Daily Current Affairs MCQ - April 13, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

• Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. 

• TB is an air-borne disease which means it spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. 

• TB is both preventable and curable.

  • The bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine has existed for 80 years and is one of the most widely used of all current vaccines to treat TB.

Further, it can also be treated with a standard 6 month course of antimicrobial drugs (For e.g. isoniazid and rifampicin,) that are provided with information, supervision and support to the patient by a health worker or trained volunteer.

• India has no central legislation governing recovery of damages. At present, action against rioters is limited to the toothless Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984, which prescribes a jail term and fine for convicts but has no provision for recovery for damages.

  • Despite a law against the destruction of property, incidents of rioting, vandalism, and arson have been common during protests across the country.

• In 2007, the Supreme Court (SC) took suo motu cognizance of the issue and set up two Committees headed by Justice K T Thomas and senior advocate Fali Nariman to suggest changes to the law.

• The Thomas Committee recommended reversing the burden of proof against protesters. The court should have the power to draw a presumption that the accused is guilty of destroying public property, and it would then be open to the accused to rebut such presumption. 

  • Such a reversal of the burden of proof is applicable in cases of sexual violence, among others.

  • Generally, the law presumes that the accused is innocent until the prosecution proves its case.

• Chambal River is one of the most pollution-free rivers of India.

  • It originates at the Singar Chouri peak in the northern slopes of the Vindhya mountains (Indore, Madhya Pradesh).

  • From there, it flows in the North direction in Madhya Pradesh for a length of about 346 km and then follows a north-easterly direction for a length of 225 km through Rajasthan.

• It is a rainfed river and its basin is bounded by the Vindhyan mountain ranges and the Aravallis.

• The Chambal and its tributaries drain the Malwa region of northwestern Madhya Pradesh.

  • Main Tributaries: Banas, Kali Sindh, Sipra, Parbati, etc.

• Recently, the Union Road and Transport Minister announced the Vehicle Scrapping Policy in the Lok Sabha. It was first announced in the Union Budget for 2021-22. 

• The policy envisages reducing the population of old and defective vehicles, bringing down vehicular air pollutants, improving road and vehicular safety.

  • The policy is estimated to cover 51 lakh Light Motor Vehicles (LMVs) that are above 20 years of age and another 34 lakh LMVs above 15 years of age.

• Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) is a not-for-profit international arbitration organisation based in Singapore, which administers arbitrations under its own rules of arbitration and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Arbitration Rules.

• According to the 2019 annual report of SIAC, India was the top user of its arbitration seat with 485 cases being referred to SIAC.

• Under the rules of SIAC, parties can move SIAC to appoint an emergency arbitrator to get urgent interim relief, even as the process of appointment of the main arbitral tribunal is underway.

• Currently, under Indian law, there is no express mechanism for enforcement of the orders of the Emergency Arbitrator.

• But, the parties voluntarily comply with the Emergency Award.

• However, if the parties don’t comply with the order voluntarily, then the party which has won the emergency award, can move the High Court in India under Section 9 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act, 1996, to get similar reliefs as granted by the Emergency Arbitrator.

• Public Account of India accounts for flows for those transactions where the government is merely acting as a banker. This fund was constituted under Article 266 (2) of the Constitution.

• Examples of those are provident funds, small savings and so on. These funds do not belong to the government. They have to be paid back at some time to their rightful owners. Because of this nature of the fund, expenditures from it are not required to be approved by the Parliament.

• The National Green Tribunal, established in 2010, as per the National Green Tribunal Act is a specialised judicial body equipped with expertise solely for the purpose of adjudicating environmental cases in the country.

• The Tribunal is tasked with providing effective and expeditious remedy in cases relating to environmental protection, conservation of forests and other natural resources and enforcement of any legal right relating to environment. The Tribunal’s orders are binding and it has power to grant relief in the form of compensation and damages to affected persons.

• The Tribunal has a presence in five zones- North, Central, East, South and West. The Principal Bench is situated in the North Zone, headquartered in Delhi.

• The Tribunal’s orders are enforceable as the powers vested are the same as in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

• The Tribunal has powers to review its own decisions. If this fails, the decision can be challenged before the Supreme Court within ninety days.

• The Tribunal is an open court and its proceedings can be attended in person.

Extortion money paid to a terrorist organisation to protect one’s business is not terror funding, the Supreme Court has said in a judgment.

• With this, Supreme Court granted bail to a Jharkhand coal transporter who had paid huge amounts to the Tritiya Prastuti Committee (TPC), a breakaway faction of the CPI (Maoist).

• The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) has made recommendations to members relating to counter terrorism financing (CTF). It has created a Blacklist and Greylist of countries that have not taken adequate CTF action.

• FATF is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 to develop policies to combat money laundering. In 2001, its mandate was expanded to include terrorism financing.

Union Minister of Education Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' presented the AICTE Lilavati Awards 2020 on women empowerment to the winners.

• With women empowerment as the theme, the objective of the award is to create awareness about issues like sanitation, hygiene, health, nutrition, literacy, employment, technology, credit, marketing, innovation, skill development, natural resources and rights among women.

• All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has established the Lilavati Award.

• The award covers multidisciplinary areas such as women's health, self-defence, sanitation, literacy, entrepreneurship and legal awareness.

• The program will ensure the participation of women and enable them to hold higher positions in educational institutions.

• It is named after the 12th-century mathematical treatise "Lilavati" devoted to arithmetic and algebra written by the Indian mathematician Bhāskara II.

• In the book the author posed, in verse form, a series of problems in (elementary) arithmetic to Lilavati (perhaps his daughter) and followed them up with hints to solutions.

Researchers at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg are now saying that fears related to the melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier are worse than previously thought, owing to the supply of warm water flowing underneath at a rate underestimated in the past.

• The Thwaites Glacier is 120 km wide at its broadest, fast-moving, and melting fast over the years.

• Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a metre. Studies have found the amount of ice flowing out of it has nearly doubled over the past 30 years.

• Today, Thwaites’s melting already contributes 4% to global sea level rise each year. It is estimated that it would collapse into the sea in 200-900 years.

• Thwaites is important for Antarctica as it slows the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean. Because of the risk it faces — and poses — Thwaites is often called the Doomsday Glacier.

• The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf. The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.