Daily Current Affairs MCQ- April 9, 2024 - UPSC MCQ

World Health Day 2024 is celebrated every year on April 7.

• It is aimed at raising awareness about global health issues and encourage people to live healthier. 
• History
• The origin of World Health Day goes back to 1948 when First Health Assembly was held by the organisation, where it was decided to commemorate April 7 as World Health Day and it came into effect in 1950.
• Over the years, the celebrations have aimed to create awareness around a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization.
• The theme of 2024 World Health Day is 'My health, my right'.
• This year’s theme was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Recently, the Department of Archaeology and Museums have unearthed a coin hoard at the Phanigiri in Suryapet district, Telangana.

• It is a famous Buddhist site located 110 km away from Hyderabad.
• This site derived its name from the shape of the hillock, which appears to be like a snake hood. The word Phani in Sanskrit means snake and Giri means hillock. 
• It is believed to be one of the important Buddhist monasteries strategically located on the ancient trade route (Dakshinapatha) connecting the west and the east coast of the Deccan.
• Other findings of the excavation
• Coins: Lead coins with elephant symbol on one side and Ujjain symbol on the other side are found.
• According to the archaeologists, the coins belong to the Ikshvaku period dated between 3rd century and 4th century Common Era.
• Also stone beads, glass beads, shell bangle fragments, stucco motifs, broken limestone sculptures, a wheel of a toy cart, final nails and pottery are excavated.
• Mahastupa, apsidal Chaityagrihas, Votive stupas, pillared congregation halls, Viharas, platforms with staircases at various levels, octagonal stupa chaitya, 24-pillared mandapam, circular chaitya, and cultural materials that included terracotta beads, semi-precious beads, iron objects, Brahmi label inscriptions and holy relic casket are also excavated.
• All the cultural material is datable from the 1st century BCE to 4th century CE.

Hence option (a) is the correct answer.

Recently, scientists proposed a model to explain Arrokoth’s ice core.

• It is one of thousands of ‘icy worlds” in the Kuiper Belt, or the outer zone of the solar system that lies beyond Neptune. In the language of the Powhatan tribe, Arrokoth means “sky”.
• It is the farthest object in space that has been explored by a human space-craft. It was discovered in 2014 using the Hubble Space Telescope.
• It is a double-lobed object and resembles a snowman. It is believed it may have ancient ‘gaseous ice’ stored deep within it from when the object first formed billions of years ago.

Key facts about Kuiper Belt

• It is also called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, is a flat ring of small icy bodies that revolve around the Sun beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune. 
• It is named after Gerard Kuiper, a Dutch-American astronomer who hypothesised the existence of such a region in the 1950s.
• There are millions of these icy objects, collectively referred to as Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) or trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), in this belt.
• Composition: The Kuiper Belt is primarily composed of small icy bodies, such as dwarf planets, asteroids, and comets.

Hence option (d) is the correct answer.

Recently, the Union Environment Ministry announced the rules for its Green Credit Programme (GCP) and within a short span of time ten States have identified parcels of degraded forest land, amounting to about 3,853 hectares.

• It aims to incentivise environmentally conscious practices and promote a sustainable lifestyle through a market-based mechanism.
• Green credits generated through such actions can be traded on a domestic market platform.
• According to rules, environment-friendly actions include
• Tree plantation, water management, sustainable agriculture, waste management, air pollution reduction, mangrove conservation and restoration, ecomark label development, and sustainable building and infrastructure.
• As per the scheme, individuals, industries, farmers producer’s organisations (FPOs), urban local bodies (ULB), gram panchayats, and the private sector, among a host of other entities, will be able to earn green credit for undertaking environment-friendly actions.
• Under the scheme, registered and approved entities can pay to finance afforestation projects in specific tracts of degraded forest and wasteland. The actual afforestation will be carried out by State forest departments.
• In its initial phase, the GCP focuses on two key activities: Water conservation and Afforestation
• Implementing Agency: Two years after planting — and following an evaluation by the International Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), an autonomous body of the Environment Ministry — each planted tree could be worth one ‘green credit’.
• The Green Credit Registry and trading platform, being developed by ICFRE along with experts, would facilitate the registration and thereafter, the buying and selling of Green Credits.

