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

Preventive detention, the dreaded power of the State to restrain a person without trial, could be used only to prevent public disorder, the Supreme Court held in a judgment.

• Preventive detention is a necessary evil only to prevent public disorder.
• The court must ensure that the facts brought before it directly and inevitably lead to a harm, danger or alarm or feeling of insecurity among the general public or any section thereof at large, a Bench, led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, observed.
• The State should not arbitrarily resort to “preventive detention” to deal with all and sundry “law and order” problems, which could be dealt with by the ordinary laws of the country.
• Preventive detention must fall within the four corners of Article 21 (due process of law) read with Article 22 (safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention) and the statute in question.
• The second part of Article 22 grants protection to persons who are arrested or detained under a preventive detention law. This protection is available to both citizens as well as aliens and includes the following:
• The detention of a person cannot exceed three months unless advisory board reports sufficient cause for extended detention The board is to consist of judges of a high court.
• The grounds of detention should be communicated to the detention However, the facts considered to be against the public inter need not be disclosed.
• The detenu should be afforded an opportunity to make representation against the detention order.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Pakistan’s Law and Justice Ministry has finalised draft legislation to incorporate Gilgit-Baltistan, the region known before 2009 as Northern Areas, as a province of the country.

• Gilgit was part of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir, but was ruled directly by the British, who had taken it on lease from Hari Singh, the Hindu ruler of the Muslim-majority state.
• On November 1, 1947, a political outfit called the Revolutionary Council of Gilgit-Baltistan had proclaimed the independent state of Gilgit-Baltistan. On November 15, it declared it was acceding to Pakistan.
• In 1974, Pakistan adopted its first full-fledged civilian Constitution, which lists four provinces —Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
• Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan were not incorporated as provinces.
• One reason ascribed to this is that Pakistan did not want to undermine its international case that the resolution of the Kashmir issue had to be in accordance with UN resolutions that called for a plebiscite.
• In 2009, Pakistan brought in the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009, replacing the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) with the Legislative Assembly, and the Northern Areas were given back the name of Gilgit-Baltistan.
• On November 1, 2020, observed in Gilgit-Baltistan as “Independence Day”, Imran Khan announced that his government would give the region “provisional provincial status”.
• New Delhi, which has asserted that Gilgit-Baltistan is an integral part of India “by virtue of the legal, complete and irrevocable accession of Jammu & Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947”, is yet to respond to the latest report.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Indian Bank on Monday entered into a MoU with Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) – an initiative of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay – for extending exclusive credit facility to Start-ups and MSMEs.

• SINE, IIT, Bombay is the forerunner in setting up joint R&D with industries and supporting start-up incubation.
• SINE, IIT, Bombay provides support to the MSME sector by providing joint research and development arrangements and technical and financial support for incubation and acceleration of high-end technology products.
• The Bank will extend loans of up to 50 crore rupees to these start-ups for their working capital requirements or purchase of machinery and equipment.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

The Vice President, Venkaiah Naidu witnessed a demonstration by the AICTE officials on a unique tool that translates English language content into 11 different Indian languages.

• The ‘AICTE Translation Automation Artificial Intelligence Tool' translates English language online courses into eleven different languages- Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Assamese and Odia.
• The tool is capable of translating complex formulae, English books, research journals, Government documents and English videos.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Eco tourism has been identified as one of the Niche Tourism areas for development in the country by the Ministry of Tourism.

• Eco-tourism means ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.
• The Ministry of Tourism has accordingly formulated a Draft National Strategy and Roadmap for Sustainable Tourism with focus on ecotourism.
• Ministry of Tourism, under its Swadesh Darshan scheme, is developing theme-based tourism circuits in the country. Eco Circuit and Wildlife Circuit are among the fifteen thematic circuits identified for development under the scheme.
• Hence both statements are correct.

CCTNS project is implemented by National Crime Records Bureau.

First conceptualised in 2009, NATGRID seeks to become the one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details of a suspect on a “secured platform”.

NATGRID will act as a link between intelligence and investigation agencies.

The United Nations coordinated an International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, on 5–13 September 1994. Its resulting Programme of Action is the steering document for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is an autonomous international organization established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1994 Agreement).

ISA is the organization through which States Parties to UNCLOS organize and control all mineral-resources-related activities in the Area for the benefit of mankind as a whole. In so doing, ISA has the mandate to ensure the effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects that may arise from deep-seabed related activities.

The Area and its resources are the common heritage of mankind. The Area covers around 54 per cent of the total area of the world’s oceans.

NATO membership is open to “any other European state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”

A “NATO decision” is the expression of the collective will of all 30 member countries since all decisions are taken by consensus.

NATO also has what it calls the Membership Action Plan. It helps aspiring members prepare for membership and meet key requirements by providing practical advice and targeted assistance.

After Mohen-jo-Daro, Ganweriwala and Harappa in Pakistan and Rakhigarhi in Haryana of India, Dholavira is the fifth largest metropolis of IVC.