UPSC 2017 Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: Mar 26 - April 01

Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) is a nonprofit organisation formed to create a platform for all the concerned parties i.e. stakeholders, government, taxpayers to collaborate on a single portal. The portal will be accessible to the central government which will track down every transaction on its end while the taxpayers will be having a vast service to return file their taxes and maintain the details.

A dwarf planet is an object in orbit around the Sun that is large enough (massive enough) to have its own gravity pull itself into a round (or nearly round) shape. Generally, a dwarf planet is smaller than Mercury. A dwarf planet may also orbit in a zone that has many other objects in it. For example, an orbit within the asteroid belt is in a zone with lots of other objects.

At present there are five dwarf planets- Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.

“US based NGOs are financing the protests KundanKullam Nuke Power Plant.”.So Home ministry got in action, bank accounts of some NGOs were frozen after it was found that they were diverting money received from their donors abroad into funding protests at the Koodankulam plant.

Aadhaar is a 12 digit unique-identity number issued to all Indian residents based on their biometric and demographic data.

Aadhaar is not a proof of citizenship.

“For many years, scientists believed that nothing could ever escape from a black hole — not even light. However, in 1974, Stephen Hawking suggested particles, that are now called Hawking radiation, could escape black holes.”

“According to him if a particle and its antimatter appeared spontaneously at the edge of a black hole, one of the pair might be pulled into the black hole while the other escaped, taking some of the energy from the black hole with it. This would explain why black holes grow smaller and eventually disappear. However, since such emissions are feeble, no one has been able to measure Hawking radiation. Researchers have instead tried to build virtual black holes in labs to test the theory.”

Water in 320 of the nation’s 640 locale is defiled by chemicals like fluoride, arsenic, and substantial metals like chromium and lead

Competition Commission of India is a statutory body of the Government of India responsible for enforcing The Competition Act, 2002 throughout India and to prevent activities that have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India. It was established on 14 October 2003.

Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB) is a rare type of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) that is resistant to isoniazid and rifampin, plus any fluoroquinolone and at least one of three injectable second-line drugs (i.e., amikacin, kanamycin, or capreomycin). MDR TB is caused by an organism that is resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin, the two most potent TB drugs.

Niche Construction – the phenomenon by which evolving organisms modify their environment, which in turn increases or decreases their own survival rate – has become much talked about in the literature. Proponents of this theory have argued that it has been neglected in the Standard Evolutionary Theory, which therefore needs a major overhauling. This has been debunked in the paper by the authors.

Proponents of niche construction use the following examples often: The use of lactose to feed adult humans – which is believed to have evolved along with cattle husbandry – and the high incidence of sickle cell anaemia in populations where there is a prevalence of malaria, due to yam cultivation.

Bacteria form biofilms, a kind of matrix, during infection in plants and animals. The biofilm shields the bacteria from antibiotics and helps bacteria survive harsh conditions such as extreme temperature or stress.

The Mental Healthcare Bill 2016 provides for mental healthcare and services for persons with mental illness, and also decriminalises suicide.

The bill ensures every person shall have a right to access mental health care and treatment from mental health services run or funded by the appropriate government. It also assures free treatment for such persons if they are homeless or poor, even if they do not possess a Below Poverty Line card.

One of the clauses in the bill decriminalises suicide, stating that a person who attempts suicide should be presumed to have severe stress, and shall not be punished.

The Union IT Minister Ravishankar Prasad has recently launched “Digidhan Abhiyan” to enable every citizen, small traders and merchants to adopt digital payments in their everyday financial transactions. During the campaign, citizens will be informed about various modes of digital payments by educating them to download, install and transact digital payments.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a proposed system of indirect taxation in India merging most of the existing taxes into single system of taxation. It was introduced as The Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act 2016.

GST bill is constitutional bill requiring assent of more than half of the states.

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(17)(H). It allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status to another non-immigrant status, find another employer (subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa), or leave the U.S. Effective January 17, 2017, USCIS modified the rules to allow a grace period of up to 60 days.

Ministry of Food Processing Industries has been constantly involved in setting up new cold chain infrastructure which has both cold storage and processing facilities.

MoFPI is building National Cold Chain Grid in the country so that all food producing hubs are connected to cold storage and processing industries.

Article 263:Provisions with respect to an inter State Council : If any any time it appears to the President that the public interests would be served by the establishment of a Council charged with the duty of

(a) inquiring into and advising upon disputes which may have arisen between States;

(b) investigating and discussing subjects in which some or all of the States, or the Union and one or more of the States, have a common interest; or

(c) making recommendations upon any such subject and, in particular, recommendations for the better co ordination of policy and action with respect to that subject, in shall be lawful for the President by order to establish such a Council, and to define the nature of the duties to be performed by it and its organisation and procedure PART XII FINANCE, PROPERTY, CONTRACTS AND SUITS CHAPTER I FINANCE General.

Members: The Inter State Council composes of the following members:

Prime Minister, Chairman.

Chief Ministers of states and union territories.

Administrators of union territories.

Six members of Cabinet rank.

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA): The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an intergovernmental association to advance reception and practical utilization of sustainable power source. The organization is headquartered in Abu Dhabi.

Bharat stage emission standards’ are emission standards instituted by the Government of India to regulate the output of air pollutants from internal combustion engine equipment, including motor vehicles. The standards and the timeline for implementation are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment & Forests and climate change.

The standards, based on European regulations were first introduced in 2000. Progressively stringent norms have been rolled out since then. All new vehicles manufactured after the implementation of the norms have to be compliant with the regulations. Since October 2010, Bharat Stage (BS) III norms have been enforced across the country. In 13 major cities, Bharat Stage IV emission norms have been in place since April 2010. In 2016, the Indian government announced that the country would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the regulator for the securities market in India. It was established in the year 1988 and given statutory powers on 30 January 1992 through the SEBI Act, 1992.

Preferential Trade Agreement – Tariff liberalisation on a limited number of lines;

Free Trade Agreement – Elimination of Tariffs on items covering substantial bilateral trade between the (FTA) partner countries;

Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement – CECA or CEPA or BTIA terms are used to describe Agreements which consist of an integrated package of Agreement on Goods, Services, Investment, Mutual Recognition, Intellectual Property, etc.

The Act makes education a fundamental right of every child between the ages of 6 and 14 and specifies minimum norms in elementary schools.

 It requires all private schools(except the minority institutions) to reserve 25% of seats for the poor and other categories of children (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan).

The G20 (or G-20 or Group of Twenty) is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies.

It seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization. The G20 heads of government or heads of state have periodically conferred at summits since their initial meeting in 2008, and the group also hosts separate meetings of finance ministers and central bank governors.

Currently Germany is holding the presidency of the group.

The major function of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is to review economic trends on a continuous basis, as also the problems and prospects, with a view to evolving a consistent and integrated economic policy framework for the country. It also directs and coordinates all policies and activities in the economic field including foreign investment that require policy decisions at the highest level. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has been constituted with the Prime Minister as Chairman.

• Located in Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh
• It is the largest monastery in India and second largest in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.
• It is situated in the valley of the Tawang River, Arunachal Pradesh, in close proximity to the Tibetan and Bhutanese border.
• Tawang Monastery is known in Tibetan as Galden Namgey Lhatse, which translates to “celestial paradise in a clear night.“
• Of all the festivals celebrated in the monastery, Torgya is the most elaborate and colorful.