Hence both statements are correct.

By establishing connectivity on the 298-km Nimmu-Padam-Darcha Road in Ladakh, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has accomplished a significant milestone. 

About Nimmu-Padum-Darcha Road:

• The Nimmu-Padum-Darcha road (NPDR), also known as the Zanskar Highway, serves as a vital link between the Indian Union Territory of Ladakh and the state of Himachal Pradesh, traversing through the picturesque region of Zanskar, Ladakh.
• It is an all-weather 298-km long road from Manali (Himachal Pradesh) to Leh (Ladakh) through Darcha and Nimmu on the Kargil–Leh Highway.
• It was constructed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO).
• It is now the third axis, apart from Manali-Leh Road (428 km) and Srinagar-Leh Road (439 km), which connects Ladakh to the hinterland. 
• It derives its strategic importance from the fact that it is not only shorter vis-a-vis the other two axes, but crosses only one pass—Shinkun La (16,558 feet)—on which tunnel work is about to commence by the BRO.
• It will be the first all-weather road connecting Ladakh to the rest of the country.
• The connectivity will strengthen defence preparedness and provide a boost to economic development in the Zanskar valley.

Hence option d is the correct answer.

For the second time, the launch of AgniKul ‘Agnibaan SOrTeD’ has been postponed.

About Agnibaan SOrTeD:

• Agnibaan SubOrbital Technological Demonstrator (SOrTeD) is a single-stage launch vehicle powered by AgniKul’s patented Agnilet engine.
• It is an entirely 3D-printed, single-piece, 6 kilonewton (kN) semi-cryogenic engine.
• It is the world’s first single piece 3D printed semi-cryogenic rocket engine.
• It will be launched from India's first private launchpad, ALP-01, located inside the Indian space agency ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport. 
• Features:
• It is India’s first ever vehicle equipped with a semicryogenic engine, the Agnilet, a subcooled liquidoxygen-based propulsion system developed indigenously.
• The rocket engine will burn kerosene in liquid oxygen and can be directly used in the rocket.
• It stands 18 meters tall and is 1.3 meters in diameter.
• It has the capability to carry a 100-kg payload up to a height of 700 km with a lift of mass of 14,000 Kgs. 
• It can access both low- and high-inclination orbits and is completely mobile.
• It will also have the first ever Ethernet-based avionics architecture and fully in-house developed autopilot software from India.  
• The rocket is also designed for launch from more than 10 different launch ports. 
• To ensure its compatibility with multiple launch ports, AgniKul has built a launch pedestal named 'Dhanush' that will support the rocket's mobility across all its configurations.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

Sierra Leone’s President recently declared a national emergency on substance abuse following calls on his government to crack down on the rising use of a cheap and sometimes deadly synthetic drug known as kush.

About Sierra Leone:

• It is a tropical country in West Africa, on the Atlantic coast.
• Borders: It is bordered on the north and east by Guinea, on the south by Liberia, and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean.
• Geography: The nation is largely made up of lightly wooded hills with a concentration of mangrove swamps along the coast. 
• Rivers: Some of the major ones include the Rokel River, Taia River, Moa River, and Sewa River.
• History:
• Sierra Leone was colonized in 1787 by formerly enslaved people arriving from England; other groups followed from Nova Scotia (1792) and Jamaica (1800).
• They were sponsored and governed by the private Sierra Leone Company until 1808, when Britain made Sierra Leone a crown colony.
• In 1961, Sierra Leone became independent of the UK. 
• Population: It has a population of about 7.5 million people. It is home to 16 ethnic groups. Each group has their own language and traditional attire.
• Language: English is the official language; however, Krio is the language that is understood by most of the population.
• Government: It is a constitutional republic with a directly elected president and a unicameral legislature. 
• Capital: The capital, Freetown, commands one of the world’s largest natural harbours.
• Economy:
• Although most of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture, Sierra Leone is also a mining centre.
• Its land yields diamonds, gold, bauxite, and rutile (titanium dioxide).

