Test: August 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 4 - UPSC MCQ

The Hayabusa-2 mission was launched in December 2014 when the spacecraft was sent on a six-year voyage to study the asteroid Ryugu. 
Samples from the asteroid Ryugu, collected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa-2 probe, which had brought 5.4 grams of rocks and dust from the asteroid to Earth in December 2020.

Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit the Sun, much smaller than planets. They are also called minor planets. According to NASA, there are 994,383 known asteroids, the remnants from the formation of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.

Asteroids are divided into three classes.

• First are those found in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which is estimated to contain somewhere between 1.1-1.9 million asteroids.
• The second group is that of trojans, which are asteroids that share an orbit with a larger planet. NASA reports the presence of Jupiter, Neptune and Mars trojans. In 2011, they reported an Earth trojan as well.
• The third classification is Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA), which have orbits that pass close to the Earth. Those that cross the Earth’s orbit are called Earth-crossers. More than 10,000 such asteroids are known, out of which over 1,400 are classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs).

Introduction of CBDC has the potential to provide significant benefits, such as reduced dependency on cash, higher seigniorage due to lower transaction costs, reduced settlement risk. Introduction of CBDC would also possibly lead to a more robust, efficient, trusted, regulated and legal tender-based payments option.

Several states, including Gujarat and Rajasthan, have been battling the outbreak of Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD), a viral infection of cattle.
LSD is caused by the lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which is a virus of the capripoxvirus genus in the poxviridae family. Sheeppox virus and goatpox virus are the other members of the genus capripoxvirus. The LSDV mainly affects cattle — cow and its progeny, and the Asian water buffaloes.
According to the FAO report, LSD was long restricted to sub-Saharan Africa. However, over the past decade, it spread to the Middle East and Turkey. From 2015 onward, it has impacted the Balkan (southeast Europe) countries, Caucus (eastern Europe) and Russia. LSD entered India, Bangladesh and China in July 2019. Since then, outbreaks of the disease have been reported from 20 Indian states.
The LSDV spreads through blood-sucking vectors like ticks and mites like houseflies, mosquitoes, etc. It also spreads through contaminated water, fodder and feed.

What is Money Market?

While the G-Secs market generally caters to the investors with a long-term investment horizon, the money market provides investment avenues of short-term tenor. Money market transactions are generally used for funding the transactions in other markets including G-Secs market and meeting short term liquidity mismatches. By definition, money market is for a maximum tenor of one year. Within the one year, depending upon the tenors, money market is classified into:

• Overnight market – The tenor of transactions is one working day.
• Notice money market – The tenor of the transactions is from 2 days to 14 days.
• Term money market – The tenor of the transactions is from 15 days to one year.
   

What are the different money market instruments?
Money market instruments include call money, repos, T- Bills, Cash Management Bills, Commercial Paper, Certificate of Deposit and Collateralized Borrowing and Lending Obligations (CBLO).

Call money market:
Call money market is a market for uncollateralized lending and borrowing of funds. This market is predominantly overnight and is open for participation only to scheduled commercial banks and the primary dealers.

Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes.
Our Constitution too favours conducting a caste census. Article 340 mandates the appointment of a commission to investigate the conditions of socially and educationally backward classes and make recommendations as to the steps that should be taken by governments.
The Justice Rohini committee was appointed in 2017 to look into the sub-categorisation of the OBC communities.

A Lorenz curve is a graphical representation of income inequality or wealth inequality developed by American economist Max Lorenz in 1905.

High CAD results in currency depreciation directly. Currency depreciation can directly feed into inflation. Thus, a high CAD fuels directly into the domestic economy. Along with fiscal deficit, it leads to high inflation in the economy.
An overall consequence is that FII and other investors will not find the domestic market worthy enough to invest and pull off from it.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is currently in Canada for the 65th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, will travel to Mexico where he will unveil statues of Swami Vivekananda and Maharashtra-born freedom fighter and agriculturalist Pandurang Khankhoje (1883-1967).
Khankhoje was one of the founding members of the Ghadar Party, established by Indians living abroad in 1914, mostly belonging to Punjab. Its aim was to lead a revolutionary fight against the British in India.

Why do scientists study asteroids?
Since asteroids are one of the oldest celestial bodies in the Solar System, scientists study them to look for information about the formation and history of planets and the sun.
Another reason for tracking them is to look for asteroids that could possibly crash into Earth, leading to potentially hazardous consequences.

The Centre announces MSPs for 23 crops, including seven cereals (paddy, wheat, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi and barley), five pulses (chana, tur/arhar, moong, urad and masur), seven oilseeds (mustard-rapeseed, groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, safflower and nigerseed) and four commercial crops (sugarcane, cotton, copra and raw jute).
The MSP is an indicative price; it does not have statutory backing, and farmers cannot demand MSP as a matter of right. In most crops grown across much of India, the prices received by farmers, especially during harvest time, are well below the officially-declared MSPs.

The Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process (HoA-IP) is an initiative of the Republic of Afghanistan and the Republic of Turkey, which was officially launched at a conference hosted by Turkey in Istanbul on 2 November 2011. Since then, Afghanistan supported by fourteen Participating Countries of the Heart of Asia Region and 16 Supporting Countries beyond the region as well as 12 Regional and International Organizations is leading and coordinating this Process. It is a platform for promoting regional security, economic and political cooperation centered on Afghanistan through dialogue and a set of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs).

