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

‘One Health’ is an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes.

The areas of work in which a One Health approach is particularly relevant include food safety, the control of zoonoses (diseases that can spread between animals and humans, such as flu, rabies and Rift Valley Fever), and combatting antibiotic resistance (when bacteria change after being exposed to antibiotics and become more difficult to treat).

It may be noted that urea forms around 80 per cent of the total nitrogenous fertilisers consumed in India and it has recorded exponential increase in consumption over the years.
Around 30-50 per cent of nitrogen from urea is utilised by plants and the rest gets wasted due to quick chemical transformation as a result of leaching, volatilization and run off, thereby low use efficiency.

• In India, entry into forests is governed by two laws — The Indian Forest Act, 1927, and The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The first applies to all reserve forests and bars trespassing. Everyone other than people who live in villages inside reserve forests, needs permission from the divisional forest officer concerned for entering these forests for any purpose.
• The Wildlife Protection Act empowers the Chief Wildlife Warden of a state to frame laws for tourists entering Protected Areas — sanctuaries and national parks. Under the same Act, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has the powers to set rules for tiger reserves. Kaziranga National Park is also a tiger reserve, located in Assam.

The prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were established by the will of Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite. The first awards were handed out in 1901, five years after Nobel’s death.
Each prize is worth 10 million kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out with a diploma and gold medal on Dec. 10 — the date of Nobel’s death in 1896.
The Nobel statutes prohibit the judges from discussing their deliberations for 50 years. So it’s probably going to be a while before we know for sure how judges made their picks for 2022 and who was on their short lists.
Thousands of people around the world are eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Prizes.
They include university professors, lawmakers, previous Nobel laureates and the committee members themselves.
The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Norway while the other awards are handed out in Sweden. That’s how Alfred Nobel wanted it.

The following Indians (or individuals of Indian origin) have been honoured with the Nobel:
Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913), C V Raman (Physics, 1930), Hargobind Khorana (Medicine, 1968), Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979), Subramanian Chandrashekhar (Physics, 1983), the Dalai Lama (Peace, 1989), Amartya Sen (Economics, 1998), Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry, 2009), and Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014), Abhijit Banerjee (Economics, 2019).

The International Criminal Court (ICC), located in The Hague, is the court of last resort for prosecution of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
It does not have the capacity to arrest suspects and depends on member states for their cooperation.
The International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, is the main judicial organ of the UN.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the “world’s first CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) terminal” at Bhavnagar in Gujarat.

A team of researchers has flagged the changing chemistry of the western region of the Arctic Ocean after discovering acidity levels increasing three to four times faster than ocean waters elsewhere.
The team also identified a strong correlation between the accelerated rate of melting ice and the rate of ocean acidification. 
Scientists have predicted that by 2050, Arctic sea ice in this region will no longer survive the increasingly warm summers. As a result, the ocean’s chemistry will grow more acidic, creating life-threatening problems for the diverse population of sea creatures, plants and other living things that depend on a healthy ocean.
Seawater is normally alkaline, with a pH value of around 8.1.
They point to sea-ice melt as the key mechanism to explain this rapid pH decrease, because it changes surface water in three primary ways.
First, the water under the sea ice, which had a deficit of carbon dioxide, now is exposed to the atmospheric carbon dioxide and can take it up freely.
The seawater mixed with meltwater is light and can’t mix easily into deeper waters, which means the carbon dioxide is concentrated at the surface.
The meltwater dilutes the carbonate ion concentration in the seawater, weakening its ability to neutralise the carbon dioxide into bicarbonate and rapidly decreasing ocean pH.

A buyback is a mechanism through which a listed company buys back shares from the market.
It can be done either through open market purchases or through the tender offer route.
Under the open market mechanism, the company buys back the shares from the secondary market while under tender offer, shareholders can tender their shares during the buyback offer. In a tender offer, the company fixes a fixed price for the buyback and investors can tender their shares by placing a bid with the broker.
Both Institutional investors and retail shareholders take part in a buy back offer.

Mulching is a method of soil conservation where the bare ground between plants is covered with a layer of organic matter like straw. It helps to retain soil moisture.

Shelter Belts is a method of soil conservation practiced in the coastal and dry regions in which rows of trees are planted to check the wind movement to protect soil cover.

Under Article 76(1), the A-G is appointed by the President from among persons who are “qualified to be appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court”. Article 76(4) says “the Attorney-General shall hold office during the pleasure of the President, and shall receive such remuneration as the President may determine.”
Soli Sorabjee served as A-G twice, and Milon K Banerji was also A-G twice.

The Chola kingdom stretched across present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. During the period of the Cholas’ rise and fall (around 9th to 12th century AD), other powerful dynasties of the region would also come and go, such as the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan who defeated the Cholas, and the Chalukyas of the Andhra Pradesh region whom the Cholas frequently battled.
The dynasty was founded by the king Vijaylaya.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) under Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India is the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) of India.

