Test: Weekly Current Affairs: February 8 to 14, 2024 - UPSC MCQ

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• India has taken some steps to promote the internationalisation of the rupee (e.g., enable external commercial borrowings in rupees), with a push to Indian banks to open Rupee Vostro accounts for banks from Russia, the UAE, Sri Lanka and Mauritius and measures to trade with ~18 countries in rupees instituted.
• For a currency to be considered a reserve currency, the rupee needs to be fully convertible, readily usable, and available in sufficient quantities. India does not permit full capital account convertibility (i.e., allowing free movement of local financial investment assets into foreign assets and vice-versa), with significant constraints on the exchange of its currency with others — driven by past fears of capital flight (i.e., outflow of capital from India due to monetary policies/lack of growth) and exchange rate volatility, given significant current and capital account deficits.

China also commands 60% of the total production of germanium. The element is used in fibre-optic cables, infrared imaging devices (used by enforcement agencies for surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, particularly in the dark) and optical devices (to improve the ability to operate weapon systems in harsh conditions). They are also used in solar cells for their ability to withstand heat and higher energy conversion efficiency. 

The joint statement — ‘Horizon 2047: 25th Anniversary of the India-France Strategic Partnership, Towards A Century of India-France Relations’ — lays out a roadmap for the bilateral relationship till 2047.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• CITES Appendix I lists species threatened with extinction — import or export permits for these are issued rarely and only if the purpose is not primarily commercial. CITES Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction but in which trade must be strictly regulated.
• The international ivory trade was globally banned in 1989 when all African elephant populations were put in CITES Appendix I. However, the populations of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe were transferred to Appendix II in 1997, and South Africa’s in 2000 to allow two “one-off sales” in 1999 and 2008 of ivory stockpiled from natural elephant deaths and seizures from poachers.
• The endangered Asian elephant was included in CITES Appendix I in 1975, which banned the export of ivory from the Asian range countries. In 1986, India amended The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 to ban even domestic sales of ivory. After the ivory trade was globally banned, India again amended the law to ban the import of African ivory in 1991.

• Guillain-Barré Syndrome is a rare neurological disorder where the body’s immune system — which normally protects it from infections and other foreign bodies — mistakenly attacks its own peripheral nerve cells.
• A person with this syndrome will have difficulty speaking, walking, swallowing, excreting or performing other normal functions of the body. The condition can get progressively worse. Thus, the peripheral nerves — the nerves that branch out from the brain and the spinal cord — get damaged as a result, and the muscles can become weak or paralyzed.
• The exact reasons for Guillain-Barré Syndrome are not yet understood. However, it often develops shortly after a person gets an infectious disease. Rarely, vaccinations can cause it. Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or GBS, also was linked to the cytomegalovirus, Epstein Barr virus, Zika virus and even the COVID-19 pandemic.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• Khaps are mainly gotra – clans tracing their paternal lineage to a common ancestor – and region-based social outfits. They derive their name either from the number of villages/clusters of villages or the gotras they represent.
• khaps used to have three kinds of functions – settle familial/village disputes, maintain/protect the tenets of the faith, and protect the area from outside invasion. Today, the last function is largely irrelevant. The major function of khaps today is to settle disputes and ensure that social and religious custom is enforced in their area.
• With regards to leadership and succession, a defining feature of khaps is that they do not have a set organisation. While earlier, succession as a khap president/leader was hereditary, now, that is not necessarily the case. To preside over a meeting of a particular khap or a group of khaps, the chairman of the same is nominated unanimously and on the spot. As largely there are no defined rules to elect president of a khap, in many cases more than one person claims to be head of a particular khap – causing fights and disputes.
• There are nearly 300 main khaps in north India – in the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• 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.

Only statement 1 is correct.

What is the Global Slavery Index?

The index presents a global picture of modern slavery. It is constructed by Walk Free, a human rights organisation and is based on data provided by the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, which, in turn, is produced by International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free, and International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations also resolve to end modern slavery. Target 8.7 of the SDGs states: “Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.”

Only Statement 1 is correct.

• Lothal was one of the southernmost sites of the Indus Valley civilization, located in the Bhāl region of what is now the state of Gujarat. The port city is believed to have been built in 2,200 BC.
• Lothal was nominated in April 2014 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its application is pending on the tentative list of UNESCO. As per the nomination dossier submitted to UNESCO, “The excavated site of Lothal is the only port-town of the Indus Valley Civilisation. A metropolis with an upper and a lower town had in on its northern side a basin with vertical wall, inlet and outlet channels which has been identified as a tidal dockyard.

Operation Bluestar was an Indian Army operation carried out in June 1984 in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, to flush out militants.

Today, GWR has over 75 adjudicators across the world, who determine whether a record has been broken or not. There is even an application process – one can apply to invite an adjudicator to witness a record being broken. However, there are some strict criteria that make a Guinness World Record.

A record must satisfy all of the following criteria to count.

• It should be objectively measurable.
• It should be breakable– it cannot be something so unique that only one person can do it.
• Similarly, it should also be standardisablewith a possibility to create a set of parameters and conditions that all challengers can follow.
• It should be verifiable.
• It should be based ononly one variable.
• It should be the best in the world. For any new record, GWR sets a minimum standard that has to be met for the record to be broken.

The dual control structure:

• Its uniqueness lies in the fact that Assam Rifles is the only paramilitary force with a dual control structure. While the administrative control of the force is with the MHA, its operational control is with the Indian Army, which is under the Ministry of Defence (MoD). This means that salaries and infrastructure for the force is provided by the MHA, but the deployment, posting, transfer and deputation of the personnel is decided by the Army.
• In some ways, the force is the only central paramilitary force (CPMF), as its operational duties and regimentation are on the lines of the Indian Army. However, being a Central Armed Police force under MHA, its recruitment, perks, promotion of its personnel and retirement policies are governed according to the rules framed by the MHA for CAPFs.

