Test: July 2023 Weekly Current Affair - 3 - UPSC MCQ

The Large Area Soft X-Ray Spectrometer (CLASS), which measures the Moon’s X-ray spectrum to examine the presence of major elements such as magnesium, aluminium, silicon, calcium, titanium, iron, etc., found the minor elements chromium and manganese for the first time through remote sensing.

• The national day of France is celebrated on July 14, also known as Bastille Day and is marked by a long military parade.
• Bastille Day can be said to have set in motion the decade-long French Revolution, which fundamentally altered French political and social life and influenced the foundational ideas of democracy across the world.

The Directorate of Enforcement is a multi-disciplinary organization mandated with investigation of offence of money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws. The statutory functions of the Directorate include enforcement of following Acts:

• The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA):It is a criminal law enacted to prevent money laundering and to provide for confiscation of property derived from, or involved in, money-laundering and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
• The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA): ED has been given the responsibility to conduct investigation into suspected contraventions of foreign exchange laws and regulations, to adjudicate and impose penalties on those adjudged to have contravened the law.
• The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA): It is a law whereby Directorate is mandated to attach the properties of the fugitive economic offenders who have escaped from the India warranting arrest and provide for the confiscation of their properties to the Central Government.
• Sponsoring agency under COFEPOSA:Under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (COFEPOSA), this Directorate is empowered to sponsor cases of preventive detention with regard to contraventions of FEMA.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• Peatland, which is a type of wetland, forms over thousands of years from the remains of dead plants, storing more carbon than any other ecosystem.
• Globally, peatlands take up some 3% of the planet’s land area — and yet, they absorb nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as all the Earth’s forests combined. But when damp peatlands are drained and used for other purposes, like agriculture or fertilizer, they go from being a CO2 sink to yet another potent source of greenhouse gas.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• The rupee’s exchange rate vis-a-vis a particular currency, say the US dollar, tells us how many rupees are required to buy a US dollar. To buy (import) a US product or service, Indians need to first buy the dollars and then use those dollars to buy the product. The same holds true for Americans buying something from India.
• If the rupee’s exchange rate “falls”, it implies that buying American goods would become costlier. At the same time, Indian exporters may benefit because their goods now are more attractive (read cheaper) to the American customers.
• In a free-market economy, the exchange rate is decided by the supply and demand for rupees and dollars.
• In India, the exchange rate is not fully determined by the market. From time to time, the RBI intervenes in the foreign exchange (forex) market to ensure that the rupee “price” does not fluctuate too much or that it doesn’t rise or fall too much all at once.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. The UPR is a significant innovation of the Human Rights Council which is based on equal treatment for all countries. It provides an opportunity for all States to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to overcome challenges to the enjoyment of human rights. The UPR also includes a sharing of best human rights practices around the globe. Currently, no other mechanism of this kind exists.

Statement 3 is incorrect.

• The proposed National Research Foundation (NRF), is a new centralised body to fund research.
• The two main objectives of the NRF are to boost private sector contribution to research in India and ensure that a greater slice of the funds apportioned by the government make its way to State universities and colleges.
• The Department of Science and Technology (DST) will be the administrative department of NRF, which will be governed by a board consisting of eminent researchers and professionals across disciplines.
• NRF’s functioning will be governed by an executive council chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.
• The NRF was envisioned as a body that would be autonomous. The money given to it wouldn’t be controlled by the general financial rules (laid down by the Ministry of Finance) and the CEO as well the board would have autonomy in directing research funds. The proposed structure, however, has both the Science Minister and Education Minister as vice-presidents. The Science Ministry will administratively control it.

• The BoP is essentially the overall ledger of how much rupee was demanded by the rest of the world and how much foreign currency (that is, currencies of all countries) was demanded by Indians.
• The BoP is divided into two “accounts” — current and capital. Current account refers to all transactions that are related to current consumption; capital account refers to transactions for investment purposes.
• Each bucket is sub-divided into smaller buckets. This allows policymakers and analysts to better understand the dynamics of the relative demand for rupees (by foreigners) and forex (among Indians).
• All transactions involving export or import of goods (cars, gadgets etc) are logged under the “trade account” within the current account.
• But people also trade in “invisibles”. Essentially, this refers to export and import of services (such as an Indian company selling software to an American firm, or a European bank providing financial services to some Indians, or simply Indians working abroad sending back money to their families in India).
• The capital account, on the other hand involves investments (such as an Indian buying land in the US, or a Japanese firm investing in the Indian stock exchange) as well as exchange of loans between India and other countries.

• A three-year surveillance study from March 2017 to February 2020 in Kolkata has found an amoeba pathogen that previously did not cause any amoebiasis (a form of diarrhoea) in humans has now become pathogenic.
• Diarrhoea can be caused by bacteria, viruses and amoeba pathogens. In the study, the researchers found nearly 5% of patients with diarrhoea were caused by different Entamoeba species and over 3% of patients were infected with E. moshkovskii.

The amount of a good that consumers are willing to buy at a given price during a specified time period (such as a day or a year), holding constant the other factors that influence purchases, is the quantity demanded.

• Potential consumers decide how much of a good or service to buy on the basis of its price.
• Among the given options, Price of inputs into production of the good does not influence quantity demanded for a good.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• Solar conjunction is the period when Earth and Mars, in their eternal march around the Sun, are obscured from each other by the fiery orb of the Sun Like dancers on either side of a huge bonfire, the two planets are temporarily invisible to each other.
• It generally occurs for every two
• Solar conjunction generally occurs when a planet or other Solar System object is on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth. From an Earth reference, the Sun will pass between the Earth and the object.
• Communication with any spacecraft in solar conjunction will be severely limited due to the Sun’s interference on radio transmissions from the spacecraft.

