Daily Current Affairs MCQ- February 8, 2023 - UPSC MCQ

The recent United Nations report, Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2022 said that the Earth’s ozone layer is slowly recovering.

• The successful phasing out of banned substances as envisioned by the Montreal Protocol has set the stage for a complete recovery of the ozone layer by the 2060s, a United Nations-backed panel of experts said at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting on January 8, 2023.

What is Ozone?

• Ozone is a gas composed of three atoms of oxygen. It is both a natural and a man-made product that occurs in the Earth's upper atmosphere (Stratospheric ozone) and lower atmosphere (the troposphere).
• Stratospheric ozone is formed naturally through the interaction of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation with molecular oxygen (O2).
• The "ozone layer," approximately 6 to 30 miles above the Earth's surface, reduces the amount of harmful UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, India and the United Kingdom signed and exchanged letters for Young Professionals Scheme in London.

• It was conceived as part of an India-U.K. Migration and Mobility MoU signed in May 2021 and was announced in November at the G20 summit in Bali.
• It will permit up to 3,000 of their degree-holding citizens aged between 18 and 30 to live and work in each other’s countries for two years.
• The programme will be reciprocal, also allowing UK professionals in the same position to participate in a professional exchange by living and working in India.
• This scheme makes India the first visa-national country to benefit from the scheme.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Recently, The Bureau of Indian Standards BIS publishes standards for digital television receivers with built-in satellite tuners.

• The Bureau of Indian Standards has published three significant Indian Standards in the area of Electronics.
• The first standard is Indian Standard for digital television receivers with built-in satellite tuners. 
• The technical Committee has published an Indian Standard IS 18112:2022 Specification for television with built-in satellite tuners.
• The TVs manufactured as per this Indian standard would enable reception of Free-To-Air TV and Radio channels just by connecting a dish antenna with LNB mounted on a suitable place, at the rooftop/side wall of the building.
• This would facilitate the transmission of knowledge about government initiatives, schemes, the educational content of Doordarshan and the repository of Indian cultural programs to reach and benefit a wide segment of the population in the country at large.

What are Digital television receivers?

• In this television in which the signals are transmitted in digital form and decoded by the television receiver.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, the Union Minister of Science and Technology released the Theme of National Science Day 2023 at a function in New Delhi.

• The theme of National Science Day 2023 will be Global Science for Global Wellbeing.
• The government of India designated 28 February as National Science Day (NSD) in 1986.
• On this day Sir C.V. Raman announced the discovery of the 'Raman Effect' for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930.

What is Raman Effect?

• Raman Effect is a change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules.
• When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam.
• Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman Effect.

Hence both statements are correct.

The recent census report of birds released by the forest department in Odisha said that the number of migratory birds in Bhitarkanika National Park has risen to 1,39,959 this winter compared to last year’s count of 1,38,107 birds.

• The report highlighted that the number of bird counts increased but the diversity of species has decreased compared to last year. This year the Bhitarkanika National Park saw 140 species of birds compared to 144 last year.

Key facts about Bhitarkanika National Park 

• Bhitarkanika National Park is located in the Kendrapara district of Odisha.
• It is India’s second-largest mangrove ecosystem after the Sunderbans. 
• This National Park is a network of creeks and canals which are inundated with waters from rivers Brahmani, Baitarani, Dhamra and Patasala forming a unique ecosystem.
• It is home to the largest congregation of endangered Salt Water Crocodiles in the country.
• The Gahirmatha Beach which forms the boundary of the sanctuary in the east is the largest colony of the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles.
• Bhitarkanika is also home to eight varieties of Kingfisher birds which is also a rarity.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, in response to an RTI enquiry, ECI said that just Over 67 lakh voters (less than 1% of voters) have downloaded a digital voter ID, known as the electronic Electoral Photo ID Card (e-EPIC), from the time the document was made available until December 23, 2022.

About:

Along with e-PAN and e-Aadhaar, the e-EPIC is one of the few generally accepted identity documents that can be downloaded as a legally valid PDF file.

• About 9.8 crore voters are currently eligible to download an E-EPIC, the ECI said in its RTI response, that is, 6.8% of voters who are eligible to download an e-EPIC as a PDF document have done so — this is equivalent to less than 1% of all registered voters in India.

