Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 10, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

The US administration has again amended the H-1B visa norms by changing the rules to prioritise higher wages and skills for selecting deserving candidates. The old lottery system of work visa selection will not be followed now.

• The new wage-based work visa regime will now prioritise the selection of visas to those employers' applications where the “proffered wage equals or exceeds” the prevailing level in that area of employment.
• The proffered wage is the wage that the employer intends to pay the beneficiary.
• This will be done for both the 65,000 regular visas and the 20,000 advanced degree exemption visas.
• This regime will also take into account the skill set that the respective worker brings to the country and cross check it whether such skill set is available at the same cost among the US workers.

A supermassive black hole, which is estimated to weigh up to 100 billion times the mass of the Sun, is seemingly missing, leaving astronomers perplexed.

• Scientists have been looking for the black hole using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and have so far found no evidence that it is anywhere to be found.
• The black hole is supposed to be located in Abell 2261, an enormous galaxy cluster that is about 2.7 billion light-years away from our planet.
• At 2.7 billion light-years away, the Abell galaxy is at an overwhelmingly large distance away from us.
• Every large galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its centre, whose mass is millions or billions of times that of the Sun.
• The black hole at the centre of our galaxy– the Milky Way– is called Sagittarius A*, and is 26,000 light-years away from Earth.

After culling of ducks and chickens in Kerala, the Haryana government has decided to cull poultry birds in Barwala after some of them tested positive for the avian influenza.

• Mass slaughter of domestic poultry birds, such as chickens and ducks, to contain the spread of bird flu is called culling.
• During culling operations, all domestic birds in an infected area, i.e., an area in which a case of bird flu has been detected, are slaughtered and their remains buried.
• Though wild and other birds may also carry the bird flu, only domestic poultry birds are culled since they are present in close proximity with people, raising the chances of transmission of the virus to humans.
• In India, culling is done in a radius one kilometre from the site of infection, which is called the ‘infected zone’. This means all domestic birds present in commercial farms, backyard farms or live bird markets in the infected zone are culled.

Indian Railway has started the New Year by achieving a landmark achievement by drastically enhancing the maximum speed to 130 kmph for 1,280 km length out of 1,612 Km in Golden Quadrilateral - Golden Diagonal (GQ-GD) route.

• This covers the entire GQ-GD route over South Central Railway, except Vijayawada - Duvvada section, where signalling up-gradation work is in progress.
• The enhanced speed limits could be achieved due to the systematic and planned strengthening of track & its infrastructure by removing bottlenecks in these sections on a fast pace.
• This included heavier rails, 260 meters Long welded rail panels, and improvement of curves and gradients.
• Already, the maximum speed limits in the High-Density Network (HDN) between Secunderabad – Kazipet (132 Kms distance) had been enhanced to 130 kmph.
   

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the National Youth Parliament Festival - 2021 on January 12, 2021.
The Festival is organised on 12th January on the occasion of the National Youth Day in order to encourage the youth in the age group of 18-25 years to engage with public issues and understand the common man’s point of view.

• The First National Youth Parliament Festival was organized in January-February, 2019.
• National Youth Day is celebrated on 12 January being the birthday of Swami Vivekananda.
• In 1984 the Government of India declared this day as National Youth Day and since 1985 the event is celebrated in India every year.

In Manipur, the Cherry Blossom Mao Festival was held at the Senapati district marking the beginning of the district's pink season.

• The Mao area of Senapati district in Manipur is known for Cherry Blossom, a popular plant known as Sakura in Japan.
• The Manipur government started organizing the festival every year from 2017 onward.
• The festival features the picturesque landscape of Mao town adorned with beautiful Cherry Blossom flowers.
• A cherry blossom is a flower of many trees of genus Prunus.
• Prunus cerasoides, called wild Himalayan cherry, Indian wild cherry, and sour cherry, is known in Hindi as padam, pajja, or padmakashtha.

Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat reviewed the Ken-Betwa project.

• The governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh were close to an agreement on it.
• Discussions on the project were underway between the two States since 15 years and now some minor issues are left for which there is a need for clarifications.
• The project that aims to transfer surplus water from the Ken river in MP to Betwa in UP to irrigate the drought-prone Bundelkhand region spread across the districts of two states
• The Ken-Betwa River linking project will benefit the dry Bundelkhand area in MP and UP. Besides irrigating thousands of hectares, the scheme will provide drinking water to 62 lakh people.
• there are 31 river interlinking projects planned in the country, of which Ken-Betwa is the first that has reached an advanced level of planning.

Assam government will provide khadi shirt, eri shawl and eri stole to Grade IV employees in a phased manner, in a move to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and his movement for Khadi.

• Eri silk comes from the caterpillar of Samia ricini, found in northeast India and some parts of China, Japan.
• The name "eri" is derived from the Assamese word "era", which means "castor", as the silkworm feeds on castor plants.
• Eri silk is also known as endi or errandi in India.
• The woolly white silk is often referred to as the fabric of peace when it is processed without killing the silkworm. This process results in a silk called Ahimsa silk. Moths leave the cocoon and then the cocoons are harvested to be spun.
• The eri silkworm is the only completely domesticated silkworm other than Bombyx mori.

Gujarat Chief Minister has decided to create a new Bagasara Prant in Amreli district.

• This will take the state’s revenue services nearer to the people and provide services faster.
• The newly created Bagasara Prant would come into effect on 26th January, including Bagasara and Vadiya talukas.
• Since the districts with larger geographical areas cause inconvenience to the people, the state government has been reorganizing smaller districts and talukas for administrative convenience, faster development, reducing workload as well as saving the people's time.
• Now, the state government has taken up the reorganization of Prants.
• Prants are traditional names for parts of historical regions, such as the original ten regions of Kathiawad on Saurashtra peninsula in Gujarat:

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal launched a Freight Business Development Portal as one stop solution for freight customers' needs.

• The portal is designed to replace physical processes with online ones to minimise the need of human-to-human interaction.
• The personalised dashboard of freight business portal provides customers with a view of their business in railways, outstanding indents, on-run consignments, and status of various interactions and facilities to apply for various services and raise concerns.
• Customers also know about discount schemes, diversion, rebooking, demurrage and wharfage waivers, and stacking permissions.