Daily Current Affairs MCQ- June 23, 2023 - UPSC MCQ

According to a new report from International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) have seen a 65 per cent faster loss of glacier mass.

• The Hindu-Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region encompasses Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
• It is considered as the Third Pole (after the North and South Poles) because it contains the largest volume of ice and snow outside of the Arctic and Antarctica.
• The ice and snow from this region are an important source of water for 12 rivers that flow through 16 countries in Asia.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, researchers have discovered that the Y chromosome possesses genes linked to ageing and lifespan regulation.

• The Chromosome is a thread-like structure located inside the nucleus of animal and plant cells.
• Each chromosome is made of protein and a single molecule of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
• It is passed from parents to offspring.
• DNA contains the specific instructions that make each type of living creature unique.
• In humans, in addition to the 22 pairs of chromosomes in each, we have a pair of sex chromosomes called X and Y.
• All biological males have X and Y chromosomes and all biological females have two X chromosomes.
• The y chromosome known as the “master of maleness,” determines the biological male sex and carries genes that play a role in sex determination.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) celebrated its 20th Foundation Day, reaffirming its unwavering dedication towards building India’s internet infrastructure.

• It was established in 2003 as a not-for-profit organization under the Companies Act 2013.
• It is tasked to increase Internet penetration and adoption in India by facilitating the various infrastructure aspects to enable the Internet ecosystem to be managed and used by the masses.
• The four services which come under the NIXI:
• Setting IXPs, towards Building Internet Exchange Points.
• .IN Registry towards building the .in domain digital identity.
• Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN) towards Internet Protocol (IPv4 and IPv6) addresses adoption.
• Data Centre services under NIXI-CSC towards data storage services.

Initiatives of NIXI

• IPv6 Expert Panel (IP Guru): IP Guru is a group to extend support to all the Indian entities that are finding it technically challenging to migrate and adopt IPv6.
• It’s a joint effort of DOT, MeitY & community to promote IPv6.
• NIXI Academy: NIXI Academy is created to educate technical/non-technical people in India to learn and relearn technologies like IPv6 which are normally not taught in Educational Institutes.
• NIXI-IP-INDEX: NIXI has developed an IPv6 index portal for the Internet community. This portal will showcase the IPv6 adoption rate in India and across the world.

Hence both statements are correct.

Russia’s Defence Ministry recently said that a Russian warship and cargo ship rescued 68 people overnight from a boat in the Mediterranean Sea.

About Mediterranean Sea:

• Location:
• It is an intercontinental sea that is bordered by the continent of Europe in the north, by Asia in the east, and by Africa in the south.
• In the west, the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the narrow Strait of Gibraltar.
• In the extreme northeast, it is connected to the Black Sea via the Dardanelles Strait, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus Strait. 
• The Mediterranean Sea is also connected to the Red Sea via the Suez Canal in the southeast.
• History:
• It has been regarded as the birthplace of Western civilization.
• Many ancient civilizations, such as the Phoenicians, Ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire, were located along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
• Bordering Countries:
• 22 countries and one territory (Gibraltar - a British Overseas Territory) have coasts on the Mediterranean Sea.
• The European Countries are Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece.
• The West Asian (Middle Eastern) countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea are Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestine Gaza Strip and the divided island of Cyprus.
• Five North African nations have coasts on the Mediterranean Sea: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
• The Mediterranean Sea offers a staggering 46,000 km (28,600 mi) long coastline and includes 15 marginal seas, such as the Balearic Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Levantine Sea and the Ionian Sea.
• Depth: The sea has an average depth of about 1,500 m and a maximum depth of 5,267 m at its deepest point, the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea.
• Rivers: A large number of rivers drain into the Mediterranean Sea, including the Ebro, Rhone, Po, Nile, Tiber, etc.
• Islands: Some of the large Mediterranean Islands include Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Chios, Euboea, Lesbos, Mallorca, Rhodes, Sicily, and Sardinia. The island of Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. 
• Climate: The region is characterized by the prevailing subtropical climate known as the Mediterranean climate, with usually mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers.
• Mediterranean Sea waters are more saline compared to the waters of the Atlantic. There is a continuous movement of water from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean and vice versa through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The world's first international treaty to protect the high seas was recently adopted by the United Nations.

Why in News?

• Nearly 200 nations signed the document, officially known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Treaty, after agreeing to its terms in March following roughly 15 years of discussion.
• The treaty is meant “to prevent a cascading of species extinctions” brought on by overfishing, oil extraction, deep-sea mining and other activities with environmental impacts that occur in the high seas.

