UPSC 2023: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz Aug 13 - Aug 19

Coordinated Horticulture Assessment and Management using geo-iNformatics (CHAMAN) is a pioneer project to provide strategic development to the horticulture sector in order to increase farmer’s income.
The project was launched for crop production forecasting of horticulture crops.
The seven crops assessed under the project are Potato, Onion, Tomato, Chilli, Mango, Banana and Citrus.

• The Battle of Pollilur and the Battle of Porto Novo were fought in 1781 as a part of the Second Anglo-Mysore War.
• It was as per the Treaty of Srirangapatnam signed after the Third Anglo-Mysore War that Tipu Sultan had to surrender two of his sons as surety to the British till he paid the war indemnity as agreed upon in the treaty.
• Mysore entered into a Subsidiary Alliance with the British after the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.

• The scheme was launched to provide free electricity connections to all households (both APL and poor families) in rural areas and poor families in urban areas.
• Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) is the nodal agency for the scheme.
• Beneficiary households for free electricity connections under the scheme are identified using SECC 2011 data.

Read more: Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana – Saubhagya Scheme

All of the given options are applications of Coir geo-textiles.

• Kurds are an Iranian ethnic group that is native to southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.
• The term Madheshi people is used for people of Indian ancestry residing in the Terai of Nepal.
• The Rohingya people predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State in Myanmar.

• Project HIMANK is a project of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in the Ladakh region, that started in August 1985.
• Under the Himank project, BRO is responsible for the construction and maintenance of roads and related infrastructure in Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), including some of the world’s highest motorable roads across the Khardung La, Tanglang La and Chang La passes.
• Now Umling La is the highest motorable road on Earth with a height of 19300 feet.
• Himank project ensures access to sensitive military areas including the world’s highest battleground at the Siachen Glacier and Pangong Tso Lake whose waters span the de facto India-China border.

• The Anaimalai Flying Frog is found in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the Western Ghats of India in the tropical evergreen forests. It is endemic to the southern part of the Western Ghats.
• It is also called the false Malabar gliding frog.
• As a semi-arboreal species of frog, the Anaimalai Flying Frog is found in the lower canopy and under story levels of the forests.
• Its IUCN status is Critically Endangered.

• Sand is a minor mineral under the Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, 1957.
• The Mines and Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, 1957 empowers the State Governments to make rules for regulating the grant of minor mineral concessions.
• Central Government is the owner of the minerals underlying the ocean within the territorial waters or the Exclusive Economic Zone of India.

• Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (NavIC) is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary.
• It was developed in India by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its commercial wing ANTRIX.
• ISRO has built a total of nine satellites in the IRNSS series; of which eight are currently in orbit, three of these satellites are in Geostationary Orbit (GEO) while the remaining in Geosynchronous Orbits (GSO).

In India, commercial banks have the highest share in the disbursement of credit to agriculture and allied activities.

The EOS-03 is a state-of-the-art agile satellite that will enable real-time monitoring of natural disasters, water bodies, crops, forest cover changes, among others.

• Agalega Island is a remote Mauritian island in the south-western Indian Ocean.
• Gaadhoo is one of the inhabited islands of Laamu Atoll in the Maldives.

• Banerji was the founder of one of India’s first political organizations, the Indian National Association in 1876 in association with Anandmohan Bose.
• Banerji published the newspaper ‘The Bengalee’.
• Banerji supported the Morley-Minto reforms in 1909 but was a critic of the proposed method of civil disobedience advocated by Mahatma Gandhi.

• The most popular festival of the Jaintia tribe, Behdienkhlam is celebrated in the month of July for good health, property and bumper harvest in Meghalaya. Although Behdienkhlam is celebrated all over the Jaintia hills, the main spectacle happens in the town of Jowai.

• Introducing new welfare schemes will entail additional expenditure for the government.
• Reducing import duty will result in the reduction of revenue inflow for the government.
• Hence these two measures will only increase the deficit for the government and not decrease it.

