Daily Current Affairs MCQ- September 2, 2022 - UPSC MCQ

Negotiations involving 168 countries, including the European Union, to agree on a UN treaty for protecting oceans failed on August 27.

• Also referred to as the ‘Paris Agreement for the Ocean’, the treaty to deal with Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction has been under discussion for several years.
• The proposed treaty concerns the ocean existing beyond the Exclusive Economic Zones that lie from the coast of a country to about 200 nautical miles or 370 km into the sea, till where it has special rights for exploration. Waters beyond that are known as open seas or high seas.
• The treaty was to be negotiated under the United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982 which governs the rights of countries regarding marine resources.
• As there is no treaty for conserving the health of vast swathes of the earth’s oceans, a UN resolution in 2017 had decided to rectify this while setting 2022 as the deadline.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

President Droupadi Murmu discussed the various aspects of bilateral relation between India and the Netherlands with Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.

• During the discussion, the two leaders discussed the universal financial inclusion initiatives. Queen Máxima appreciated the progress made in India in this direction in the last few years.
• President Droupadi Murmu noted that the ‘Strategic Partnership on Water’ launched during the India-Netherlands virtual Summit in last year and other dimensions of bilateral relations have witnessed improvement in recent years. Queen Máxima is on a three day visit to India.
• The Netherlands is a country located in Northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean.
• It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
• The Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium in the North Sea.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

A Workshop on Development of Enterprises and Services Hub (DESH) Bill, 2022 was organized by Department of Commerce. The workshop was organised in partnership with Export Promotion Council for EOUs and SEZs (EPCES).

• The government plans to facilitate easier financing norms to activities pertaining to the manufacturing and services hubs envisaged under the proposed revamped law for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), also known as Development (Enterprise and Services) Hub Bill, 2022.
• This will be done by giving them infrastructure status, at par with sectors such as road, rail waterways, airports, to improve access to finance and enable long-term borrowing from lenders at easier terms.

Hence both statements are correct.

Violent crimes such as rape, kidnapping, atrocities against children, and robberies registered across India increased in 2021, after the pandemic-related restrictions led to a decline in these severe offences in 2020.

• Murders, which did not come down even in 2020, continued to increase in 2021 too, according to data from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)’s 2021 report.
• The number of registered rape cases increased from 28,046 in 2020 to 31,677 in 2021, closer to the 2019 figure of 32,032. Cases related to kidnapping and abduction fell to 84,805 in 2020 from 1,05,036 cases in 2019, but again rose to 1,01,707 in 2021.
• On the other hand, murder cases continued their consistent increase with 29,272 cases in 2021, up from 29,193 in 2020 and 28,915 in 2019.
• However, the number of overall registered cognisable crimes decreased from 66 lakh in 2020 to 60.9 lakh in 2021, a 7.6% fall.
• The crime rate (crimes per 1 lakh people) also decreased from 487.8 in 2020 to 445.9 in 2021.
• The decline in overall crimes in 2021 can be attributed to a sharp decrease in cases registered under ‘disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant (Section 188 of the IPC).

Hence both statements are correct.

The Union Social Justice Ministry received 402 applications online from across the country for benefits under the Scheme for Economic Empowerment of Denotified, Nomadic, Semi-nomadic (SEED) Tribes.

• More than 10 crore Indians from 1,400 communities belong to these groups, show the latest estimates available with the government.
• The scheme aims to provide free competitive exam coaching to students, health insurance and financial assistance for housing and uplift clusters of these communities through livelihood initiatives.
• The Ministry has been allocated ₹200 crore for this scheme to be spent over five financial years from 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• At the time of the launch, the Ministry announced that the scheme would be implemented through an online portal that would issue a unique ID to each applicant to apply and track the status of the application online.

Hence both statements are correct.

Special Marriage Act (SMA), 1954

• The Special Marriage Act, 1954 is an Act of the Parliament of India with provision for civil marriage for people of India and all Indian nationals in foreign countries, irrespective of religion or faith followed by either party.
• A marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 allows people from two different religious backgrounds to come together in the bond of marriage.
• The Act lays down the procedure for both solemnization and registration of marriage, where either of the husband or wife or both are not Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, or Sikhs.

Hence both statements are correct.

National Education Policy (NEP) 2020

• An NEP is a comprehensive framework to guide the development of education in the country.
• The first education policy came in 1968 on the recommendation of the Education Commission, headed by D S Kothari.
• The second education policy came in 1986, which was replaced by the third education policy - NEP 2020

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

There are wide disparities in the pace of price rise experienced by consumers across the country, with a dozen States clocking an average inflation of less than 6% and another 12 States averaging more than 7% through 2022 so far.

• Headline inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index has averaged 6.8% in the first seven months of 2022, well above the 6% upper tolerance threshold set by policy makers.
• However, consumers in Telangana, West Bengal and Sikkim faced the steepest spike in prices, with their combined retail inflation for rural and urban areas averaging 8.32%, 8.06%, and 8.01%, respectively.
• Smaller States such as Manipur, Goa and Meghalaya have had an average inflation of less than 4% through this period, at 1.07%, 3.66%, and 3.84%, respectively.

Hence both statements are correct.

Nearly 60% of all fake notes seized in 2021 were of ₹2,000 denomination, the Crime in India 2021 report compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows.

• Of the fake Indian currency notes with a face value of ₹20.39 crore seized in 2021, ₹12.18 crore was in the denomination of ₹2,000.
• The new ₹2,000 and ₹500 currency notes were introduced in 2016 after the old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes were scrapped by the Union government. The government had said that curbing of fake notes was one of the primary objectives of the 2016 demonetisation exercise.
• Post-2016, there has been an increase in seizure of fake money, the NCRB data reveal.
• The highest recovery of fake ₹2,000 notes was made in Tamil Nadu (₹5 crore), followed by Kerala (₹1.8 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (₹1 crore).

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who brought the Cold War to a peaceful end, has died aged 91.

• Mikhail Gorbachev (1931 – 2022) was a Russian and Soviet politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union.
• As the country's head of state from 1988 to 1991, he served as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and President of the Soviet Union from 1990 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
• Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, but he moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
• Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary, particularly after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
• He withdrew from the Soviet–Afghan War and embarked on summits with United States president Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end the Cold War.
• Domestically, his policy of glasnost ("openness") allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and press, while his perestroika ("restructuring") sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve efficiency.
• The recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, he was widely praised for his pivotal role in ending the Cold War.

Hence both statements are correct.