QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 09 DECEMBER 2017

Solution: a.

According to this, those who pollute the environment must be made to pay not just for the costs of remedial action, but also for compensating victims of environmental damage.

• Some trace the Polluter Pays Principle’s origin to the Stockholm Declaration made at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972, which asked signatory countries to develop international laws “regarding liability and compensation for the victims of pollution and other environmental damage”.
• The Principle emerges more strongly in the 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission, called Our Common Future. The Brundtland Commission, or the World Commission on Environment and Development, was established in 1983 to examine environmental issues resulting from rapid industrialisation. For the first time, “sustainable development” was defined. Alongside, the Polluter Pays Principle was emphasised.
• The 1987 report greatly influenced the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, which, for the first time, explicitly enshrined the Polluter Pays Principle.

After Rio, the Polluter Pays Principle began to be applied explicitly in environmental jurisdictions.

http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/ngt-sri-sri-ravishankar-art-of-living-polluter-pays-principle-4973065/;

Solution: c.

A plain fact-based, but mains-oriented question.

“Bowing to pressure from the Kapu community, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced 5 per cent reservation for them in education and jobs on December 2. This took total reservation in AP to 55 per cent — higher than the Supreme Court mandated ceiling of 50 per cent, in which case it has to be approved by the Centre, and included in Schedule 9 of the Constitution after it is passed by Parliament. (Even so, this will be subject to judicial review – a nine-judge constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court ruled on January 11, 2007 that all laws, including those in the Ninth Schedule, which originally put them beyond the jurisdiction of the courts, would be subject to judicial review if they were included in the Schedule after April 23, 1973, and if they violated the basic structure of the Constitution.)

http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/simply-put-kapu-quota-in-andhra-pradesh-and-why-it-has-put-cm-chandrababu-naidu-in-quandary-as-polls-approach-4973054/;

—

Solution: a.

About Section 497 of the IPC: The Supreme Court on Friday said the dusty Victorian provision of adultery in the Indian Penal Code treats a married woman as her husband’s “subordinate.”

The court admitted a petition to drop adultery as a criminal offence from the statute book. Section 497 of the IPC mandates that “Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery and shall be punished.”

Issuing notice, the court would examine two aspects of the penal provision. One, why does Section 497 treat the man as the adulterer and the married woman as a victim.

Relating to the above question (1985 SC Judgment): “Answering the question why a wife cannot be prosecuted as an abettor to adultery, Justice Vivian Bose, speaking for the Bench, said the protection from prosecution given to women under Section 497 is in tune with Article 15 (3) of the Constitution. Article 15 (3) allows the legislature to make “special provisions” which are “beneficial” for women and children.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-agrees-to-examine-adultery-provision-in-ipc/article21296775.ece;

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/scs-re-visit-of-adultery-law-signals-a-paradigm-shift-in-the-courts-sensibility/article21332156.ece;

Solution: d.

The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday welcomed the decision of the Wassenaar Arrangement to admit India as the 42nd member of the organisation which aims to regulate trade and use of dual use technology.

Officials said that following admission into the club, India will get access to high technology, which will help address the demands of Indian space and defence sectors.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-gets-admission-into-wassenaar-arrangement/article21347560.ece;

About the Australia Group: http://www.australiagroup.net/en/;

—

Solution: b.

“A Bench led by Justice Madan B. Lokur frowned upon the State government’s “haphazard” measures taken unilaterally and asked it to include experts in evolving a plan that will protect the Taj Trapezium Zone from the ill-effects of polluting gases and deforestation.”

The Taj Trapezium Zone is spread over six districts of U.P. and Bharatpur in Rajasthan.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/prepare-detailed-plan-for-taj-mahal-conservation-sc-tells-up/article21341923.ece;

http://ttzplantations.org/about_ttz.php;

Solution: d.

The Oslo Accords (Israel-Palestine peace process) marked the start of the Oslo process, a peace process aimed at achieving a peace treaty based on certain United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and at fulfilling the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

The Camp David Accords (Israel-Egypt peace process) were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-stab-in-the-heart-of-a-peace-process/article21339833.ece