MCQ - Current Affairs (March - 2020) - UPSC MCQ

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Union Agriculture minister has inaugurated the 11th National Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) Conference. It has been organized by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The main aim of the conference is to highlight technology-led farming and youth entrepreneurship through agriculture. Krsihi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) is agricultural extension centres created by ICAR (Indian Council for Agricultural Research) and its affiliated institutions at district level. The mandate of KVK is technology assessment, refinement and demonstration by providing critical inputs to the farmers which enable them to sustain their productivity.

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Recently, snow around Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base, located off the coast of Antarctica’s northernmost peninsula, has started to take on a red tinge. The red tint in the snow is caused by the microscopic Chlamydomonas nivalis algae which produce the tinted sunscreen to keep themselves warm.

Concern: As the snow becomes darker from the tinge from the algae, it absorbs more heat, as a result of which it melts faster. Further, these algae change the snow’s albedo (the amount of light or radiation the snow surface is able to reflect back).

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The theme of World Wildlife Day 2020, “Sustaining all life on Earth”, encompasses all wild animal and plant species as a component of biodiversity. It also shines a light on the livelihoods of people, especially those who live closest to nature. Known as “biodiversity super year,” several major global events spotlighting biodiversity will be convened as a unique opportunity to deliver transformative progress for the conservation and sustainable use of wild plants and animals. Back in December 2013, the General Assembly decided to proclaim 3 March as World Wildlife Day to celebrate and raise awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora. The date marks the day that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was adopted in 1973 and continues to play an important role in ensuring that international trade does not threaten the species’ survival.

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National Pension Scheme for Traders, Shopkeepers and Self-Employed Persons (originally proposed name was, Pradhan Mantri Laghu Vyapari Maan-dhan Scheme) has been launched on 12.09.2019. It is a voluntary and contributory pension scheme. The traders in the age group of 18-40 years with an annual turnover, not exceeding Rs.1.5 crore and who is not a member of EPFO/ESIC/NPS/PM-SYM or an income tax payer, can join the scheme. Under the scheme, 50% monthly contribution is payable by the beneficiary and equal matching contribution is paid by the Central Government. Subscribers, after attaining the age of 60 years, are eligible for a monthly minimum assured pension of Rs.3,000/-. As the Scheme has been launched on 12th September, 2019. It envisages a coverage of about 50 lakh enrolments under the Scheme for 2019-20. In order to achieve this, various measures including celebration of Pension Week/ Pension Saptah have been taken.  All State/UT Governments were requested for popularizing and bringing more awareness about the Scheme.  The progress of the Scheme is being reviewed regularly in the Ministry at senior level with State/UT Governments, for taking initiatives under Mission Mode. Ministry of Labour & Employment is the nodal ministry to implement the scheme.

National Security Council (NSC) is a three-tiered organization that oversees political, economic, energy and security issues of strategic concern. It comprises the Strategic Policy Group, the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and a secretariat from the Joint Intelligence Committee. Members of NSAB are usually senior retired officials, civilian as well as military, academics and distinguished members of civil society drawn from and having expertise in Internal and External Security, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Science & Technology and Economic Affairs. NSC operates within the executive office of the Prime Minister of India. The National Security Advisor presides over the NSC.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) superseded the board of Yes Bank and imposed a month-long moratorium, it said in an announcement late on Thursday. It expects to arrive at a credible restructuring plan in the next few days. Depositors will be restricted to a maximum withdrawal of Rs 50,000 even if they have multiple accounts, a government gazette notification said. RBI will relax the withdrawal limit in the event of medical emergencies, higher education fees or marriage expenses — up to a cap of Rs 5 lakh.

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CRISPR–Cas9 stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. It is a gene editing technology, which replicates natural defence mechanisms in bacteria to fight virus attacks, using a special protein called Cas9. The technology behaves like a cut-and-paste mechanism on DNA strands that contain genetic information. The specific location of the genetic codes that need to be changed, or “edited”, is identified on the DNA strand and then using the Cas9 protein, which acts like a pair of scissors, that location is cut off from the strand. A DNA strand, when broken, has a natural tendency to repair itself.

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Valmiki Tiger Reserve forms the eastern most limit of the Himalayan Terai forests in India, and is the only tiger reserve of Bihar. Situated in the Gangetic Plains bio-geographic zone of the country, the forest has combination of bhabar and terai tracts. Valmiki Tiger Reserve lies in the north-westernmost West Champaran district of Bihar. Name of the district has been derived from two words Champa and Aranya meaning Forest of Champa trees.

