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

• The fall in temperature along with moisture and light winds over the Indo Gangetic Plain has resulted in dense fog over the region, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
• Western disturbances, which are storms that originate in the Mediterranean Sea, bring moisture-bearing winds to northwest India. This can result in increased moisture levels over the region. In the absence of western disturbances, local moisture sources like water vapour from rivers and soil moisture can also cause fog.
• According to a note issued by the IMD, the Indo Gangetic Plain is most vulnerable to fog occurrences, with major, weeks-long spells of dense fog in the months of December and January. These foggy spells are linked to wind and temperature patterns.

• The famous Tal Chhapar blackbuck sanctuary in Rajasthan’s Churu district has received a protective cover against a proposed move of the State government to reduce the size of its eco-sensitive zone. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) has also taken up a major project for the conservation of raptors in the sanctuary, spread in an area measuring 7.19 sq. km.
• The sanctuary is host to about 4,000 blackbucks and other wild animals, over 40 species of raptors and more than 300 species of resident and migratory birds. The raptors, which include predators and scavengers, are on top of the food chain and control the populations of small mammals, birds and reptiles as well as insects.

The Supreme Court of India has ruled that, The recommendations of the GST Council are not binding on either the Union or the States.
Article 279A stipulates the creation of the GST Council and its functions. The Council has to function as a platform to bring the Union and State governments together, and as a mark of cooperative federalism, the Council shall, unanimously or through a majority of 75% of weighted votes, decide on all matters pertaining to GST and recommend such decisions to the Union and State governments. 

Bhasha Samman awards will be given to scholars who have done valuable work in the field of classical and medieval literature.

246A – (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in articles 246 and 254, Parliament, and, subject to clause (2), the Legislature of every State, have power to make laws with respect to goods and services tax imposed by the Union or by such State. (2) Parliament has exclusive power to make laws with respect to goods and services tax where the supply of goods, or of services, or both takes place in the course of inter-State trade or commerce.

Consumer Protection Act, 2019 is an Act of the Parliament of India. It repeals and replaces the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Rights guaranteed under Consumer Protection Act, 2019:

1. Right to safety
2. Right to choose
3. Right to be informed
4. Right to consumer education
5. Right to be heard
6. Right to Seek redressal

• A bomb cyclone is simply a storm that intensifies very rapidly. Bomb cyclones form when air near Earth’s surface rises quickly in the atmosphere, triggering a sudden drop in barometric pressure.
• All bomb cyclones are not hurricanes. But sometimes, they can take on characteristics that make them look an awful lot like hurricanes, with very strong winds, heavy precipitation and well-defined eye-like features in the middle.
• Hurricanes tend to form in tropical areas and are powered by warm seas. For this reason, they’re most common in summer or early fall, when seawater is warmest.
• In contrast, bomb cyclones don’t need balmy ocean waters in order to form. While they sometimes arise over the ocean, they can also appear over land — as was the case with the cyclone that hit the northern Plains in March 2019.
• Unlike hurricanes, bomb cyclones arise in mid-latitudes, where fronts of warm and cold air might collide. They rarely strike in summer, when the weather is generally warm across the Northern Hemisphere. Rather, they form between late fall and early spring, when warm tropical air bumps up against frigid Arctic air.

Live-attenuated Vaccines:

• Live vaccines use a weakened (or attenuated) form of the germ that causes a disease.
• Because these vaccines are so similar to the natural infection that they help prevent, they create a strong and long-lasting immune response.
• The limitation of this approach is that these vaccines usually cannot be given to people with weakened immune systems.
• Live vaccines are used against: Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR combined vaccine), Rotavirus, Smallpox among others.

Supreme Court judges retire at the age of 65 years, and judges of the 25 high courts in the country retire at 62 years.
The Constitution, 114th Amendment Bill was introduced in 2010 to increase the retirement age of high court judges to 65 years. However, it was not taken up for consideration in Parliament and lapsed with the dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha.

India’s first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant (British-built). Its replacement, INS Viraat (British-built).
INS Vikramaditya (Russian-built) is a medium-sized STOBAR-type aircraft carrier, capable of both fleet air defence and land attack, carrying up to 30 aircraft and helicopters.

Important Connectivity Projects:

• Kaladan Multimodal Project – links India and Myanmar.
• Asian Trilateral Highway – connecting India and Thailand through Myanmar.
• Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement – for seamless flow of passenger and cargo traffic.

