Daily Current Affairs MCQ- September 22, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

The Juvenile Justice (Care or Protection of Children) Act/JJ Act, 2015:

• The Act was introduced (by the Ministry of Women and Child Development) and passed in 2015 to replace the Juvenile Delinquency Law and the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.
• One of the main provisions of the Act is allowing the trial of juveniles in conflict with law in the age group of 16-18 years as adults.
  • Under the Act, offences committed by juveniles are categorised as heinous (with minimum or maximum sentence of 7 years), serious (with 3-7 years of imprisonment) and petty offences.
  • According to the Act, juveniles charged with heinous crimes and between the ages of 16-18 years would be tried as adults and processed through the adult justice system.
  • The nature of the crime and whether the juvenile should be tried as a minor or a child, was to be determined by a Juvenile Justice Board.
• The second major provision is with regards to
  • The Act streamlined adoption procedures for orphans, abandoned and surrendered children and the existing Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has been made a statutory body to enable it to perform its function more effectively.
• The State Government may, by notification, establish one or more Child Welfare Committees (CWC) for each district or group of districts to exercise the powers conferred under this Act.
  • The Committee shall be composed of a Chairperson and four other members, at least one of whom shall be a woman and another a child expert.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

India’s net direct tax collections have crossed ₹7 lakh crore so far this year, 23.33% more than the corresponding period last year, signalling a post-pandemic rebound in the economy, the Finance Ministry said.

• Net direct tax collections as on Saturday stood at ₹7,00,669 crore, compared with ₹5,68,147 crore as of September 17, 2021, with corporate taxes constituting little over a half of the kitty at ₹3,68,484 crore.
• The personal income tax and the securities transaction tax (STT) have yielded ₹3.3 lakh crore.
• Advance tax collections stood at ₹2,95,308 crore, 17% higher than the corresponding period of 2021-22, with corporate tax contributing a little over ₹2.29 lakh crore and personal income tax bringing in the rest of the ₹66,176 crore.
• The Ministry said there had been a “remarkable increase in the speed of processing of income tax returns filed during the current financial year” with almost 93% of the duly verified ITRs having been processed till September 17.

Hence both statements are correct.

The extremist National Socialist Council of Nagalim or the Isak-Muivah faction of the NSCN has agreed to resume peace talks with the Centre based on the Framework Agreement signed on August 3, 2015.

• The Nagaland Peace Accord is a peace treaty, signed, on 3 August 2015, between the Government of India, and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), to end the insurgency in the state of Nagaland in Northeast India.
• The decision follows a meeting between the 11 representatives of the NSCN(I-M) and the 22-member Core Committee on Naga Political Issue comprising MPs and MLAs of Nagaland at Chumoukedima near the State’s commercial hub, Dimapur.
• There are reports that a Central team has been working on a new set of “formulation papers” for packaging a set of offers, along with the old, to facilitate the final peace deal soon.

Hence both statements are correct.

District Disability Rehabilitation centres (DDRCs) were inaugurated by Dr. Virendra Kumar Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment.

• District Disability Rehabilitation centres (DDRC) spread across the country are providing effective rehabilitation services to the persons with disabilities for last two decades.
• These centres are run jointly by District Management Team headed by DM/Collector and a reputed NGO (Usually Indian Red Cross Society).
• To upscale their services, a MODEL DDRC has been conceptualised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons With Disability in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Government of India.
• Nine such model DDRCs, namely- Badaun, Pilibhit, Barielly, Balaghat, Golaghat, Ahmedabad, Amravati , Kullu and Rampur have been upgraded to MODEL DDRC level in the first phase and these 09 model DDRCs were virtually inaugurated by Dr. Virendra Kumar, Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India.

Hence both statements are correct.

India has emerged as the largest bilateral lender for Sri Lanka, overtaking China. India has provided a total of 968 million US dollars in loans to the island nation in four months of 2022.

