UPSC 2022: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz Mar 05 - Mar 11

All the statements are correct.

• Under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, both Indian and foreign nationals can be charged.
• It will be applicable to the offenders in the same manner, even if the crime is committed on foreign land, outside India.
• It includes the provision of designating an individual as a terrorist.
• Cases under the UAPA are investigated by the State police and the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

• The Union Cabinet has approved the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Nidhi (PMSSN).
• The new fund collected from the proceeds of Health and Education Cess would function as a single non-lapsable reserve fund for health.
• In the 2018 Budget, the Central government announced the replacement of the existing 3% Education Cess by 4% Health and Education Cess.
• The administration and maintenance of the PMSSN is entrusted to the Health Ministry.
• The major benefits of PMSSN will be the enhanced access to universal and affordable health care through the availability of earmarked resources, while ensuring that the amount does not lapse at the end of the financial year.

• The Salt March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi. The twenty-four-day march lasted between March and April in 1930. The march spanned almost 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. It marked a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.
• On 6 April 1919, Mahatma Gandhi started a non-violent Satyagraha against the unjust Rowlatt Act passed by the British government.
• On 8 August 1942, at the All-India Congress Committee session in Bombay, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi launched the ‘Quit India’ movement.
• The Champaran Satyagraha of 1917 was the first Satyagraha movement led by Gandhi in India and is considered a historically important revolt in the Indian Independence Movement. It was a farmers’ uprising that took place in the Champaran district of Bihar, India, during the British colonial period.

The Navy recently inducted the third Scorpene class conventional diesel-electric submarine, INS Karanj, into service. The Scorpene-class submarines are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines. It features diesel propulsion and additional air-independent propulsion (AIP).

The country’s biggest floating solar power plant till date, by generation capacity, is being developed by the NTPC in the reservoir of its thermal plant at Ramagundam in Peddapalli district, Telangana. This plant has a generation capacity of about 100 megawatts.

• Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deal with defamation in India.
• The Supreme Court in the Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India case has ruled that the criminal provisions of defamation are constitutionally valid and are not in conflict with the right to free speech.
• The Court held that Section 499 is not an excessive restriction under Article 19(2). It held that society is a collection of individuals, and what affects individuals also affects society as a whole. Hence, it held that it is valid to treat defamation as a public wrong. It held that criminal defamation is not a disproportionate restriction on free speech, because the protection of reputation is a fundamental right as well as a human right.
• The Court reaffirmed the right to reputation as a part of the right to life under Article 21. Using the principle of ‘balancing of fundamental rights’, the court held that the right to freedom and speech and expression cannot be “allowed so much room that even reputation of an individual which is a constituent of Article 21 would have no entry into that area”.

• India and Japan are working on a joint lunar polar exploration (LUPEX) mission.
• The Lunar Polar Exploration mission is a robotic lunar mission concept by the Indian Space Research Organisation and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency that would send a lunar rover and lander to explore the South Pole region of the Moon in 2024.

Advantages of hydrogen as a fuel:

• Hydrogen has the highest energy content of any common fuel by weight.
• Its usage can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus help improve environmental quality. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe and despite the challenges associated with its extraction from water, it is a uniquely abundant and renewable source of energy, perfect for our future zero-carbon needs for combined heat and power supplies. Hydrogen can be produced from diverse domestic resources with the potential for near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Challenges in using hydrogen as a fuel:

• Hydrogen’s energy content by volume is low. This makes storing hydrogen a challenge because it requires high pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be stored compactly. Because hydrogen has a lower volumetric energy density than gasoline, storing this much hydrogen on a vehicle currently requires a larger tank at a higher pressure than other gaseous fuels.
• Hydrogen has a wide range of flammable concentrations in air and lower ignition energy than gasoline or natural gas, which means it can ignite more easily.

Meenakshi temple in Madurai is based on the Nayaka school of architecture.

• The Supreme Court has directed that independent persons and not bureaucrats should be appointed State Election Commissioners.
• Courts cannot interfere in the conduct of polls to local bodies and self-government institutions once the electoral process has been set in motion.
• Constitution bars interference in poll matters set in motion by the SECs and EC.
• Only after the polls are over can the SECs’ decisions or conduct be questioned through an election petition.
• The State Election Commissioner is appointed by the Governor.
• However, the State Election Commissioners can only be removed by impeachment.

• Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework is a framework under which banks with weak financial metrics are put under watch by the RBI.
• The Reserve Bank has specified certain regulatory trigger points, as a part of prompt corrective action (PCA) framework, in terms of three parameters, i.e. capital to risk weighted assets ratio (CRAR), net non-performing assets (NPA) and Return on Assets (RoA), for initiation of certain structured and discretionary actions in respect of banks hitting such trigger points.
• The PCA framework is applicable only to commercial banks and not extended to co-operative banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).

