Daily Current Affairs MCQ- June 28, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently convened its emergency committee to consider whether the monkeypox outbreak warrants declaring a global emergency. 

• Monkeypox is a rare zoonotic (disease that spreads from animals to humans) viral disease belonging to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the Poxviridae family, the same virus family as smallpox.
• Monkeypox was first discovered in animals in 1958 when two outbreaks occurred in captive monkey colonies kept for research purposes. Hence, the name ‘monkeypox’.
• People with monkeypox often experience symptoms like fever, body aches and a rash. Most recover within weeks without needing medical care.
• There is currently no specific treatment for monkeypox. However, the Vaccinia vaccine, which was used against smallpox, had shown 85% efficacy in monkeypox prevention.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

The United States Senate has passed a gun safety bill, the most significant action against rising gun violence in the country.

• The bill was passed on June 23, hours after the US Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for their safety and self-defence.
• The bill will now be sent to the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives, where it is likely to sail through, after which it will be sent to US President Joe Biden for his approval.
• The bill has been called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The bipartisan bill focuses on firearms and improving medical care in the US.
• The bill seeks to ensure strict background checks for gun buyers, especially minors. The bill will also release funds for educational institutions, to expand their mental health resources and make schools safer.

Recent Killings

• The bill was passed exactly a month after a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman stormed an elementary school and killed 21 people, including 19 children.
• The Uvalde incident came days after a racial shooting in a Buffalo supermarket in New York, where 10 black people were fatally shot.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) appointed former Punjab Director-General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta the Director-General of the NIA.

• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is the primary counter-terrorist task force of India.
• The agency is empowered to deal with the investigation of terror related crimes across states without special permission from the states under written proclamation from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The Agency came into existence with the enactment of the National Investigation Agency Act 2008 by the Parliament of India on 31 December 2008, which was passed after the deadly 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai.
• Headquartered in New Delhi, the NIA has branches in Hyderabad, Guwahati, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata, Raipur, Jammu, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Chennai and Imphal.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The government is considering transferring the administration of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) and Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PITNDPS) Act, 1988 from the finance ministry to Ministry of Home Affairs to bring all issues related to narcotics under one department.

• Currently, while the home ministry governs the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Department of Revenue (DoR) in the finance ministry administers the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act of 1985 and the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of 1988.
• The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is a central law enforcement and intelligence agency that has been tasked with combating drug trafficking and the use of illegal substances under the provisions of the NDPS Act.
• The NDPS Act, prohibits a person from the production/manufacturing/cultivation, possession, sale, purchase transport, storage, and/or consumption of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance.
• The PITNDPS Act, 1988 provides for detention in certain cases for the purpose of preventing illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
• The transfer was being considered under the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961. Transferring administration of the NDPS Act and PITNDPS to MHA will lead to a single command chain and unification of all matters related to narcotics.

Hence both statements are correct.

Ahead of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting, the Finance Ministry has notified the Goods and Services Tax (Period of Levy and Collection of Cess) Rules, 2022.

Goods and Services Tax (GST)

• It is an indirect tax (not directly paid by customers to the government), that came into effect from 1 July 2017 through the implementation of the 101st Amendment to the Constitution of India by the Indian government.
• It has actually replaced various indirect taxes such as - service taxes, VAT, excise and others in the country.
• It is levied on the manufacturer or seller of goods and the providers of services.
• The sellers usually add the tax expense into their costs and the price the customers pay is inclusive of GST. Thus, one ends up paying a tax even if s/he is not an income taxpayer.
• It is divided into five different tax slabs for collection of tax - 0%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro was elected the first ever left-wing president of Colombia, after beating millionaire businessman Rodolfo Hernandez in a tense run-off election.

• Mr. Petro will succeed the deeply unpopular conservative Ivan Duque, who was barred by Colombia’s Constitution from standing for re-election, in a country saddled with widespread poverty, a surge in violence and other woes.
• Colombia is a country in South America bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east, Brazil to the southeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and Panama to the northwest. It is the only country in South America with coastlines and islands along both Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
• Its capital is Bogotá. Colombia is one of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs launched an innovative project for skill training of construction workers called ‘NIPUN’ i.e. National Initiative for Promoting Upskilling of Nirman workers.

• The project NIPUN is an initiative of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under its flagship scheme of the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM) to train over 1 lakh construction workers, through fresh skilling and upskilling programmes and provides them with work opportunities in foreign countries also.
• The construction industry is poised to become the largest employer by 2022 and needs 45 million additional skilled workers over the next 10 years.
• To fulfil this mission, the National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) and the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) have joined Project NIPUN as industry partners and will identify training job roles of aspirational value in the construction sector in collaboration with the SSC.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Election Commission decided to delete 111 Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs) from the register, as part of the poll panel’s “graded action” against parties that flouted its rules.

• The EC had deleted 87 RUPPs in May after announcing a clean-up drive against more than 2,100 such parties that it said had violated a string of rules by failing to furnish contribution reports or communicating changes to party-related information.
• There are 2,796 RUPPs, according to EC’s data till September 2021, an increase of more than 300% since 2001.
• According to the EC, during verification the RUPPs against whom action has been taken were found existing only on paper or letters sent to their addresses returned undelivered.
• The EC has for long been seeking powers to deregister political parties. The poll panel has also been seeking modification to Form 24A to mandate disclosure of all donations above Rs 2,000 instead of the current Rs 20,000.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

A new set of guidelines by the government prohibit surrogate advertising. The move comes in the wake of controversy over a perfume ad which was slammed for promoting sexual violence against women.

• Notified by the Consumer Affairs Ministry, “Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022” apply to ads across all media platforms including television, print and online.
• The guidelines have imposed a complete ban on surrogate advertising.
• Surrogate advertising is the strategy of advertising a product that cannot be advertised openly.
• Advertisers instead create ads that help in building a brand, and often involve popular celebrities – all without naming the actual product that is being indirectly advertised.
• In India, tobacco products and alcohol cannot be advertised openly under laws like the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, which bans all kinds of direct and indirect advertisements of tobacco products.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Boris Johnson administration has come up with a new legislation, the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would enable the U.K. to override provisions of the Brexit deal that concern trading arrangements in Northern Ireland — the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP).

• Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with the EU, as the Republic of Ireland (or Ireland) is an EU member-state.
• As long as the U.K. was part of the EU, things were fine. But with Brexit, the U.K. exited the EU’s customs union. This created a problem whose solution needed two seemingly contradictory outcomes: preserving the sanctity of the EU’s single market, as well as that of the U.K.’s domestic market.

Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP):

• NIP’s solution was to avoid a customs check at the actual customs border — on the island of Ireland, between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland — as this would have violated the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and risked instability in a region. It instead shifted the customs border to that between Northern Ireland and Britain, effectively at Britain’s ports.
• As per the NIP, goods flowing into Northern Ireland would be checked at this ‘sea border’ before entering the island, and Northern Ireland would continue to follow EU rules in product standards.
• The main irritant for the U.K. in the current version of the NIP was the creation of “unacceptable barriers” to trade within the U.K. internal market — between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• The European Union (EU) has said that the proposed law violates international law and has threatened to take legal action against the U.K. if it goes ahead with the legislation.

Hence both statements are correct.