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

Solution: d.

The Union Budget, 2018-19, had proposed to treat school education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class 12.

Samagra Shiksha – an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12 – has been, therefore, prepared with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes. It subsumes the three Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

The major objectives of the Scheme are

• provision of quality education and enhancing learning outcomes of students;
• bridging Social and Gender Gaps in School Education;
• ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education;
• Ensuring minimum standards in schooling provisions;
• Promoting Vocationalisation of education;
• Support States in implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009; and
• Strengthening and up-gradation of SCERTs/State Institutes of Education and DIET as nodal agencies for teacher training.

Improvisation: PIB; Also refer: PIB (24th May);

Solution: a.

Exercise Nomadic Elephant – Mongolia and India;

For the complete list, refer: PIB;

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Solution: b.

The accurate prediction of monsoon rainfall is a basic need for the nation but has remained a challenge over the decades. Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India has launched ‘National Monsoon Mission’ (NMM) with a vision to develop a state-of-the-art dynamical prediction system for monsoon rainfall on different time scales. MoES has bestowed the responsibility of execution and coordination of this mission to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune. For this national mission, IITM is collaborating with NCEP (National Centres for Environmental Predication, USA), other MoES organisations and various academic institutions/organizations.

MoES: Monsoon Mission;

PIB

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Solution: c.

Geologists have classified the last 4,200 years as being a distinct age in the story of our planet. They are calling i t the Meghalayan Age, the onset of which was marked by a mega-drought that crushed a number of civilisations worldwide.

We currently live in what is called the Holocene Epoch, which reflects everything that has happened over the past 11,700 years – since a dramatic warming kicked us out of the last ice age. But the Holocene itself can be subdivided, according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It is the official keeper of geologic time and it proposed three stages be introduced to denote the epoch’s upper, middle and lower phases.

These all record major climate events. The Meghalayan, the youngest stage, runs from 4,200 years ago to the present. It began with a destructive drought, whose effects lasted two centuries, and severely disrupted civilisations in Egypt, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze River Valley. It was likely triggered by shifts in ocean and atmospheric circulation.

The middle phase of the Holocene will be referred to as the Northgrippian, and runs from 8,300 years ago up to the start of the Meghalayan. The onset for this age was an abrupt cooling, attributed to vast volumes of freshwater from melting glaciers in Canada running into the North Atlantic and disrupting ocean currents. The oldest phase of the Holocene – the exit from the ice age – will be known as the Greenlandian.

See image: A portion of an Indian stalagmite (from Meghalaya) that defines the beginning of the Meghalayan age.

BBC;

Solution: a.

Trees do this using a network of fungi that grow around inside their roots. The fungi provide the tree with nutrients and in return they receive sugars. Scientists have found that this connection runs far deeper than first thought. By plugging into the fungal network, trees can share resourced with each other. The system has been nicknamed the Wood Wide Web.

The relationship between these mycorrhizal fungi and the plants they connect is now known to be ancient (around four hundred and fifty million years old) and largely one of mutualism—a subset of symbiosis in which both organisms benefit from their association.

For more details, refer: BBC;

New Yorker;

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