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

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• A current is nothing but the movement of charged particles, electrons in most cases, in a particular direction. When the electrons move, they collide, and interact, with other atoms in the material.
• The movement is not entirely smooth, it encounters resistance which, as of now, is an essential property in electrical conductivity. Resistance involves a loss of energy, mostly in the form of heat. Part of the reason why electrical appliances get heated is this resistance.
• Elimination of this resistance can result in super-efficient electrical appliances, removal of transmission losses in power cables, and massive gains in energy. 

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• Tiger census report, prepared by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun and the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
• India has 53 tiger reserves, with M.P. accounting for six of them. While the State has the most tigers, the most populous reserves are the Corbett National Park (CNP), Uttarakhand, followed by the Bandipur and Nagarhole reserves in Karnataka.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• Space debris can include natural space debris such as meteoroids, or man-made ones which can include defunct spacecrafts and satellites, stages of rockets which have launched payloads, dead satellites, satellite explosions and collisions.
• Most pieces of space debris burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, the process starting from around a height of 100 km from Earth’s surface to 20 km. However, sometimes, very heavy pieces may not burn completely, and some part of the object may make it down to the surface, either hitting a landmass or a waterbody.
• Under the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects, countries can claim compensation from other countries for damages incurred from space debris.

Only Statement 2 is correct.

• Superconductivity refers to a state in which a material offers zero, or near-zero, resistance to electric current. 
• Superconducting materials show very interesting behaviour under magnetic field which allows the functioning of systems like the MRI scan machine and the superfast Maglev trains that float above the tracks. 
• As of now, superconductivity can be achieved only at very low temperatures, more than 250 degree Celsius below zero, very close to absolute zero which is – 273 degree Celsius.

The forest department of Madhya Pradesh has demonstrated remarkable commitment and success in active management practices. They have effectively restored low-density areas through incentivised voluntary village relocations, prey supplementation, reintroduction of species such as Barasingha (swamp deer) to new habitats like Satpuda and Bandhavgarh, and the reintroduction of Gaur to Bandhavgarh and Sanjay-Dubri Tiger Reserves. Prey species like chital (spotted deer) have been successfully supplemented in Satpuda, Sanjay Tiger Reserves, Nauradehi, Kuno, and Gandhisagar Wildlife Sanctuaries through translocation from high-density areas such as Pench and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserves.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• Launched around 46 years ago, Voyager 2 is the second spacecraft to enter interstellar space — the region that lies outside the impact of our Sun’s constant flow of material and magnetic field. The first was Voyager 1.
• Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are identical spacecraft. Each of them is equipped with instruments to carry out 10 different experiments. The instruments include television cameras — to take images of planets and other celestial bodies — infrared and ultraviolet sensors, magnetometers, plasma detectors, and cosmic-ray and charged-particle sensors.
• As their mission involved going far away from the Sun, they aren’t powered by solar power, like other spacecraft are. Instead, Voyager relies on a small nuclear power plant, drawing hundreds of watts from the radioactive decay of a pellet of plutonium.

• Article 110 defines a “Money Bill” as one containing provisions dealing with taxes, regulation of the government’s borrowing of money, and expenditure or receipt of money from the Consolidated Fund of India, among others, whereas Article 109 delineates the procedure for the passage of such a Bill and confers an overriding authority on the Lok Sabha in the passage of Money Bills.
• A major difference between money and Financial Bills is that while the latter has the provision of including the Rajya Sabha’s (Upper House) recommendations, the former does not make their inclusion mandatory. The Lok Sabha has the right to reject the Rajya Sabha’s recommendations when it comes to Money Bills.
• What differentiates a Money Bill from any ordinary Bill or Financial Bill is that while an ordinary Bill can originate in either house, a Money Bill can only be introduced in the Lok Sabha, as laid down in Article 117 (1). Additionally, no one can introduce or move Money Bills in the Lok Sabha, except on the President’s recommendation. Amendments relating to the reduction or abolition of any tax are exempt from the requirement of the President’s recommendation.
• The two prerequisites for any financial Bill to become a Money Bill are that first, it must only be introduced in the Lok Sabha and not the Rajya Sabha. Secondly, these bills can only be introduced on the President’s recommendation.

• All existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs. In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is forced into supercriticality—allowing an exponential growth of nuclear chain reaction.
• Fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium).

Statement 1 is correct.

