Daily Current Affairs MCQ - January 28, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

Prime Minister Modi will address the World Economic Forum’s Davos Dialogue on 28th January, 2021 via video conferencing.

• The Davos Dialogues agenda marks the launch of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Initiative in the post COVID world.

• The World Economic Forum (WEF), based in Cologny-Geneva, Switzerland, is an NGO, founded in 1971. The WEF hosts an annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in Switzerland's eastern Alps region.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of copra for 2021 season.

• Copra is the dried meat or kernel of the coconut, which is the fruit of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). Coconut oil is extracted from copra, making it an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries.

• The MSP for Fair Average Quality (FAQ) of milling copra has been increased, by Rs.375/-, to Rs. 10335/- per quintal for 2021 season from Rs. 9960/- per quintal in 2020.

• The approval is based on recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).

• The increase in MSP for copra for 2021 season is in line with the principle of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 1.5 times the all India weighted average cost of production which was announced by the Government in the Budget 2018-19.

• The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED) and National Cooperative Consumer Federation of India Limited (NCCF) will continue to act as Central Nodal Agencies to undertake price support operations at the MSP in the coconut growing States.

National Informatics Centre services Incorporated (NICSI) will celebrate 25 years of its establishment here on 28 January 2021.

• National Informatics Centre services Incorporated (NICSI) is a Public Sector Enterprise under National Informatics Centre(NIC), Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.

• NICSI started its journey in the ICT service industry on 29th August 1995.

• Providing end-to-end IT solutions for e-governance projects for Central and State Governments and other PSUs across India, NICSI extends its services to the International level too in certain projects.

On the occasion, The Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology will launch:

• Tejas – a Virtual Intelligence tool (NIC&NICSI-CEDA) that extracts critical information from data to make its meaningful information for policy decisions and improving efficiency in government services and citizen delivery;

• e-Auction India – to cater to electronic forward and reverse auction requirements of the Govt. organisations serving online 24x7;

• Work from Anywhere Portal – a virtual environment, provisioned shall empower employees access routine applications like eoffice, calendar, mail, and other departmental applications and communicate across through Video Conferencing;

• NIC Products Portfolio for International Offering to augment Digital India branding through promotion of productized software applications at global level.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) observed the International Customs Day, 2021.

• This year's theme as given by the World Customs Organisation (WCO) is “Customs bolstering Recovery, Renewal and Resilience for a sustainable supply chain”.

• January 26 is celebrated as the International Customs Day (ICD). It is the day designated to honour the custom officials and agencies to take care of the flow of goods across the world borders.

• On January 26, 1953, the Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) held its inaugural session in Brussels, which representatives from 17 European countries attended.

• International Customs Day was created by CCC in 1983. In 1994, CCC was renamed as World Customs Organization (WCO).

• WCO is the only international body looking after international customs and matters concerning border control.

• WCO has head-quarter in Brussels, Belgium.

• WCO currently has custom organizations from 182 countries as its members.

• More than 98% of world trade is administered by WCO.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare addressed the 4th edition of the Future Investment Initiative Forum, through Video Conference.

• The Future Investment Initiative (FII) is an annual investment forum held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss trends in the world economy and investment environment.

• It is hosted by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF).

• The first event was in October 2017.

• The purpose of this year’s forum was to find solutions on how business and government can expand access to healthcare, train healthcare workers, remove regulatory barriers and encourage investment in advanced health technologies.

The Framework for Strategic Partnership between the International Energy Agency (IEA) members and the Government of India was signed.

• It aims to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation & enhance global energy security, stability and sustainability. This partnership will lead to an extensive exchange of knowledge and would be a stepping stone towards India becoming a full member of the IEA.

• The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation.

• It was established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.

• The IEA is made up of 30 member countries.

• In addition, the IEA family also includes eight association countries which includes Brazil, China and India.

• Three countries are seeking accession to full membership, Chile, Israel and Lithuania.

A formal MoU signing ceremony was held between Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India and M/s. Nissenken Quality Evaluation Centre Japan.

• The objective of the MoU is to provide required support to textile’s trade and industry for ensuring quality as per the requirement of Japanese buyers through Testing, Inspection & Conformity Assessment.

• It is expected that the MoU will strengthen the bilateral trade by enhancing India’s export of Textile and Apparels (T&A) to Japan, which is the third largest export destination of the world.

• The Textiles Committee was established in the year 1963 by an Act of Parliament.

• It is a statutory body under the Ministry of Textiles to ensure quality of all textiles and textile products for domestic and export markets.

• The Textiles Committee is the only body providing for all the quality related needs of the entire Textiles Value Chain (TVC) in an integrated format on a pan-India basis.

Maharashtra Chief Minister said the disputed border area between Maharashtra and Karnataka should be made an Union Territory until the matter is heard by the Supreme Court. This sparked off a strong reaction in Karnataka.

• Maharashtra has been claiming that Belagavi, Karwar and Nipani should be the part of that State as they are Marathi-speaking areas.

• The erstwhile Bombay Presidency, a multilingual province, included the present-day Karnataka districts of Bijapur, Belgaum, Dharwar and Uttara-Kannada (previously North Kanara).

• The Belagavi/Belgaum region at the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka comprises both Kannada and Marathi speakers.

• In 1948, the Belgaum municipality requested that the district, having a predominantly Marathi-speaking population, be incorporated into the proposed Maharashtra state.

• However, the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, which divided states on linguistic and administrative lines, made Belgaum a part of the then Mysore State (which was renamed Karnataka in 1973).

• The area has been under dispute since then. The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, formed in 1948, has been fighting for a merger of 800-odd villages in Karnataka with Maharashtra.

• In 2014, the Karnataka government renamed Belgaum as Belagavi.

The Supreme Court appointed conservationist Nandita Hazarika as Member of a Technical Committee constituted by it on October 14 last year to hear complaints by land owners against the Nilgris Collector's action, which included “arbitrary variance in acreage of the elephant corridor.”

• On October 14, the top court upheld the Tamil Nadu government’s authority to notify an ‘elephant corridor’ and protect the animals' migratory path through the Nilgiri biosphere reserve, the largest protected forest area in India, spanning across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

• The corridor is situated in the ecologically fragile Sigur plateau.

• Sigur Plateau is a plateau in the north and east of Nilgiri District in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu.

• It connects the Western and the Eastern Ghats and sustains elephant populations and their genetic diversity.

• It has the Nilgiri Hills on its southwestern side and the Moyar River Valley on its north-eastern side. The elephants cross the plateau in search of food and water.

Asaddudin Owaisi, president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM), and CPI leader Binoy Viswam have filed dissent notes to the parliamentary standing committee’s report on the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 on the grounds that it does not take into account their concerns over privacy violations.

• The Bill proposes DNA sampling and profiling of citizens accused of crime or reported missing, and storing their unique genetic information for administrative purposes.

• The Bill's objective is limited to the establishment of a regulatory board to regulate the use of DNA technology in consonance with international standards.