UPSC 2023: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz Mar 11 - Mar 17

The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD), Govt of India is monitoring the entire implementation of this scheme in association with state governments.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a statutory authority and a government department, established in 2016 by the Government of India under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, following the provisions of the Aadhaar Act 2016.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act was enacted in 2003 which set targets for the government to reduce fiscal deficits. The targets were put off several times. In May 2016, the government set up a committee under NK Singh to review the FRBM Act.
The committee recommends that the Centre’s debt-to-GDP ratio be reduced from 49.4 per cent in 2016-17 to 40 per cent by 2022-23.

• Foreign funding of persons in India is regulated under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act and is implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• As per the provisions of the act, organisations are required to register themselves to be able to receive foreign funding.
• As per the recent amendments to the act, foreign contributions must be received only in an account designated by the bank as FCRA account in such branches of the State Bank of India only.

• The Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA) is a mission planned that uses three separate, but not independent, interferometers installed in three spacecraft located at the corners of a triangle with sides of some 5 million km (3 million miles). This mission is to be carried out jointly by NASA and ESA. A mission to test the technology for eLISA, LISA Pathfinder, was launched by ESA in 2015.
• This is stationed around the L1 point between the Earth and the Sun which is nearly 1.5 million km away from the Earth. The aim of the mission is to demonstrate the technology needed to establish a space-based observatory to study gravitational waves.

• Khabar Lahariya is an Indian newspaper, published in various rural dialects of Hindi, including Bundeli, Avadhi and Bajjika dialects. The newspaper focuses on gender and education.
• Beginning from the rural villages of Uttar Pradesh, Lahariya profoundly voiced out the issues of their community through a feminist perspective irrespective of class, caste, or religion.
• Khabar Lahariya is India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women.

• Nuclear fusion is considered safer than nuclear fission. Nuclear fission power plants have the disadvantage of generating unstable nuclei; some of these are radioactive for millions of years. Fusion on the other hand does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste. A fusion reactor produces helium, which is an inert gas.
• Also, fusion energy production is not based on a chain reaction, as is fission. Plasma must be kept at very high temperatures with the support of external heating systems and confined by an external magnetic field. Every shift or change of the working configuration in the reactor causes the cooling of plasma or the loss of its containment; in such a case, the reactor would automatically come to a halt within a few seconds, since the process of energy production is arrested, with no effects taking place on the outside. For this reason, fusion reactors are considered to be inherently safe.

• Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous organization of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
• INCOIS is mandated to provide ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and through systematic and focused research.

• The ASEAN Declaration or Bangkok Declaration is the founding document of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It was signed in Bangkok in 1967 by the five ASEAN founding members, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
• India has set up a separate Mission to ASEAN and the EAS in Jakarta in April 2015 with a dedicated Ambassador to strengthen engagement.

• The Major Rock Edicts of Ashoka refer to 14 separate major Edicts, which are significantly detailed and extensive.
• 12th Rock Edict read: Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, honours both ascetics and the householders of all religions, and he honours them with gifts and honours of various kinds. But Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, does not value gifts and honours as much as he values this — that there should be growth in the essentials of all religions. Growth in essentials can be done in different ways, but all of them have as their root restraint in speech, that is, not praising one’s own religion, or condemning the religion of others without good cause. And if there is cause for criticism, it should be done in a mild way.

• The Bosphorus Strait is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey. It connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara.

• One Ocean Summit is being organised by France, in cooperation with the United Nations and the World Bank.
• The objective of the Summit is to mobilise the international community to take tangible action towards preserving and supporting healthy and sustainable ocean ecosystems.
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is the UN agency in charge of ocean sciences. Founded in 1960, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), brings together 150 countries, coordinates global programmes such as ocean mapping, ocean health monitoring and tsunami risk prevention, as well as numerous scientific research projects. The agency is also the custodian of unique ocean places, through 232 marine biosphere reserves and 50 marine World Heritage sites of outstanding universal value.

• Madhvacharya was a Hindu philosopher and the chief proponent of the Dvaita school of Vedanta. Madhva called his philosophy Tattvavāda meaning “arguments from a realist viewpoint”. His name at birth was Vasudeva.
• Purandara Dasa is a prominent composer of Dasa Sahithya, a poetic form of the Madhwa philosophy
• Ramanuja’s Tamil name was Ilaya Perumal.

• The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) launched the Krishi UDAN scheme.
• Krishi UDAN Scheme was launched in August 2020, on international and national routes to assist farmers in transporting agricultural products so that it improves their value realisation.

• For the banks, the deposits represent the liabilities of the banks as they have to pay interest on it, while loans advanced and investments made by banks represent their assets as they help the banks earn interest.
• The deposit is a liability owed by the bank to the depositor.

• Koalas are arboreal (tree-dwelling) mammals found in higher densities where food trees are growing on more fertile soils and along watercourses. They are found in the wild in the southeast and eastern sides of Australia. Hence Statement 1 is correct.
• Its IUCN status is Vulnerable (NOT Critically Endangered). Hence Statement 2 is not correct.
• Koalas are mostly active at night (nocturnal) and around dawn and dusk. Hence Statement 3 is correct.

