QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 14 October 2019

Solution: b)

The MHA maintains a list of individuals who supported the Khalistan movement in the 1980s and ‘90s and left India to take asylum abroad. This list included name of pro-Khalistan “hardliners” who had opposed the Operation Blue Star. This list is not restricted to Punjab, or the Khalistan movement; it has names of individuals who are suspected to have links with terror outfits or violated visa norms in a previous visit to India, those who indulged in criminal activities or been accused of sexual crimes against children in their respective countries.

As many as 312 Sikhs, who had fled the country during the peak of militancy in Punjab and were thus put on an “Adverse List” prepared by the government, have been taken out of it. The 314-strong list now has only two individuals.

The government has reviewed the adverse list and brought it down to just two who are still suspected of being linked with forces inimical to India.

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Solution: c)

Civil aviation is a Central subject.

Very few States in India have active civil aviation departments. This is also due to the reason that States have had a passive role, invariably, having had to look up to the Central government for the development of airports and enhancing air connectivity.

States have very high rates of value-added tax (VAT) on ATF — sometimes as high as 25% — which has dampened the growth trajectory of civil aviation. For any airline in India, the cost of Aviation Turbine Fuel (ATF) forms about 40% of the total operational cost.

Solution: c)

• NITI Aayog in collaboration with the European Union delegation to India have released the Strategy on Resource Efficiency. The strategy aims to promote resource efficiency in India.
• This strategy is the first policy document to emphasize resource productivity in the country. The Strategy emphasizes on Sustainable Public Procurement (SSP) as an action agenda which will be the market transformation tool to transform to a resource efficient economy.
• It is developed with the recommendations from the Indian Resource Efficiency Programme (IREP), launched by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and Indian Resource Panel (InRP) in April 2017.

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Solution: c)

China has launched its first communication satellite to provide broadband internet services worldwide. The satellite is the first in the Hongyun project planned by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC).

The Hongyun project, started in September 2016, aims to build a space-based communications network to provide broadband internet connectivity to users around the world, especially those in the underserved regions.

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Solution: c)

Minister of Science & Technology inaugurated the National Centre for Clean Coal Research and Development at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru on September 16, 2019. The centre has been established as a national consortium on clean coal research and development with IISc leading it.

The new centre is aimed at addressing several critical R&D challenges towards the development of clean coal technologies in tandem with developing supercritical power plant technologies, both at material and system level.

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