• HSN stands for Harmonised System of Nomenclature code.
• This was introduced in 1988 by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This was introduced for a systematic classification of goods both national and international. This is a 6-digit code that classifies various products. India has been using HSN codes since 1986 to classify commodities for Customs and Central Excise.
• HSN codes apply to Customs and GST. The codes prescribed in the Customs tariff are used for the GST purposes too. HSN is used all over the world. There are different HSN codes for various commodities.
• HSN codes remove the need to upload details about the goods which makes filing of GST returns easier.
• HSN code is required for anything from animal products, mineral products, plastic articles to footwear, arms and ammunition and machinery.

• A follow-on public offer (FPO), also known as a secondary offering, is the additional issuance of shares after the initial public offering (IPO). 
• Companies usually announce FPOs to raise equity or reduce debt.
• The two main types of FPOs are dilutive—meaning new shares are added—and non-dilutive—meaning existing private shares are sold publicly.
• Follow-on offerings are also known as secondary offerings.

• Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA), the Indian government’s authority for digital signatures, including SSL (Security Sockets Layer) certificates.
• SSL certificates are used to encrypt websites and to make sure that browsers know that a website is not being modified or impersonated by attackers. Browsers know to trust these certificates if they are issued by a certifying authority that is in turn trusted by a ‘root certifying authority’. India does not have a root certifying authority trusted by major browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.
• This has led to a situation where the government operates a root certifying authority that is legally valid under Indian law — the Root Certifying Authority of India, set up in 2000 under the CCA — but the certificates issued under its purview are largely not recognised by web browsers, leading Indian government and private websites to purchase SSL certificates from foreign certifying authorities.
• CCA-approved organisation — the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which hosts and maintains several Union and State Government websites.

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) falls under Ayushman Bharat. PM-JAY is the largest health assurance scheme in the world which aims at providing a health cover of Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over 10.74 crores poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) that form the bottom 40% of the Indian population. The households included are based on the deprivation and occupational criteria of Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 (SECC 2011) for rural and urban areas respectively. 

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• Under the Open Market Sale Scheme, the FCI from time to time sells surplus food grains from the central pool especially wheat and rice in the open market to traders, bulk consumers, retail chains and so on at pre-determined prices. The Corporation does this through e-auctions where open market bidders can buy specified quantities at the prices set at the start of a cycle and revised routinely. Usually, states are also allowed to procure food grains through the OMSS without participating in the auctions, for their needs beyond what they get from the central pool to distribute to NFSA beneficiaries.
• The idea is to activate the OMSS during the lean season, the time between harvests, to improve and regulate domestic supply and availability of the two grains and bring down their prices in the open market; essentially making the scheme a measure to curb food grain inflation.

• The Election Commission (EC) has made the process of allotting airtime to political parties for campaigning on Akashvani and Doordarshan entirely online.
• Instead of collecting physical vouchers for airtime, the parties will henceforth be issued digital time vouchers through an Information Technology (IT) platform.
• Till now, the political parties had to send their representatives to the commission’s offices to collect the time vouchers during elections. The scheme for allotment of time on public broadcasters during campaigning, which was initially notified in January 1998, holds a statutory basis under Section 39A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• Nutrient-based subsidy (NBS) covers fertilizers like P&K fertilizers. Urea is left out of the scheme and hence it remains under price control whereas technically there is no price control in other fertilisers.
• GST for fertilizers is at 5% and GST on raw materials like sulphuric acid and ammonia are at 18%.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

1. Most atoms on Earth are stable due to an equilibrated composition of neutrons and protons in their nucleus. However, in some unstable atoms, the composition of the number of protons and neutrons is such that it does not allow the nucleus to hold itself together.
2. Such atoms are known to be radioactive, and they tend to break apart or fission into two lighter elements. This is the basis of most nuclear weapons and atomic energy.
3. Uranium-235, an extremely rare isotope of the heavy metal uranium, is the most commonly used nuclear fuel, as it is one of the few elements that can undergo induced fission. This means that the element can be broken down very quickly by a process put into motion by humans.
4. This is done by subjecting a U-235 nucleus to neutrons. The nucleus immediately absorbs an extra neutron and consequently becomes unstable — and immediately breaks apart into two lighter atoms, and a few extra neutrons. This process releases what is known as atomic energy.

