Test: March 2023 Weekly Current Affair - 1 - UPSC MCQ

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

The Sea of Galilee is Israel’s largest freshwater lake. At 209 meters below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth, and the second lowest lake in the world after the Dead Sea, a saltwater lake.

• Kelps cover 25 per cent of the world’s coastlines and provide food and shelter for fish, invertebrates and marine mammal species. They also offer crucial services such as carbon sequestration and erosion control, according to scientists.
• But kelps are increasingly threatened by climate change, eutrophication and shoreline development, among other human-induced stressors.
• One such threat is from bryozoa, moss animals that grow as mats on kelps. They drive the seaweed to sink into the seafloor and disintegrate.
• The outbreak can be linked to high temperatures. For example, in 2015, researchers observed an expansive outbreak of bryozoa. These observations coincided with ‘the blob’, a marine heat wave that emerged across the northeast Pacific Ocean, according to a report.
• Dense kelp beds in warmer and less wave-exposed sites are more susceptible to bryozoan outbreaks.
• Seaweeds are farmed as they have industrial applications. They can be harvested to extract biostimulants for plant growth. They also can help in long-term carbon sequestration and regeneration of ocean habitats.

• India’s exports and imports declined by 6.59% and 3.63% respectively in January 2023, there are indications that the current account deficit (CAD) – the difference between exports and imports of goods and services – will moderate despite the global slowdown triggered by the rising inflation and interest rates.
• The moderation in CAD, expected to be aided by the fall in commodity prices, rising workers remittances and services exports, and abatement of selling pressure by foreign investors, is set to boost sentiment on the investment front, as it will also bring the pressure off the currency.

• Survey of India, The National Mapping Agency of the country under the Department of Science & Technology.
• The Survey of India (SoI), India’s 250-year-old map maker, while no longer having a monopoly on making high resolution maps, will remain the arbiter of maps that deal with State borders and national boundaries. They will also maintain and provide reference stations that are vital to cartographers to prepare higher resolution maps.
• In December 2022, the Centre officially released the National Geospatial Policy of India that allows any private agency to make high resolution maps. Before this, the Survey of India made various categories of maps that, while available for nominal charges, were relatively hard to access. Moreover, maps made for “civilian purposes” were coarser than the “defence series maps” that were more detailed but only accessible to the Defence Ministry.

• Appointments of DGPs are now made on the basis of the Supreme Court judgment on police reforms in Prakash Singh vs Union of India 17 years ago. According to the SC’s guidelines on the appointment of police chiefs, the DGP is to be selected by the state government from among the three senior most officers who have been empanelled for promotion to that rank by the UPSC “on the basis of their length of service, very good record and range of experience for heading the police force”.
• The DGP should have a fixed tenure of two years in the post, irrespective of the date of retirement. A DGP can be removed only in exceptional circumstances.

• A V-shaped recovery is characterised by quick and effective recovery in measures of economic performance after an acute decline in the economy. 
• A K-shaped recovery occurs when, following a recession, different parts of the economy recover at different rates, times, or magnitudes.

• PACS are village level cooperative credit societies that serve as the last link in a three-tier cooperative credit structure headed by the State Cooperative Banks (SCB) at the state level. Credit from the SCBs is transferred to the district central cooperative banks, or DCCBs, that operate at the district level. The DCCBs work with PACS, which deal directly with farmers.
• Since these are cooperative bodies, individual farmers are members of the PACS, and office-bearers are elected from within them. A village can have multiple PACS.
• PACS are involved in short term lending — or what is known as crop loan. At the start of the cropping cycle, farmers avail credit to finance their requirement of seeds, fertilisers etc.
• The attraction of the PACS lies in the last mile connectivity they offer. For farmers, timely access to capital is necessary at the start of their agricultural activities. PACS have the capacity to extend credit with minimal paperwork within a short time.

