Test: December 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 3 - UPSC MCQ

• Aichi Biodiversity Targets that expired in 2020. No single country met all 20 Aichi Targets within its own borders, according to a September 2020 UN assessment.
• The Aichi Targets, adopted during the 2010 CBD summit in Nagoya, located in Japan’s Aichi prefecture, included goals such as reducing deforestation by at least half during the coming decade and curbing pollution so that it no longer harmed ecosystems.
• After parties adopted the Aichi Targets, they were expected to devise their own national biodiversity strategies that would mimic the goals laid out by Aichi. Nearly all parties created these strategies, but most were never fully implemented.

Hydrogen fuel:
Hydrogen is the lightest and first element on the periodic table. Since the weight of hydrogen is less than air, it rises in the atmosphere and is therefore rarely found in its pure form, H2.
At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a nontoxic, nonmetallic, odorless, tasteless, colorless, and highly combustible diatomic gas.
Hydrogen fuel is a zero-emission fuel burned with oxygen. It can be used in fuel cells or internal combustion engines. It is also used as a fuel for spacecraft propulsion.
Occurrence of Hydrogen:

• It is the most abundant element in the universe. The sun and other stars are composed largely of hydrogen.
• Astronomers estimate that 90% of the atoms in the universe are hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen is a component of more compounds than any other element.
• Water is the most abundant compound of hydrogen found on earth.

Molecular hydrogen is not available on Earth in convenient natural reservoirs. Most hydrogen on Earth is bonded to oxygen in water and to carbon in live or dead and/or fossilized biomass. It can be created by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The Indian roofed turtle (Pangshura tecta) is a species of turtle in the family Geoemydidae. It can be distinguished by the distinct “roof” at the topmost part of the shell. It is found in the major rivers of South Asia. It is a common pet in the Indian Subcontinent. It is found in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
In India, it is found in Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus River drainages.
It is listed on Appendix I of CITES.

• G20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union. The G20 members represent around 85 per cent of the global GDP, over 75 per cent of global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.
• India holds the Presidency of the G20 from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023.
• The G20 was founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis, as a forum for Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to discuss global economic and financial issues. The G20 was upgraded to the level of Heads of State/Government in the wake of the global economic and financial crisis of 2007, and, in 2009, was designated the “premier forum for international economic cooperation”.
• The G20 Summit is held annually, under the leadership of a rotating presidency. The G20 initially focused largely on broad macroeconomic issues, but it has since expanded its agenda to inter-alia include trade, climate change, sustainable development, health, agriculture, energy, environment, climate change and anti-corruption.
• The G20 consists of two parallel tracks: the Finance track, led by Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors; and the Sherpa track. Within the two tracks, there are thematically oriented working groups in which representatives from the relevant ministries of the members as well as from invited/guest countries and various international organisations participate.

The power under Article 161 is exercisable in relation to matters to which the executive power of the state extends. While the Governor is bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers (Article 163), the binding nature of such advice will depend on the constitutionality of the same. 

Government has modified the earlier scheme of ‘Special Central Assistance to Tribal Sub-Scheme (SCA to TSS) with nomenclature ‘Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojna (PMAAGY)’, for implementation during 2021-22 to 2025-26, which aims at mitigating gaps and providing basic infrastructure in villages with significant tribal population in convergence with funds available under different schemes in Central Scheduled Tribe Component.
It is envisaged to cover 36,428 villages having at least 50% ST population and 500 STs across States / UTs with notified STs during the period.
The main objective of this scheme is to achieve integrated socio-economic development of selected villages through convergence approach. It includes the following components.

• Preparing Village Development Plan based on the needs, potential, and aspirations;
• Maximizing the coverage of individual / family benefit schemes of the Central / State Governments;
• Improving the infrastructure in vital sectors like health, education, connectivity and livelihood;

Aadhaar is a verifiable 12-digit identification number issued the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Government of India.
The masked Aadhaar number facility — that can be downloaded from the UIDAI website — and which displays only the last four digits of the Aadhaar number. This was a sensible advisory. The masked Aadhaar facility has been in place since 2018 and this came about following a report by the Centre for Internet and Society.