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Recently, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has conducted the National level Search and Rescue Exercise (SAREX-2020) in Goa. The exercise has been conducted biennially since 2003 by Indian Coast Guard under the aegis of National Maritime Search and Rescue Board (NMSARB). Further, the exercise witnessed the participation of around 24 overseas observers from 19 countries.

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The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission by European Space Agency will not launch in 2020 due to a lack of time to test and qualify problematic parachutes and electronics vital to the spacecraft. The Rosalind Franklin rover is a second ExoMars mission to search for signs of life at depths up to two meters below the martian surface. It consists of a Russian-led surface platform and the European-led rover, to be launched on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur. The ExoMars rover mission was initially scheduled to launch in 2018, but was delayed to 2020 due to delays in European and Russian industrial activities. When the Rosalind Franklin rover arrives at Mars it will join the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which has been in orbit around the Red Planet since October 2016. TGO will act as a relay station for the mission while continuing its own science mission. NASA pulled out of the mission in 2012 due to budget cuts, having committed to the mission with ESA in 2009.

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The Minister of State for Shipping (I/C) visited ROPAX service at Bhaucha Dhakka in Maharashtra. The ministry also visited ROPAX terminal and inspected the facilities created for the passengers as the ROPAX Service from Bhaucha Dhakka to Mandwa. ROPAX service is a ‘Water Transport Service Project’, under Eastern Waterfront Development. The benefits of this service include reduction in the travel time, vehicular emission and traffic on the road. The road distance from Mumbai to Mandwa is about 110 kilometres, and gruelling road journey takes three to four hours, whereas by waterway it is about 18 kilometre and journey of just an hour.

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An ‘Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damages to Public and Private Property Ordinance, 2020’ has been passed by the Uttar Pradesh governor on Sunday even as a recovery exercise to collect damages to public property during anti-CAA riots is underway in the state. The ordinance will aim at dealing with violent acts at public places, controlling its persistence and escalation and providing for recovery of damage to public or private property during hartal, bandhs, riots, public commotion, and protests. It will also seek to create “claims tribunals” to investigate the damages, according to an official document shared by the government.

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Microsoft India and NASSCOM Foundation announced the launch of the Innovate for Accessible India campaign in partnership with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology and ERNET (National Research and Education Network under MeitY). Innovate for Accessible India is a nation-wide innovation challenge aimed at empowering people with disabilities with the technology and tools required for better integration into society and access to equal opportunities. The campaign will be an aggregator of workable technology solutions developed using Microsoft Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and other technologies that address gaps faced by people with disabilities, especially in acquiring services and support in education, skill building, employment, mobility, rehabilitation and other government services.

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Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar joined WHO’s #SafeHandsChallenge to promote the importance of washing hands amid the coronavirus outbreak. In a video shared by the Master Blaster, Tendulkar is seen washing his hands thoroughly and also talking about the importance of washing hands with soap. In an attempt to spread the importance of hygiene amid the coronavirus pandemic, star Indian athlete Hima Das also took up the #SafeHands challenge and urged the likes of Tendulkar, M.C. Mary Kom, Sania Mirza and Rani Rampal to take it forward. Earlier, ace Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu had also taken up the challenge and had posted a video on Twitter in which she was seen washing her hands with soap for almost 30 seconds. The World Health Organisation, which has declared coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, has been continuously asking people to wash their hands with soap regularly to avoid infection.

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Navroz is a Persian New Year festival celebrated by Parsis, followers of Zoroastrianism and various other communities. In India, the Navroz festival is celebrated twice a year. The first according to the Iranian calendar and the second according to the Shahen Shahi calendar which is followed by people in India and Pakistan. The festival is celebrated for health, wealth, prosperity and productivity. The central feature of the festival is to visit the Fire Temple and offer prayers to the deities.

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Reunion Island is a remote Indian Ocean island located between Madagascar and Mauritius. It is an overseas region of France. The island’s capital is Saint-Denis which is home to one-fifth of the population. The Island is home to one of the world’s most active volcanoes, the Piton de la Fournier which is also a World Heritage site. Recently India and France have conducted joint patrols from the Reunion Island for the first time.