• Uttar Pradesh has the largest number of Centrally Protected Monuments which have been encroached upon, closely followed by Tamil Nadu. Uttar Pradesh also has the largest number of Centrally Protected monuments in the country at 743, while Tamil Nadu has 412.
• India has a total of 3,695 Centrally Protected Monuments or Sites in the country, under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
• The monuments are regularly inspected by the ASI officials to assess their present condition. 
• The ASI regulates construction around the protected monuments through the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Act, 2010. The Act prohibits the construction within 100 metres around a protected monument. The next 300-metre radius is regulated too.

iNCOVACC is rolled out as a booster dose for those above 18 years of age and is the world’s first intranasal vaccine for COVID to receive approval for the primary 2-dose schedule, as well as a heterologous booster dose.
Unlike Covaxin, which was an inactivated sars-cov2 virus, the nasal vaccine contains only a part of it, namely the spike protein and is wrapped in a virus that is typically harmless to people.

The Nordic countries are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden; the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland; and the autonomous region of Åland.

The World Bank in its latest India Development Report titled ‘Navigating the Storm’ lifted its growth forecast for India’s economy this year to 6.9%, after having downgraded it to 6.5% in October, citing resilience in economic activity despite a deteriorating external environment.

The Vasyugan Swamp is the largest swamp in the northern hemisphere as well as the largest peatland in the world. It is located in Russia, in southwestern Siberia.
The swamp is a major reservoir of fresh water for the region, and the Vasyugan river has its source there.
Mount Elbrus is the highest peak in Russia.

Inflation:

• Inflation refers to the rise in the prices of most goods and services of daily or common use, such as food, clothing, housing, recreation, transport, consumer staples, etc.
• Inflation measures the average price change in a basket of commodities and services over time.
• The opposite and rare fall in the price index of this basket of items is called ‘deflation’.
• Inflation is indicative of the decrease in the purchasing power of a unit of a country’s currency.
• RBI through its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Controls Money supply in the market.
• Inflation is measured by a central government authority, which is in charge of adopting measures to ensure the smooth running of the economy. In India, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation measures inflation.
• Inflation is primarily measured by two main indices — WPI (Wholesale Price Index) and CPI (Consumer Price Index), which measure wholesale and retail-level price changes, respectively.

Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest.
Uzbekistan is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world (that is, a landlocked country completely surrounded by other landlocked countries), the other being Liechtenstein.

The Supreme Court in its original jurisdiction decides imputes between states. Article 131 of the Constitution reads: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Supreme Court shall, to the exclusion of any other court, have original jurisdiction in any dispute
(a) between the Government of India and one or more States; or
(b) between the Government of India and any State or States on one side and one or more other States on the other; or
(c) between two or more States, if and in so far as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends: Provided that the said jurisdiction shall not extend to a dispute arising out of any treaty, agreement, covenant, engagements, and or other similar instrument which, having been entered into or executed before the commencement of this Constitution, continues in operation after such commencement, or which provides that the said jurisdiction shall not extend to such a dispute.

Subunit, Recombinant, Polysaccharide, and Conjugate Vaccines:

• They use specific pieces of the germ – like its protein, sugar, or capsid(a casing around the germ). They give a very strong immune response.
• They can also be used on people with weakened immune systems and long-term health problems.
• These vaccines are used to protect against: Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) disease, Hepatitis B, HPV (Human papillomavirus), Pneumococcal disease among others.

• A patent represents a powerful intellectual property right, and is an exclusive monopoly granted by a government to an inventor for a limited, pre-specified time. Patents can be either process patents or product patents.
• A product patent ensures that the rights to the final product is protected, and anyone other than the patent holder can be restrained from manufacturing it during a specified period, even if they were to use a different process.
• A process patent enables any person other than the patent holder to manufacture the patented product by modifying certain processes in the manufacturing exercise.
• India moved from product patenting to process patenting in the 1970s, which enabled India to become a significant producer of generic drugs at global scale. But due to obligations arising out of the TRIPS Agreement, India had to amend the Patents Act in 2005, and switch to a product patents regime across the pharma, chemicals, and biotech sectors.

• HFCs are on average several thousand times more potent than carbon dioxide.
• Kigali Amendment is a legally binding agreement designed to create rights and obligations in international law.
• While HFCs do not deplete the stratospheric ozone layer, they have high global warming potential, which has an adverse impact on climate.

• One of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) mentions that “in particular, the State shall endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health.” 
• However, according to the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, alcohol is a state subject, i.e. state legislatures have the right and responsibility to draft laws regarding it, including “the production, manufacture, possession, transport, purchase and sale of intoxicating liquors.”
• All states have some regulations with regards to alcohol consumption and sale (like age requirements or dry days).  Currently, there are five states with total prohibition and some more with partial prohibition.