Test: November 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 1 - UPSC MCQ

• To bolster investments in solar power projects, the International Solar Alliance (ISA), in its General Assembly meeting, approved the ‘Solar Facility’, a payment guarantee mechanism expected to stimulate investments into solar projects through two financial components — a Solar Payment Guarantee Fund and Solar Insurance Fund. 
• The thrust of the facility is to attract private capital to flow into “underserved markets” in Africa. The ISA would aim to crowdsource investments from various donors across the globe and proposed projects in Africa would be able to purchase payment guarantees or partial insurance premium from these funds.
• “With the Solar Facility ISA is looking to support projects by reducing lenders’ apprehensions and enabling finance to flow for projects that otherwise may not have received funding.
• The assembly is the apex decision-making body of the 110-member ISA that works with governments to improve energy access and security worldwide and promote solar power as a sustainable way to transition to a carbon-neutral future.

Part IV (Articles 36-51) covers a wide range of principles, including (apart from the UCC), the securing of equal justice and free legal aid to citizens (Art 39A), participation of workers in the management of industries (Art 43A), organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry (Art 48), protection and improvement of the environment and safeguarding of forests and wildlife (Art 48A), promotion of international peace and security (Art 51), etc.

• The Fundamental Rights lie at the heart of the Constitution, and are justiciable — that is, they are legally enforceable in a court of law.
• In its landmark Minerva Mills judgment (1980), the Supreme Court held: “Indian Constitution is founded on the bed-rock of the balance between Parts III (Fundamental Rights) and IV (Directive Principles). To give absolute primacy to one over the other is to disturb the harmony of the Constitution.”
• Article 31C says that if a law is made to implement any of the Directive Principles, it cannot be challenged on the ground of being violative of the Fundamental Rights under Articles 14 and 19.

A part of the Arctic’s ice called “Last Ice Area”, located north of Greenland, has melted before expected. Scientists had believed this area was strong enough to withstand global warming.
The area is important because it was thought to be able to help ice-dependent species as ice in the surrounding areas melted away. The area is used by polar bears to hunt for seals who use ice to build dens for their offspring. Walruses too, use the surface of the ice for foraging.

Commercial Banks: All commercial banks including branches of foreign banks functioning in India, local area banks and regional rural banks are insured by the DICGC.
Cooperative Banks: All State, Central and Primary cooperative banks, also called urban cooperative banks, functioning in States / Union Territories which have amended the local Cooperative Societies Act empowering the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to order the Registrar of Cooperative Societies of the State / Union Territory to wind up a cooperative bank or to supersede its committee of management and requiring the Registrar not to take any action regarding winding up, amalgamation or reconstruction of a co-operative bank without prior sanction in writing from the RBI are covered under the Deposit Insurance Scheme. At present all co-operative banks are covered by the DICGC.
Primary cooperative societies are not insured by the DICGC.

Chhath Puja is one of the most major festivals of India. This festival is celebrated in most parts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and also in some parts of Nepal. It is celebrated six days after Deepavali, on the sixth day of the lunar month of Kartika (October–November) in the Hindu calendar. This day is observed by offering prayer to Lord Sun and taking dips into the holy waters of the Ganga.

India’s longest single-lane motorable suspension bridge is built over the Tehri lake in Tehri-Garhwal district of Uttarakhand.

• The Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies was released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
• The annual report assesses the gap between the pledges taken by different countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the estimated reduction required to maintain the average global temperature rise to below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C, by the end of this century.
• The flagship report is managed by the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre. It serves as a “scientifically authoritative source of timely and policy-relevant information to key decision-makers,” guiding the UNFCCC process and implementing the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 countries in 2015 at COP 21, was aimed at limiting global warming and maintaining the average global temperature rise, ideally, to below 1.5°C.

• The CrPC provides for ‘examination’ (of the accused by a medical practitioner) which includes examination of blood, semen, swabs (in the case of sexual offences), sputum and sweat, hair samples and fingernail clippings using modern and scientific techniques including DNA profiling and other necessary tests which could provide evidence as to the commission of an offence. Similarly, Section 311A of the CrPC empowers a magistrate to direct any person (including an accused person) to give a specimen signature or handwriting for the purpose of any investigation or proceedings.
• The only exceptions are scientific techniques, namely narcoanalysis, polygraphy and brain fingerprinting which the Supreme Court in Selvi vs State of Karnataka (2010) held to be testimonial compulsions (if conducted without consent), and thus prohibited under Article 20(3) of the Constitution. These tests do not fall under the scope of expression “such other tests” in Explanation of Section 53 of the CrPC.