• In the past five years from 2017-2021, China has been the largest bilateral lender to Sri Lanka.
• Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been the largest multilateral lender in the past five years and disbursed funds amounting to 610 million dollars in 2021.
• India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ruchira Kamboj had said that India had provided nearly 4 billion dollars in food and financial assistance to Sri Lanka. On August 22, India handed over 21,000 tonnes of fertilizer to crisis-ridden Sri Lanka.
• India has been at forefront of extending economic assistance to Sri Lanka as per their requirements and is one of the countries that have provided the maximum amount of assistance in time of need. Since the beginning of 2022, Sri Lanka has experienced an escalating economic crisis and the government has defaulted on its foreign loans.
• Sri Lanka is battling a severe economic crisis with food and fuel scarcity affecting a large number of the people in the island nation.

Hence both statements are correct.

Development of tourism infrastructure and sustainable tourism will be the focus of a national conference of tourism ministers from various states and Union Territories that is being held in Himachal Pradesh's Dharamshala.

• The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Tourism from September 18-20 to discuss issues related to development of tourism in the country, officials said.
• The conference in Dharamshala will be attended by central ministers, tourism ministers from various states and UTs, governors, administrators and seniors officials of the central government, state governments and heads of tourism and hospitality associations.

Hence both statements are correct.

FAO side event on International Year of Millets (IYOM) 2023 was held during the Ninth Session of the Governing Body (GB-9) of the International Treaty (Food and Agricultural Organisation) being hosted by the Government of India in New Delhi.

• The side event on IYOM-2023 focussed on celebrating Millets’ farmers.
• To bring back millets and create domestic, and global demand and to provide nutritional food to the people, the Government of India decided to mark the National Year of Millets in 2018.
• In 2021, India proposed to United Nations for declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets (IYOM).
• The proposal of India got support from 72 countries and United Nation's General Assembly (UNGA) declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

Hence both statements are correct.

Government e-Marketplace (GeM) surpassed milestone of One Lakh Crore rupees of procurement value in last fiscal.

• The GeM Seller Samvad has been held in Mumbai wherein numerous beneficiaries spoke about how their business has grown overwhelmingly with the help of the online portal.
• The Government e Marketplace is an online platform for public procurement in India. The initiative was launched in 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• GeM has facilitated over one crore transactions valued at over 3.02 Lakh Crore Rupees. Notably, the portal had surpassed the milestone of One Lakh Crore rupees of procurement value in the last fiscal.
• The portal has 62 thousand registered government buyers and 50.90 lakh sellers, from large conglomerates to MSMEs and women Self Help groups. Currently, GeM has about 300 service categories and over ten thousand product categories.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which carries out quality checks or assessments of Indian Higher-level Educational Institutions (HEIs), courted controversy recently over the rating of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and allegations of bribery in the process.

• The NAAC, an autonomous body under the University Grants Commission (UGC), assesses and certifies HEIs with gradings as part of accreditation.
• Through a multi-layered process, a higher education institution learns whether it meets the standards of quality set by the evaluator in terms of curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, research, and other parameters. The ratings of institutions range from A++ to C. If an institution is graded D, it means it is not accredited.

How many institutions in India are accredited?

• There are 1,043 universities and 42,343 colleges listed on the portal of the All India Survey on Higher Education.
• As per the latest data from June 21, there were 406 universities and 8,686 colleges that were NAAC-accredited.
• Among the states, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of accredited colleges at 1,869 – more than twice as many as Karnataka’s 914, the second highest. Tamil Nadu has the most accredited universities at 43.

Hence both statements are correct.

In order to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers by incentivising states, the Union government plans to introduce a new scheme – PM PRANAM, which stands for PM Promotion of Alternate Nutrients for Agriculture Management Yojana.

• The proposed scheme intends to reduce the subsidy burden on chemical fertilisers, which is expected to increase to Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2022-2023, which is 39% higher than the previous year’s figure of Rs 1.62 lakh crore.
• The scheme will not have a separate budget and will be financed by the “savings of existing fertiliser subsidy” under schemes run by the Department of fertilisers.
• Further, 50% subsidy savings will be passed on as a grant to the state that saves the money and that 70% of the grant provided under the scheme can be used for asset creation related to technological adoption of alternate fertilisers and alternate fertiliser production units at village, block and district levels.
• The remaining 30% grant money can be used for incentivising farmers, panchayats, farmer producer organisations and self-help groups that are involved in the reduction of fertiliser use and awareness generation.

Hence both statements are correct.