UPSC 2023: Weekly GK and Current Affairs Quiz Sep 09 - Sep 15

• Statement 01 is incorrect, The Union Ministry of Rural Development implements Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin.
  • Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-urban is implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Statement 02 is correct, The identification of beneficiaries under PMAY-G is based on the housing deprivation parameters and exclusion criteria prescribed under Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC)-2011 and due verification by the respective Gram Sabhas and completion of an Appellate Process.
• Statement 03 is incorrect, The cost of unit assistance is shared between Central and State Governments in the ratio of 60:40 in plain areas and 90:10 for North Eastern and hilly states.

• Tanjore (Thanjavur) brothers, also known as the “Tanjore Quartet” are Ponnayya, Chinnayya, Shivanandam, and Vadivelu.
• They formalised Bharatanatyam into a meticulous art form in the 19th century.
• They studied Bharatanatyam under their grandfather, Gangaimudu, and their father, Subbarayan.
• They also trained in Carnatic music for seven years under the guidance of Muthuswami Dikshitar.
• They mastered the art of primaeval Bharatanatyam and eventually evolved it into its present-day format by codifying its steps and rhythm patterns.
• They performed in the court of Serfoji II of the Maratha dynasty who ruled Thanjavur from 1798 to 1832.
• They were also responsible for making Brihadisvara Temple a hub that brought musicians and dancers together.
• The Tanjore Quartet also brought light to a number of other dance styles, including those from the Travancore and Mysore kingdoms.

• François Bernier was a French physician and traveller. He was in India from 1656-1668 and visited India during the reign of Shah Jahan.
• He was a physician to Prince Dara Shikoh and later was attached to the court of Aurangzeb.

Read more on Important foreign travellers who visited India.

• Nediyathuruthu island is in Vembanad Lake, Kerala.
• The demolition of the illegally constructed villas of Kapico Resorts Pvt. Ltd on Nediyathuruthu island began recently, 32 months after the Supreme Court’s order.
• The high-end resort was constructed on a backwater island in Alappuzha and violated coastal and environmental regulations.

• Statement 01 is correct, Household financial savings refer to currency, bank deposits, debt securities, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance, and investments in small savings schemes.
  • The total of these savings is referred to as gross household financial savings.
  • Deposits with banks are the single largest form of households’ financial assets, followed by insurance funds, mutual funds and currency.
  • A share of household financial savings goes to government borrowings, as part of public accounts of India.
• Statement 02 is correct, Dated Government Securities are government securities or bonds which are long-term, the tenor ranging from 5 years to 30 years.
  • Dated securities issued at market-related rates comprise a large share of internal debt.

• The Samarkand Declaration was signed by the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
• The Samarkand Declaration advocated a “commitment to peaceful settlement of differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation.”

Statement 1 is not correct, Land, that is to say, rights in or over land, land tenures including the relation of landlord and tenant, and the collection of rents; transfer and alienation of agricultural land; land improvement and agricultural loans; colonization falls under the State list of the 7th schedule.
Statement 2 is correct, Real Estate Regulatory Authorities (RERAs) are intended to perform the same role for your property transactions as the SEBI does for security transactions in the capital markets.

• Statement 1 is not correct, The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that maintains the temperature of the earth to sustain life.
• Statement 2 is correct, Currently, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface is 15 degree Celsius and without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature of the Earth’s surface would decrease to − 18 degree Celsius.

• Statement 1 is not correct, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is not mandatory for adoption by private and public hospitals and it would be voluntary.
• Statement 2 is not correct, The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) aims to develop the backbone necessary to support the integrated digital health infrastructure of the country.
  • It will bridge the existing gap among different stakeholders of the healthcare ecosystem through digital highways.
• Statement 3 is correct, ABDM ensures seamless national portability in the provision of health services.

• Statement 01 is incorrect, The institution of Lokayukta was first established in Maharashtra in 1971. Although Odisha had passed an Act in this regard in 1970, it came into force only in 1983.
• Statement 02 is incorrect, Judicial qualifications are prescribed for the lokayukta in the States of Himachal Pradesh,  Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka and Assam. But no specific qualifications are prescribed in the states of Bihar, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.
• Statement 03 is correct, Lokayukta can initiate investigation Suo moto against public officials in most of the states.

• Statement 01 is incorrect, 1st Constitutional Amendment Act 1951 added the Ninth Schedule to protect the laws included in it from judicial scrutiny on the ground of violation of fundamental rights.
• Statement 02 is correct, The Schedule contains a list of central and state laws which cannot be challenged in courts. The first Amendment added 13 laws to the Schedule. But, laws under the Ninth Schedule would be open to scrutiny if they violated fundamental rights or the basic structure of the Constitution.

• Pair 01 is incorrectly matched, Betaab valley, originally called Hajan Valley or Hagan Valley is situated in  Jammu and Kashmir.
• Pair 02 is incorrectly matched, The Lidder Valley is in Jammu and Kashmir. It is bordered by Kashmir Valley to the west, and Sind Valley to the north.The Lidder River flows down the valley.
• Pair 03 is correctly matched,Pahalgam valley is in  Jammu and Kashmir. It is a popular tourist destination which is associated with the annual pilgrimage to the shrine Amarnath Yatra.
• Pair 04 is correctly matched,  Spiti valley is located in the north-eastern part of Himachal Pradesh.

• Statement 01 is correct,  Sea cucumbers are marine invertebrates that live on the seafloor found generally in tropical regions
• Statement 02 is correct, They are protected under Schedule I under the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972. Their trade is banned under the Act.
• Statement 03 is correct, Brown Sea Cucumber is listed as Endangered in IUCN Red List,  Blackspotted Sea Cucumber  is listed as Least Concern.