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• Nuclear fusion is basically the opposite of fission — it is the process by which two light atomic nuclei combine to form a single, heavier one while releasing massive amounts of energy.
• For fusion bombs, the nuclei of two extremely rare isotopes of hydrogen — deuterium and tritium — are fused together under extremely high temperatures and pressure, thus giving these bombs the moniker of hydrogen bombs or H-bombs.
• While being way more destructive, fusion bombs pose some major challenges, the first of which is obtaining adequate fusionable material itself.
• Moreover, the amount of energy that is required to create conditions of a fusion reaction is immense. Thus all H-bombs are basically two bombs in one — a fission bomb which produces adequate heat and pressure, to trigger the fusion reaction.

• Parliamentary privileges are certain rights and immunities enjoyed by members of Parliament, individually and collectively, so that they can “effectively discharge their functions”. When any of these rights and immunities are disregarded, the offence is called a breach of privilege and is punishable under law of Parliament.
• A notice is moved in the form of a motion by any member of either House against those being held guilty of breach of privilege. Each House also claims the right to punish as contempt actions which, while not breach of any specific privilege, are offences against its authority and dignity.
• The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion. The Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.

Only Statement 3 is correct.

• Approximately 99.3% of naturally occurring uranium is of the isotope U-238, which is not fissionable. Naturally occurring uranium, therefore, cannot be used in a weapon, or for that matter, in nuclear power plants.
• Thus, uranium ore is enriched in order to increase the concentration of U-235. Most nuclear power plants require an enrichment of 3-4% U-235 to sustain a chain reaction. Fission bombs on the other hand need closer to 90% enrichment.

In India, though mediation finds legitimacy in some specific laws such as the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the Companies Act, 2013, the Commercial Courts Act, 2015, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, there is no standalone legislation as yet.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• Parliamentary privilege are certain rights conferred to the Members of Parliament for conducting the business of the Parliament. There is no codified list of the exact privileges, but it includes the right of free expression in the course of Parliamentary debates and Members of Parliament will not be liable for court proceedings for this.
• If there is a belief that such a privilege has been breached, a motion can be raised by any member. It can be admitted by the Chairman. They can then refer it to the Privileges Committee. The Chairman can, from time to time, nominate such a Committee, consisting of ten members. It will also have a Chairman appointed by the Rajya Sabha Chairman.
• The right to raise a question of privilege is based on satisfying two conditions, namely: (i) the question shall be restricted to a specific matter of recent occurrence, and (ii) the matter requires the intervention of the Council. Similar provisions exist in Lok Sabha with the Speaker having the power to make such decisions. The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion. Therefore, the Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.

The Tribunal also found that “China has violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines in its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by (a) interfering with Philippines’ fishing and petroleum exploration, (b) constructing artificial islands, and (c) failing to stop Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone”.

Statement 4 is incorrect.

• An old pension scheme (OPS), commonly known as the PAYG scheme, is defined as an unfunded pension scheme where current revenues fund pension benefits. Under this scheme, the contribution of the current generation of workers was explicitly used to pay the pensions of existing pensioners. OPS involved a direct transfer of resources from the current generation of taxpayers to fund the pensioners.
• NPS is a defined contribution pension scheme. NPS enables an individual to undertake retirement planning while in employment. With systematic savings and investments,
• NPS facilitates the accumulation of a pension corpus during their working life. NPS is designed to deliver a sustainable solution of having adequate retirement income in old age or upon superannuation.
• NPS is mandatory for central government employees joining services on or after January 1, 2004, and almost all state governments have adopted it for their employees. NPS, regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), is a contributory pension scheme under which employees contribute 10 per cent of their salary (Basic + Dearness Allowance).

Only Statement 3 is correct.

• Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) was enacted in May 2008. The enactment of the CCM has been a major step in eradicating cluster bombs. However, the treaty is not universal — 112 countries have acceded to the CCM including many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members such as Canada, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. But important countries such as the U.S., Russia, China, Israel, and India have not signed the CCM. Ukraine is not a member.

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• A no-confidence motion aims at or should aim at removing the party in government and taking its place.
• The debate on a no-confidence motion is also wide-ranging. Participating MPs raise both national and state issues during this debate.
• The rules of procedure of Lok Sabha specify that after the no-confidence motion is admitted, the Speaker shall specify the date on which the debate will begin. This date should be within 10 days from the date the motion was accepted in the House.