Daily Current Affairs MCQ- June 17, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

The world’s largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-225, has been “destroyed” in an attack on its base at Hostomel/Gostomel airport in Ukraine.

• Known formally as the “Cossack”, its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operating code, the world knew the “super-heavy transport plane” better by its Ukrainian name, “Mriya”, or “the Dream”.
• The six-engine 84-metre-long behemoth, with its 32-wheel landing gear, had its first flight on December 21, 1988, built mainly for the transportation of the Buran shuttle orbiter and components of the Energiya carrier rocket.
• It made its maiden landing in India, in May 2016, at Hyderabad’s Shamshabad airport while en route to Perth to deliver a 117-tonne power generator (from Prague, the Czech Republic) to a mine in Australia.
• It played an important role too in the COVID-19 fight, ferrying nearly 100 tonnes of medicines, laboratory kits, medical masks and personal protective equipment in various missions across Europe, Canada and to Africa.

Hence both statements are correct.

The world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C, and even temporarily exceeding this warming level would mean additional, severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

• Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and damage to nature and people. Some development and adaptation efforts have reduced vulnerability.
• Lucknow and Patna, according to one of several studies cited in the IPCC report, are among the cities predicted to reach wet-bulb temperature (a metric of humidity) of 35°C if emissions continued to rise.
• Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Mumbai, Indore, and Ahmedabad are identified as at risk of reaching wet-bulb temperatures of 32-34°C with continued emissions.
• Overall, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab will be the most severely affected, but if emissions keep rising, all States will have regions that experience wet-bulb temperature of 30°C or more by the end of the century.
• According to the IPCC report, global sea levels will likely rise 44-76 cm this century if governments meet their current emission-cutting pledges. With faster emission cuts, the increase could be limited to 28-55 cm.
• But with higher emissions, and if ice sheets collapse more quickly than expected, sea levels could rise as much as 2 m this century and 5 m by 2150.

Hence both statements are correct.

Ukraine has filed an application before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), instituting proceedings against the Russia concerning “a dispute relating to the interpretation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” (the “Genocide Convention”).

• Ukraine has accused Russia of falsely claiming that “acts of genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine”, and of using that as a pretext to recognise the independence of these regions and of going to war against Ukraine.
• The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN).
• Like the PCIJ, the ICJ is based at the Peace Palace in The Hague. It is the only one of the six principal organs of the UN that is not located in New York City.
• The ICJ has 15 judges who are elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, which vote simultaneously but separately.

Timeline

• It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.
• The court is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ). The PCIJ was formally dissolved in April 1946, and its last president, Judge José Gustavo Guerrero of El Salvador, became the first president of the ICJ.
• The first case, which was brought by the UK against Albania and concerned incidents in the Corfu channel — the narrow strait of the Ionian Sea between the Greek island of Corfu and Albania on the European mainland — was submitted in May 1947.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Union Minister of Earth Sciences Dr. Jitendra Singh launched the International Monsoons Project Office (IMPO) on the occasion of National Science Day 2022.

• The International Monsoons Project Office (IMPO) will be hosted at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, an institution under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India, initially for five years.
• It would encompass activities and connections related to international monsoon research that would be identified and fostered under the leadership of the World Climate Research Programme and the World Weather Research Programme.
• Both the World Climate Research Programme and World Weather Research Programme are international programmes coordinated by the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
• The IMPO would support activities of the Monsoons Panel, jointly established by the World Climate Research Programme's CLIVAR (Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability, and Change) and GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Exchanges) projects.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Pointing out that the right to dissent should be the central focus of press freedom, independent journalist P. Sainath struck a dissenting note in the report submitted by the Index Monitoring Cell (IMC).

• The Index Monitoring Cell (IMC) was set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry with stakeholders to improve India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index and to evolve an objective yardstick to gauge media freedom.
• The 15-member committee, which had four meetings between May and December last year, has four journalists and government functionaries.
• Chaired by Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia, Principal Director General of the Press Information Bureau, the committee has 10 government employees.

Recommendations of report

• Among the key recommendations is the decriminalising of defamation. India is one of the few countries in the world to criminalise defamation.
• The panel has also recommended that consent of the Press Council of India is a prerequisite before filing an FIR against the media or a publication.

Hence both statements are correct.

Center has dissolved the Commission for Air Quality Management.