The fusion reaction happens when two light nuclei merge to form a single heavier nucleus. Because the total mass of that single nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei, the leftover mass is energy that is released in the process, according to the Department of Energy. In the case of the sun, its intense heat — millions of degrees Celsius — and the pressure exerted by its gravity allow atoms that would otherwise repel each other to fuse.

The social cost of carbon (SCC) is the marginal cost of the impacts caused by emitting one extra tonne of greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide equivalent) at any point in time.

Only statement 2 is correct.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had given its approval for continuation of the revised Samagra Shiksha Scheme for a period of five years i.e., from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• The Samagra Shiksha scheme is an integrated scheme for school education covering the entire gamut from pre-school to class XII. The scheme treats school education as a continuum and is in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4). The scheme not only provides support for the implementation of the RTE Act but has also been aligned with the recommendations of NEP 2020.
• NIPUN Bharat, a National Mission on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy to ensure that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing and numeracy at the end of grade III and not later than grade V is launched under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

• Gallium is used to make gallium arsenide which forms the core substrate for semiconductors. They are used to manufacture semiconductor wafers utilised in integrated circuits, mobile and satellite communications (in chipsets), and LEDs (in displays). It also used in automotives and lighting, and for sensors in avionic, space and defence systems.
• According to the European industry body, Critical Raw Materials Alliance (CRMA), 80% of gallium production takes place in China. 

The U.S. recently announced an $800 million security assistance package to Ukraine. The package includes additional ammunition for the U.S.-provided howitzers, Patriot air defence systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and for the first time includes Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM), or commonly referred to as cluster munitions.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• There is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment. Typically, when an economy goes through a phase of high inflation, chances are that the unemployment rate will fall. That’s because firms, enticed by higher prices, try to ramp up production by recruiting more people.
• High inflation may be robbing people of their purchasing power.
• It is also important to understand that monetary policy does not have a direct solution to controlling “cost-push” inflation. It cannot make fuel prices lower by raising interest rates. All it can do is to control demand in the economy.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• It is a messaging network that financial institutions use to securely transmit information and instructions through a standardized system of codes. Under SWIFT, each financial organization has a unique code which is used to send and receive payments.
• SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer:rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled by correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other.
• The SWIFT is a secure financial message carrier —in other words, it transports messages from one bank to its intended bank recipient. It acts as the Gmail of global banking services.
• It was founded in 1973 to end reliance on the telex system, an international system used especially in the past for sending written messages.
• It is a member-owned cooperative, based in Brussels.

SWIFT India is a joint venture of top Indian public and private sector banks and SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). The company was created to deliver high quality domestic financial messaging services to the Indian financial community.

Only statement 1 is correct.

• A cluster munition is a weapon that disperses or releases explosive submunitions: small, unguided explosives or bomblets (each weighing less than 20 kg) that are designed to explode prior to, on or after impact, according to the global ‘Convention on Cluster Munitions’ (CCM). Depending on the model, the number of submunitions dispersed or released by a cluster munition can vary from several dozens to over 600. Due to this, the submunitions get dispersed over a large area, remain unexploded for several years and have caused significant civilian casualties as seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• The CCM was adopted in Dublin by 107 States on May 30, 2008 and came into force as a binding international law on August 1, 2010. The Convention prohibits “all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions. 
• To date, a total of 123 states have joined the Convention — 111 states Parties and 12 Signatories, while 74 countries are not party to it, including the major countries that manufacture and use cluster munitions. This includes the U.S., Russia, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and Ukraine and most NATO countries.
• Both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions in the ongoing war.

Statement 1 is incorrect.

• The BSF works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
• Earlier, the BSF’s limit was fixed up to 80 km from the International Boundary in Gujarat and 15 km in Rajasthan, Punjab, West Bengal and Assam. Later the MHA, through a notification in the Gazette of India, enhanced the “arrest, search and seize” powers of the BSF up to 50 km from the International Boundary in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam.

• Blue Helmets are the military personnel of the U.N. that work alongside the U.N. Police and civilian colleagues to promote “stability, security, and peace processes”. The personnel get the name from the iconic blue helmets or berets they wear.
• All military personnel under Blue Helmets are members of their national armies first who are seconded to work under the U.N. command.
• Currently, there are more than 70,000 military personnel enlisted as Blue Helmets. African and Asian countries outnumber their western counterparts in contributing soldiers to Blue Helmets.

Le Corbusier prepared the master plan for the city of Chandigarh, and contributed specific designs for several buildings there, especially the government buildings.

The framers of the Constitution, being aware of the temple entry movement, advisedly provided a separate power under Article 25(2)(b) which empowers the state to enact laws “providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions” to “all classes and sections of Hindus”. Hence, the issue of regulating secular aspects of religious practice is distinct from providing access to worship. This is why there are separate laws for temple control and temple entry. They co-exist; one does not depend on the other.

• The first industrial revolution used water and steam power to mechanise production (1800s). The second used electric power to create mass production (early 1900s). The third used electronics and information technology to automate production (late 1900s). The 4IR, which is building on the third revolution, has data at its core.
• 4IR is a collection of nine technologies: cloud computing, big data, augmented reality, system integration, autonomous robots, cybersecurity, simulation, additive manufacturing, and the internet of things (IoT).

Statement 3 is incorrect.

ICBMs are ballistic missiles that have a range of over 5,500 km and have nuclear weapons delivery technology. Presently, in addition to the North Korea, Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India and Israel are the only countries that are in documented possession of land-based ICBMs.