• The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index that indicates the performance of various industrial sectors of the Indian economy.
• It is calculated and published by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) every month. Hence Statement 1 is not correct.
• The previous base year was 2004 – 05. The new and current base year for IIP is 2011 – 12. Hence Statement 2 is not correct.

• ‘Milan’ is a biennial multilateral naval exercise hosted by the Indian Navy.
• It will see the participation of all major Navies including Quad countries, Russia and from West Asia amid tensions in Ukraine and developments in West Asia.
• Hence, Option D is correct.

• Sal is an important river of South Goa.
• It rises near Verna and flows for 35 km parallel to the coast where it meets the sea at Betul.

• The Climate-Smart Village project in India is a program of CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Hence Statement 1 is correct.
• CCFAS is carried out under CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) which is a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research about food security. Hence Statement 2 is correct.
• International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political public international research organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Hence Statement 3 is correct.

• SMILE stands for Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise.
• It provides welfare and rehabilitation to the transgender community and the people engaged in the act of begging. Hence Statement 1 is not correct.
• It is a Central Sector scheme which focuses on rehabilitation, provision of medical facilities, counseling, basic documentation, education, skill development, economic linkages etc. Hence Statement 2 is correct.
• The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has formulated SMILE. Hence Statement 3 is correct.

• The Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) was launched in 2014.
• FIPIC includes 14 of the island countries – Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
• India has announced a $150 million line of credit to the group of Pacific island nations for undertaking solar, renewable energy and climate related projects based on their requirements.
• The first FIPIC summit was held at the level of Heads of Government in 2014 in Suva, Fiji, followed by the FIPIC-II summit held in August 2015, in Jaipur, India.
• Hence, all the Statements are correct.

The Darknet is the hidden collective of internet sites only accessible by a specialized web browser.
It is used for keeping internet activity anonymous and private, which can be helpful in both legal and illegal applications.
While some use it to evade government censorship, it has also been known to be utilized for highly illegal activity.
TOR (“The Onion Router” project) network browser provides users access to visit websites with the “.onion” registry operator.
This browser is a service originally developed in the latter part of the 1990s by the United States Naval Research Laboratory.

• As per Article 12 of the Indian constitution, the “State” includes
  • the Government and Parliament of India
  • the Government and the Legislature of each of the States
  • all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India
• Hence Option D is correct.

• The Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959 states that Certain offices of profit not to disqualify. They are: –
  • any office held by a Minister, Minister of State or Deputy Minister for the Union or for any State
  • the office of Chief Whip, Deputy Chief Whip or Whip in Parliament or of a Parliamentary Secretary
  • the office of member of any force raised or maintained under the National Cadet Corps Act, 1948 (31 of 1948), the Territorial Army Act, 1948 (56 of 1948), or the Reserve and Auxiliary Air Forces Act, 1952 (62 of 1952);
  • the office of a member of a Home Guard constituted under any law for the time being in force in any State;
  • the office of sheriff in the city of Bombay, Calcutta or Madras;
  • the office of chairman or member of the syndicate, senate, executive committee, council or court of a university or any other body connected with a university;
  • the office of a member of any delegation or mission sent outside India by the Government for any special purpose;
  • the office of chairman or member of a committee, set up temporarily for the purpose of advising the Government
  • Hence Statement 1 is correct
• Parliament has amended the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, five times to expand the exempted list. Hence Statement 2 is correct
• Article 102(1) states that a person shall be disqualified for being a member of either House of Parliament if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State. But it is not defined in the constitution. Hence Statement 3 is correct.

• In the seventeenth century Masulipatnam was built by the Dutch. Hence Statement 1 is not correct.
• Chandannagar was established as a French colony in 1673. It was a trading post on the right bank of the river Hooghly. Hence Statement 2 is not correct.
• During the British Raj, Darjeeling’s temperate climate led to its development as a hill station for British residents. Hence Statement 3 is correct.

• Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary is a bird sanctuary in the Mandya District of the state of Karnataka in India.
• Kolleru Bird Sanctuary is a sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh, India.
• Karnala near Panvel is a sanctuary dedicated to birds in the state of Maharashtra.
• Hence, All the Statements are correct.

Know more about the List of Bird Sanctuaries in India.

• Egmont Group’s primary purpose is to help countries develop their national anti-money laundering systems.
• Egmont Group’s FIU information are businesses that are obliged to collect, analyze, and forward financial information regarding money laundering and terrorist financing to the relevant departments.
• Hence Option A is correct.

• An advanced persistent threat (APT) group dubbed ModifiedElephant has been responsible for widespread attacks targeting human rights activists and defenders, academics, journalists, and lawyers across India.
• Hence Option A is correct.

• A devaluation means there is a fall in the value of a currency. Devaluation also increases the debt burden of foreign-denominated loans when priced in the home currency.  Hence Statement 1 is correct.
• Devaluation of a currency decreases the foreign value of domestic currency. Hence Statement 2 is not correct.
• Devaluation reduces the cost of a country’s exports which increases the cost of imports. Thus, a country that devalues its currency can reduce its deficit because there is greater demand for cheaper exports. Hence Statement 3 is not correct.