QUIZ – 2016: Insights Current Affairs Quiz – 05 October, 2016

Solution: c.

• “Article 262 allows a parliamentary law — Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956 — to forbid the Supreme Court from intervening in inter-State water disputes.”
• Section 6 (2) of the 1956 Act gives the orders of tribunals set up by the government under it the same force as an order of the Supreme Court. In short, the statutory law excluded the Supreme Court from intervening against the 2007 final order of the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal (CWDT).
• Again, once the tribunal has pronounced a final order, it would fall on the Centre to prepare a water-sharing scheme based on the award of the tribunal. This scheme would be forwarded to the Parliament for promulgation. It was the Parliament’s sole right “to annul, vary, modify the Centre’s scheme.”
• “The Supreme Court, by ordering the setting up of the CMB, has denuded the Centre of its powers under the 1956 Act to frame a scheme based on the tribunal award. The final say is vested in the Parliament,” the Centre said.”

Chapter 15, Inter-State Relations, Indian Polity 4^th Edition by M Laxmikanth

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/sc-cant-intervene-says-centre/article9179481.ece

Solution: a.

• It is an outstanding testimony to the 13th-century kingdom of Orissa and a monumental example of the personification of divinity, thus forming an invaluable link in the history of the diffusion of the cult of Surya, the Sun God. In this sense, it is directly and materially linked to Brahmanism and Tantric belief systems.
• The Sun Temple is the culmination of Kalingan temple architecture, with all its defining elements in complete and perfect form. A masterpiece of creative genius in both conception and realisation, the temple represents a chariot of the Sun God, with twelve pairs of wheels drawn by seven horses evoking its movement across the heavens.
• The Sun Temple is an exceptional testimony, in physical form, to the 13th-century Hindu Kingdom of Orissa, under the reign of Narasimha Deva I (AD 1238-1264). Its scale, refinement and conception represent the strength and stability of the Ganga Empire as well as the value systems of the historic milieu.
• Its aesthetical and visually overwhelming sculptural narratives are today an invaluable window into the religious, political, social and secular life of the people of that period.
• Separately, “The Stone Chariot at Hampi is one of the three famous stone chariots in India. The other two chariots are situated in Konark (Odissa) and Mahabalipuram (Tamil Nadu).”

Primary Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/246

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Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/in-the-kingdom-of-the-sun/article9167935.ece

Solution: d.

“Non-tax revenue (receipts) of the central government mainly consists of interest receipts on account of loans by the central government, dividends and profits on investments made by the government, fees (this will include spectrum charges) and other receipts for services rendered by the government. Cash grants-in-aid from foreign countries and international organisations are also included.”

GKToday: “In recent times, spectrum auctions have been one of the major sources of non-tax revenues for the government. We note here, that despite it looks that spectrum amount should be a capital receipt, it is shown as a non-tax revenue receipt in budget documents as one time spectrum charges levied on telecom players.”

Primary Source: Page 61-61, 12th Macroeconomics, NCERT

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/spectrum-auction-govt-receives-bids-worth-rs56800-cr-on-day-2/article9181012.ece

Solution: d.

“Executive Director M.D. Patra hinted there was scope for policy interest rates to ease further when he said the neutral rate is 1.25 per cent, which is lower than the 1.5-2 per cent regime that prevailed under the previous governor Raghuram Rajan.”

• It is the estimated level of real interest rates at which the economy is growing at potential while inflation is under control. So the economy is chugging along without recession or overheating.
• This measure is the rate at which desired savings equal desired investments.
• If projected inflation is higher than the inflation target, then the actual real rates must be higher than the neutral real rate to ensure than monetary policy is anti-inflationary.
• It gives us some idea about whether monetary policy at any point of time is too tight or too loose.
• The empirical problem is that the real neutral rate of interest cannot be directly observed. It has to be estimated statistically. And it changes over time, depending on the inflation target of the central bank, the state of the business cycle and estimates of potential output.
• The Indian central bank has broadly been working over the past three years under the assumption that the neutral interest rate here is somewhere between 1.5-2%. That number has now been brought down to 1.25% — or around 50 basis points. Now the RBI has not changed its inflation target. That leaves us with estimates of potential growth. So here is an uncomfortable question: Does the Indian central bank now believe that India’s potential growth rate is lower than earlier estimated?

Primary Source: Click Here; Secondary Source: Click Here;

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/rbi-cuts-repo-rate-by-25-bps/article9183912.ece

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Solution: a.

In descending order, Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia are the top three producers of Uranium. Click Here to see the relevant table.

Some countries with which India has signed a civil nuclear deal include: USA, Russia, France, Kazakhstan, Australia, Canada, South Korea.

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/clinching-the-ndeal-with-japan/article9184878.ece

Solution: b.

Statement 3 was a giveaway.

“Although most people have heard of India’s French colony of Pondicherry, it’s little known that the Danes colonised part of India – especially a corner far removed from the major trading cities of Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai…in the early 17th Century, this tongue twister of a name proved too difficult for the incoming Danes, who altered it to Tranquebar, by which it is still known to this day.”

“The Danish East India company, created in 1616 under King Christian IV for trade with India and Ceylon, had its eye on the Coromandel Coast in India’s southeast for its pepper and cardamom…. A report published by the Danish Indian Cultural Centre of Tranquebar claims that “The long period under Danish rule transformed Tharangambadi from an Indian village into a hybrid Danish town encircled by a wall, grid pattern street layout and a strong fortress on the coast.”…. And the education system in Tranquebar is entirely a legacy of the Danes: most of the schools are managed by the Catholic St Theresa’s Convent and the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church.”

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160929-indias-scandinavian-secret

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Solution: a.

Mission Raftaar: It targets doubling of average speeds of freights trains and increasing the average speed of superfast mail/express trains by 25 kmph in the next 5 years.

Improvisation: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=151418

Solution: a.

“Fierce gun battles raged for a second day on Tuesday in Afghanistan’s embattled northern city of Kunduz while in the country’s south, insurgents killed 12 policemen at checkpoints around the Helmand provincial capital (Lashkar Gah) and seized another district they had attacked a day earlier. The timing of the coordinated assaults was particularly poignant, coming a year after the Taliban captured and held parts of Kunduz before the city was fully liberated weeks later with the help of U.S. air strikes.”

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/kunduz-sees-fierce-fighting-for-the-second-day/article9185691.ece