Kapilvastu is in southern Nepal, near the Indian border. Lumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Nepal. It is the place where, according to Buddhist tradition, queen Maya gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama at around 566 BCE.

The Gaza Strip is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. 

In all, the conventional transplanting route requires some 28 irrigations. It can go up if high temperatures force more frequent watering, and go down if there is enough rain.

Direct seeding versus transplanting

That’s where direct seeding of rice (DSR) comes in. Paddy here is sown directly in the field without any nursery preparation, puddling or flooding. In transplanting, the flooded fields basically deny oxygen to the weed seeds in the soil, preventing their germination. Water, thus, acts as a natural herbicide. In DSR, water is replaced with chemical herbicides.

DSR is effective against weeds and saves water compared to transplanting.

Article 25 lays down an individual’s fundamental right to religion; Article 26(b) upholds the right of each religious denomination or any section thereof to “manage its own affairs in matters of religion”; Article 29 defines the right to conserve distinctive culture. An individual’s freedom of religion under Article 25 is subject to “public order, health, morality” and other provisions relating to fundamental rights, but a group’s freedom under Article 26 has not been subjected to other fundamental rights. 

A bot is a software application that is programmed to do certain tasks. Bots are automated, which means they run according to their instructions without a human user needing to manually start them up every time. Bots often imitate or replace a human user’s behaviour. Typically, they do repetitive tasks, and they can do them much faster than human users could.

Bots usually operate over a network; more than half of Internet traffic is bots scanning content, interacting with webpages, chatting with users, or looking for attack targets. Some bots are useful, such as search engine bots that index content for search or customer service bots that help users. Other bots are “bad” and are programmed to break into user accounts, scan the web for contact information for sending spam, or perform other malicious activities. If it’s connected to the Internet, a bot will have an associated IP address.

Bots can be:

• Chatbots: Bots that simulate human conversation by responding to certain phrases with programmed responses
• Web crawlers (Googlebots): Bots that scan content on webpages all over the Internet
• Social bots: Bots that operate on social media platforms
• Malicious bots: Bots that scrape content, spread spam content, or carry out credential stuffing attacks

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• In India, the Constitution gives the government the right to levy taxes on individuals and organisations, but makes it clear that no one has the right to levy or charge taxes except by the authority of law. Any tax being charged has to be backed by a law passed by the legislature or Parliament.
• Taxes in India come under a three-tier system based on the Central, State and local governments, and the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution puts separate heads of taxation under the Union and State list. There is no separate head under the Concurrent list, meaning Union and the States have no concurrent power of taxation.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• Jeera is an extremely weather-sensitive crop. It requires a moderately cool and dry climate sans any humidity, which is conducive for fungal infestation during the crop’s flowering and seed development stages. That naturally limits the area of cultivation to Saurashtra, Kutch and the northern parts of Gujarat and adjoining districts of western Rajasthan such as Jalore, Barmer, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Pali and Nagaur. Unjha, enjoying the strategic advantage of being in the centre of the country’s jeera cultivation belt, has become the price-setting market for the crop.
• India accounts for some 70% of the world’s production of this seed spice. Other countries such as Syria, Turkey, UAE and Iran make up the balance 30%.
• India’s jeera production is meant for both its domestic market as well as for export. The top export destinations include China, Bangladesh, US, UAE, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. China has been importing Indian cumin aggressively.

Option 1 and 3 is correct.

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez.

The six countries bordering the Red Sea are: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti.

Option 3 is incorrect.

Joint military exercises like Varuna, Garuda, and Shakti, along with joint manufacturing initiatives, exemplify the depth of defence cooperation.

Agriculture being a State subject, the State Government is primarily responsible for the growth and development of agriculture sector and developing perspective plans for their respective States and ensuring effective implementation of the programmes/schemes. However, Government of India supplements the efforts of the State Governments through various Schemes / Programmes.

Only Statement 3 is correct.

• India’s first comprehensive survey estimates the snow leopard population at 718 in the wild.
• The maximum number of snow leopards was estimated in Ladakh (477), followed by Uttarakhand (124), Himachal Pradesh (51), Arunachal Pradesh (36), Sikkim (21), and Jammu and Kashmir (9).
• The survey, named Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI), began in 2019 and involved collaboration between the World Wide Fund for Nature-India, the Nature Conservation Foundation, and the Wildlife Institute of India.
• The snow leopard is classified as “vulnerable” and faces threats such as human-wildlife conflicts, free-ranging dogs, and poaching.

Frictional unemployment

Frictional unemployment, also called search unemployment, occurs when workers lose their current job and are in the process of finding another one.

This suggests that zero unemployment is impossible at any one time because some workers will always be in the process of changing jobs.

• About Dhokra Shilpkala:
  • It is an ancient metal casting tradition believed to have originated from the Dhokra Damar tribes of Central India. It has deep roots in the tribal communities of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha, where it evolved as a cultural and religious practice. The technique involves using the lost wax casting method, known as cire perdue, which results in intricate designs inspired by nature, mythology, and everyday life.
  • Despite its rich heritage, Dhokra Shilpkala faces challenges due to urbanization and mechanized production.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• FC is a body set up under Article 280 of the Constitution. Its primary job is to recommend measures and methods on how revenues need to be distributed between the Centre and states.
• There are no-ex officio members of the commission as such, because it is constituted afresh every five years. Besides suggesting the mechanism to share tax revenues, the Commission also lays down the principles for giving out grant-in-aid to states and other local bodies.
• The commission has to take on itself the job of addressing the imbalances that often arise between the taxation powers and expenditure responsibilities of the centre and the states, respectively.