INSIGHTS CURRENT AFFAIRS ( 26 March 2020) REVISION THROUGH MCQS

Ans: (a)

Explanation:

• The Indian Forest Act, 1927 was largely based on previous Indian Forest Acts implemented under the British.
  • The most famous one was the Indian Forest Act of 1878. Both the 1878 act and the 1927 act sought to consolidate and reserve the areas having forest cover, or significant wildlife, to regulate movement and transit of forest produce, and duty leviable on timber and other forest produce.
  • It also defines the procedure to be followed for declaring an area to be a Reserved Forest, a Protected Forest or a Village Forest.
  • Forest produce is defined under section 2(4) of the Indian Forest Act, 1927.
  • Forest produce can be divided into several categories. From the point of view of usage, forest produce can be categorized into three types: Timber, Non Timber and Minor Minerals. Non-timber forest products [NTFPs] are known also as minor forest produce (MFP) or non-wood forest produce (NWFP). The NTFP can be further categorized into medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP), oil seeds, fiber & floss, resins, edible plants, bamboo, reeds and grasses.
• Source: The importance of Minor Forest Produces for this section of the society can be gauged from the facts that around 100 million forest dwellers depend on Minor Forest Produces for food, shelter, medicines and cash income. It is important for them for food, shelter medicines and case income beside providing critical subsistence during the lean seasons, particularly for primitive tribal groups such as hunter gatherers, and the landless. Tribals derive 20-40% of their annual income from Minor Forest Produce on which they spend major portion of their time. This activity has strong linkage to women’s financial empowerment as most of the Minor Forest Produces are collected and used/sold by women. Minor Forest Produce sector has the potential to create about 10 million workdays annually in the country.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/msp-for-mfp/

Ans: (b)

Explanation:

• Stat1: The Union Cabinet, in 2013, approved a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for marketing of non-nationalized / non monopolized Minor Forest Produce (MFP) and development of a value chain for MFP through Minimum Support Price (MSP).
• Stat2: Earlier, the scheme was extended only to Scheduled Areas in eight states and fixed MSPs for 12 MFPs. Later expanded to all states and UTs.
• Stat3: The Ministry of Tribal Affairs will be the nodal Ministry for implementation and monitoring of the scheme. The Minimum Support Price would be determined by the Ministry with technical help of TRIFED.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/msp-for-mfp/

Ans: (b)

Explanation: Full membership of the G20:

• Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/g20-virtual-summit/

Ans: (d)

Explanation:

• The Group of Seven (G7) is a forum of the world’s seven largest developed economies whose government leaders meet annually to discuss international economic and monetary issues.
• It is an international intergovernmental economic organization consisting of the seven IMF- advanced economies in the world: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• The annual G7 Summit includes the 7 heads-of-state from these 7 countries.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/g20-virtual-summit/

Ans: (c)

Explanation: Capital to Risky Asset Ratio (CRAR):

• The CRAR is the capital needed for a bank measured in terms of the assets (mostly loans) disbursed by the banks. Higher the assets, higher should be the capital by the bank.
• The Basel III norms stipulated a capital to risk weighted assets of 8%. However, as per RBI norms, Indian scheduled commercial banks are required to maintain a CAR of 9% while Indian public sector banks are emphasized to maintain a CAR of 12%.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/recapitalisation-of-rrbs/

Ans: (c)

Explanation:

• Fortification is the practice of deliberately increasing the content of an essential micronutrient,e. vitamins and minerals (including trace elements) in a food, so as to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and provide a public health benefit with minimal risk to health.
• Bio-fortification is the process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology.
• Bio-fortification differs from conventional fortification in that bio-fortification aims to increase nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during processing of the crops. Bio-fortification may therefore present a way to reach populations where supplementation and conventional fortification activities may be difficult to implement and/or limited.
• Food Fortification is a scientifically proven, cost-effective, scalable and sustainable global intervention that addresses the issue of micronutrient deficiencies.
• In October 2016, FSSAI operationalized the Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016 for fortifying staples namely Wheat Flour and Rice (with Iron, Vitamin B12 and Folic Acid), Milk and Edible Oil (with Vitamins A and D) and Double Fortified Salt (with Iodine and Iron) to reduce the high burden of micronutrient malnutrition in India.
• The ‘+F’ logo has been notified to identify fortified foods. Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2018 were notified in the Gazette of India on 09.08.2018.
• 

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2020/03/26/bio-fortified-crops/

Ans: (b)

Explanation: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC):

• These quarks cannot be held together by such a weak gravitational force. It is the “Strong Force” (electromagnetic) which holds them together.
• Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets.
• The electromagnets are built from coils of special electric cable that operates in a superconducting state, efficiently conducting electricity without resistance or loss of energy. This requires chilling the magnets to 271.3°C – a temperature colder than outer space!

Refer: https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider

Ans: (b)

Explanation: Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer:

• It was agreed upon at the 1985 Vienna Conference and entered into force in 1988 (Montreal in 1989). It is one of the most successful treaties of all time in terms of universality. It has been ratified by 197 states (all UN members as well as the Niue, Holy See and the Cook Islands) as well as European Union.
• It acts as a framework for the international efforts to protect the ozone layer. These are laid out in the accompanying Montreal Protocol. However, it does not include legally binding reduction goals for the use of CFCs, the main chemical agents causing ozone depletion.

Refer: https://ozone.unep.org/treaties/vienna-convention

Ans: (c)

Explanation:

• China has successfully launched Tiangong-2 space lab to develop expertise for a future space station and conduct science experiments.
• NASA’s Cassini spacecraft after studying Saturn, its rings and moons for more than 12 years, has entered in the final year of its epic voyage. It will make the closest-ever observations of the planet. It is the first to enter successfully in its orbit.
• New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe that was launched as a part of NASA’s New Frontiers program. It was launched on January 19, 2006. The primary mission is to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system. The secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects (KBOs).
• NASA’s Odyssey is a Mars exploration spacecraft.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Insights-PT-2019-Exclusive-Science-and-Technology.pdf

Ans: (a)

Explanation:

• The park is located in Changlang district of the Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, near its border with Myanmar.
• The park has extensive bamboo forests and secondary forests in addition to the primary forests. Because of many different vegetation zones, the park is home to a great diversity of mammal species. Snow leopards, clouded leopards, large Indian civet, barking deer etc.

Refer: http://www.worldwildlife.org/places/easternhimalayas