Article 341 of the Constitution provides certain privileges and concessions to the members of Scheduled Castes.
Under the provision of Article 341, first list of SCs in relation to a states/UT is to be issued by a notified Order of the President after consulting concerned state Government.
But the clause (2) of Article 341 envisages that, any subsequent inclusion in or exclusion from the list of Scheduled Castes can be effected through an Act of Parliament.
Parliament alone is vested with the power to include or exclude any entry in the SC list under Article 341 of the Constitution.
Statement 3: Reservation is there only in the Lok Sabha.

• Flying squirrel, (tribe Pteromyini), any of more than 50 species of gliding squirrels. Three species are North American, two live in northern Eurasia, and all others are found in the temperate and tropical forests of India and other parts of Asia.
• Gee’s golden langur (Trachypithecus geei), also known as simply the golden langur, is an Old World monkey found in a small region of western Assam, India and in the neighbouring foothills of the Black Mountains of Bhutan.
• The red-headed vulture also known as the Asian king vulture, Indian black vulture or Pondicherry vulture, is an Old World vulture mainly found in the Indian subcontinent, with small disjunct populations in some parts of Southeast Asia.
• The Koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia.

Article 142 “provide(s) a unique power to the Supreme Court, to do “complete justice” between the parties, i.e., where at times law or statute may not provide a remedy, the Court can extend itself to put a quietus to a dispute in a manner which would befit the facts of the case.

• Exchange rate of a currency may be fixed by a central bank or left to the market forces of demand and supply. When the value is changed by the central bank it is called devaluation. If market forces bring down the value due to demand falling behind supply of the currency, it leads to depreciation.
• In the Balance of Payments, the movements of money without exchange for goods or services called ‘remittances’ and charities are part of Current account.

• CBDC is the legal tender issued by a central bank in a digital form. It is the same as a fiat currency and is exchangeable one-to-one with the fiat currency. Only its form is different.” The digital fiat currency or CBDC can be transacted using wallets backed by blockchain.
• Though the concept of CBDCs was directly inspired by Bitcoin, it is different from decentralised virtual currencies and crypto assets, which are not issued by the state and lack the ‘legal tender’ status. CBDCs enable the user to conduct both domestic and cross-border transactions which do not require a third party or a bank.

• Over the last couple of months, a new trend known as ‘quiet quitting’ has dominated social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok. The phrase doesn’t refer to employees actually leaving their jobs, but instead, doing the bare minimum required of them.
• This could entail leaving work exactly at the end of one’s shift, demanding additional pay for extra work, not signing up for ambitious projects, separating one’s identity from their jobs, and/or setting clear work-life boundaries.

• The year 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide.
• The report is a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, a global initiative of the United Nations.

• The Dhubri – Phulbari Bridge is an under-construction bridge over the Brahmaputra River between Assam and Meghalaya in North-East India.
• The Dhubri – Phulbari bridge, to be completed by 2026–27, would be India’s longest bridge over water and would span more than 19 km. This proposed bridge, close to the Bangladesh border, will connect Assam’s Dhubri with Meghalaya’s Phulbari

• Jet streams are narrow bands of strong winds that flow over thousands of kilometres from west to east. Major jet streams are found near the upper levels of the atmosphere, around 9 to 16 km from the earth’s surface, and can reach speeds of over 320 kph.
• The jet streams shift to the north or south depending on the season. During winters, the wind current is the strongest. They are also closer to the Equator during winter.
• The major jet streams are the Polar Front, Subtropical, and Tropical jet streams. In India, the Tropical jet stream influences the formation and duration of the summer monsoon.
• Most commercial planes fly at the jet stream level, and a strong jet stream can provide a potent tailwind to a flight travelling from west to east. This helps reduce the travel time for such flights, as their speeds are boosted.

• The main difference between revenue receipts and capital receipts is that in the case of revenue receipts, government is under no future obligation to return the amount, i.e., they are non-redeemable. But In case of capital receipts which are borrowings, government is under obligation to return the amount along with Interest.
• Capital receipts may be debt creating or non-debt creating.
• Examples of debt creating receipts are—Net borrowing by government at home, loans received from foreign governments, borrowing from RBI. Examples of non-debt capital receipts are—Recovery of loans, proceeds from sale of public enterprises (i.e., disinvestment), etc. These do not give rise to debt.

• The 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone is a multi-pollutant protocol designed to reduce acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone. The Protocol is part of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution.
• The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), also known as the Bonn Convention, aims to conserve terrestrial, aquatic and avian migratory species throughout their range.
• Ozone has been classified and monitored as one of the eight pollutants under National Air Quality index.
• Ozone is monitored as one of the Pollutants under SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting).

• Electronic scrap components, such as CPUs, contain potentially harmful materials such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants.
• CRTs have a relatively high concentration of lead and phosphors (not to be confused with phosphorus), both of which are necessary for the display.

• The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Its seat is at the Peace Palace in the Hague (Netherlands). It is the only one of the six principal organs of the United Nations not located in New York (United States of America). The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies. The International Court of Justice functions in accordance with its Statute.
• The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.
• In order to ensure a measure of continuity, one third of the Court is elected every three years.