Daily Current Affairs MCQ- October 26, 2023 - UPSC MCQ

Vajra mushti kalaga, a martial art form has gone extinct and takes place only during Dasara.

• It is a unique Indian martial art that incorporates various techniques of hand-to-hand combat like grappling, wrestling and striking techniques.
• Vajra Mushti, which literally means Thunderbolt Fist, is characterised by the utilization of a knuckleduster, a small metal weapon.
• The knuckleduster, also known as Vajra Mushti, usually made of animal horns, is worn on the knuckles of the fighter.
• The main objective of this Indian martial art form is to neutralize the opponent and counter his weapon.
• It is a form of wrestling different from the conventional grappling and entails two jettys taking a swipe at each other’s head with a knuckleduster.
• Whosoever draws the blood from the opponent’s head first is declared the winner.
• This form of wrestling was popular during the period of the Vijayanagar rulers who reigned between the 14th and the 17th centuries
• The fight is real and the jetty’s make all efforts to draw blood from the opponent’s head and a referee intervenes on noticing the first drop.
• Medieval travellers from Portuguese noticed this form of wrestling during the Navaratri celebrations in Vijayanagar empire and have left detailed accounts of it.

Hence both statements are correct.

NASA is gearing up for humanity's deepest-ever peek into the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy by using its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

• It will provide one of the deepest-ever views into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
• It is developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• Objectives: The mission will monitor hundreds of millions of stars in search of tell-tale flickers that betray the presence of planets, distant stars, small icy objects that haunt the outskirts of our solar system and isolated black holes.
• It will have two instruments
•  Wide Field Instrument: It will have a field of view that is 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument, capturing more of the sky with less observing time.
• It will measure light from a billion galaxies over the course of the mission lifetime.
• It will perform a microlensing survey of the inner Milky Way to find ~2,600 exoplanets.
•  Coronagraph Instrument: It is a technology demonstration which will perform high contrast imaging and spectroscopy of individual nearby exoplanets.
• Its Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will focus on the Milky Way.
• For this, it will use infrared vision to peer through clouds of dust that can potentially block the view of the crowded central region of our galaxy. 
• This telescope plans to capture this by taking an image every 15 minutes around the clock for about two months.
• This process will be repeated six times over Roman's five-year primary mission, which will total more than a year of observations.
• Scientists will also conduct stellar seismology studies on a million giant stars.
• This will be done by analysing the brightness changes a star undergoes when sound waves are echoed through its gaseous interior.
• This will help them learn about the star's structure, age and other properties.

Hence option (b) is the correct answer.

Recently, officials from the Indian Coast Guard and the customs department arrested four men who were allegedly in possession of sea cucumber and raw turmeric.

• This species is a part of a larger animal group called echinoderms and are invertebrates that live on the seafloor.
• Their body shape is similar to a cucumber, but they have small tentacle-like tube feet that are used for locomotion and feeding.
• There are about 1,250 species of sea cucumber, all of which belong to the taxonomic class Holothuroidea.
• Habitat:
• They are found in all marine environments throughout the world, from shallow to deep-sea environments.
• These are benthic, meaning they live on the ocean floor.
• They excrete inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus, enhancing the productivity of benthic biota.
• Reproduction:
• They exhibit sexual and asexual reproduction.
• Unlike most terrestrial animals, sea cucumber eggs undergo external fertilization—females release eggs into the water that are fertilized when they come into contact with sperm that males have released.
• Conservation status
• CITES: Appendix II 
• Wildlife Protection Act of 1972: Schedule I

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the government of India approved the inclusion of the Jamrani Dam Multipurpose Project under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana-Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (PMKSY-AIBP). 

• The project envisages the construction of a dam near Jamrani village across river Gola, a tributary of river Ram Ganga, in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand.
• A substantial part of irrigation benefits of the project would flow to the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.
• This project is the seventh project to be included in the PMKSY-AIBP list.

Key facts about Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana

• It was launched during 2015-16.
• Aim: To enhance physical access to water on farms, expand cultivable areas under assured irrigation, improve on-farm water use efficiency, and introduce sustainable water conservation practices.
• Components
• Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP): To focus on faster completion of ongoing Major and Medium Irrigation including National Projects.
• Har Khet Ko Pani (HKKP): It consists of four sub-components, being Command Area Development & Water Management (CAD&WM), Surface Minor Irrigation (SMI), Repair, Renovation and Restoration (RRR) of Water Bodies, and Ground Water (GW) Development component.

Hence option (d) is the correct answer.

Researchers recently discovered a new species of frog named Alcalus fontinalis in the northeast Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

About Alcalus fontinalis:

• It is a newly discovered species of frog.
• It was discovered in the Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh.
• The frog appeared to be a mix of a bush frog and a water frog.
• The researchers used multiple lines of evidence using morphological, osteological, and molecular analysis, revealing they are no ordinary frogs but members of a dwarf mountain frog of the genus Alcalus, hitherto unknown from India.
• It was formally named Alcalus fontinalis, meaning “spring or fountain,” referencing the tiny streams or brooks where the frog was found.
• The new species stands out from its congeners due to a unique combination of morphological features.
• These include a snout-vent length of 27–28 mm in males and 29.9–36.2 mm in females, a disc on fingers and toes with a horizontal/transverse groove on the dorsal surface, wrinkled dorsal skin, and a pair of faint dorsolateral stripes on the back.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

The Prime Minister recently chaired the meeting of the 43rd edition of PRAGATI involving Centre and State governments.

