Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 3, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Government has decided to extend the benefit of the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) to all export goods to boost export.

• The scheme will refund to exporters the embedded Central, State, and local taxes that were not given rebate or refunded.
• The refund will be credited in the exporter's ledger account with Customs and used to pay Basic Customs duty on imported goods. The credits can also be transferred to other importers.
• The RoDTEP rates will be notified shortly by the Department of Commerce, based on the recommendation of a committee chaired by former Commerce and Home Secretary Dr G.K. Pillai. The final report of the Committee is expected shortly.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed grief over the demise of Colonel Narendra' Bull' Kumar.

• Colonel Narendra "Bull" Kumar (1933 – 2020) was an Indian soldier–mountaineer.
• He is known for expeditions across various mountain ranges such as the Himalayas and Karakorams, and respective subranges such as the Pir Panjals and Saltoro Mountains.
• His reconnaissance efforts on the Siachen glacier were key to the Indian Army's reclamation of the glacier's forward posts in Operation Meghdoot in 1984.
• He was the deputy leader of the first successful Indian Mount Everest expedition in 1965.

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas launched the missed call facility for LPG consumers in Bhubaneswar.

• Indian Oil LPG customers can now give a missed call to 8454955555 for refill booking for all India and the new connection for Bhubaneswar city.
• The missed call service for new connection will soon be expanded to the rest of Odisha and subsequently to the entire country.
• The Minister also rolled out the second phase of the world-class octane 100 premium grade petrol, under the brand XP 100.
• With this Indian Oil's branded XP 100 is being rolled out to seven more cities including Bhubaneswar.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah released the inaugural issue of the National Police K-9 Journal in New Delhi.

• It is the first such publication in the country on police service K9s, Police Dogs.
• This is a unique initiative that will further enrich the subjects related to Police Service Dog, K-9, PSK teams in the country.
• The journal comprises different sections in Hindi and English. It is a biannual journal which will be released in April and October every year.
• The police dog squad can act as a force multiplier to ensure society's safety, much like the way drones or satellites are being used in the country.
• A special Police K9 Cell was established in November last year under the Police Modernization Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs with Mainstreaming and Augmentation of Police Service K9s in the country.

Former Union Minister Buta Singh passed away at the age of 86.

• Buta Singh (1934 – 2021) was an Indian politician and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress. He was elected to the Lok Sabha eight-times.
• He served as Union Home Minister in 1986 under Rajiv Gandhi Government, Minister for Agriculture, Parliamentary Affairs, Civil Supplies, Housing, Shipping, Transport and Sports.
• His term as Home Minister will be remembered for the Rajiv Gandhi government's decision to allow shilanyas of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya in 1989, and his role in bringing down many elected chief ministers, including in Tamil Nadu.
• He was very closely involved with Indira Gandhi in Operation Blue Star, and as a minister, he oversaw the reconstruction of the Golden Temple following that exercise.
• He also served as the Governor of Bihar and Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC).

Centre has decided to extend Disability Compensation to all serving employees if they get disabled in the line of duty while performing their service and are retained in service despite such disablement.

• This was announced by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
• The move will particularly provide a huge relief to young Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel like CRPF, BSF, and CISF since disability in the performance of duties is generally reported due to job requirement constraints and hostile or difficult work-environment.
• In another employee-friendly decision, the Ministry of Personnel recently did away with the minimum qualifying service of 10 years for a pension. A government servant is incapacitated due to bodily or medical infirmity and retired from government service.
• Accordingly, the rule was amended to provide an Invalid Pension at 50 per cent of the last pay, even if the employee had not completed the minimum qualifying service of 10 years.