Yangtse in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh has been repeatedly targeted by Chinese PLA troops. Yangtse is one of the 25 contested areas along the 3488-km Line of Actual Control between the two countries, stretching from the Western Sector to Middle Sector to Eastern Sector.

• Stiff person syndrome is a rare autoimmune neurological condition that affects the central nervous system and can cause rigidity throughout the body and painful muscle spasms. 
• The exact cause of the condition is not clear, but “the immune system is involved. The syndrome is difficult to diagnose.
• Stiff person syndrome often begins with stiffness in the torso and abdomen, which can then spread to the legs, arms and face.
• There is no cure for stiff person syndrome, so doctors focus on symptom and pain management. 
• Anyone at any age can get the condition, but it’s most typical for people in middle adulthood, between 30 and 60, and can be associated with highly stressful events. Like many other immune conditions, it’s more common in women than men.

The World Wildlife Trade Report provides insights and assessment of the global trade of animals and plants that are regulated by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). The CITES ensures the regulation of the international trade of wild animals and plants so that their survival is not threatened.
The report is a joint production involving a partnership of UN organisations and leading conservation organizations: the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), along with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and TRAFFIC.

About Lead:

• Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. It is stored in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time.
• Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing foetus.
• WHO has identified lead as 1 of 10 chemicals of major public health concern.
• WHO has joined with the United Nations Environment Programme to form the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint.

• Sponges are among the most ancient and abundant animals on rocky reefs across the world. In New Zealand, they occupy up to 70% of the available seafloor, particularly in so-called mesophotic ecosystems at depths of 30-150m.
• They serve a number of important ecological functions. They filter large quantities of water, capturing small food particles and moving carbon from the water column to the seafloor where it can be eaten by bottom-dwelling invertebrates.
• These invertebrates in turn are consumed by organisms further up the food chain, including commercially and culturally important fish species.
• Sponges also add three-dimensional complexity to the sea floor, which provides habitat for a range of other species such as crabs, shrimps and starfish.
• Like corals, sponges contain symbiotic organisms thought to be critical to their survival. Cymbastella lamellata is unusual in that it hosts dense populations of diatoms, small single-celled photosynthetic plants that give the sponge its brown colour.
• These diatoms live within the sponge tissue, exchanging food for protection. When the sponge bleaches, it expels the diatoms, leaving the sponge skeleton exposed.
• Tissue loss occurs when sponges are stressed and either have to invest more energy into cell repair or when their food source is depleted and they reabsorb their own tissue to reduce body volume and reallocate resources.
  

The term ‘Federation’ has nowhere been used in the Constitution. 
Article 1, on the other, describes India as a ‘Union of States’ which implies two things: one, Indian Federation is not the result of an agreement by the states; and two, no state has the right to secede from the federation. 
That’s why, Indian Constitution has been variously described as ‘federal in form but unitary in spirit’, ‘quasi-federal’ by K C Wheare.

• Parliament clears Bill to grant Scheduled Tribe status to Hatti community in Himachal Pradesh
• The Hattis are a close-knit community who got their name from their tradition of selling homegrown vegetables, crops, meat and wool etc. at small markets called ‘haat’ in towns.
• The Hatti community, whose men generally don a distinctive white headgear during ceremonies, is cut off from Sirmaur by two rivers called Giri and Tons. Tons divides it from the Jaunsar Bawar area of Uttarakhand. The Hattis who live in the trans-Giri area and Jaunsar Bawar in Uttarakhand were once part of the royal estate of Sirmaur until Jaunsar Bawar’s separation in 1815.

The disagreements between India and Nepal over the border dispute is over the regions which includes Kalapani, Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura (all three in Uttarakhand) and Susta (Bihar).

• HAPS are advanced unmanned flying systems, which operate in the stratosphere at an altitude of 70,000 feet continuously for 2-3 months, to maintain surveillance on the ground below. The solar energized system is designed to act as a bridge between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and conventional satellites.
• HAPS are cost-effective and are easier to launch. These satellites can be controlled from anywhere using Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) technology.