• Pair 01 is incorrectly matched,  Namcha Barwa is considered as the Eastern point of the Himalayas and is located on the extreme east of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
• Pair 02 is correctly matched, Nanda Devi, situated in Uttarakhand is the second highest mountain in India and it is part of the Kumaon Himalayas lying between Satluj and Kali rivers.
• Pair 03 is incorrectly matched, Nokrek is the highest peak in West Garo Hills of Meghalaya.

All the mentioned names above belong to species of Butterfly.
Two new species of butterfly namely Striped Hairstreak and Elusive Prince were discovered in Arunachal Pradesh in 2020.
The veined palmer/Hidari bhawani is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae.

• Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall in southwestern Japan recently.
• The Japan Meteorological Agency urged millions of people to take shelter from the powerful storm’s high winds and torrential rain.

• Pair 01 is correctly matched, The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005 against corruption and electoral fraud in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election.
• Pair 02 is correctly matched, The Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan started after the parliamentary elections in 2005 against then President Askar Akayev’s corrupt, intolerant, and authoritarian regime.
• Pair 03 is correctly matched, Jasmine Revolution is an uprising in Tunisia that protested against corruption, poverty, and political repression started in 2010. The success of the uprising inspired a wave of similar protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring.
• Pair 04 is correctly matched,The 2011 Egyptian revolution took place in 2011 against increasing police brutality of then president Hosni Mubarak’s rule.
  • It is also known as the 25 January revolution, Freedom Revolution Rage Revolution or Lotus Revolution.

• Statement 01 is incorrect, Mission Innovation is an international initiative to accelerate public and private clean energy innovation to address the issues of climate change, make a clean energy economy for consumers, and generate green jobs and business opportunities.
• Statement 02 is correct, It is a global initiative of 24 countries including India and the European Union.

Read more on Mission Innovation

• In the Gupta Age, the term Vishti referred to Forced labour.
• Forced labour (Vishti) became more common than before in this Gupta period.
• It was mentioned along with the taxes in the land grant inscriptions which suggest that Vishti was considered as a source of income for the state, a sort of tax paid by the people.

• Statement 1 is correct, Millets are Photo-insensitive (i.e. does not need specific photoperiod for flowering) and are resilient to climate change.
• Statement 2 is correct, The anaemia (iron deficiency), B-complex vitamin deficiency, pellagra (niacin deficiency) can be effectively tackled with the intake of millets.
• Statement 3 is not correct, Government of India approved 2018 as the National Year of Millets.
• Statement 4 is correct, Millets are hardy, resilient crops that have low carbon and water footprint, can withstand high temperatures and grow on poor soils with little or no external inputs.

• Statement 1 is correct, Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain/cryptocurrency with smart contract functionality.
• Statement 2 is not correct, Ethereum is the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency.
  • Bitcoin is the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency.
• Statement 3 is correct, Ethereum recently finalised “the Merge” which will help reduce its energy consumption by nearly 99.95%.

Image Source: BBC

• Statement 1 is correct, Red Sanders or Pterocarpus santalinus is endemic to the Eastern Ghats of India.
• Statement 2 is not correct, Aromatherapy is associated with Sandalwood (Santalum album).
  • Aromatherapy has nothing to do with Red Sanders.
• Statement 3 is correct, Red Sanders is classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
• Statement 4 is correct, Red Sanders is listed under Appendix II of CITES and is banned from international trade.

• Biorock technology is being used by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) to restore damaged coral reefs.

• Statement 1 is correct,  La Nina is associated with good rainfall during the monsoon season in the Indian context.
• Statement 2 is correct, Usually, La Nina causes more rainfall in Australia and Indonesia and the tropical regions.
• Statement 3 is correct, La Nina’s cooling influence temporarily slows down the rise in global temperatures but it will not cease or reverse the long-term warming trend.

• Statement 1 is not correct, The final decision to include a tribe in the Scheduled Tribe list rests with the President’s office issuing a notification specifying the changes under powers vested in it from Article 342.
  • Article 341 deals with that of Scheduled Castes.
• Statement 2 is correct, The inclusion or exclusion comes into effect only after the President assents to a Bill that amends the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 and the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950, as is appropriate, after it is passed by both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.
• Statement 3 is correct, A state government may choose to recommend certain communities for addition or subtraction from the list of SCs/STs based on its discretion.

• Statement 1 is correct, There are no specific antiviral drugs available for the treatment of lumpy skin disease.
  • There are only symptom-specific treatments available currently such as wound care sprays to treat skin lesions and the use of antibiotics to prevent secondary skin infections and pneumonia.
• Statement 2 is correct, Lumpy skin disease spreads mainly through blood-feeding insects like flies, mosquitoes and ticks.
• Statement 3 is not correct, Lumpy Skin Disease is not Zoonotic as the virus is highly host specific and does not cause disease in humans.

• Statement 1 is not correct, The Prevention of Money Laundering Act allows the ED to take cognizance of any offence under its wide-ranging schedule across the country, with or without the consent of state governments.
• Statement 2 is correct, After the amendments in 2015 and 2018, the ED has been allowed to attach properties in India equivalent to properties acquired abroad through laundered money.
• Statement 3 is correct, Under PMLA, the provision for bail stipulates that a magistrate will not grant bail to an accused unless he is convinced that prima facie no case is made out.

• The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 provide exact and elaborate criteria for the identification of sites for landfills and waste processing facilities.
• According to the rules, the landfill site shall be 100 metres away from a river, 200 metres from a pond, 200 metres away from highways, habitations, public parks and water supply wells and 20 km away from airports/airbases.
• Further, the construction of landfills on hills shall be avoided. Land for the construction of sanitary landfills in hilly areas will be identified in the plain areas, within 25 kilometres. However, transfer stations and processing facilities shall be operational in the hilly areas.