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

A unique conservation agricultural practice, Paira cropping system has dwindled in recent years due to climate change.

About Paira cropping system:

• The utera/paira is a type of cropping which is commonly practiced in Bihar, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
• It is a kind of relay method of sowing in which lentil/ lathyrus/ urdbean/ mungbean seeds are broadcast in the standing crop of rice about 2 week before its harvest.
• This system does not allow agronomic intervention such as tillage, weeding, irrigation and fertilizer application. However, rice variety decides the productivity of pulses in this system.
• Advantages:
• This practice enables to use better soil moisture available at the time of harvesting of rice crop, which could otherwise be lost quickly.
• Experimental evidences showed that paira cropping produced more yield of lentil than planting with tillage after harvesting of the rice crop.
• This is an efficient way of utilising resources for sustainable crop intensification and boosting land productivity.

What is Relay cropping method?

• It is a method of multiple cropping where one crop is seeded into standing second crop well before harvesting of second crop.
• It can solve a number of conflicts such as inefficient use of available resources, controversies in sowing time, fertilizer application, and soil degradation.

Hence both statements are correct.

Sannati Bhddhist site left neglected for many years after it came to light through the ASI excavations in the 1990s, got a restoration project in 2022.

• It is the ancient Buddhist site on the bank of Bhima river near Kanaganahalli (forming part of Sannati site) in Kalaburagi district, Karnataka.
• It is also popular among tourists for the Chandrala Parameshwari Temple.
• Major findings in this site
• Maha Stupa: It is believed to have been developed in three constructional phases – Maurya, Early Satavahana and Later Satavahana periods stretching from 3rd Century B.C. to 3rd Century A.D. 
• Ranamandala area of Sannati offers a unique chronological scale from prehistoric to early historic times.
• Inscription: An inscriptions written in the Prakrit language using the Brahmi script is also found here.
• Sculpture: The excavation also recovered another precious stone of historical importance – a stone sculpture portraying Mauryan Emperor Ashoka. The emperor is seen surrounded by his queens and female attendants in this rare sculpture. The sculpture had the words “Raya Asoko” etched on it in Brahmi script leaving little scope for mistaking the identity of the man featured in it.
• The recoveries included around 60 dome slabs with sculptural renderings of selected Jataka stories, main events in the life of the Master, portraits of Shatavahana monarchs and certain unique depictions of Buddhist missionaries sent by Ashoka to different parts
• The site of ancient Nagavi Ghatikasthana, which was often termed the Takshashila of the South by historians, is around 40 km away from Sannati.
• The Ghatikasthana, which had the status of a present-day university, was a major education hub during rulers of the Rashtrakuta and Kalyana Chalukya dynasties between the 10th and 12th Centuries. 

Hence option (d) is the correct answer.

The new generation ballistic missile Agni-Prime was successfully flight-tested by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) along with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) from the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.

• It is a nuclear-capable new-generation advanced variant of the Agni class of missiles.
• It is a two-stage canisterised missile with a maximum range of 1,000 to 2,000 km.
• It is lighter than all the earlier Agni series of missiles. It weighs at least 50 per cent less than the Agni 3 missile and has new guidance and propulsion systems.
• It can be transported by road and rail and stored for longer periods, significantly reducing the time required for preparation and launch. The missile uses a cold launch mechanism and can be fired in salvo mode.
• The first test of the ‘Agni Prime’ was conducted in 2021, while the second test was conducted six months later in December. Last year in June, the DRDO carried out the first night launch of the 'Agni Prime' missile.

What are Ballistic Missiles?

• These are launched directly into the upper layers of the earth’s atmosphere.
• They travel outside the atmosphere, where the warhead detaches from the missile and falls towards a predetermined target.
• They are rocket-propelled self-guided weapons systems which can carry conventional or nuclear munitions. They can be launched from aircraft, ships and submarines, and land.

Hence both statements are correct.