Test: June 2023 Weekly Current Affair - 2 - UPSC MCQ

Statement 1 is incorrect.

A Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) score is a three-digit numerical summary of one’s credit history, which involves an individual’s credit payment history across loan types and credit institutions over a period of time. Ranging from 300 to 900, the CIBIL score is provided by the Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd., a credit rating agency which is authorized by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Tiananmen Square is a city square in the city center of Beijing, China. It has great cultural significance as it was the site of several important events in Chinese history.
Outside China, the square is best known for the 1989 protests and massacre that ended with a military crackdown, which is also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre or the June Fourth Massacre.

From the Tibetan Plateau the river runs through China’s Yunnan Province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

• Most modern plastics are derived from fossil fuel-based chemicals like natural gas or petroleum. However, recently, variants made from renewable materials, such as corn or cotton derivatives have also emerged.
• Microplastics – officially defined as plastics less than five millimetres in diameter. There are two categories of microplastics. Primary microplastics are tiny particles designed for commercial use, such as in cosmetics or textiles. On the other hand, secondary microplastics are particles that are a product of the breakdown of larger plastic items due to exposure to environmental factors such as sun’s radiation or ocean’s waves.

Typically, GDP is calculated by adding up all expenditures in the economy. These expenditures are broadly categorised in four groups:

• All the money Indians spend in their personal capacity— from buying an ice cream to watching a movie to buying a TV or car. This is called thePFCE. Such expenditures account for 55%-60% of India’s annual GDP.
• All the money thegovernments spendon their daily uses — paying salaries etc. This is called Government Final Consumption Expenditure (GFCE) and this accounts for 10% of India’s GDP.
• All the money spent by private companies and governments towards building productive capacitiesin the economy. Say a firm buying desktops for its employees or the government spending money on building a road. This is called the Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF)and this accounts for 30%-32% of the GDP.
• Net exportsor the net of all the money that Indians received by exporting goods and services and minus all the money they spent on importing goods and services. More often than not, India’s imports are more than its exports. As such the Net Exports component is negative and drags down overall GDP.

• DICGC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the RBI and provides deposit insurance. The deposit insurance system plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the financial system, particularly by assuring the small depositors of the protection of their deposits in the event of a bank failure.
• The deposit insurance extended by DICGC covers all commercial banks including local area banks (LABs), payments banks (PBs), small finance banks (SFBs), regional rural banks (RRBs) and co-operative banks, that are licensed by the RBI.
• DICGC insures all deposits such as savings, fixed, current and recurring including accrued interest. Each depositor in a bank is insured up to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh for both principal and interest amount held by them as on the date of liquidation or failure of a bank.
• The earlier insurance cover provided by DICGC was Rs one lakh. However, the limit of insurance cover for depositors in insured banks was raised to Rs 5 lakh in 2020.

Statement 3 is incorrect.

Since all eligible voters of the village can participate in the Gram Sabha, it is a channel to include the less privileged section of society and ensure their participation in the village level governance wherein they can advocate their developmental aspirations. 

While connectivity of one village with another is beyond the jurisdiction of a GP, construction and maintenance of roads within the village is the responsibility of the GP. 

Most of the GPs are found reluctant to raise own source of revenue (OSR) in the selected sample. However, some of the GPs are able to generate OSR in the form of tax or non-tax revenue by renting shops, house tax and clean water fee.

The Kerala government officially launched the Kerala Fibre Optical Network (KFON).

Through KFON, Kerala, which was the first state to declare the right to internet as a basic right, aims to reduce the digital divide by ensuring high speed broadband internet access to all houses and government offices. It is also intended to give a fillip to e-governance and accelerate Kerala’s journey towards being a knowledge-based economy.

• The Private Member Bill is a bill introduced by a Member of Parliament (MP), who is not a minister. MPs sitting in the Opposition mostly bring Private Member Bills in the house. 
• The Union Territories of Puducherry, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi have representation in the Rajya Sabha, while other UTs are unrepresented. In these three UTs, elected members of the Legislative Assembly form the electoral college for electing the MP for Rajya Sabha from their places.

Given its long duration and being a relatively water-intensive crop, cotton needs a minimum of 5-6 irrigations, especially during the flowering, bud and boll formation stages. “Tur is also a long-duration crop, but doesn’t need more than 2-3 irrigations. The crop’s deep taproot system allows its plants to draw moisture from the soil better than cotton.

• It is the practice followed by the Supreme Court (and sometimes lower courts as well) of seeking and accepting information from government agencies in sealed envelopes that can only be perused by the judges.
• In broadly two circumstances: when information is connected to an ongoing investigation, and when it involves personal or confidential information. The logic is that disclosure of information linked to an ongoing investigation could impede the investigation, and the disclosure of personal or confidential information could violate an individual’s privacy or result in breach of trust.

• The Tobin tax is a tax levied on spot currency conversions, with the intention of disincentivizing short-term currency speculation, named after economist James Tobin.
• In contrast to a consumption tax paid by consumers, the Tobin tax is meant to apply to financial sector participants as a means of controlling the stability of a given country’s currency. It is more formally known today as a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT).

