Test: February 2023 Weekly Current Affair - 2 - UPSC MCQ

Unemployment refers to the situation where an individual is able and willing to work at an existing wage rate but does not finds any work.

• An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age.
• Evidence of multiple advances and retreats of glaciers, and the sediment deposits in glacial lakes reveal the occurrence of warm and cold periods in the history of earth. It is a strong evidence of climate change.
• Because trees are sensitive to local climate conditions, such as rain and temperature, they give scientists some information about that area’s local climate in the past. For example, tree rings usually grow wider in warm, wet years and they are thinner in years when it is cold and dry.

FDI is one of the reliable type of investment. FDI investment setup business in an economy, provide jobs and increase economic activities.

• Contempt of court may be civil or criminal.
• Civil contempt means wilful disobedience to any judgement, order, writ or other process of a court or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
• Criminal contempt means the publication of any matter or doing an act which—(i) scandalises or lowers the authority of a court; or (ii) prejudices or interferes with the due course of a judicial proceeding; or (iii) interferes or obstructs the administration of justice in any other manner.
• The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, very clearly states that fair criticism of any case which has been heard and decided is not contempt.

IUCN Red List or Red Data List or Red Book

• The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, founded in 1964, is the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species.
• The aim of the IUCN Red List is to convey the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to reduce species extinction. 
• The pink pagesin this publication include the critically endangered species.
• As the status of the species changes, new pages are sent to the subscribers.
• Green pagesare used for those species that were formerly endangered but have now recovered to a point where they are no longer threatened.
• With passing time, the number of pink pages continue to increase.

Visakhapatnam is deepest landlocked port.
Chennai port is one of the oldest but artificial port.

• Agricultural commodities like cotton, paddy, soyabean, soya oil, mustard seed, etc., are traded on the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) and the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX).
• Derivatives are short-term financial contracts that are bought and sold in the market. Profits are made in the derivatives trade by predicting price movements of the asset that underlies the contract. The derivatives trade can be in futures and options.
• In a futures contract, a supplier pledges to sell a certain quantity at a fixed price at a future date. Also, farmers can put fixed amounts of their produce, which fits the quality standards of the exchange, to be sold at a fixed price — almost like price insurance. Both contracts can be exited by either the producer or the trader by paying a margin price to the exchange.

The incorrect statement is:
3 - ATL is to foster curiosity, creativity, and imagination amongst college students across the length and breadth of India.
Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) are an initiative of NITI Aayog under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). They are dedicated workspaces where students from class 6 to 12 can learn innovation skills and develop ideas to solve unique problems in India. Their primary focus is on school students, not college students. The aim is to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at an early age, encouraging young minds to think creatively and develop solutions for various challenges faced by the country.

• Asphyxiation, or suffocation, occurs when the body is deprived of oxygen.
• Asphyxia can result from drowning, asthma, choking, strangulation, seizure, drug overdose, or inhaling chemical substances.
• Asphyxiation can lead to loss of consciousness, brain injury, and death.

• Norovirus is not new; it has been circulating among humans for over 50 years and is thought to be one of the primary causes of gastroenteritis. The virus is estimated to kill 200,000 persons globally every year, with most deaths occurring among those below the age of five years and those over the age of 65 years.
• The virus is capable of surviving low temperatures, and outbreaks tend to be more common during the winter and in colder countries — that is why it is sometimes referred to as “winter vomiting disease”.
• Cases of norovirus are not as common in India as in many other places.
• Norovirus leads to diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, and abdominal pain. Being a diarrhoeal disease, it can lead to dehydration, so drinking plenty of fluids is recommended.
• The infection can be transmitted through foods contaminated with the virus, touching surfaces that are contaminated with the virus and then touching the mouth, and being in direct contact with someone with the infection like taking care of them and sharing foods and utensils with them.
• Good hand hygiene is the best way to prevent infection.
• The norovirus can survive temperatures as high as 60 degrees Celsius.

Species are classified by the IUCN Red List into nine groups

• Extinct (EX)No known individuals remaining.
• Extinct in the wild (EW)Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized population outside its historic range.
• Critically endangered (CR)Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
• Endangered (EN)High risk of extinction in the wild.
• Vulnerable (VU) High risk of endangerment in the wild.
• Near threatened (NT)Likely to become endangered in the near future.
• Least concern (LC)Lowest risk. Does not qualify for a more at-risk category. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category.
• Data deficient (DD)Not enough data to assess its risk of extinction.
• Not evaluated (NE)Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria.

• In India, lawyers and legal practitioners are not allowed to advertise their work.
• Section 49(1)(c) of the Advocates Act, 1961 empowers the Bar Council of India (BCI) to make rules with respect to “the standard of professional conduct and etiquette to be observed by advocates”. Rule 36 in Chapter II (“Standards of Professional Conduct and Etiquette”) of Part VI (“Rules Governing Advocates”) of the BCI Rules published in 1975 prohibits lawyers from advertising their work.
• Rule 36 also requires that an advocate’s signboard or nameplate “should be of a reasonable size”. The signboard/ nameplate or stationery “should not indicate that he is or has been President or Member of a Bar Council or of any Association or that he has been associated with any person or organisation or with any particular cause or matter or that he specialises in any particular type of work or that he has been a Judge or an Advocate General”.
• The Bar Council of India is a statutory body that regulates the legal practice and legal education in India.
• Lawyers can legally advertise their services in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the European Union.