• Desert flag is a multi­national exercise hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• It is an annual multi-national large force employment warfare exercise.

• Ayya Vaikunda Swamikal (1809-1851) was a great thinker and social reformer of the 19th century.
• Being the founder of ‘Samathwa Samajam’, an early socio-reform movement in India (1836), Ayya Vaikundar is considered as the pioneer of such revolutionary movements in India.
• He was the first to install a mirror for worshipping in South India.
• He was the exponent of a new path of spiritual thoughts named ‘Ayya Vazhi’.
• His said, ‘One caste, One religion, One clan, One world, One God’.
• He led an agitation known as the Mel Mundu Samaram.
• The Self-Respect Movement was founded in 1921. It was not started by Ayya Vaikunda Swamikal.

• The Mudumalai National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary also a declared tiger reserve, lies on the northwestern side of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu, India. It shares its boundaries with the states of Karnataka and Kerala.
• The protected area is home to several endangered and vulnerable species including Indian elephant, Bengal tiger, gaur and Indian leopard. There are at least 266 species of birds in the sanctuary, including critically endangered Indian white-rumped vulture and long-billed vulture.
• The Western Ghats Nilgiri Sub-Cluster of 6,000 square kilometres including all of Mudumalai National Park, is under consideration by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for selection as a World Heritage Site.

• The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The UNHRC has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of UNHRC is in Geneva, Switzerland.
• The UNHRC was established by the UN General Assembly to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights. The UNHRC works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and engages the UN’s special procedures.

Self-explanatory

• Singhori Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Madhya Pradesh.
• Project Tiger was launched in Jim Corbett National Park of Uttarakhand in 1973.

• SIG-716 assault rifles are American LMG.
• Light Machine Guns (LMGs) are designed to be employed by an individual soldier, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon.

• National Population Register is a register of usual residents of the country.
• NPR is different from both the decennial census and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
• The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.
• It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.
• For the purpose of the NPR, a usual resident is defined as a person who has resided in a local area for six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
• The NPR earlier collated in 2010 and 2015 has an electronic database of more than 119 crore residents.

• India-Uzbek joint exercise Dustlik-II commenced at Ranikhet (Uttarakhand).
• It is named after Dustlik, a town in the Jizzakh region of Uzbekistan.
• This is the Second Edition of the annual bilateral joint exercise of both armies.
• The first edition was held in Uzbekistan in 2019.

• The Mullaperiyar Dam is a masonry gravity dam on the Periyar River in the Indian state of Kerala.
• The dam is located in Kerala on the river Periyar, but is operated and maintained by Tamil Nadu state.
• The dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu states is because of the control and safety of the dam and the validity and fairness of the lease agreement. The dispute began in 1998 when Tamil Nadu wanted to raise the height of the water level and Kerala opposed it.

The World Energy Transitions Outlook is brought out by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

All the statements are correct.

• Appropriation Bill is a money bill that allows the government to withdraw funds from the Consolidated Fund of India to meet its expenses during the course of a financial year.
• The government can withdraw money from the Consolidated Fund only after receiving approval from Parliament.
• The Appropriation bill is introduced in the lower house of the parliament after discussions on Budget proposals and Voting on Demand for Grants.
• The Appropriation Bill is first passed by the Lok Sabha and then sent to the Rajya Sabha.
• Since India subscribes to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, the defeat of an Appropriation Bill in a parliamentary vote would necessitate resignation of a government.

• The supplementary nutrition programme and the Poshan Abhiyaan under the Women and Child Development Ministry have been merged to launch Mission Poshan 2.0 to strengthen nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcome, according to the Union Budget 2021-22.
• POSHAN 2.0 is an umbrella scheme covering the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), Anganwadi Services, Scheme For Adolescent Girls and National Creche Scheme.
• It does not include One-Stop Centre, Mahila Police Volunteer, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Women’s helpline and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. These come under Mission Shakti.

Both are correct.

The National Skill Development Mission is under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

• Article 201 of the Indian Constitution allows the Governor to reserve bills for the consideration of the President.
• Notably, the time limit within which the President has to make a decision with regard to such a reserved bill is not mentioned in the Constitution.

• “Cartel” includes an association of producers, sellers, distributors, traders or service providers who, by agreement amongst themselves, limit, control or attempt to control the production, distribution, sale or price of, or, trade in goods or provision of services;
  • directly or indirectly determining purchase or sale prices;
  • limiting or controlling production, supply, markets, technical development, investment or provision of services;
  • sharing the market or source of production or provision of services by way of allocation of geographical areas of the market, types of goods or services or number of customers in the market, or in any other similar way; or
  • directly or indirectly resulting in bid-rigging or collusive bidding.
• Prices controlled by the government under a law is not cartelization.
• The Competition Commission is responsible for enforcing the cartel laws in India. Both companies and individuals can be prosecuted under the Competition Act.