About UN High Seas Treaty:

• It is the first-ever treaty to protect the world's oceans that lie outside national boundaries.
• It is also known as the ‘Paris Agreement for the Ocean.’
• It is a legally binding treaty that aims at protecting, caring for, and ensuring the responsible use of the marine environment, maintaining the integrity of ocean ecosystems, and conserving the inherent value of marine biological diversity.
• The treaty is built on the legacy of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which is the last international agreement on ocean protection, signed 40 years ago in 1982. UNCLOS established an area called the high seas.
• Highlights of the treaty:
• It aims to place 30% of the seas into protected areas by 2030 (a pledge made by countries at the UN biodiversity conference in 2022).
• It will provide a legal framework for establishing vast marine protected areas (MPAs) to protect against the loss of wildlife and share out the genetic resources of the high seas.
• It also covers environmental assessments to evaluate the potential damage of commercial activities, such as deep-sea mining.
• The treaty aims at strengthening resilience and contains provisions based on the polluter-pays principle as well as mechanisms for disputes.
• The treaty offers guidance, including through an integrated approach to ocean management that builds ecosystem resilience to tackle the adverse effects of climate change and ocean acidification, and maintains and restores ecosystem integrity, including carbon cycling services.
• Treaty provisions also recognize the rights and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities, the freedom of scientific research, and need for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
• The treaty also considers the special circumstances facing small-island and landlocked developing nations.
• It will establish a conference of the parties (CoP) that will meet periodically and enable member states to be held to account on issues such as governance and biodiversity.
• The treaty also includes a pledge by signatories to share ocean resources.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Microsoft recently acknowledged that the series of service disruptions experienced by users of Microsoft Azure, OneDrive and Outlook were the result of a major distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

About Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack:

• A DDoS attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.
• DDoS attacks achieve effectiveness by utilizing multiple compromised computer systems as sources of attack traffic. 
• Exploited machines can include computers and other networked resources such as IoT devices.
• Unlike other kinds of cyberattacks, DDoS assaults don’t attempt to breach your security perimeter. Rather, a DDoS attack aims to make your website and servers unavailable to legitimate users.
• DDoS can also be used as a smokescreen for other malicious activities and to take down security appliances, breaching the target’s security perimeter.
• How does a DDoS attack work?
• DDoS attacks are carried out with networks of Internet-connected machines.
• These networks consist of computers and other devices (such as IoT devices) which have been infected with malware, allowing them to be controlled remotely by an attacker.
• These individual devices are referred to as bots (or zombies), and a group of bots is called a botnet.
• Once a botnet has been established, the attacker is able to direct an attack by sending remote instructions to each bot.
• When a victim’s server or network is targeted by the botnet, each bot sends requests to the target’s IP address, potentially causing the server or network to become overwhelmed, resulting in a denial of service to normal traffic.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, a new scientific report published in the journal Nature shows that significant precipitation changes and increasing extreme climate events affect the large human populations as well as the endemic biodiversity of Lake Victoria Basin.

• It is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake.
• Location: It is located in East Africa, bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya.
• It is also called Victoria Nyanza in Kenya, Nalubaale in Uganda, and Ukerewe in Tanzania.
• It is a source of the White Nile River which flows northward and eventually joins the Blue Nile in Sudan to form the Nile River.
• The lake supports the largest freshwater fishery in the world, producing 1 million tons of fish per year and employing 200,000 people in supporting the livelihoods of 4 million people.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the appointment of senior IPS officer Ravi Sinha as the chief of India’s external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) for a period of two years.

• It was established in 1968 to handle India’s international intelligence affairs.
• It came into force after the China-India War in 1962.
• At present, the intelligence arm operates under the aegis of the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Working mechanism: It collects military, economic, scientific, and political intelligence through covert and overt operations.
• The agency is also charged with monitoring terrorist elements and smuggling rings that transport weapons and ammunition into India.

Genesis of RAW

• Until 1968, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was responsible for India’s internal intelligence and also handled external intelligence.
• However, after the 1962 China-India war and the Indo-Pakistani war in 1965, India established a separate and distinct external intelligence organization – the Research and Analysis Wing.
• In 1968, then India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi appointed R. N. Kao as the first director of RAW.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Recently, a Mesolithic period rock painting depicting a person tilling a piece of land has been found in Orvakallu village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh.

• The paintings were made with “natural white kaolin and red ochre pigments”, 
• Ochre is a pigment composed of clay, sand, and ferric oxide.
• Kaolinite is a soft, earthy, and usually white mineral produced by the chemical weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar.
• These paintings throw light on aspects of the social life and culture of the people who lived in the area.
• One of the paintings depicted a man catching a wild goat with his left hand while wielding a hook-like implement to control it.
• Another showed two couples standing with their hands raised while a child stood behind them.
• The Mesolithic period is also called Middle Stone Age which existed between the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) and the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
• Timeframe: This period is generally considered to have occurred between approximately 12,000-10,000 years ago
• Lifestyle: During the Mesolithic period, human societies were predominantly hunter-gatherer communities.
• People relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant resources for their sustenance.
• Stone tools found during this period are generally tiny and are called microliths

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Asia Pacific Plant Protection Commission unanimously elected India as chair of the Standing Committee on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for the biennium 2023-24 during the 32nd Session held in Bangkok.

• It is an intergovernmental organization that promotes cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance plant health and plant protection.
• It was established in 1956 as a regional body approved by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
• Member Countries: The commission consists of 25 member countries, including India.
• Structure of the organization:
• The Commission consists of representatives of all member countries and elects amongst them a Chairperson who serves for a period of two years.
• The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization appoints and provides the secretariat that coordinates, organizes and follows up the work of the Commission.
• The Commission, according to its provisions convenes at least once every two years and opens for participation to all member countries.
• Objectives: The commission coordinates and supports plant protection activities of its Members in Asia and the Pacific, with emphasis on developing regional standards for phytosanitary measures (RSPMs) etc.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.