QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 07 February 2017

Solution: b.

• “Residents of various fishing hamlets in Ennore demanded that fly ash dumped in the Buckingham Canal and the Kosasthalaiyar be removed, and debris underneath the bridges across these waterways and wetlands be cleared to reduce flood risks.”
• “Merely desilting smaller drains leading to the waterways will not help. Removing the fly ash and debris will help restore the depth of the river, which is important to ensure water flow during heavy rain,”
• “Even after a thorough job of removing the beached oil, talking about a return to normal is problematic. Chennai’s seas and the Ennore Creek were in a state of crisis prior to the spill. The spill is the latest in a series of insults on the estuarine and marine habitats. As you read this, KPL — a key agent in the unfolding drama — is dumping dredged sand onto salt pans that are part of the Ennore wetlands. The petrochemical industries in Manali are discharging tonnes of oily chemical effluents into the creek and the sea. The power plants in the area are discharging their coal ash and hot waste water into the wetlands. Our regulators know all this and do nothing to enforce the law.”

Th: Return to a dangerous normal;

TH: September 2016 – Residents kick off campaign to save Ennore creek;

Solution: b.

• The Government has prepared an action plan to eliminate Kala-Azar and Filariasis by 2017, Leprosy by 2018, Measles by 2020 and Tuberculosis by 2025 is also targeted.
• “It would appear incongruous that an emerging economy with no timetable for universal health coverage and a lack of political will to loosen its purse strings for higher government expenditure has set ambitious deadlines to rid itself of deadly scourges. Last year it was revealed that India has a higher burden of new patients with TB than estimated earlier — 2.8 million in 2015 compared to 2.2 million in the previous year, a quarter of the world’s cases.”
• “Kala-azar, though underreported and mainly confined to Bihar and Jharkhand, is a promising candidate for elimination in the current year..”
• With reference to Leprosy: “Detecting new cases early and preventing them from progressing to disability-inducing grade two level is crucial, although complete removal by 2018 as envisaged in the Budget may prove difficult.”

Budget Highlights;

Targeting old scourger;

Solution: c.

“Kala-azar, though underreported and mainly confined to Bihar and Jharkhand, is a promising candidate for elimination in the current year, since the few thousand cases are caused by a protozoal parasite with no animal reservoir; control of the vector, the sand fly, holds the key.”

TH: Targeting old scourger;

Image source: NVBDCP;

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Solution: d.

• “The New Delhi Municipal Council on Monday passed a proposal to change the name of Dalhousie Road to Dara Shikoh Road, after the eldest son of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.”
• Doctrine of lapse, in Indian history, was a formula devised by Lord Dalhousie, governor-general of India (1848–56), to deal with questions of succession to Hindu Indian states. It was a corollary to the doctrine of paramountcy, by which Great Britain, as the ruling power of the Indian subcontinent, claimed the superintendence of the subordinate Indian states and so also the regulation of their succession.

Britannica;

TH: Dalhousie road becomes dara shikoh road;

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Solution: d.

“The skewed rules in the areas of agriculture and intellectual property rights have been flagged by the developing countries as their particular areas of concern. In agriculture, WTO rules have been loaded in favour of the developed countries, while the interests of small farmers have almost been completely ignored. India flagged the important issue of food security and argued that the sovereign states must have the right to decide the manner in which the poor should be provided subsidised food. This issue arose after questions were raised as to whether public stockholding of food, which is at the heart of India’s Public Distribution System (PDS), meets the WTO disciplines on agricultural subsidies. After India countered the viewpoints of the countries questioning its PDS, an understanding was reached where even if India breached agricultural subsidies’ disciplines to meet its food security needs, no penal action would be taken against it through what is commonly called a “peace clause”. But India’s insistence that there should be a permanent solution to the problem of public stockholding for food security purposes has been met with deafening silence.”

TH: Rewiring the WTO;

Solution: c.

“During his recent visit to Delhi, Admiral Harry Harris, the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) chief, reiterated a long pending demand that India sign the COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) that would enhance joint surveillance of Chinese vessels.”

• Highlighting the signing of military logistics agreement between the two countries last year after a decade, Admiral Harris expected that the two pending foundational agreements, the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) — formerly known as the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) — and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) will also be signed but “at a pace India is comfortable with”.
• COMCASA allows for secure exchange of communication between the militaries, while BECA is meant to facilitate the sharing of geospatial data. Emphasising their importance, he said that signing the COMCASA will allow the two navies to monitor Chinese submarines even better.

TH: What America first means for India;

Solution: a.

• “Trade facilitation.. covers all the measures that countries need to take in order to reduce transactions costs. Trade facilitation was not exactly an area that excited the developing countries for their shares in global trade are at very low levels. Moreover, by accepting the commitments under the agreement, they were required to undertake changes in their customs procedures and facilities, which seemed a daunting task for many of the poorer countries. The critical element was the availability of financing facilities for undertaking the modifications. However, despite their initial opposition, the developing countries eventually accepted the Agreement on Trade Facilitation at the end of the Bali Ministerial Conference in 2013.”
• “In the run-up to the 11th Ministerial Conference to be held in Buenos Aires in December 2017, ground is being prepared by the major economies for another exercise at “cherry picking”. The issues that have been identified for inclusion in the WTO are electronic commerce and investment..”

TH: Rewiring the WTO;

Solution: a.

The Gulf of Guinea opens out to the Atlantic Ocean. The Celebes Sea is to the South-east of the South China Sea. “During the winters, the weather in India is pleasant. The pleasant weather conditions, however, at intervals, get disturbed by shallow cyclonic depressions originating over the east Mediterranean Sea and travelling eastwards across West Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan before they reach the northwestern parts of India. On their way, the moisture content gets augmented from the Caspian Sea in the north and the Persian Gulf in the south.”

IE: What’s behind the valley’s snow peak;

Chapter – Climate; Indian Physical Environment, NCERT Class 11;