• The World Food Programme (WFP) is an international organization that works in the field of hunger alleviation and food security.
• UN World Food Programme was launched in 1961.
• It is headquartered in Rome, Italy.
• It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.
• Its priority is to achieve Sustainable Development Goal -2 i.e, Zero Hunger by 2030.

Read more World Food Programme (WFP) Wins Nobel Peace Prize 2020

• Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore founded the ‘Indian Society of Oriental Art’.
• Victory of Buddha, My Mother, Bharatmata are among his famous paintings.
• ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’ was written by Abanindranath Tagore’s uncle Rabindranath Tagore during the partition of Bengal in 1905.

The Tigray Region in Ethiopia borders Sudan and Eritrea.

• Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA), initiated under Digital India Programme, would cover 6 crore households in rural areas to make them digitally literate.
• This would empower the citizens by providing them access to information, knowledge and skills for operating computers/digital access devices.
• The scheme is applicable only for rural areas of the country.
• The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Electronics, Information and Technology.
• All households where none of the family members is digitally literate will be considered eligible households under the Scheme. One member in the age group between 14-60 years from such a household can enroll himself/herself as a beneficiary under the scheme.

Wanna Cry, Petya and Eternal Blue are related to cyber-attacks.

• Dara Shikoh was the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.
• Dara Shikoh was known for his tolerance and academic aspects.
  • He authored the work The Confluence of the Two Seas (Majma-ul-Bahrain),which is a comparative study of Vedanta and Sufism and he argues for the harmony of Sufi philosophy in Islam and Vedanta philosophy in Hinduism.
  • He completed the translation of Upanishads from their original Sanskrit into Persian in 1657 so that they could be studied by Muslim scholars. His translation is often called Sirr-i-Akbar.
  • Dara Shikoh also translated  Bhagavad-gita into Persian.
• Italian traveller Niccolao Manucci’s ‘Travels of Manucci’ has a graphic description of Dara Shikoh’s burial.
• Alamgirnama is the court history of Emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707) written by Mirza Muhammad Qazim.

• The twin Keck Observatory telescopes sit atop Maunakea on Hawai’i, and are the world’s most scientifically productive optical and infrared telescopes. Each telescope weighs 300 tons and operates with nanometer precision.
• The W. M. Keck Foundation (U.S. based) funded both the original Keck I telescope and six years later, its twin, Keck II.

• The PM-DAKSH Yojana is a National Action Plan for skilling of marginalized persons covering SCs, OBCs, EBCs, Sanitation workers. It includes up-skilling/reskilling, short term training programme, long term training programme and entrepreneurship development program.
• It is being implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

• Puanchei shaw- Mizoram
• Ilkal Sarees- Karnataka

Guar gum is derived from guar seeds, a legume crop that grows in semi-arid regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana. Drilling companies use it to thicken water that is mixed with sand and pumped through shale rock cracks to extract gas.

Kunduz, Sar-e-pul and Taloqan are all provincial capital cities in Afghanistan.

• Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a scheme of the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas for providing LPG connections to women from Below Poverty Line (BPL) households. Identification of the BPL families will be done through Socio-Economic Caste Census Data.
• The Scheme provides financial support for each LPG connection to the BPL households, interest-free loan to purchase stoves and refills by Oil Marketing Companies.

• Also referred to as the 8888 Uprising, the 1988 pro-democracy uprising was a series of nationwide protests and marches in Myanmar that peaked in August 1988.

Evia is an island in Greece.

• The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) examines the audit reports submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India before the President who lays it before each house of the Indian Parliament.
• The Public Accounts Committee scrutinizes appropriation and finance accounts of the Government. That public expenditure is not only examined from a legal and formal point of view to discover technical irregularities but also from the point of view of the economy, prudence, wisdom, and propriety.
• The committee has 22 members, 15 from Lok Sabha (Lower House) and 7 members from Rajya Sabha.
• The members of PAC are elected from the Parliament every year with proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote. The Speaker appoints the chairperson from amongst the members. As a convention, the chairperson has been from the opposition party.