According to section 29 of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Central Government has published the draft Model Standing Orders for the Manufacturing Sector, Mining Sector and Service Sector in the official gazette. Keeping in view the services sector's needs, a separate Model Standing Orders for Services Sector has been prepared the first time.
The salient features of these Model Standing Orders are as follows:

• The model standing orders adopted in respect of an industrial establishment shall also apply to all other industrial units of the industrial establishment irrespective of location.
• ​Uniformity has been maintained in all the three Model Standing Orders while providing some flexibility considering the sector-specific requirements.
• All three Model Standing Orders encourage employers to use information technology to disseminate information to the workers through electronic mode.
• To provide safeguard to the IT industry, "Involvement in unauthorized access of any IT system, the computer network of the employer/ customer/client" has been prescribed as misconduct.
• The concept of "Work from home" has been formalized in the Model Standing Orders for Service Sector.
• "Habitual" concerning indiscipline has been defined if the worker found guilty of any misconduct three or more times in the preceding twelve months.
• The Model Standing Orders for Services Sector inter alia provides that in case of IT Sector, the working hour shall be as per agreement or conditions of appointment between employer and workers.
• Rail Travel Facility has been extended to the workers in the mining sector. Presently, it is being availed by the workers in coal mines only.

Union Cabinet has approved a modified scheme to enhance ethanol distillation capacity in the country.

• This will increase the income of farmers as other feedstocks such as cereals (rice, wheat, barley, corn & sorghum), sugarcane and sugar beet to be used for the production of ethanol
• To benefit a large population of farmers, the Government is encouraging distilleries to produce ethanol from maize & rice available with FCI.
• India is well on the path of achieving a 10% blending target by 2022. This will help increase the income of our farmers and enhance their livelihoods
• Government has fixed a target of 10% blending of fuel-grade ethanol with petrol by 2022, 15% blending by 2026 & 20% blending by 2030. The government also planning to prepone achievement of 20% blending target by the year 2025
   

Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) was announced in 2003 to correct regional imbalances in the availability of affordable/ reliable tertiary healthcare services and to augment facilities for quality medical education in the country.
PMSSY has two components:-
 (i) Setting up of AIIMS like Institutions 
Each New AIIMS to add:-

• State of the art Modular OTs and diagnostics facilities.
• 15-20 super speciality departments.
• 750 Beds.
• 100 UG (MBBS) seats.
• 60 B.Sc. (Nursing) seats.
• Focus on PG education and Research.  

Total 22 new AIIMS have been announced so far under this component:-

• 6 AIIMS are already functional.
• The Cabinet approves 16 more AIIMS.

 (ii) Upgradation of Government Medical College (GMC)/ Institutions. 
Each up-gradation project would be adding:-

• 8-10 Super Speciality Departments.
• Around 15 new PG seats.
• 150-250 beds 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of AIIMS Rajkot.

• AIIMS Rajkot will boost health infrastructure, medical education and provide employment opportunities in Gujarat.
• It will be built at an estimated cost Rs. 1195 crores and is expected to be completed by mid of 2022. The state-of-the-art 750-bed hospital will also have a 30-bed AAYUSH block. It will have 125 MBBS seats and 60 nursing seats.
• In the last 6 years, work on 10 new AIIMS has started, and many have been inaugurated.

The DRDO Young Scientist Laboratory for Quantum Technologies (DYSL-QT), a DRDO facility based in Mumbai, has developed a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) which has the ability to detect random quantum events and convert those into a stream of binary digits.

• The Laboratory has developed a fibre-optic branch path based QRNG.
• The branch path-based QRNG is based on the principle that if a single photon is an incident on a balanced beam splitter, it will randomly take either of the beam-splitter output paths.
• As the path chosen by the photon is random, the randomness is translated to a sequence of bits.

Significance:

• With this development, India enters the club of countries with the technology to achieve random numbers based on the Quantum Phenomena.
• Random numbers have essential roles in various fields ranging from quantum communication, cryptography applications like key generation, key wrapping, authentication, scientific simulations, lotteries and fundamental physics experiments.
• The generation of perfect randomness is generally considered impossible with classical methodologies.
• Quantum mechanics has the inherent potential of providing true random numbers and has become the preferred option for scientific applications requiring randomness.
• DYSL-QT is one of the five YSLs (Young Scientist Laboratories) of the DRDO working on five different technologies.
• The other facilities are Artificial Intelligence (DYSL-AI) Bengaluru, Cognitive Technologies (DYSL-CT) Chennai, Asymmetric Technologies (DYSL-AT) Kolkata, Smart Materials (DYSL-SM) Hyderabad.
• These five facilities were dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January this year.