Daily Current Affairs MCQ - November 12, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

A new study has challenged the widely accepted view that the continents rose from the oceans about 2.5 billion years ago.

• It suggests this happened 700 million years earlier — about 3.2 billion years ago — and that the earliest continental landmass to emerge may have been Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region.
• The study, by researchers from India, Australia and the US, has been published in the journal PNAS.
• Scientists have found sandstones in Singhbhum with geological signatures of ancient river channels, tidal plains and beaches over 3.2 billion years old, representing the earliest crust exposed to air.
• The researchers studied the granites that form the continental crust of Singhbhum region.
• Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Union Minster of Civil Aviation dedicated eGCA, the e-governance platform in Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to the nation.

• DGCA has implemented its e-governance platform eGCA.
• The project has been aimed at automation of the processes and functions of DGCA, with 99 services covering about 70% of the DGCA work being implemented in the initial phases, and 198 services to be covered in other phases.
• This Single window platform will bring in bring in monumental change- eliminating operational inefficiencies, minimizing personal interaction, improving regulatory reporting, enhancing transparency and increasing productivity.

DGCA

• Directorate General of Civil Aviation is an attached office of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
• The Directorate General of Civil Aviation is the regulatory body in the field of Civil Aviation primarily dealing with safety issues.
• The headquarters are located in New Delhi.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi bowed to the great Kannada warrior woman, Onake Obavva on the special occasion of her Jayanti.

• Onake Obavva was a brave hindu woman who fought the forces of Hyder Ali single-handedly with a pestle (Onake) in the kingdom of Chitradurga of Karnataka.
• Her husband was a guard of a watchtower in the rocky fort of Chitradurga.
• In the state of Karnataka, she is celebrated along with Abbakka Rani, Keladi Chennamma and Kittur Chennamma, as the foremost women warriors and patriots.
• She belonged to the Holayas (Chalavadi) community.
• Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

The Government of India has been implementing a rolling programme of sample based National Achievement Survey (NAS) aimed at classes III, V, VIII and X with a cycle period of three years.

The last National Achievement Survey (NAS) was held on 13th November, 2017 for assessing the competencies developed by the children at the grade levels III, V and VIII.

The next round of NAS will be held on 12th November 2021 across the country, which will help to assess the learning interruptions and new learnings during the COVID pandemic and help to take remedial measures.

The instrument development, testing, finalization of the test items, sampling of the schools etc. has been done by NCERT.

However, the actual administration of the test in the sampled schools will be done by CBSE in collaboration with the respective states/UTs. NAS 2021 will cover the entire spectrum of schools i.e. Government Schools (Central Government and State Government), Government Aided Schools and Private schools across the country.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will launch two innovative customer centric initiatives of the Reserve Bank of India on 12 November, 2021 at 11 AM via video conferencing. These initiatives are the RBI Retail Direct Scheme and the Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme.

RBI Retail Direct Scheme

• The RBI Retail Direct Scheme is aimed at enhancing access to government securities market for retail investors.
• It offers them a new avenue for directly investing in securities issued by the Government of India and the State Governments.
• Investors will be able to easily open and maintain their government securities account online with the RBI, free of cost.

Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme

• The Reserve Bank - Integrated Ombudsman Scheme aims to further improve the grievance redress mechanism for resolving customer complaints against entities regulated by RBI.
• The central theme of the scheme is based on ‘One Nation-One Ombudsman’ with one portal, one email and one address for the customers to lodge their complaints.
• There will be a single point of reference for customers to file their complaints, submit the documents, track status and provide feedback. A multi-lingual toll-free number will provide all relevant information on grievance redress and assistance for filing complaints.
• Hence both statements are correct.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Jayanti.

• Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani (1888 – 1982), popularly known as Acharya Kripalani, was an independence activist, Indian politician and an Educationist.
• Educationist:
  • Kripalani was also well-known for his work in the field of education. From 1912 to 1927, he taught at various places before becoming wholly involved in freedom movement.
  • He earned the moniker ‘Acharya’ around 1922 when he was teaching at the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by the Mahatma a couple of years before.
• Independence Activist:
  • He was involved in the organization of Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience movements and Quit India Movement.
  • He was the President of Indian National Congress (INC) at the time of independence.
  • He served in the Interim government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India.
• Political Career: Post-independent India
  • Post-independence, he left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP). This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
  • He remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967 as a member of Praja Socialist Party.
  • Kripalani moved the first-ever No confidence motion in Lok Sabha in 1963, immediately after the India-China War.
  • He remained a critic of Nehru's policies and Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. He was arrested during Emergency.
• Environmentalist: He along with Vinoba Bhave, was involved in in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.
• Personal life: He was married to Sucheta Kripalani, India’s first woman Chief Minister, who led Uttar Pradesh from 1963 to 1967. She remained in Congress after Independence.
• His autobiography ‘My Times’ was released 22 years after his death in 2004.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed gratitude for the gesture by Dulari Devi, an artist from Bihar's Madhubani, who presented him a sample of her artwork during an informal interaction with Padma awardees at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

• Dulari Devi (born 1968) is an Indian artist and illustrator, working in the Mithila art tradition.
• She practices both, the ‘Kachnhi' (line sketching) ‘and ‘Bharni’ (colored) styles of Madhubani but has indicated a preference for the latter.
• She learned to draw and illustrate in the Madhubani style while she was working as a domestic servant in the home of Madhubani artist Mahasundari Devi. Mahasundari Devi introduced her to another artist, Karpoori Devi, who also taught Dulari Devi Madhubani art and techniques.
• In 2021, she was a recipient of the Padma Shri, a civilian honour granted by the Government of India, for her contributions to art.
• Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT)

Launched by the governments of Sweden and India at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019 and is supported by the World Economic Forum.

Objectives – The Leadership Group for Industry Transition gathers countries and companies that are committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions from industry by 2050.

LeadIT is a group of countries and companies that are committed to action to achieve the Paris Agreement

The government and RBI are working on inclusion of Indian sovereign bonds in global bond indices

The move is expected to attract foreign inflows in the debt market, help the government is its market borrowing programme and keep a check on yields.

A Government Security (G-Sec) is a tradeable instrument issued by the Central Government or the State Governments. It acknowledges the Government’s debt obligation. Such securities are short term (usually called treasury bills, with original maturities of less than one year) or long term (usually called Government bonds or dated securities with original maturity of one year or more). In India, the Central Government issues both, treasury bills and bonds or dated securities while the State Governments issue only bonds or dated securities, which are called the State Development Loans (SDLs). G-Secs carry practically no risk of default and, hence, are called risk-free gilt-edged instruments.

According to Mission 2070: A Green New Deal for a Net-Zero India, the country’s transition to a net-zero economy could create over 50 million jobs and contribute more than $1 trillion in economic impact by 2030 and around $15 trillion by 2070.

It is released by World Economic Forum