• India-Africa summits started from 2008 with New Delhi as its first venue. Since then it, was decided to hold these summits every three years, alternately in India and Africa. Second summit was held in Addis Ababa in 2011. The third summit, scheduled to be held in 2014, was postponed because of the Ebola outbreak, and took place in October 2015.
• For the first time, the India-Africa summit has done away with the so called Banjul Formula.
• This summit was important because it dispensed with the practice of following the Banjul formula. This Banjul Formula was adopted by the African Union (AU) in 2006 and it meant that India would invite only 15 heads of state or government through the African Union. But this time, all the 54 heads of state and government were invited and of all who came, 40 were heads of state.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

Some cyclones in the Arabian Sea have formed during the onset phase of the Indian Summer Monsoon. 

Such a situation arose in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019 between 1979 and 2019. This is 17 years out of 41, showed the paper.

About 70 per cent of tropical cyclones and 90 per cent of the very severe and super cyclones over the Arabian Sea strike during May, June and November.

Cyclones and the monsoon impact each other. “A cyclone cannot form if we have a strong monsoon.

A weak onset of monsoon results in the formation of a cyclone.

The reason for the weak onset is not clear. It could be El Nino, the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific. Indian Ocean warming due to climate change could also be playing a role.

• When one is looking at quarterly data, it is best to look at GVA data because it is this which is the observed data. The GDP is derived by looking at the GVA data.
• The GDP and GVA are related by the following equation: GDP = (GVA) + (Taxes earned by the government) — (Subsidies provided by the government)
• As such, if the taxes earned by the government are more than the subsidies it provides, the GDP will be higher than GVA. 

• Superbugs are bacteria that are resistant to several types of antibiotics. 
• In 2017, the bacterium was identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the world’s most dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria. “Notoriously difficult to eradicate, A. baumannii can cause pneumonia, meningitis and infect wounds, all of which can lead to death. A. baumanni is usually found in hospital settings, where it can survive on surfaces for long periods.
• The WHO’s list of superbugs highlighted bacteria that are having built-in abilities to find new ways to resist treatment and can pass along genetic material that allows other bacteria to become drug-resistant as well.
• Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines, says the WHO. This ultimately threatens the ability of medicines to treat common infectious diseases.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

The World Environment Day, led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), has been held annually on June 5, since 1973. The date was chosen by the UN General Assembly during the historic 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment – considered to be the first world conference to make the environment a major issue.

• Access to justice for the poor is a constitutional mandate to ensure fair treatment under our legal system. Hence, Lok Adalats (literally, ‘People’s Court’) were established to make justice accessible and affordable to all. It was a forum to address the problems of crowded case dockets outside the formal adjudicatory system.
• The Constitution (42nd Amendment) Act, 1976, inserted Article 39A to ensure “equal justice and free legal aid”. To this end, the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, was enacted by Parliament and it came into force in 1995 “to provide free and competent legal services to weaker sections of the society” and to “organise Lok Adalats to secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice on a basis of equal opportunity”.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

Established in 1960 by founding members Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, OPEC has since expanded and now has 13 member states. With the addition of another 10 allied major oil-producing countries that include Russia, the grouping is known as OPEC+.

The objective of the organisation is to “coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensure the stabilisation of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry,”

• Indian women received universal suffrage during India’s independence in 1947. During the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, India was instrumental in ensuring that gender sensitive norms were respected by changing the language from ‘all men are created equal’ to ‘all human beings are…. ’ India has also ratified key international conventions to end discrimination against women which include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
• India has been sending women personnel on UN Peacekeeping Missions. In 2007, India became the first country to deploy an all-women contingent to a UN Peacekeeping Mission. 

Statement 3 is incorrect.

Also known as tropospheric ozone, ground-level ozone is a colourless and highly irritating gas that forms just above the Earth’s surface (up to 2 miles above the ground).

Notably, it’s not directly emitted into the air but rather produced when two primary pollutants react in sunlight and stagnant air. These two primary pollutants are nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Therefore, ground-level ozone is called a “secondary” pollutant.

Ground-level ozone is likely to breach safety standards on hot summer days in urban areas, but can also reach unhealthy levels during colder months. The pollutant can also travel long distances due to wind and affect rural areas also.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are considered as primary pollutants.

NOx and VOCs come from natural sources as well as human activities. About 95 per cent of NOx from human activity comes from the burning of coal, gasoline and oil in motor vehicles, homes, industries and power plants. VOCs from human activity come mainly from gasoline combustion and marketing, upstream oil and gas production, residential wood combustion, and from the evaporation of liquid fuels and solvents.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

The onset of the monsoon over Kerala signals the beginning of the four-month (June-September) southwest monsoon season, during which India gets more than 70% of its annual rainfall. It is an important day in the economic calendar of the country.

Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, the onset does not mean the first rain of the season. That can start happening in certain places even before the onset is declared.

For example, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands usually start receiving monsoon rainfall between May 15 and May 20, and it starts raining along the Kerala coast in the last week of May. However, ‘onset’ is a technical expression with a specific definition — and the IMD does not officially declare onset until certain prescribed conditions are met.

According to the IMD, the onset of the monsoon happens when there is a significant transition in the large-scale atmospheric and ocean circulations in the Indo-Pacific region. IMD announces the onset of the monsoon only after certain precisely defined and measurable parameters are met.

The IMD essentially looks at the consistency of rainfall over a defined geography, the intensity of the rainfall, and the wind speed.

Only statement 1 is correct.

The Special Marriage Act, 1954, provides a civil marriage for couples who cannot marry under their personal law. 

Same-sex marriage, which has been legalised in 30-odd countries, including the U.S. 

The K.S. Puttaswamy verdict (2017) which upheld the right to privacy and Navtej Singh Johar (2018) that decriminalised homosexuality.