• The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, says that child marriages are illegal, they are voidable at the option of the minor party, in the scenario that the minor petitions the court to declare the marriage void. The Act stipulates 18 years as the minimum marriageable age for women, while for men it is 21 years. The Act punishes child marriage with “rigorous imprisonment which may extend to two years or with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees or with both.”
• The punishment also extends to anyone who performs, conducts, directs, or abets any child marriage and includes rigorous imprisonment of up to two years and a fine which may extend to one lakh rupees unless proven that he had reasons to believe that the marriage was not a child marriage.

• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the proposal of appointing Dr. Rajeev Singh Raghuvanshi as the new Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).
• The DCGI is an important post as it has a final say on the regulatory approvals for drugs and vaccines in India. The apex body is also responsible for ensuring standards for drugs which are used in domestic and export consumption. 
• Drugs Controller General of India, comes under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

• As per the Millennium Eco Assessment it is an index of the area of productive land and aquatic ecosystems required to produce the resources used and to assimilate the wastes produced by a defined population at a specified material standard of living, wherever on Earth that land may be located.
• Ecological footprint analysis is widely used around the Earth in support of sustainability assessments.
• It can be used to measure and manage the use of resources throughout the economy and explore the sustainability of individual lifestyles, goods and services, organizations, industry sectors, neighborhoods, cities, regions and nations.

Survival International is an organization that advocates for the rights of tribal and indigenous people around the world. Therefore, the correct option is 3) Tribal people.

• The Vijayanagara kingdom has long been a subject of historical and political interest. From their capital, now known as Hampi, on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, the kings of Vijayanagara at the peak of their power ruled over a territory of more than 360,000 sq. km. Founded in 1336, the kingdom of Vijayanagara lasted for more than three centuries.
• Founded by Harihara I of the Sangama dynasty, Vijayanagara expanded from a strategic position on the banks of the Tungabhadra river.
• The kingdom reached its peak under Krishna Deva Raya (reign 1509-1529), a period in which it enjoyed military superiority to its rival kingdoms such as the Bahmani Sultanate, the Golconda Sultanate and the Gajapatis of Odisha.
• At its peak, the kingdom stretched from Goa in the Konkan coast to parts of southern Odisha in the east and all the way to the very tip of the subcontinent in the south.
• The empire’s principal exports were pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, myrobalan, tamarind timber, anafistula, precious and semi-precious stones, pearls, musk, ambergris, rhubarb, aloe, cotton cloth and porcelain.
• This was a period when poetry and scholarship flourished, both in sacral and secular contexts. Literature in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada as well as Sanskrit was produced in the kingdom, with new writing styles and methods emerging.
• Vijayanagara architecture is a vibrant combination and blossoming of the Chalukya, Hoysala, Pandya and Chola styles, idioms that prospered in previous centuries.
• The Prasanna Virupaksha temple of Bukka I and the Hazara Rama temple of Krishna Deva Raya are striking examples of Vijayanagara’s characteristic style and intricate artistry.
• Vijayanagara’s capital Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today, known for its sophisticated fortifications as well as innumerable temples and other architectural marvels.

Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, multi-billion-dollar projects to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. 

Each of the 193 member states of the UN has an equal vote in the General Assembly, where key decisions for the body are made, such as appointing the UN Secretary-General, approving the UN budget, electing non-permanent members to the Security Council and making recommendations through resolutions. However, it has no power to enforce these resolutions.

• Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism’s genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms.
• Mass cytometry is a mass spectrometry technique based on inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and time of flight mass spectrometry used for the determination of the properties of cells (cytometry).
• Chromatin remodeling is the dynamic modification of chromatin architecture to allow access of condensed genomic DNA to the regulatory transcription machinery proteins, and thereby control gene expression.