• REITs are investment vehicles that pool investor money like mutual funds and use it to buy a portfolio of real estate assets. They manage these assets to generate a regular income and capital appreciation. In order to ensure that the REIT is able to generate income, 80 per cent of the portfolio of a REIT should be invested in completed and rent-generating properties.
• While REITs can invest in all kinds of income-generating properties — residences, offices, hotels, malls, warehouses, in India the listed REITs are focussed mainly on office space.
• As per SEBI’s guidelines, REITs need to mandatorily distribute 90 per cent of their income to unit-holders. The distribution could be in the form of dividend or interest income or both.

• The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution owned by central banks that “fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks”.
• The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is a committee of banking supervisory authorities that was established by the central bank governors of the Group of Ten countries in 1974. The committee expanded its membership in 2009 and then again in 2014. In 2019, the BCBS has 45 members from 28 Jurisdictions, consisting of Central Banks and authorities with responsibility of banking regulation. The Committee’s Secretariat is located at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland.

The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in the world by area, Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth, and Lake Malawi.
Lake Baikal is a rift lake in Russia.

In contrast to humans and other animals, plants can produce glucose through a process known as photosynthesis. The green parts of plants use sunlight, water, and the gas carbon dioxide from the air to produce glucose and oxygen.

When the general price level rises in a country due to the rise in prices of imported commodities, inflation is termed imported. Inflation may also rise due to depreciation of the domestic currency, which pushes up the landed rupee cost of imported items.

Shigella infection (shigellosis) is an intestinal disease caused by a family of bacteria known as shigella. The main sign of shigella infection is diarrhea, which often is bloody. Shigella can be passed through direct contact with the bacteria in the stool.

Yellow rust or stripe rust is a fungal disease which attacks the leaves of wheat crop by forming yellow stripes and affects their photosynthesis that causes shrivelling of grain size. It is a disease of cool weather in the northern hills and north-western plains zone.

A small river which stopped flowing 70 years ago in Odisha’s Cuttack district is set to be rejuvenated as the State government has started working on its revival plan following a recent direction from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). This is probably the first serious attempt being made to restore a river to its original shape in Odisha.
The Sukapaika River originated from another river, the Mahanadi, near Ayatpur village. It flowed 27.50 km before meeting the Mahanadi again at Bankala.

The first edition of India-Mozambique-Tanzania Trilateral Exercise (IMT TRILAT), a joint maritime exercise among the Indian, Mozambique and Tanzanian navies was held at Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Indian Navy was represented by the guided missile frigate, INS Tarkash, a Chetak helicopter and MARCOS (Special Forces).

• The spaghetti bowl effect is the multiplication of free trade agreements (FTAs), supplanting multilateral World Trade Organization negotiations as an alternative path toward globalization.
• The term was first used by Jagdish Bhagwati in 1995 in the paper: “US Trade policy: The infatuation with free trade agreements”, where he openly criticized FTAs as being paradoxically counter-productive in promoting freer and more opened global trades. According to Bhagwati, too many crisscrossing FTAs would allow countries to adopt discriminatory trade policies and reduce the economic benefits of trade.

• India is not a member of OIC.
• Based at the United Nations, the Better Than Cash Alliance is a partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to responsible digital payments to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. India became a member of the alliance in 2015 to digitize payments to achieve financial inclusion and to share success stories from PM Jan Dhan Yojana, the world’s largest financial inclusion program.

India was inducted as full member of the SCO at the 17th SCO summit.

The Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) is largest association of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) worldwide.  A-WEB was established on October 14, 2013 in Song-do, South Korea. The permanent secretariat of A-WEB is located at Seoul. A-WEB’s vision is to foster efficiency and effectiveness in conducting free, fair, transparent and participative elections worldwide. Its activities are guided by its mission to identify latest trends, challenges and developments in democratic electoral management and electoral processes and to facilitate appropriate exchange of experience and expertise among members with the objective of strengthening electoral democracy worldwide. The current chairman is Sushil Chandra from India.

Currently, six languages enjoy the ‘Classical’ status: Tamil (declared in 2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).

Guidelines for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ are:

1. High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years.
2. A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers.
3. The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community.

The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

• National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture, is the largest network of science centres/museums in the world functioning under a single administrative control.
• It is primarily engaged in spreading the culture of science in the society especially among students with a motto of ‘Communicating Science to Empower People’ through its network of Science Centres spread across India. NCSM is the implementing agency for the Science City Scheme for developing new science centres in the country of national, regional and district level.

Manikaran is famous for its hot springs. Manikaran at an altitude of 1,829 mt. and 40 kms from Kullu has the finest hot water springs.