UPSC 2021: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz Sep 04 - Sep 10

Both are correct. Read more about Ex Zapad in the link.

Thailand

1, 2 and 3 are correct. Rajasthan’s state animal is the Chinkara.

Statement 2 is incorrect.

• IUCN “Red List of Threatened Species” is a comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of animal, fungus and plant species.
• It defines the extinction risk of species assessed classified into nine categories.
• Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN) and Vulnerable (VU) species are considered to be threatened with global extinction.

Read more on: IUCN Red List

All are correct.

• Aerosols are minute particles suspended in the atmosphere.
• Aerosols also can act as sites for chemical reactions to take place. These reactions can lead to the destruction of stratospheric ozone.
• Aerosols serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and thus have a substantial effect on cloud properties and the initiation of precipitation. Large concentrations of human-made aerosols have been reported to impact rainfall as a result of their radiative and CCN activities.
• Aerosols reduce the speed of winds near the earth’s surface, thus leading to a reduction in rainfall. The more is the aerosol pollution, the greater the reduction in rainfall.
• Recently, a team of Indian and international researchers have found that aerosols, dust, and clouds reduce solar energy generation from photovoltaic and rooftop solar installations resulting in substantial economic impact through financial losses.

Dadabhai Naoroji

Only 1 and 2 are correct. According to Tilak, the Aryans came from the Arctic region.

Only 1 is correct. The zero hour has been in existence since 1962.

Only 1 is correct. The censure motion can be moved against an individual minister or a group of ministers or the entire council of ministers.

1, 2 and 3 only are correct. The concept of fundamental rights has been borrowed from the US.

2 and 3 only are correct.

• Environment Pollution Control Authority is a Supreme Court-mandated body tasked with taking various measures to tackle air pollution in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region).
• The body is constituted under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
• It is mandated to enforce the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region).

Second statement is incorrect.

• Paradip is a natural, deep-water port situated on the east coast of India, in Odisha.
• It is situated at the confluence of the Mahanadi river and the Bay of Bengal.
• Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai is the largest container port in India. It is India’s largest port by size and shipping traffic.

All the statements are correct.

• The Assam Rifles (AR) is a Central Para Military Force (CPMF) along with two other forces — Special Frontier Force and Coast Guard.
• However, only the Assam Rifles functions under the administrative control of the Union Home Ministry.
• The Assam Rifles was formed under the British in 1835 by the name of Cachar Levy and had a number of names — the Assam Frontier Police (1883), the Assam Military Police (1891) and Eastern Bengal and Assam Military Police (1913), before finally becoming the Assam Rifles in 1917.
• It is India’s oldest paramilitary force.

2 only is correct.

• West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam share a border with Bangladesh.
• Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh share a border with Myanmar.

Statement 2 only is correct.

• It is an intergovernmental military alliance established by the Washington Treaty.
• It is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
• It has 30 members.
• Montenegro joined NATO in 2017. North Macedonia is the latest to join NATO (2020).

All three are correct.

India is a signatory to:

1. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol
2. The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, 1971
3. The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, 1988.

All three are correct.

• Orang National Park is located on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra River.
• Orang National Park was declared a tiger reserve in 2016.
• Pachnoi river, Belsiri river and Dhansiri River border the park and join the Brahmaputra river.

1 and 3 only are correct.

• The CSTO has its origins in the Collective Security Treaty, which took effect in 1994 and included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
• Afghanistan and Serbia hold observer status. Uzbekistan was a member from 2006 to 2012.
• The organization supports arms sales and manufacturing as well as military training and exercises.
• Beyond mutual defence, the CSTO also coordinates efforts in fighting the illegal circulation of weapons among member states and has developed law enforcement training for its members in pursuit of these aims.
• Members also use the organization to counter cyber warfare, narcotics trafficking, the illegal circulation of weapons, transnational crime, and terrorism.
• The CSTO is headquartered in Moscow, Russia.

