Daily Current Affairs MCQ - December 25, 2021 - UPSC MCQ

At celebration of the 9th Foundation Day of GITA, Union Minister of Science & Technology underlined how Global Innovation and Technology Alliance (GITA) served as a catalyst for nurturing innovation and industrial R&D.

• Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) is a “not–for–profit” Section-8 Public Private Partnership (PPP) company.
• It is promoted jointly by the Technology Development Board (TDB), Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
• The Prime Minister’s Council on Trade & Industry had, in 2010, recommended incorporation of a Government’s arm’s length entity under PPP mode to professionally manage the Government’s funds for providing flexibility to industry for undertaking R&D along with global partners.
• The GITA platform encourages industrial investments in innovative technology solutions by
  • Mapping technology gaps,
  • Undertaking expert evaluation of technologies available across the globe,
  • Facilitating techno–strategic collaborative partnerships appropriate for Indian economy,
  • Connecting industrial and institutional partners for synergistic matchmaking and
  • Providing soft funding for technology development / acquisition / deployment.
• Hence both statements are correct.

With less than two months of his tenure remaining, US President Donald Trump exercised his powers under the Constitution to pardon Michael Flynn, his former National Security Advisor, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

• The President of the US has the constitutional right to pardon or commute sentences related to federal crimes. The US Supreme Court has held that this power is “granted without limit” and cannot be restricted by Congress.
• Clemency is a broad executive power, and is discretionary — meaning the President is not answerable for his pardons, and does not have to provide a reason for issuing one.
• Unlike the US President, whose powers to grant pardons are almost unfettered, the President of India has to act on the advice of the Cabinet.
• Under Article 72 of the Constitution, “the President shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence where the sentence is a sentence of death”.
• In several cases, the SC has ruled that the President has to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers while deciding mercy pleas. These include Maru Ram vs Union of India in 1980, and Dhananjoy Chatterjee vs State of West Bengal in 1994.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Delhi and other parts of north India are bracing for near cold wave conditions.

• A cold wave is declared when there’s a significant drop in minimum or night time temperature.
• The IMD’s criteria for a cold wave in the plains is that the minimum temperature should be 10 degrees or lower and the departure from normal minimum temperature 4.5 degrees or less for two consecutive days.
• One of the main reasons is snowfall in high altitude areas north of Delhi, including places in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
• Cold winds blowing from these areas lower temperature across northwest India every winter, including Delhi.
• Hence both statements are correct.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has issued the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines 2020 as per the requirements and provisions of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 and further as per the amended Section 93 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

The Guidelines provide for –

• License issued by the State Government is a mandatory re-requisite for permitting business operations by the aggregator.
• For regulating the aggregators, the guidelines specified by the Central Government may be followed by State Governments.
• In order to ensure compliance with the license requirements the Act stipulates penalties under Section 93 of the Act.
• These Guidelines seek to establish a regulatory framework for aggregators by State Governments to ensure that the aggregator’s are accountable and responsible for the operations executed by them.
• The business shall also be considered as a service provided by the aggregators to serve the larger public interest in terms of generation of employment, commutation facilities to the public which is cost effective and comfortable.
• Hence both statements are correct.

India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted 7.5% in the second quarter of 2020-21, following the record 23.9% decline recorded in the first quarter, as per estimates released by the National Statistical Office.

• The country has now entered a technical recession with two successive quarters of negative growth.
• Agriculture, which was the only sector to record growth between April and June this year, grew at the same pace of 3.4% in the second quarter.
• Manufacturing gross value-added (GVA) staged a sharp recovery to record 0.6% growth between July and September after collapsing 39.3% in the first quarter.
• Electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services also recorded 4.4% growth in the second quarter, recovering from a 7% contraction in Q1.
• But it remained a bleak quarter for several sectors, including mining, services such as retail trade and hotels, construction and financial services.
• While the 7.5% contraction in GDP came as a positive surprise, there are concerns about a decline in government spending and the worsening fate of two key sectors compared to the first quarter.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has revised the two-wheeler helmet standards in India.

• Now helmets in India will come under compulsory Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification and publication of Quality Control Order (QCO). According to a recent report, the new norms will see the 1.2 kg weight limit for helmets being done away with, which was implemented in 2018.
• The rule restricted the sale of imported helmets in India that did not carry the ISI mark and weighed considerably more than the weight cap under the BIS norms.
• However, the revised standard will allow the sale of imported helmets, though they will still need to comply with the Indian Standard (IS) norms.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar launched the India Climate Change Knowledge Portal.

• The portal will have all the major steps the Government is taking at both national and international levels to address the climate change issues.
• It will be a single-point information resource that provides information on the different climate initiatives taken by various Line Ministries enabling users to access d status on these initiatives.
• He also said that India has practically achieved its pre-2020 climate action targets.
• Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

New Zealand's Greg Barclay has been elected as the new independent chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

• The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket.
• It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England and South Africa. It took up its current name in 1989.
• It organises world championship events such as Cricket World Cup, Women's Cricket World Cup, ICC T20 World Cup, ICC Women's T20 World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy and Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
  • The ICC does not control bilateral fixtures between member countries (which include all Test matches), and neither does it govern domestic cricket within member countries.
  • It does not make or alter the laws of the game, which have remained under the governance of the Marylebone Cricket Club since 1788.
• Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry has restored the government recognition to Archery Association of India as a Nation Sports Federation (NSF) for promotion and regulation of Archery Sport in the country.

• Government recognition of AAI was withdrawn eight years back on account of failure to conduct its elections in accordance with the National Sports Development Code of India.
• Government recognition of AAI will be valid for one year.
• This comes after AAI's independent elections and revocation of suspension by the World Archery and Indian Olympic Association.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Finance Ministry has said, CBDT will validate Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) generated from ICAI portal at the time of upload of Tax Audit Reports.

• Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) is a unique number given to documents attested by Chartered Accountants in Practice. It is an 18 digits system generated unique number which shall generated separately for each document.
• Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), in its gazette notification dated 2nd August, 2019, had made generation of UDIN from ICAI website mandatory for every kind of certificate/tax audit report and other attests made by their members as required by various regulators.
• This was introduced to curb fake certifications by non-CAs misrepresenting themselves as Chartered Accountants.

Hence both statements are correct.