What is E-EPIC:

• e-EPIC is a portable document format (PDF) version of the EPIC which can be downloaded on mobile or in a self-printable form on the computer.
• A voter can thus store the card on his/her mobile, upload it on Digi locker or print it and self-laminate it.
• It can be used as a valid proof of age and address to avail various government services and schemes. It is equally valid as a proof of document for voter participation.
• In the first phase, new electors who were registered during the Special Summary Revision 2021 and had a unique mobile number in the e-roll were eligible for the e-EPIC. In the second phase, all eligible voters who have a valid EPIC number were made eligible for the e-EPIC.

Hence both statements are correct.

Cyber Security experts have sent out warnings about the potential use of ChatGPT to write phishing emails, malicious code easily and at a much larger scale.

About:

• ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3 family of large language models.
• It is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand and generate natural language text.
• It is trained on large amounts of text data and uses an algorithm called a transformer to learn how to generate text that is similar to human conversation.
• The application is beneficial for presenting information and responding to queries in a way similar to what would occur in a normal conversation because it has been educated by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

GPT-3:

• GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3) is a state-of-the-art language processing AI model developed by OpenAI.
• It is capable of generating human-like text and has a wide range of applications, including language translation, language modeling, and generating text for applications such as chatbots.
• It is one of the largest and most powerful language processing AI models to date, with 175 billion parameters.

Hence both statements are correct.

Union Government's free telemedicine service, e-Sanjeevani, has recently crossed another milestone by touching nine crore teleconsultations mark. 

• It is a web-based comprehensive telemedicine solution, launched by the then Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, in 2009.
• Created by: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Mohali, is the creator of eSanjeevani.
• Two modules of eSanjeevani:
  • eSanjeevani AB-HWC:The doctor-to-doctor telemedicine platform, being implemented at all the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) in the country under Ayushman Bharat (AB) Scheme of Government of India.
    • It was rolled out in 2019.
  • eSanjeevani OPD: It is the Patient-to-Doctor remote consultation services rolled out in 2020 amid the first lockdown imposed to fight Covid-19 pandemic, while the Outpatient Departments (OPDs) in the country were closed.
    • The initiative is a contactless and risk-free modality that enables delivery of health services to the citizens in the confines of their homes free of cost.
    • The C-DAC is working towards adding another innovative feature in eSanjeevani OPD that will enable roll out of National OPDs on eSanjeevani OPD, to offer remote health services to patients in any part of the country.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) to critical procurements for the defence forces, including that of the Very Short Range Air Defence System or VSHORAD (IR Homing) missile system.

• It is a man-portable air defence system (MANPADS).
• These are short-range, lightweight and portable surface-to-air missiles that can be fired by individuals or small groups to destroy aircraft or helicopters.
• They are having a maximum range of 8 kilometres and can engage targets at altitudes of 4.5 km.
• The missile incorporates many novel technologies including a miniaturized Reaction Control System (RCS) and integrated avionics, which have been successfully proven during the tests.
• The RCS is responsible for attitude control and steering by the use of thrusters and is also capable of providing small amounts of thrust in any desired direction or combination of directions.
• Designed and developed: DRDO’s Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Hyderabad in collaboration with other DRDO laboratories and Indian Industry Partners.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, Scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), an autonomous Research and Development Centre of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, have developed a lab-scale process to deposit novel nanostructured Nickel alloy coatings.

• A new method of deposition of Nickel alloy coatings on high-performance materials in engineering applications can replace environmentally toxic chrome coatings. The coatings obtained are also highly corrosion-resistant and useful for the plastic ware industry.
• The process used pulsed current electroplating, which is environmentally benign with high production capacity.
• They have used electric current in the form of pulses of a duration of a few milliseconds for electroplating purposes.
• The process consists of an environment-friendly electrolyte consisting of nickel and tungsten ions that is the source of strengthening elemental tungsten (W) and nickel (Ni).
• The pulsed current is applied between the components to be coated, acting as a cathode and a non-consumable anode.

Advantages of the new method:

• The pulsed current effect was used for nano-crystalline coatings wherein high instantaneous current density for a very small duration resulted in a high rate of nucleation.
• The coatings were virtually porosity free, crack free with minimal hydrogen uptake.
• The use of pulsed current resulted in the nano-crystallization of nickel tungsten alloy coatings with high hardness (700-1200 HV) and wear resistance.
• The coatings were extremely corrosion-resistant and could withstand up to 700 hrs of salt spray.
• The coatings can withstand temperatures up to 500°C without thermal softening and can improve the life of die components by at least two times than conventional chrome plating.

Key facts about Nickel

• It does not occur freely in nature.
• It is found in association with copper, uranium and other metals.
• It is an important alloying material.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.