Daily Current Affairs MCQ- April 5, 2024 - UPSC MCQ

Recently, officials asserted that the entire value chain for India’s shrimp exports is certified by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) and there is no scope for abusive conditions at shrimp farms.

• It is a statutory body entrusted with the primary task of promotion of export of marine products.
• History: It was set up by an Act of Parliament during 1972. The erstwhile Marine Products Export Promotion Council established by the Government of India in 1961 was converged into MPEDA in 1972.
• Functions:
• Developing and regulating off-shore and deep-sea fishing and undertaking measures for the conservation and management of off-shore and deep-sea fisheries.
• Registering fishing vessels, processing plants or storage premises for marine products and conveyances used for the transport of marine products;
  fixing of standards and specifications for marine products for purposes of export;
• Regulating the export of marine products; registering of exporters of marine products on payment of such fees as may be prescribed;
• It has set up five full-fledged Quality Control Laboratories, at Kochi, Nellore & Bhimavaram, Bhubaneshwar and Porbandar. In addition, fifteen ELISA Screening Laboratories set up by MPEDA in the maritime states.
• In order to reach out to the exporters in different parts of the Country, it has set up 18 – Regional / Sub Regional Divisions / Desk offices.
• Headquarter: Kochi, Kerala
• It has Trade Promotion offices at New Delhi, Tokyo and New York.
• Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Hence both statements are correct.

India is planning to manufacture carbon fibre for use in aerospace, civil engineering and defence as an alternative to metal which will help the country get around a proposed European Union carbon tax on steel, alloy and metal products.

• It is a material consisting of thin, strong crystalline filaments of carbon, essentially carbon atoms bonded together in long chains.
• Properties
• It has high stiffness and stiffness-to-weight ratio.
• It has high tensile strength and strength-to-weight ratio.
• It has high-temperature tolerance with special resins.
• It has low thermal expansion property.
• It also has high chemical resistance.
• The fibers are extremely stiff, strong, and light, and are used in many processes to create excellent structural materials.
• Currently, India does not produce any carbon fibre, relying entierly on imports from countries such as the US, France, Japan and Germany.
• Applications
• It is essential for various applications such as fighter planes’ noses, civilian airplanes, drone frames, car chassis and fire-resistant building material.
• It is a critical material in technical textiles and is known for its high strength and lightweight properties.

Hence both statements are correct.

Taiwan is prone to earthquakes as it lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” — where 90% of the world’s earthquakes take place.

• It is a string of hundreds of volcanoes and earthquake-sites which run along the Pacific Ocean. It is a semicircle or horse shoe in shape and stretches nearly 40,250 kilometres.
• It traces the meeting points of numerous tectonic plates, including the Eurasian, North American, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Caribbean, Nazca, Antarctic, Indian, Australian, Philippine, and other smaller plates, which all encircle the large Pacific Plate.
• It runs through 15 more countries including the USA, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Canada, Guatemala, Russia, Chile, Peru, and the Philippines.
• Why it is more prone to earth quakes?
• It witnesses so many earthquakes due to constant sliding past, colliding into, or moving above or below each other of the tectonic plates. As the edges of these plates are quite rough, they get stuck with one another while the rest of the plate keeps moving.
• An earthquake occurs when the plate has moved far enough and the edges unstick on one of the faults.
• There are many volcanoes in the Ring of Fire due to the movement of tectonic plates. Many of the volcanoes have been formed through a process known as subduction.
• It takes place when two plates collide with each other and the heavier plate is shoved under another, creating a deep trench.
• Most of the subduction zones on the planet are located in the Ring of Fire and that’s why it hosts a large number of volcanoes.

Hence both statements are correct.

Astronomers are looking forward to opening a new window on the universe by posting high-resolution telescopes on the moon, and in orbit around it including one from India called PRATUSH.

• Probing ReionizATion of the Universe using Signal from Hydrogen (PRATUSH) is a radio telescope to be sited on the moon’s far side.
• It is being built by the Raman Research Institute (RRI) in Bengaluru with active collaboration from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
• Initially, ISRO will place PRATUSH into orbit around the earth. After some fine-tuning, the space agency will launch it moonwards.
• Main roles: It will be to detect signals from the first stars and galaxies, reveal the cosmic dawn of the universe, answering the question when the first stars formed, the nature of the first stars and what was the light from the first stars.
• It will carry a wideband frequency-independent antenna, a self-calibrating analog receiver and a digital correlator to catch radio noise in the all-important signal from the Dark Ages.
• The target instrument sensitivity is at the level of few millikelvin without being limited by any systematic features.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, researchers have discovered nitrogen-fixing symbiotic organisms exhibiting behaviors similar to organelles.

