QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 20 March 2018

Solution: d.

Salwa Judum (declared illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2011) was a militia that was mobilised and deployed as part of anti-insurgency operations in Chhattisgarh, India, aimed at countering Naxalite violence.

The YPG or People’s Protection Units are the the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a branch of Iran’s Armed Forces founded after the 1979 Revolution by order of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Embattled Iranian regime mulls early polls;

Turkey-led forces seize control of Afrin;

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/against-human-rights/article22885113.ece;

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Solution: c.

Both statements are correct.

• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan.
• The patch is actually comprised of the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California (see image).
• The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not the only marine trash vortex—it’s just the biggest. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans both have trash vortexes.
• The entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch is bounded by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. The area in the centre of a gyre tends to be very calm and stable. The circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable centre, where it becomes trapped.
• Oceanographers and ecologists recently discovered that about 70% of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/in-a-plastics-world/article23288786.ece?utm_source=tp-opinion&utm_medium=sticky_footer

Solution: a.

In a bid to spur domestic travel, the government plans to promote religious tourism in the country, said the tourism minister… The Tourism Ministry recently launched ‘Yogi of the Racetrack’, a minute-long advertisement on yoga, that received more than 11.5 million hits in a week. “With this ad, we are addressing a completely new group of people. Earlier, it was thought that yoga is just for people over 40 and Ayurveda too is for older people. Now we are addressing the millennials.”… Six more similar advertisements on topics, including Ayurveda, will be released soon. “The whole idea is to storm the world with what the true essence of India is.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-to-take-spiritual-route-to-spur-tourism/article23287531.ece;

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Solution: d.

These are nerve agents (but at least two of them have been developed in the post world wars period). The first nerve agents were discovered by accident in the 1930s by scientists trying to find a cost-effective pesticide. they proved to be highly toxic chemicals that eventually ended up in the hands of the German military.

• Russia, the US and the UK also started to experiment on chemical agents after World War Two and it was British scientists who developed the VX nerve agent in the early 1950s.
• The name Novichok means ‘newcomer’ in Russian and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
• Sarin was invented in Germany in the 1930s but was not used in combat during World War II.
• Novichok agents are one of three classes of nerve agents – the other two are G-Agents and V-Agents. G-agents include sarin while V-agents include VX, an oily amber-coloured liquid.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-43328976;

Improvisation: Novichok in the news; http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-skripals-in-salisbury/article23287922.ece;

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Solution: b.

The Pir Panjal Range is spread over Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh

River Satluj flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

Improvisation: TH1; TH2; TH3;

Refer Atlas for Gawilgarh Hills – it is spread over two states – Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

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