• The Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and rules 1945 have entrusted various responsibilities to central & state regulators for regulation of drugs & cosmetics.
• The regulation of manufacture, sale and distribution of Drugs is primarily the concern of the State authorities while the Central Authorities are responsible for approval of New Drugs, Clinical Trials in the country, laying down the standards for Drugs, control over the quality of imported Drugs, coordination of the activities of State Drug Control Organisations and providing expert advice with a view of bringing about the uniformity in the enforcement of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

• The economic cost of food grains procured by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is a total of Minimum Support Price and bonus (if any) paid to the farmers plus the procurement incidentals and distribution cost.
• FCI’s economic cost has three main components – procurement cost, procurement price, and distribution cost.
• The procurement incidentals are the initial costs incurred during the procurement of foodgrains.
• The distribution costs include freight, handling charges, storage charges, losses during transit and establishment cost.

Mahakali Treaty is an agreement between the Government of Nepal and the Government of India regarding the development of watershed of Mahakali River. The treaty was signed in 1996. The treaty recognizes the Mahakali River as a boundary river between the two countries.

The population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time. The crude birth rate is the annual number of live births per 1,000 population.
Births and deaths are the natural causes of population change. The difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a country is called the natural growth rate.

The islands of the Arabian sea include Lakshadweep and Minicoy. These are scattered between 8°N-12°N and 71°E -74°E longitude. The entire group of islands is broadly divided by the Eleventh-degree channel, north of which is the Amini Island and to the south of the Canannore Island.
Suez Canal had been constructed in 1869 in Egypt between Port Said in the north and Port Suez in the south linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
Panama Canal connects the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west.

MARPOL is an IMO’s International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) and it has regulations on prevention of pollution by garbage, which prohibits the discharge of plastics (including fishing gear) into the sea from ships.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.
World Trade Organization, as an institution, was established in 1995. It replaced General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which was in place since 1946.

• The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994.
• India has been a member of GATT since 1948; hence it was party to Uruguay Round and a founding member of WTO.
• While WTO came in to existence in 1995, GATT didn’t cease to exist. It continues as WTO’s umbrella treaty for trade in goods.

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS):

• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, also known asLaw of the Sea divides marine areas into five main zones namely- Internal Waters, Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the High Seas.
• UNCLOS is the only international convention which stipulates a framework for state jurisdiction in maritime spaces. It provides a different legal status to different maritime zones.
• It provides the backbone for offshore governance by coastal states and those navigating the oceans. It not only zones coastal states’ offshore areas but also provides specific guidance for states’ rights and responsibilities in the five concentric zones.
• India ratified the UNCLOS in 1995
• The United Nations has no direct operational role in the implementation of the Convention.While the Secretary-General of the United Nations receives instruments of ratification and accession and the UN provides support for meetings of states party to the Convention.

Agriculture subsidies can be direct or indirect farm subsidies taking account the instruments used in providing them.

Direct Farm subsidies involve giving cash to the farmers. India provides direct subsidies in a limited form which include giving food subsidy or MSP-based procurement, etc. These are the kinds of subsidies in which direct cash incentives are paid to the farmers in order to make their products more competitive in the global markets.

Indirect farm subsidies: These are the farm subsidies which are provided in the form of cheaper credit facilities, farm loan waivers, reduction in irrigation and electricity bills, fertilizers, seeds and pesticides subsidy as well as the investments in agricultural research, environmental assistance, farmer training, etc.

The Government established Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) as a Society in January 1994 to facilitate agri-business ventures by catalysing private investment through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme in close association with financial institutions.
SFAC is an Autonomous Society promoted by Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India”
It is registered under Societies Registration Act 1860. The role of State SFACs is to aggressively promote agribusiness project development in their respective States.
The main functions of SFAC are:

• Promotion of development of small agribusiness through VCA scheme.
• Helping formation and growth of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) / Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs).
• Improving availability of working capital and development of business activities of FPOs/FPCs through Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme.
• Implementation of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Electronic Trading platform.

One of the biggest achievements of the Chola dynasty was its naval power, allowing them to go as far as Malaysia and the Sumatra islands of Indonesia in their conquests.
The grand Brihadeeswara temple of Thanjavur, built by the Cholas, was the largest building in India in that period. Additionally, artworks and sculptures were commissioned by Chola kings and queens, including the famous bronze Nataraja idols. Earlier, the Rashtrakutas had built the Kailasanatha temple in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad — the largest monolith structure (carved from a single rock) of its time.

The Orange River is a river in Southern Africa. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Lesotho and between South Africa and Namibia, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa.

The seven G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.

The FPO mark is a certification mark mandatory on all processed fruit products sold in India such as packaged fruit beverages, fruit-jams, crushes and squashes, pickles, dehydrated fruit products, and fruit
extracts, following the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006.
The standards have been in force since 1955 by the law of Fruit Products Order, after which the mark is named, but the mark itself got a mandatory status only after the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006.
India Organic is a certification mark for organically farmed food products manufactured in India.
The certification is issued by testing centres accredited by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) under the National Program for Organic Production of the Government of India.