• These are prokaryotic microorganisms that are capable of transforming nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into “fixed nitrogen” compounds, such as ammonia, that are usable by plants.
• Types: There are two main types of nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
• Symbiotic or mutualistic: These species live in root nodules of certain plants. Plants of the pea family, known as legumes, which are some of the most important hosts for nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
• Examples: Rhizobium, which is associated with plants in the pea family and various Azospirillum species, which are associated with cereal grasses.
• Other nitrogen-fixing bacteria are free-living and do not require a host. They are commonly found in soil or in aquatic environments.
• Examples: Cyanobacteria Anabaena and Nostoc and genera such as Azotobacter, Beijerinckia, and Clostridium.
• Significance
• Nitrogen is a component of proteins and nucleic acids and is essential to life on Earth. Although nitrogen is abundant in the atmosphere, most organisms cannot use it in that form.
• Nitrogen-fixing bacteria accomplish more than 90 percent of all nitrogen fixation and thus play an important role in the nitrogen cycle. 

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists has confirmed the first known observance of a tidally locked super-Earth exoplanet. 

• A tidally-locked planet in its orbit around a star keeps the same face towards the star.
• This happens when the rotation period of the planet around its own axis becomes equal to its revolution period around the star.
• On a tidally locked planet, one side is always facing a star while the other is cloaked in perpetual darkness. The dark side could be so cold that water and would-be atmospheric components (e.g., carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or methane) are frozen, certainly an inhospitable environment for life.
• Examples of Tidal Locking
• The Moon is tidally locked to the Earth because it rotates in exactly the same time as it takes to orbit the Earth. That is why we only see one side of the Moon.
• Pluto-Charon system: Here both bodies are of comparable size and are close together, both bodies can be tidally locked to each other
• Tidal locking does influence how a planet moves, because tidal locking slows down its spin.
• This phenomenon of tidal locking can happen with other bodies in space too as astronomers often say that binary stars, or star systems that have two stars at their center, are most likely tidally locked to each other.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched the myCGHS app for iOS ecosystem of devices.

• It is designed to enhance access to Electronic Health Records, information, and resources for Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) beneficiaries.
• It is developed by the technical teams of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) Himachal Pradesh and NIC Health Team.
• It is a convenient mobile application offering features aimed at enhancing information and accessibility for CGHS beneficiaries.
• It facilitates a wide range of services, including booking and cancellation of online appointments, downloading CGHS cards and index cards, accessing lab reports from CGHS labs, checking medicine history, checking medical reimbursement claim status, accessing referral details and locating nearby wellness centers etc.
• The app features security features like 2-factor authentication and functionality of mPIN ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of users' data.

Key facts about Central Government Health Scheme

• It gives healthcare facilities to registered employees and pensioners of the Central Government of India. 
• The enrolled members are provided reimbursement and cashless facilities under this scheme.
• It covers health care under different systems of medicine, such as Allopathy, Homeopathy, Ayurveda and Unani.
• CGHS beneficiaries can undergo treatment at any empanelled private hospital of their choice.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Healthy Indian Project (THIP), a health information platform in India, is included as a member of the World Health Organization’s Vaccine Safety Net (VSN).

• It is a global network of websites, established by the World Health Organization that provides reliable information on vaccine safety.
• It is a network of a diverse group of digital information resources (websites and social media), VSN members, located in countries around the world and providing scientifically based information on vaccine safety in various languages.
• A key player in the Project is the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS), established by WHO in 1999, to respond promptly, efficiently, and with scientific rigour to vaccine safety issues of potential global importance. 
• At the outset of the Project, GACVS developed three categories of criteria for good information practices - regarding credibility, content, accessibility and design to which digital resources providing information on vaccine safety should adhere.
• WHO evaluates those electronic resources for their adherence to these criteria.
• It is continuously expanding and till date 110 websites from 45 countries provide vaccine safety information in 43 languages.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

In the first-ever tri-State synchronised vulture survey 320 individual vultures were counted in the seven-protected areas spread over Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and Himalayan griffon is only reported from Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

• It is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae.
• It is one of the two largest Old World vultures and true raptors.
• These are monogamous and pairs return to the same nesting and roosting sites from year to year.
• These are diurnal and mostly solitary species.
• Distribution:
• It is found along the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan region and is also found in the Central Asian Mountains.
• Occasionally it migrates to northern India but migration usually only occurs altitudinally.
• Conservation status
• IUCN: Near Threatened

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the Minister of State for Heavy Industries informed the Lok Sabha about SAMARTH Centres.

• The Smart Advanced Manufacturing and Rapid Transformation Hub (SAMARTH) centres are set up under the Scheme for “Enhancement of Competitiveness in the Indian Capital Goods Sector.
• These centres have been providing assistance to the MSMEs to train the workforce and make them aware about Industry 4.0 technologies in the following ways:
• Organizing Seminars/ Workshops and knowledge sharing events on Industry 4.0;
• Training industries to create awareness about Industry 4.0;
• Providing consultancy (in areas such as IOT Hardware, Software development, data analytics) and incubation support to start- ups including MSMEs.

Hence both statements are correct.