• Article 356 empowers the President to withdraw to the Union the executive and legislative powers of any state “if he is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the government of the state cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution”.
• Whether the constitutional machinery has broken down may be determined by the President at any time, either upon receipt of a report from the Governor, or suo motu.
• According to the provisions of Article 356, President’s Rule in a state can be imposed for six months at a time for a maximum duration of three years. Every six months, Parliamentary approval to impose President’s Rule will be required again.
• However, in the past, President’s Rule has been extended for significantly longer periods under specific circumstances. For instance, Punjab was under President’s Rule from 1987-1992 due to the growing militancy.

Article 356 was inspired by Section 93 of the Government of India Act, 1935. 

• Bees and butterflies play a vital role in the pollination of plants and the production of crops by transporting pollen grains from one place to another.
• These are some of the common predators of butterflies: wasps, ants, parasitic flies, birds, snakes, toads, rats etc. The decline in butterfly population would therefore adversely affect the food chain.
• Statement 3 is an absurd statement.

Statements 1, 2 and 3: United States of America usually runs a trade deficit, but it is not a developing country, neither is its currency weak, nor is the demand for its exports weak.
A negative trade balance simply implies that the demand of the resident for foreign goods outstrips what foreign residents demand from that nation.
Moreover, you should see other factors like capital flows in the nation, remittances etc and the overall BoP situation.

Statement 4: It again depends on the overall BoP situation. If the BoP as well as trade balance is negative, the nation may suffer from currency devaluation. However, still we cannot conclusively say anything about the growth and inflation in the country. It depends on the economy’s structure and its export-import composition. For e.g. if rupee devaluates, we pay a higher price of essential commodities like oil, which inflate domestic prices.

Census:

• The census provides information on size, distribution and socio-economic, demographic and other characteristics of the country’s population.
• The Census was first started under British Viceroy Lord Mayo in 1872.
• It helped in framing new policies, government programs to uplift areas of improvement in the community.
• The first synchronous census in India was held in 1881.
• Since then, censuses have been undertaken uninterruptedly once every ten years.

The responsibility of conducting the decennial Census rests with the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

United Nations Security Council (UNSC):

• The Security Council was established by the UN Charter in 1945.
• It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
• Its primary responsibility is to work to maintain international peace and security.
• The council is headquartered at New York.

The council has 15 members:

• Five (5) permanent members
• Ten (10) non-permanent members elected for two-year terms
• Each year, the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of ten in total) for a two-year term.
• The ten non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis.
• The council’s presidency is a capacity that rotates every month among its 15 members.
• Permanent members: United States, the Russian Federation, France, China and the United Kingdom

The Treaty of Alinagar, signed on February 9, 1757, was a reluctant agreement signed by Bengal’s Nawab Siraj ud Daula with the English East India Company. An outcome of decades of tension that bubbled over into armed conflict between the two parties, the Treaty strengthened the position of the British in Bengal and laid foundations for the Battle of Plassey a few months later.
The treaty set the stage for British colonial expansion in India.

• The condition of the cricket ball has a massive impact on the game of cricket, specifically, on how the ball behaves when bowled. An old roughed-up ball can turn a lot more whereas a new ball is likely to swing.
• While in the course of an innings, the ball’s condition changes naturally as it experiences wear and tear, sometimes, the bowling team plays a more direct role to alter the condition of the ball, aka engages in ball tampering.
• The primary motive of ball tampering is to interfere with the aerodynamics of the ball to aid swing bowling.
• “It is an offence for any player to take any action which changes the condition of the ball.” However, a fielder may “polish the ball on his/her clothing provided that no artificial substance is used”, “remove mud from the ball under the supervision of an umpire”, and “dry a wet ball on a piece of cloth that has been approved by the umpires”.
• Anything outside the purview that is explicitly stated above can be considered to be ball tampering.

The current account deficit is a measurement of a country’s trade where the value of the goods and services it imports exceeds the value of the products it exports. A current account deficit indicates that a country is importing more than it is exporting. A current account deficit is not always detrimental to a nation’s economy—external debt may be used to finance lucrative investments. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation of CAD.