• Capital account convertibility means the freedom to conduct investment transactions without any constraints. Typically, it would mean no restrictions on the amount of rupees you can convert into foreign currency to enable you, an Indian resident, to acquire any foreign asset. Similarly, there should be no restraints on your NRI cousin bringing in any amount of dollars or dirhams to acquire an asset in India.
• India has come a long way in liberating the capital account transactions in the last three decades and currently has partial capital account convertibility.
• Since India has partial capital account convertibility, this implies that private foreign denominated debt also needs to be met by either private export earnings or India’s forex reserves.
• There is no correlation between capital account convertibility and sovereign credit rating.

• Article 16 of the Constitution, which guarantees equal treatment under law in matters of public employment, prohibits the state from discriminating on grounds of place of birth or residence.
• Article 16(2) states that “no citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect or, any employment or office under the State”. The provision is supplemented by the other clauses in the Constitution that guarantee equality.
• However, Article 16(3) of the Constitution provides an exception by saying that Parliament may make a law “prescribing” a requirement of residence for jobs in a particular state. This power vests solely in the Parliament, not state legislatures.
• Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes is referred to as vertical reservation. Horizontal reservation refers to opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries such as women, veterans, the transgender community, domicile and individuals with disabilities, cutting through the vertical categories. 

In the Balfour Declaration of 1926, dominions were defined as “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” In 1926, countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand were granted dominion status.

Hygam Wetland Conservation Reserve : Jammu and Kashmir

• The concept of mandatory minimum sentencing refers to “a sentence which must be imposed without leaving any discretion to the court. It means a quantum of punishment which cannot be reduced below the period fixed,” the Apex court held in its 2016 ruling in ‘Mohd Hashim vs State Of UP And Others’.
• Essentially, this predetermines the minimum punishment or sentence for certain offenses which are considered to be more serious than others, with a view to ensure justice and not let the perpetrator of such an offense go unpunished.
• No matter what the unique, individual circumstances of the offender or the offense might be, the court must mandatorily award this minimum period of sentencing for the offenses which prescribe it.
• A concept that comes primarily from the Canadian and American legal systems; in India, such sentences are prescribed for all sexual offenses under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act except the offense of sexual harassment.
• Under Section 8 of the POCSO Act, a punishment of 3-5 years has been prescribed for offenses under Section 7 which deals with offenses of sexual assault against children. However, imposing the minimum punishment in such cases is mandatory.
• When the legislature has prescribed a minimum sentence without discretion, the same cannot be reduced by the courts. 

Consumer welfare refers to the individual benefits derived from the consumption of goods and services. The central idea in consumer welfare is to enhance consumer surplus which is the difference between what people prefer to pay and what they actually pay. The greater the difference, higher is the surplus. It means that the market is allocating goods most efficiently (at competitive prices) to people.

As for India, currency hierarchy goes back to colonial times when the Indian rupee was virtually linked to the British pound rather than to gold which it earned through exports. 
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allows cross border trade transactions in rupee which is a step towards internationalisation of the currency.

• Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act, 1973 was enacted to nationalise all the coal mines in India. It was repealed in 2018.
• The demand-supply mismatch started in 1991 (the liberalisation period) and started widening. This led the government to allow captive mining (mining for own use only).
• The 2015 legislation (Coal Mines (Special provisions) Act, 2015) allowed re-entry of private players into the sector. It enabled auctioning of coal mines.
• The 2018 Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs allowed the auctioning of mines to the private players on basis of offer of highest price/ tonne.
• The Coal resources of India are available in older Gondwana Formations of peninsular India and younger tertiary formations of north-eastern region.
• The Lignite reserves in the country are estimated at around 45.76 Billion Tonne (1.4.2019). The major deposits are located in the State of Tamil Nadu, followed by Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal.

Some of the pathogens to look out for are Acinetobacter baumannii, Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Streptococcus pneumoniae and many more. These pathogens are commonly implicated as causative agents of healthcare associated infections because of their ability to develop resistance to antibiotics. 

• They are exercises primarily used by military personnel, in which live ammunition is used to create training conditions that are as close to real combat scenarios as possible. 
• During live-fire training, soldiers are placed in simulated combat situations and are given the opportunity to use their weapons and equipment (like ships, aircraft, tanks and drones).
• It also involves testing the effectiveness of vehicles, weapon platforms and weapons systems (such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, anti-aircraft weapons), so that any design flaws can be resolved before the weapons are fully operational.
• In September 2021, the Indian Army carried out an integrated manoeuvre and live-fire exercise in Ladakh.

• A ruling by the Supreme Court is final and binding. However, Article 137 of the Constitution grants the SC the power to review its judgments or orders. A review petition must be filed within 30 days of pronouncement of the judgment. Except in cases of death penalty, review petitions are heard through “circulation” by judges in their chambers, and not in an open court. Lawyers make their case through written submissions and not oral arguments. The judges who passed the verdict decide on the review petition as well.
• The SC rarely entertains reviews of its rulings. A review is allowed on narrow grounds to correct grave errors that have resulted in a miscarriage of justice. “A mistake apparent on the face of record” is one of the grounds on which a case for review is made. This mistake, the court has said, must be glaring and obvious — such as relying on case law that is invalid.