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The Congress-led government in Madhya Pradesh invoked the National Security Act (NSA) 1980 against three men accused of killing a cow near Kharkhali village. This and a spate of recent cases, in which different State governments have invoked the stringent provisions of the NSA to detain citizens for questionable offences, have brought the focus back on the potential abuse of the controversial law. Put simply, the NSA empowers the Centre or a State government to detain a person to prevent him from acting in any manner prejudicial to national security. The maximum period for which one may be detained is 12 months. But the term can be extended if the government finds fresh evidence. Post-independence India got its first preventive detention rule when the government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru enacted the Preventive Detention Act of 1950. The NSA is a close iteration of the 1950 Act. After the Preventive Detention Act expired on December 31, 1969, the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, brought in the controversial Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) in 1971 giving similar powers to the government. Though the MISA was repealed in 1977 after the Janata Party came to power, the successive government, led by Mrs. Gandhi, brought in the NSA.

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Statement 1 is correct. If a patient is a carrier for a disease or infection but experiences no symptoms that is called an asymptomatic patient.

Statement 2 is  not correct. According to WHO asymptomatic transmission is possible for COVID-19 but the main way the COVID-19 disease spreads is through respiratory droplets expelled by someone who is coughing. The risk of catching COVID-19 from someone with no symptoms at all is very low.

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Statement 1 is correct. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used in molecular biology to rapidly make millions to billions of copies of a specific DNA sample allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it to a large enough amount to study in detail. Reverse Transcriptase PCR, is a variation of the polymerase chain reaction that typically measures RNA expression levels.

Statement 2 is correct. RT-PCR is commonly used in the diagnosis and quantification of RNA virus infections like COVID-19.

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Earth Hour was started in 2007 by the World Wildlife fund for Nature (WWF). It aims to call attention towards global warming, loss of biodiversity and climate change. Earth Hour is observed on the last Saturday of March every year. Under this initiative, people switch off their lights for one hour. The theme for year 2020 was “Climate Change and sustainable development”.

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The “Fight Corona IDEAthon” launched by AICTE and MHRD Innovation Cell has started. A total of 5,379 students, innovators, educators, hackers, researchers, startups and professionals have registered to participate in the two day event. The purpose of the IDEAthon is to generate and transform innovative ideas into viable solutions that can support the community in managing the uncertainties arising out of the pandemic. “The program shall be hosted completely virtual on the internet during which several ideas to fight the COVID-19 pandemic shall be evaluated, mentored, documented, and selected for the next stages of incubation support”.

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Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reduced the Repo Rate by 75 basis points to 4.4% and Reverse Repo Rate by 90 basis points to 4%. This has been declared by RBI Governor Shri Shaktikanta Das in a press conference, here today (March 27, 2020). He further stated that CRR of all banks is to be reduced by 100 basis points to 3% with effect from 28 March for one year. These measures will inject liquidity of Rs 3.74 lakh crore to the system. Explaining the rationale behind this decision, Shri Das said, “The decisions to lower repo rate and reverse repo rate have been warranted by the disruptive force of COVID-19.  It is to mitigate impact of coronavirus, revive growth and preserve financial stability”. In another major announcement, the Governor said, all commercial banks (including regional rural banks, small finance banks and local area banks), co-operative banks, all-India Financial Institutions, and NBFCs (including housing finance companies and micro-finance institutions), that is, lending institutions, are being permitted to allow a moratorium of three months on payment of installments in respect of all term loans outstanding as on March 1, 2020.

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Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar (IITGN) has launched Project Isaac to engage its students in creative projects to enhance their critical skills while they are confined to their homes because of Corona virus. The official release said, the project is inspired by Sir Isaac Newton, who was similarly sent home by Trinity College, Cambridge, because of the Great Plague of London in 1665. During this year, Newton, then a 22-year-old college student developed some of his most profound discoveries, including early calculus, as well as his theories of optics and gravity. As part of the project, four different competitions are being organized by IIT, Gandhinagar to cultivate new skills among students regarding writing, painting, coding, music, creative expression, and so on. Students can take part in competitions online. Nearly 40 per cent of IITGN students are already participating in various activities, which are entirely voluntary.

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Karnataka Government has decided to set up a Centre for Internet of Ethical Things in Bengaluru. It is collaboration with the World Economic Forum (WEF). It aims to bring together aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Ethics on a single platform.

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Atal Bhujal Yojana is a central sector scheme under the ministry of Jal Shakti. The scheme was announced in the 2016-17, Union Budget.  It aims to recharge groundwater sources and ensure the efficient use of water by involving people at the local level. The funding pattern of the scheme is 50:50 between the Government of India and the World Bank.