Daily Current Affairs MCQ - April 22, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

• Lingayat denotes a person who wears a personal linga, the aniconic form of god Shiva, on the body, which is received during the initiation ceremony.

• The tradition of Lingayatism is known to have been founded by social reformer and philosopher Basavanna in 12th century Karnataka (not in vedic period). 

• The Lingayats are strict monotheists. They enjoin the worship of only one God, namely, Linga (Shiva). 

  • The word 'Linga' does not mean Linga established in temples, but universal consciousness qualified by the universal energy (Shakti).

• ACT-Accelerator was launched in the month of April, 2020 at an event co-hosted by the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), the President of France, the European Commission president and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

• It brings together governments, scientists, businesses, civil society, and philanthropists and global health organizations.

  • The participants include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEPI, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), Gavi, The Global Fund, Unitaid, Wellcome Trust (London), the WHO and the World Bank.

• It aims to end the pandemic, restore full societal and economic activity globally and facilitate high-level control of Covid-19 disease. 

• The ACT-Accelerator is organized into four pillars of work:

  • Diagnostics, treatment, vaccines and health system strengthening.

  • Each pillar is vital to the overall effort and involves innovation and collaboration.

• A star campaigner is a celebrity vote seeker in an election for a party. This person can be anyone, a politician or even a film star. Expenditure incurred on electioneering by the star campaigner is not added to a candidate's poll expenditure. According to the Representation of People's Act, these expenses will be borne by the political parties. 

  • However, for an individual candidate to get relief from campaign expenditure, the star campaigner has to limit oneself to general campaigning for the party.

• Prime Minister as Star Campaigner:

The MCC guidelines say when a prime minister or a former prime minister is star campaigner, the expenditure incurred on security including on the bullet-proof vehicles will be borne by the government and will not be added to the party's election expenses or the individual candidate.

• Pangong Tso Lake is an endorheic lake in the Himalayas situated at a height of about 4,250 m. It is 134 km (83 mi) long and extends from India to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China. Approximately 50% of the length of the lake lies within the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

• During winter the lake freezes completely, despite being saline water. It has a land-locked basin separated from the Indus River basin by a small elevated ridge, but is believed to have been part of the latter in prehistoric times.

The lake is being identified under the Ramsar Convention as a wetland of international importance. This will be the first trans-boundary wetland in South Asia under the convention.

Many committees had proposed bringing down the government stake in public banks below 51% — the Narasimham Committee proposed 33% and the P J Nayak Committee suggested below 50%. An RBI Working Group recently suggested the entry of business houses into the banking sector.

A vaccine-preventable disease is an infectious disease for which an effective preventive vaccine exists. If a person acquires a vaccine-preventable disease and dies from it, the death is considered a vaccine-preventable death.

The most common and serious vaccine-preventable diseases tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO) are: diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae serotype b infection, hepatitis B, measles, meningitis, mumps, pertussis, poliomyelitis, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis, and yellow fever.

India's demographic advantage to overtake China's by 2035, says China's central bank report.

• China's demographic transition due to its stricter birth policies has grappled it with the problem of ageing population and dwindling work-force.

• A report released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, said that China should immediately liberalise its birth policies to tackle the problems of an ageing population and plan to compete economically with a demographically young India and an immigration-friendly US.

• In a detailed section on India, the report said the gap between the two countries is narrowing. As two big countries in Asia, China's economic growth has been faster than India's for a long time but in recent years, China's demographic dividend fading, India's economic growth has tended to approach China's, the report said.

• It added that China's ageing population and the declining birth rate will become more serious in 10 years while India's demographic structure will be further optimised.

• The report pointed out that India's labour force will exceed China's by hundreds of millions in the years ahead.

• By 2050, this advantage will continue to grow. Not only will India have a much narrower elderly population at the top and a much wider workforce in the middle, but it will also have a wider workforce at the bottom, indicating a more abundant workforce and greater growth potential beyond 2050.

Using a new platform, scientists have developed a Covid-19 vaccine that they say could offer protection against existing and future strains of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and other coronaviruses.

• The new vaccine-production platform was invented by Dr Steven L Zeichner of the University of Virginia Health System (UVA). It involves synthesising DNA that directs the production of a piece of the virus. This can instruct the immune system how to mount an immune response against the virus.

• The vaccine targets a part of the virus's spike protein called the fusion peptide. This compound is essentially universal among coronaviruses, and has not been observed to differ at all in the many genetic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 obtained from around the world.

• Most vaccines in development target either the entire spike protein, or just the receptor binding domain (RBD). While antibodies against the RBD can provide good neutralising activity, there can be mutations in the RBD that decrease the antibodies' effectiveness somewhat.

The Union Cabinet has given ex-post facto approval for the Government amendments to the Finance Bill, 2021 (enacted on 28th March, 2021 as the Finance Act, 2021).

• The amendments were essential to clarify and rationalise the proposals further and address stakeholders concerns arising out of amendments proposed in the Finance Bill.

• The Government amendments to the Finance Bill, 2021 shall provide equity and inclusiveness to all the taxpayers by addressing stakeholders concerns arising out of amendments proposed in the Bill.

• The Government amendments to the Finance Bill, 2021 are tax proposals which shall generate timely revenue for the Government and streamline existing provisions by addressing grievances of the taxpayers.

• China's Tianwen-1 mission successfully entered the orbit of Mars, making it the first time for a Chinese mission to successfully make a journey to another planet.

• China launched Tianwen-1 and the UAE's Hope mission and NASA's Perseverance rover mission in July. All three missions to Mars were launched during the brief launch window available in July.

• Chang'e-4 is China's first probe ever to achieve soft-landing on the far side of the Moon.