‘Ashtadhyayi’, an ancient text written by the scholar Panini towards the end of the 4th century BC. Written more than 2,000 years ago, the ‘Ashtadhyayi’ is a linguistics text that set the standard for how Sanskrit was meant to be written and spoken. It delves deep into the language’s phonetics, syntax and grammar, and also offers a ‘language machine’, where you can feed in the root and suffix of any Sanskrit word, and get grammatically correct words and sentences in return.

China not only challenges international maritime laws in the South China Sea, but also confronts Japan over the Senkaku Islands. Six nations, including China and Taiwan, are involved in the dispute over the Spratly Islands, which are supposedly sitting on vast reserves of oil and natural gas. China has vigorously militarised some portions of the disputed isles, islets and coral reefs; and countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are anxious not to be left behind.

• Golden rice is a variety of rice produced through genetic engineering to include genes that increase the beta carotene content.
• Golden Rice can help in the fight against vitamin A deficiency (VAD), particularly among the people who depend mostly on rice for nourishment.
• Philippines became the first country in the world to approve commercial production of genetically modified golden rice.

China recently convened a first “China-Indian Ocean Region Forum” bringing together 19 countries from the region – and all of India’s neighbours, except for India itself, the lone absentee from a new Beijing strategic initiative. The forum underlined China’s stepped-up diplomacy in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Inactivated vaccines:

• Inactivated vaccines use the killed version of the germ that causes a disease.
• Vaccines of this type are created by inactivating a pathogen, typically using heat or chemicals such as formaldehyde or formalin.
• This destroys the pathogen’s ability to replicate, but keeps it “intact” so that the immune system can still recognize it. (“Inactivated” is generally used rather than “killed” to refer to viral vaccines of this type, as viruses are generally not considered to be alive.)
• They usually don’t provide immunity (protection) that’s as strong as live vaccines. So you may need several doses over time (booster shots) in order to get ongoing immunity against diseases.
• They are Used to protect: Hepatitis A, Flu (shot only), Polio (shot only), Rabies.

• The LAC separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. It is divided into the Eastern Sector (Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim), Middle Sector (Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh) and Western Sector (Ladakh).
• India and China do not agree on the LAC.
• In the Eastern Sector, the alignment of the LAC is along the McMahon Line, which takes its name from Sir Henry McMahon, foreign secretary of British India, who drew the 890-km line as the border between British India and Tibet at the 1914 Simla Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet.

• Technologies such as dual x-ray, computer tomography and neutron beam technology will eliminate the need for passengers to remove laptops and other electronic devices.
• While the traditional x-ray machines currently used at airports produce a 2-D image, newer technologies such as computer tomography produce a 3-D image with a higher resolution, and have better automated detection of explosives.

• The American football writer Grant Wahl died recently after a catastrophic tear in a major blood vessel leading out of his heart.
• An aneurysm is a localised weakening of the wall of a blood vessel, which causes the vessel to bulge in that area — as a result of which the vessel may widen to more than 50 per cent of its usual diameter. Aneurysms are more commonly seen in arteries than in veins.
• The aorta is the main artery that carries oxygenated blood from the heart to the rest of the body; it is also the body’s largest blood vessel. An aortic aneurysm is a weakening and bulging in a portion of the aorta; “thoracic” refers to that section of the blood vessel that passes through the chest.
• An aneurysm increases in size over time, and the wall of the blood vessel gets progressively weaker in that area. The vessel may ultimately burst or separate, triggering a bleeding rush that can be life-threatening, and potentially lethal.
• Possible causes of thoracic aortic aneurysm (i) degenerative disease that causes breakdown of the aortic wall tissue; (ii) genetic disorders; (iii) family history; (iv) vasculitis, or inflammation of the arteries; and (v) atherosclerosis, or the build-up of plaque on the walls of the artery. In rare cases, an infection can also trigger an aneurysm.

• The probe into the cyberattack on some servers at AIIMS in the national capital has found that the IP addresses of two emails, which were identified from the headers of files that were encrypted by the hackers, originated from Hong Kong and China’s Henan province. Sources said the senders used the email service Protonmail.
• Proton Mail is an end-to-end encrypted email service founded in 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland. It uses client-side encryption to protect email content and user data before they are sent to Proton Mail servers, unlike other common email providers such as Gmail and Outlook.com.