5 only is correct.

• The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Currently, 123 states are party to the statute.
• The Rome Statute has been signed by 139 countries and of these only 123 have ratified it through their Parliaments and internal process. The U.S. though had signed the statute has not ratified it. Similarly, Russia too withdrew from the statute after having signed it. China and India have not even signed the Rome Statute.
• Japan is a party to the Rome Statute.

All of the given are possible benefits of the vehicle scrappage policy.

Only 2 is correct.

• Ease of Doing Business (EODB) is a joint initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industries and Internal Trade and the World Bank to improve the overall business environment in the States.
  • The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is a central government department under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• The State rankings are based on the implementation of State Business Reform Action Plan 2019.

• The northernmost district of Kerala, Kasaragod is famously known as the land of the 7 languages.
• Malayalam is the administrative language. Other languages are Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Marathi, Urdu and Beary.
• Prior to State reorganisation, Kasaragod was part of the South Kanara district of Karnataka. Kasaragod became a part of the Malabar district of Kerala following the reorganisation of States and the formation of a unified Kerala State.

Both are incorrect.

• The Ajmer Sharif dargah is dedicated to Moinuddin Chishti, 13th-century Sufi mystic saint and philosopher of the Chisti silsila. It houses the maqbara of Moinuddin Chishti.
• The tomb became a deeply venerated site in the century following the preacher’s death in March 1236. The tomb was existent much before Akbar’s advent.
• The Mughal emperor Akbar visited the shrine many times during his reign and also got the sanctum sanctorum reconstructed in 1579.

2, 3 and 4 only are correctly matched.

• 24^th Amendment: Empowered the Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution
• 91^st Amendment: Limiting the size of the Council of Ministers
• 52^nd Amendment: Anti-defection law
• 86^th Amendment: Right to education for children between 6-14 years

1 only is correct.

• The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence is the apex anti-smuggling agency of India, working under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is tasked with detecting and curbing the smuggling of contraband, including drug trafficking and illicit international trade in wildlife and environmentally sensitive items, as well as combating commercial frauds related to international trade and evasion of customs duty.
• DRI enforces the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 and over fifty other allied Acts including the Arms Act, NDPS Act, COFEPOSA, Wildlife Act, Antiquities Act, etc. DRI undertakes collection, collation, analysis and dissemination of intelligence relating to smuggling, carries out investigations, adjudication of cases and prosecution of the arrested persons.

All the statements are correct.

• Sa-Dhan is an association of Micro Finance Institutions.
• It is recognised by the RBI as a Self-Regulatory-Organization and National Support Organization (NSO) by National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

None of the above is incorrect.

• Special Frontier Force (SFF) was established in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 Sino-India war, on 14th November 1962.
• SFF falls under the purview of the Cabinet Secretariat where it is headed by an Inspector General who is an Army officer of the rank of Major General.
• The SFF units are not part of the Army but they function under the operational control of the Army.

1 and 2 only are correct.

• A Government Security (G-Sec) is a tradeable instrument issued by the Central Government or the State Governments.
• In India, the Central Government issues both, treasury bills and bonds or dated securities while the State Governments issue only bonds or dated securities, which are called the State Development Loans (SDLs).
• G-Secs carry practically no risk of default and, hence, are called risk-free gilt-edged instruments.

Both are correct.

• Scramjet stands for Supersonic Combustion Ramjet. It is a supersonic combustion engine.
• A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine as it efficiently operates at hypersonic speeds and allows supersonic combustion.
• The scramjets are a variant of a category of jet engines called the air breathing engines.
• The ability of engines to handle airflows of speeds in multiples of the speed of sound gives it the capability of operating at those speeds.
• Hypersonic speeds are those which are five times or more than the speed of sound.

1 and 3 only are correctly matched.

• Global Economic Prospects (GEP) is published by the World Bank.
• World Economic Outlook (WEO) and the Global Financial Stability Report are both published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).