• The commission was headed by M.M. Kutty, a former Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• The dissolution happened despite the nodal Union Environment Ministry submitting the paper work to the Union Cabinet Secretariat, required to give legal backing to the commission.
• The body came into being in last October on the back of an ordinance — a temporary measure — and the law requires that a formal Bill be presented to Parliament within six weeks of it reconvening — in this case — January 29 when the Budget Session began. Before a Bill is tabled in Parliament it needs to be approved by the Union Cabinet.
• However in spite of several Cabinet meetings since January, it wasn’t taken up for discussion due to which, the tenure of the body expired, without ever making it to Parliament. It is still technically possible to revive the body during the ongoing Parliament session.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

The Centre has reconstituted an advisory committee to chalk out a plan for studying the mythical Sarasvati river for the next two years, after the earlier panel’s term ended in 2019.

• The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on March 10 issued a notification for “reconstitution of the Advisory Committee for the Multidisciplinary Study of the River Sarasvati”.
• The ASI had first set up the committee on December 28, 2017 for a period of two years.
• The committee would continue to be chaired by the Culture Minister.
• It would include officials from the Culture, Tourism, Water Resources, Environment and Forest, Housing and Urban Affairs Ministries; representatives of the Indian Space Research Organisation; officials from the governments of Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan; and an ASI official.
• The committee would review the work done by the previous panel and then formulate a plan. The committee would advise the Government Departments conducting research.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has slapped restrictions on mutual fund (MF) investments in additional tier-1 (AT1) bonds.

• AT1 Bonds stand for additional tier-1 bonds.
• These are unsecured bonds which have perpetual tenure. In other words, the bonds have no maturity date.
• They have call option, which can be used by the banks to buy these bonds back from investors.
• These bonds are typically used by banks to bolster their core or tier-1 capital.
• AT1 bonds are subordinate to all other debt and only senior to common equity.
• Mutual funds (MFs) are among the largest investors in perpetual debt instruments, and hold over Rs 35,000 crore of the outstanding additional tier-I bond issuances of Rs 90,000 crore.
• In a recent circular, the Sebi told mutual funds to value these perpetual bonds as a 100-year instrument. This essentially means MFs have to make the assumption that these bonds would be redeemed in 100 years.
• The regulator also asked MFs to limit the ownership of the bonds at 10 per cent of the assets of a scheme.

Reason for SEBI action

• According to the Sebi, these instruments could be riskier than other debt instruments.
• The Sebi has probably made this decision after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed a write-off of Rs 8,400 crore on AT1 bonds issued by Yes Bank Ltd after it was rescued by State Bank of India (SBI).

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to start planting seabuckthorn in the cold desert areas of the state this year.

• Seabuckthorn is a shrub which produces an orange-yellow coloured edible berry.
• In India, it is found above the tree line in the Himalayan region, generally in dry areas such as the cold deserts of Ladakh and Spiti.
• In Himachal Pradesh, it is locally called chharma and grows in the wild in Lahaul and Spiti and parts of Kinnaur. Around 15,000 hectares in Himachal, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh are covered by this plant.
• Seabuckthorn has been widely used for treating stomach, heart and skin problems. Its fruit and leaves are rich in vitamins, carotenoids and omega fatty acids, among other substances, and it can help troops in acclimatising to high-altitude.
• Besides being an important source of fuelwood and fodder, seabuckthorn is a soil-binding plant which prevents soil-erosion, checks siltation in rivers and helps preserve floral biodiversity.
• Seabuckthorn also has commercial value, as it is used in making juices, jams, nutritional capsules etc.

Hence both statements are correct.

Citizens can now get the water quality in their taps tested at reasonable rates, as part of a monitoring framework rolled out by the Centre’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission.

• The “drinking water quality testing, monitoring and surveillance framework and guidelines” released mandate a network of National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accredited labs to be set up in every State, district and block over the next year.
• At the panchayat level, teams of women in the village water and sanitation committees will be given field testing kits.
• State governments can include private players as part of the network, but the Centre has capped tariffs to ensure that they remain within the reach of the common man.
• A package for all the 16 water quality parameters would cost ₹600. Turnaround time for chemical tests should not be more than 24 hours, while testing for the biological contaminants will produce results within 48 hours.
• All results of testing will be fed into the Water Quality Information Management System (WQMIS), a portal developed with the support of the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Hence both statements are correct.