for which the British government has allocated 110 million pounds for the first year, starts in 2021/22, and would enable up to 35,000 students from across the country to study or work across the world from September this year.
• Under the programme, after schools and universities successfully apply for funding for exchanges, university study and work placements, they can invite their students to apply for individual funding’s.
• The scheme would be a global programme in which every country in the world will be able to partner with UK institutions. This is in contrast with the Erasmus+ programme, which only included European countries.
• India, already a top source of international students to the UK, could be among the leading list of countries with which UK universities seek to strike student exchange projects.

A mosquito protein, called AEG12, strongly inhibits the family of viruses that cause yellow fever, dengue, West Nile, and Zika, and also weakly inhibits coronaviruses, according to scientists at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and their collaborators.

• The researchers found that AEG12 works by destabilising the viral envelope, breaking its protective covering. The protein does not affect viruses that do not have an envelope.
• At the molecular level, AEG12 rips out the lipids (the fat-like portions of the membrane that hold the virus together).
• The findings, however, could lead to therapeutics against viruses that affect millions of people around the world.
• While the researchers demonstrated that AEG12 was most effective against flaviviruses — the family of viruses to which Zika, West Nile, and others belong — they felt it is possible AEG12 could be effective against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
• But, it will take years of bioengineering to make AEG12 a viable therapy for Covid-19.

Union Education Minister announced that in order to ensure hassle-free access to verified Online Teacher Pupil Registration Management System (OTPRMS) Certificates, the Ministry of Education has decided to link the certificates with DigiLocker.

• The issued certificates will automatically be transferred to DigiLocker and the same may be traced at the website of National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
• The registration fee of Rs. 200/-, payable for obtaining OTPRMS Certificates, issued by NCTE has been waived off. This will enable all stakeholders across India to be digitally empowered facilitating ease of doing busines.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has announced a new scheme, under which any tourist vehicle operator may apply for an “All India Tourist Authorization/Permit” through online mode.

• It will be issued, after relevant documents are submitted and fees deposited, within 30 days of submission of such applications.
• The new set of rules, to be known as, “All India Tourist Vehicles Authorization and Permit Rules, 2021” will be applicable from 01 April 2021.
• The new rules for permits are expected to go a long way in promoting tourism across the States in our country, while simultaneously, growing the revenue of state Governments.
• The rules come even as the Ministry is in the pursuit of providing seamless movement to tourist passenger vehicles, after the success of goods carriage vehicles under National Permit Regime.

Indian Navy Ship Jalashwa arrived at port of Anjouan in Comoros with one thousand metric tonnes of rice. This highlights the exemplary ties between India and Comoros within the framework of PM Modi’s vision of SAGAR ( Security and Growth for all in the Indian Ocean Region).

• The Comoros is an island country in the Indian Ocean.
• The Comoros is formed by Ngazidja (Grande Comore), Mwali (Mohéli) and Ndzuani (Anjouan), three major islands in the Comoros Archipelago, as well as many minor islets.
• The archipelago is situated in the Indian Ocean, in the Mozambique Channel, between the African coast (nearest to Mozambique and Tanzania) and Madagascar, with no land borders.
• Its capital and largest city is Moroni.
• As a member of the Arab League, it is the only country in the Arab world which is entirely in the Southern Hemisphere.
• It is also a member state of the African Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the Indian Ocean Commission.

The New Space India Limited, a subsidiary company under the Department of Space will own and operate capital intensive space assets of ISRO as part of the space reforms process initiated in June last year.

• NewSpace India Limited is in advance stage of discussion with the Department of Space to take ownership of two new communication satellites for commercial purpose.
• The transponders on these satellites will be leased to the private companies with DTH and Broadband services.
• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) is a Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) of Government of India and commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• It was established in 2019 under the administrative control of Department of Space (DoS) and the Company Act 2013. The main objective of NSIL is to scale up industry participation in Indian space programmes.
• Headquarters: Bengaluru.