UPSC 2017: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz July 09 - 15

Drugs are used to treat H1N1. Oseltamivir and Zanamivir are antiviral drugs that block the actions of influenza virus types A and B in the body. While Oseltamivir is available as tablets, Zanamivir comes in powder form.

Global institutions like the World Bank, IMF, WTO, OECD, ILO, WHO and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) are among the partners to the G20.

Mosul is in Iraq. Recently it was freed from the ISIS by the Iraqi security forces.

The G20 Hamburg Action Plan sets out the group’s strategy for achieving strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.

• A nation’s ranking on the index is based on the average of 10 subindices:
• Starting a business – Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
• Dealing with construction permits – Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse
• Getting electricity – procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed warehouse
• Registering property – Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate
• Getting credit – Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index
• Protecting investors – Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits
• Paying taxes – Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross profit
• Trading across borders – Number of documents, cost and time necessary to export and import
• Enforcing contracts – Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
• Resolving insolvency – The time, cost and recovery rate (%) under bankruptcy proceeding

• GIBs, listed as critically endangered under the wildlife Act, 1972 and under IUCN’s Red data book
• Great Indian Bustard breeding centre to be set up in Kota- India’s first captive breeding centre for Great Indian Bustards (GIBs) — Rajasthan’s state bird — will be set up at Sorsan in Kota district, and a hatchery centre at Nokh in Jaisalmer.

Mission Raftaar: It targets doubling of average speeds of freights trains and increasing the average speed of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years.

The prohibition of cow slaughter is also one of the Directive Principles of State Policy contained in Article 48 of the Constitution. It reads, “The State shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle.”

The “Preservation, protection and improvement of stock and prevention of animal diseases, veterinary training and practice” is Entry 15 of the State List of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, meaning that State Legislatures have exclusive powers to legislate the prevention of slaughter and preservation of cattle.

Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs

• The Moolam boat race commemorates an episode associated with the installation of the idol of Lord Krishna at the Ambalappuzha Sri Krishna temple
• The annual race falls on Moolam star in the month of Mithunam in the Malayalam calendar.

The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide). Liquid propane, which expands into a gas, has also been used.

• Swayam Prabha — a project for telecasting “high-quality educational programmes” through 32 DTH channels
• School education (9-12 levels): modules for teacher’s training as well as teaching and learning aids for children of India to help them understand the subjects better and also help them in preparing for competitive examinations for admissions to professional degree programmes.

The second statement is incorrect. Attorney General holds the office during the pleasure of the president, while solicitor general is appointed and removed by central government.

The Ibādat Khāna was a meeting house built in 1575 CE by the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) at Fatehpur Sikri to gather spiritual leaders of different religious grounds so as to conduct a discussion on the teachings of the respective religious leaders.

• The Sargasso Sea is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre.Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries. It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its characteristic brown Sargassum seaweed and often calm blue water.
• The sea is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream, on the north by the North Atlantic Current, on the east by the Canary Current, and on the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current, a clockwise-circulating system of ocean currents termed the North Atlantic Gyre.
• It lies between 70º and 40º W, and 20º to 35º N, and is approximately 1,100 km wide by 3,200 km long (700 by 2,000 statute miles).[5][6] Bermuda is near the western fringes of the sea.
• All the currents deposit the marine plants and refuse they carry into this sea, yet the ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue color and exceptional clarity, with underwater visibility of up to 61 m (200 ft).It is also a body of water that has captured the public imagination, and so is seen in a wide variety of literary and artistic works and in popular culture.

The presence of elevated levels of arsenic in groundwater has become a major concern around the world, especially in South Asia. Up to date, there is no effective treatment for curing health impacts due to the intake of high levels of arsenic. A wide range of technologies has been developed for the removal of high concentrations of arsenic from drinking water. The most common arsenic removal technologies use oxidation, coagulation, precipitation adsorption, ion exchange and membrane techniques. Other potential approaches would include phytoremediation or the use of bacteria, which can play an important role in catalysing biological arsenic removal processes. All the arsenic treatment technologies ultimately concentrate arsenic in the sorption media, the residual sludge or in a liquid media. To avoid indiscriminate disposal and environmental pollution, these wastes need to be treated or disposed of properly.

• Cash crops like cotton and Sugarcane were known as Jins-i-Kamil or Jins-i-Ala. Cotton was produced mostly in Khandesh and Bengal.

• Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana will be implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development.

• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries, founded in 1960 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.
• So, it is not an UN agency.
• It is a forum of countries describing themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seeking answers to common problems, identify good practices and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) and are regarded as developed countries.
• It’s head quarter is at Paris, France.

Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) is a tax avoidance strategy used by multinational companies, wherein profits are shifted from jurisdictions that have high taxes (such as the United States and many Western European countries) to jurisdictions that have low (or no) taxes (so-called tax havens).

• Combustible ice is a frozen mixture of water and concentrated natural gas
• Technically known as methane hydrate, it can be lit on fire in its frozen state
• It is believed to comprise one of the world’s most abundant fossil fuels.

he Walled City of Ahmedabad, founded by Sultan Ahmed Shah in the 15th century, has been declared India’s first World Heritage City.

• DeepMind is by Google. It is engaged in artificial intelligence research, “and its application for positive impact”.
• Google’s DeepMind AlphaGo artificial intelligence has defeated the world’s number one Go player Ke Jie. AlphaGo secured the victory after winning the second game in a three-part match.
• “Go” is considered to be one of the world’s most complex games, and is much more challenging for computers than chess.
• AlphaGo has built up its expertise by studying older matches and playing thousands of games against itself. The company says the eventual plan is to deploy its artificial intelligence “in areas of medicine and science”.

• Scientists found that Concrete surfaces can help tackle air pollution as it absorbs sulphur dioxide — a major pollutant.

Malabar Exercise 2017 Participants: naval forces of India, Japan and the United States.

The role of rajya sabha in parliament and legislative council in state with respect to money bills is immaterial.

• A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter began transmitting data and images on Tuesday from humanity’s closest brush with the Great Red Spot, a flyby of the colossal, crimson storm that has fascinated Earth-bound observers for hundreds of years.
• The churning cyclone ranks as the largest known storm in the solar system, measuring about 16,000 km in diameter with winds clocked at hundreds of miles (km) an hour around its outer edges. It appears as a deep, red orb surrounded by layers of pale yellow, orange and white.
• The red spot has been continuously monitored from Earth since about 1830, though observations believed to have been of the same feature date back more than 350 years.
• System shrinking: Once wide enough to swallow three Earth-sized planets, the famed Jovian weather system has been shrinking for the past 100 years and may eventually disappear altogether.

• The Golan Heights also called the Golan or the Syrian Golan. The Golan Heights is a basaltic plateau bordered by the Yarmouk River in the south, the Sea of Galilee and Hula Valley in the west, Mount Hermon in the north, and the Raqqad Wadi in the east. The western two thirds of this region are currently occupied by Israel, whereas the eastern third is controlled by Syria.

• Changu Lake is a glacial lake in the East Sikkim, located around 40 kilometres away from capital Gangtok at elevation of 3,780 m.

 Santhara is the Jain religious ritual of voluntary death by fasting.