About PRAGATI Platform:

• PRAGATI stands for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation.
• It is a multi-purpose and multi-modal platform that is aimed at addressing the common man’s grievances and simultaneously monitoring and reviewing important programmes and projects of the Government of India as well as projects flagged by State Governments.
• The platform was launched on March 25, 2015.
• It is designed in-house by the PMO team with the help of the National Informatics Center (NIC).
• It is also a robust system for bringing e-transparency and e-accountability with real-time presence and exchange among the key stakeholders.
• This platform is combined with the three latest technologies, that are-
• Video-conferencing
• Digital data management and
• Geo-spatial technology.
• It provides a unique combination for cooperative federalism. This is done by bringing the Chief Secretaries of the states and the Secretaries of the GOI on one platform.
• The PM can discuss the issues on the ground level situation with this platform. He can communicate with concerned State and Central officials with full information. Besides this, he can have the latest visuals of the information on the screen.
• Main features of PRAGATI platform:
• It works on a three-tier system.
• The Prime Minister will conduct a meeting every month. He will interact with secretaries and chief secretaries of the GOI via video conferencing.
• It is held every month on the Fourth Wednesday at 3.30 PM- known as PRAGATI Day.
• Issues to be flagged before the PM is picked up from the available database regarding public grievances, on-going Programmes, and pending projects.
• The system will ride on, strengthen, and re-engineer the data bases of the CPGRAMS for grievances, the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. PRAGATI provides an interface and platform for all these three aspects.
• It will also take into consideration various correspondences to the PM’s office by the common people or from high dignitaries of States and/or developers of public projects;
• The issues flagged are uploaded seven days prior to the PRAGATI day (i.e. on third Wednesday of every month). These issues can be viewed by the Union Government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries after entering into the application.
• Union Government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries will be able to see the issues pertaining to their Department /State.
• Union Government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries have to put their comments and updates about the flagged issues within three days (i.e. by next Monday).
• One day, Tuesday, is available to the PMO team to review the data entered by the Union Government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries.
• The design is such that when the PM reviews the issue, he should have on his screen the issue as well as the latest updates and visuals regarding the same.

Hence both statements are correct.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is set to make a strategic decision to bolster its acquisition of the Meteor missile.

About Meteor Missile:

• Meteor is a next-generation, active radar-guided, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) system. 
• It is manufactured by MBDA Systems for six European nations.
• It is capable of striking different types of targets simultaneously in almost any weather.
• Primary Operators: UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Sweden.
• Features:
• It has a length of 3.65m and a diameter of 0.178m. 
• It has a combat range of 200 km.
• Designed for a speed greater than Mach 4, the missile has a large no-escape zone.
• It is powered by a solid-fuel variable-flow ducted rocket (ramjet). It provides the Meteor missile with the capability to maintain consistent high speeds.
• Its ramjet air-breathing engine allows the missile to adjust its velocity based on its target’s manoeuvres.
• The missile is equipped with a blast-fragmentation warhead.
• The missile system is installed with an active radar target seeker, offering high reliability in the detection, tracking, and classification of targets.
• It is equipped with a two-way datalink, which allows the launch platform to provide updates on targets or re-targeting when the missile is in flight.
• The datalink is capable of transmitting information such as kinematic status. It also notifies the target acquisition by the seeker.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently flagged off the inaugural run of Vande Bharat Express from Dehradun to Delhi. It is the 17th Vande Bharat Express train to the nation. 

• Vande Bharat Express, earlier named as Train 18, is India's fastest indigenous train which has been built by the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai under the Government’s Make in India.
• Timeline: It was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi between New Delhi and Varanasi on February 15, 2019 and is running with no reported issues in the last six months.
• It is India's first semi-high-speed train which will run from Delhi to Varanasi, with halts at Kanpur and Allahabad, at a maximum speed of 160 kmph by covering the distance in 8 hours.
• It is equipped with world class passenger amenities like On-board wifi entertainment, GPS based passenger information system, CCTVs, bio-vacuum toilets, rotating chairs in executive class, etc.
• The express will have two travel classes: executive and chair car, similar to the Shatabdi.
• Further, it has intelligent braking system with power regeneration for better energy efficiency thereby making it cost, energy and environment efficient.
• It is also the first locomotive-less train in the country.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Union Minister of Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi will inaugurate the first Mining Start-up Summit in Mumbai on 29th of May. 

• The summit is being organized by the Ministry of Mines in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
• The Summit will be mainly focusing on innovation and techniques that will support and improve the performance, safety and help in building autonomy in the field of mining and metallurgy.
• The summit will also be focusing on interaction with leading industries in the mineral exploration sector, financial institutions and banks.
• More than 120 start-ups and 20 major industries will be participating in the Summit.
• During the event, Ministry of Mines will interact with the start-ups in the field of Mining and Metallurgy and how these start-ups equipped with different technology can contribute in the activities of mining sector.

Hence both statements are correct.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed happiness over India’s longest sea bridge Mumbai Trans Harbour Link. 

• This 22-kilometer long 6-lane sea bridge from Sewri to Nhava in Mumbai will ensure Seamless, direct connectivity between South Mumbai and Raigad.
• The bridge will also reduce distance between Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Raigad, Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Mumbai-Goa Highway, and save one hour travel time including fuel and transportation cost.

Hence both statements are correct.