Daily Current Affairs MCQ - October 19, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Chairman of Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Dr Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has said that as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, India will host young leaders from 75 democracies under the initiative Gen-Next Democratic Network.

• Young leaders below the age of 35 from the ruling party, opposition party and other key parties are being invited and the first batch will include leaders from Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Japan, Indonesia, Chile and Zambia.
• He said, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will inaugurate the event on 25th November.
• The objective behind the event is to give the young leaders a comprehensive idea about India's rich democratic culture.
• Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Mumbai lost 81% of its open land (barren spaces without any vegetation), 40% green cover (forests & scrublands) and approximately 30% of its water bodies (lakes, ponds, floodplains) between 1991 and 2018, while the built-up area (areas developed upon) rose by 66% in the same period, says a recent study.

• It concludes that the city witnessed a 2-degree Celsius average temperature rise across 27 years.
• With this pace of urbanisation and landscape transformation, it is expected that the Urban Heat Island intensity will further increase in the city.
• The extreme heat that one experiences while strolling through any urban landscape is caused by the Urban Heat Island effect, a micro-climatic phenomenon. This is due to a number of causes, the most prominent being the usage of materials such as concrete
• This will not only deteriorate the urban thermal environment but also increase the serious risks to health for city dwellers. This rise in heat intensity in Mumbai is linked to the declining green cover in the city, which is the result of the large-scale transformation of the green cover into built-up land for the infrastructural development in the city.
• Hence both statements are correct.

Dubbed as the “Eco Oscars”, The Earthshot Prize is an award set up by Prince William and the Royal Foundation, the charity founded by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and historian David Attenborough to honour five finalists between 2021 and 2030 for developing solutions to fight the climate crisis.

• The inaugural edition remains special for India as Vidyut Mohan’s technology that recycles agricultural waste to create fuel was named among the winners of the coveted prize.
• Established in 2020, 2021 was the first year when awards were handed out to finalists for their contributions towards the five UN Sustainable Development Goals — restoration and protection of nature, air cleanliness, ocean revival, waste-free living and climate action.
• Inspired by former US President John F Kennedy’s Moonshot — when the president had set a goal of reaching the Moon in less than a decade — the Earthshot Prize hopes to encourage and support the development of solutions for Earth’s environmental problems.
• Five individuals or organisations that have come up with impactful solutions to problems plaguing the planet will be awarded one million euros. Each year five winners will be selected, one for each of the UN SDG goal categories, with a total of 50 million euros being awarded by 2030.
• The winners will be chosen by the Earthshot Prize Council which comprises global spokespersons who are striving to bring impactful action in various capabilities.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

According to a new study, If carbon emissions continue at current levels, summer ice will disappear by 2100 — and, along with it, creatures such as seals and polar bears.

• In winter, most of the Arctic Ocean surface freezes, and scientists expect this to continue for the foreseeable future, even as climate warms.
• In summer, when some of the ice melts, winds and currents carry it for great distances — some of it into the North Atlantic, but much of it into the Arctic’s farthest-north coasts, along Greenland and the Canadian islands.
• This results in a rich marine ecosystem. On the Arctic ice, algae bloom. These feed tiny animals, which in turn feed fish, which in turn feed seals, which feed polar bears at the top of the chain.
• The irregular topography also helps create lairs for seals, and ice caves for polar bears during the winter.
• But with a warming climate, summer sea ice has been shrinking fast, and now consistently spans less than half the area it did in the early 1980s.
• Hence both statements are correct.

Geospatial Energy Map of India was launched by Dr Rajiv Kumar (Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog), Dr V K Saraswat (Member, NITI Aayog), and Shri Amitabh Kant (CEO, NITI Aayog) on 18 October 2021.

• NITI Aayog in collaboration with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has developed a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) Energy Map of India with the support of Energy Ministries of Government of India.
• The GIS map provides a holistic picture of all energy resources of the country which enables visualisation of energy installations such as conventional power plants, oil and gas wells, petroleum refineries, coal fields and coal blocks, district-wise data on renewable energy power plants and renewable energy resource potential, etc through 27 thematic layers.
• The map attempts to identify and locate all primary and secondary sources of energy and their transportation/transmission networks to provide a comprehensive view of energy production and distribution in a country.
• Hence both statements are correct.

Enforcement Directorate (ED) is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in India. It is part of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.

The prime objective of the Enforcement Directorate is the enforcement of two key Acts- the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 (FEMA) and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 (PMLA).

In pursuance of an appeal by the then Prime Minister, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru in January 1948, the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) was established with public contributions to assist displaced persons from Pakistan. The resources … are now utilised primarily to render immediate relief to families of those killed in natural calamities… and to the victims of the major accidents and riots.

The fund is recognised as a Trust under the Income-Tax Act.

The PMNRF has the President of India and the Leader of Opposition also as trustees.

A statutorily constituted National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), was established under the Disaster Management (DM) Act of 2005. The NDRF is mandated to be accountable, and answerable under the RTI Act, being a public authority, and auditable by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The DM Act provided for a Disaster Response Fund — state and district level funds (besides the national level) and also to collect and use the donations at the local level, with mandatory transparency and audit provisions. 

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has simplified the process for Indians who want to renounce their citizenship.

In 2018, the MHA revised the Form XXII under the Citizenship Rules for declaration of renunciation of citizenship, which for the first time included a column on “circumstances/reasons due to which applicant intends to acquire foreign citizenship and renounce Indian citizenship”.

As many as 1,41,656 Indians renounced their citizenship in the year 2015, while in the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, the numbers stood at 1,44,942, 1,27,905, 1,25,130 and 1,36,441, respectively.

The guidelines said that when a person ceases to be a citizen of India under Section 8(1) of Citizenship Act, 1955, “every minor child of that person shall thereupon ceases to be a citizen of India”. The minor child may, however, within one year of attaining full age apply to resume Indian citizenship. The guidelines are not clear if minors would also lose citizenship if only one of the parents gives up her/his Indian citizenship.

India ratified the International Labour Organization’s Employment Policy Convention, 1964, which requires the ratifying countries to implement “an active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment.” India does not have one till now.