QUIZ – 2020: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 23 June 2020

Solution: d)

Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument, saline, soda lake, located at Lonar in Buldhana district, Maharashtra. Lonar Lake was created by an asteroid collision with earth impact during the Pleistocene Epoch. It is one of the four known, hyper-velocity, impact craters in basaltic rock anywhere on Earth. The other three basaltic impact structures are in southern Brazil. The water in the lake is both saline and alkaline.

The Lonar lake has turned pink. The shift occurred over the span of a few days. Scientists speculate that the color could be a result of microscopic life that thrives in water with high salt concentrations.

The lake also has a type of single-celled algae called Dunaliella salina. When water conditions are favorable, D. salina are green. But under stressful conditions, such as high salinity or high amounts of light, the algae produce protective carotenoids, including orange-red beta carotene.

Formed 35,000 to 50,000 years ago, Lonar is the only “fresh” impact structure in basalt on Earth, making it an important analog for impact craters on the surface of the Moon.

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Solution: b)

India’s unemployment rate improved from the 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-18 to 5.8% in 2018-19, says the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The labour force participation rate also improved marginally, from 36.9% in 2017-18 to 37.5% in 2018-19. The labour force is defined as people who are working, or seeking work or available for work. Its participation rate is the percentage of the labour force in the population. The unemployment rate is the percentage of people without work within the labour force.

Women’s unemployment fell from 5.7% to 5.2%, while male unemployment only fell from 6.2% to 6%. Urban unemployment was still at a high of 7.7% in 2018-19, a marginal drop from 7.8% in 2017-18, while rural unemployment fell from 5.3% to 5%.

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Solution: b)

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the mega ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’ aimed to boost livelihood opportunities in rural India amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
• The ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’ campaign is for ‘shramik’ workers who returned to their villages during the lockdown. They want to put their skills to use and contribute to the development of their villages.
• The campaign is of 125 days, which will work in mission mode. It will involve intensified and focused implementation of 25 different types of works to provide employment to migrant workers on one hand and create infrastructure in the rural regions of the country on the other, with a resource envelope of Rs 50,000 crore.
• Migrant workers engaged in every type of profession will get work in ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan’, skill mapping of workers has been done, women will be linked with self-help groups so that they are able to get maximum items for their family.
• A total of 116 districts with more than 25,000 migrant workers each across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha have been chosen for the campaign and includes 27 aspirational districts.
• The 25 schemes of the government will be brought together and would help build gram panchayat bhawans and aganwadi centres, assist in national highway works, railway works and water conservation projects among others.
• The scheme will be a coordinated effort by 12 different ministries including rural development, Panchayati Raj, Road transport and highways, mines, drinking water and sanitation, environment, railways, petroleum and natural gas, new and renewable energy, border Roads, Telecom and agriculture.
• For first time, internet is being used more in villages. The campaign will contribute towards provision of modern facilities, such as internet connectivity, laying of optic fibre cables, to increase internet speed in villages, so that children in villages are able to study and learn like those in cities.
• The migrant workers will be able to get employment near their homes through this campaign.

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Solution: c)

Chakrashila, India’s first wildlife sanctuary with golden langur as the primary species. Chakrashila has about 600 golden langurs whose population is scattered across western Assam and the foothills of Bhutan.

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Solution: d)

• The Botanical Survey of India came up with the first comprehensive census of orchids of India putting the total number of orchid species or taxa to 1,256.
• A State-wise distribution of orchid species point out that the Himalayas, North-East parts of the country and Western Ghats are the hot-spots of the beautiful plant species.
• The highest number of orchid species is recorded from Arunachal Pradesh with 612 species, followed by Sikkim 560 species and West Bengal; Darjeeling Himalayas have also high species concentration, with 479 species.
• While north-east India rank at the top in species concentration, the Western Ghats have high endemism of orchids.
• Among the 10 bio geographic zones of India, the Himalayan zone is the richest in terms of orchid species followed by Northeast, Western Ghats, Deccan plateau and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
• Entire orchid family is listed under appendix II of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and hence any trade of wild orchid is banned globally.

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