DAY – 20 ( INSTA REVISION TEST)INSTA REVISION PLAN 2.0, 2020

Solution: C

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 (USA), MoES organisations and various academic institutions/organizations under NMM. Climate Forecast System (CFS) of NCEP, USA has been identified as the basic modelling system for the above purpose, as it is one of the best among the currently available coupled models.

However, it has a moderate skill for retrospective forecast (hindcast) of seasonal monsoon rainfall and this skill needs to be improved to make the forecasts more useful. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop an Indian model based on CFS coupled model with an improved hindcast skill so that it can be transferred to the India Meteorological Department for operational forecasting. With this objective,

To accomplish this task, MoES/IITM invited proposals from national and international scientists/organizations.

https://www.tropmet.res.in/monsoon/

Solution: D

Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) is published monthly based on the production in selected eight core industries viz. Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Petroleum Refinery Products, Fertilizers, Steel, Cement and Electricity.

Index is compiled and released by Office of the Economic Adviser (OEA), Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP).

Eight Core Index broadly has a combined weight of 37.90 % in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and is published about prior to IIP.

http://www.arthapedia.in/index.php%3Ftitle%3DIndex_of_Eight_Core_Industries

Solution: B

Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) is an NGO located in New Delhi. It is a collective of Indian lawyers and social activists who provide legal support to the vulnerable and disadvantaged sections of society

What we do

1. Provide pro bono legal services to marginalized people and make justice accessible to them.
2. Undertake public interest litigation (PIL) to advance the state of human rights in the country.
3. Engage in advocacy to fight oppression, structural or by any individual or an organised group.
4. Conduct legal awareness programmes to empower the civil society with knowledge about the judiciary.
5. Undertake investigation into environment and human rights violations through Indian/Independent Peoples Tribunals.
6. Provide people access to justice through Indian/Independent People’s Tribunals (IPTs)
7. Investigate human rights violations across the country and create provisions to bring the perpetrators to justice.
8. Conduct Lectures, workshops and short courses are organised for personnel of various government departments, including the police.
9. Publish ‘know your rights’ materials for civilians to inform them about their rights.
10. Participate in grassroots and social development movements.

https://hrln.org/page/who-we-are

Solution: D

Teesta River Dispute is between India and Bangladesh. Teesta Flows through Indian states of West Bengal, Sikkim before going to the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh.

It is the fourth largest transboundary river shared between India and Bangladesh after Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river systems.

In 1983, India and Bangladesh agreed on ad-hoc sharing of water as India- 39% , Bangladesh- 36% and Un-allocated -25%

Now, Bangladesh is asking for equitable distribution of water (draft framework of interim sharing agreements for six rivers — Manu, Muhuri, Khowai, Gumti, Dharla and Dudhkumar — as well as the draft framework of interim sharing agreement of the Feni river are also pending)

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/not-enough-water-in-teesta-to-share-mamata/article28265532.ece

Solution: D

Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) Second Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities. UCCRN is dedicated to providing the information that city leaders—from government, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and the community—need in order to assess current and future risks, make choices that enhance resilience to climate change and climate extremes, and take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It is released by UNFCCC

https://unfccc.int/files/parties_observers/submissions_from_observers/application/pdf/787.pdf

Solution: A

Venkateswara Temple is a Hindu temple situated in the hill town of Tirumala at Tirupati in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India. The Temple is dedicated to Venkateswara, a form of Vishnu, who is believed to have appeared here to save mankind from trials and troubles of Kali Yuga.

Lawson bay beach is located in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
Rangdum Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery belonging to the Gelugpa sect, situated on top of a small but steep sugarloaf hill at an altitude of 4,031 m at the head of the Suru Valley, in Ladakh.

Solution: C

51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet confirmed to orbit a sunlike star. The planet orbits a fifth-magnitude star, 51 Pegasi, located 48 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

https://www.britannica.com/place/51-Pegasi-b-planet

Solution: C

An Indian Army team successfully summited Mount Leo Pargyil. Leo Pargyil is the third highest peak of Himachal and is considered to be among the most challenging and technically difficult peak to scale. It lies in the Zanskar range.

Solution: B

Terracotta Grinder:

• The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has launched the first-ever ‘Terracotta Grinder’ at Varanasi.
• It will grind the wasted and broken pottery items for re-using in pottery-making.
• It will reduce the cost of production, and will also help to solve the problem of shortage of clays for pottery making.

Solution: A

Mana Pass was an ancient trade route between Uttarakhand and Tibet. Mana Pass led from Badrinath to the kingdom, Mana is a small pilgrim village that is located in the state of Uttarakhand. The village is present near the religious site of Badrinath. The village has the distinction of being the last settlement on the road to the country of Tibet. It is situated at a height of around 3219 meters.

Shipki La pass is located in Kinnaur district in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India, and Ngari Prefecture in Tibet, China.

Nathu La is a mountain pass in the Himalayas in East Sikkim district. It connects the Indian state of Sikkim with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region

Dihang pass is located in the Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh. This pass connects Arunachal Pradesh with Myanmar (Mandalay). At an elevation of more than 4000 m it provides passage.

Solution: C

Red Sea:

• The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden.
• To the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez.
• The Red Sea is home to over 1200 species of fish and 250 species of coral. Of these, 17% of the fish species and 8% of the coral species are endemic.
• 40% of the Red Sea is shallower than 100 meters / 330 feet. And 25% of the Red Sea is less than 50 meters / 164 feet deep. That’s a lot of area within recreational limits!
• The Red Sea is the northernmost tropical sea in the world, because its waters cross the Tropic of Cancer.

The six countries bordering the Red Sea are:

• Saudi Arabia
• Yemen
• Egypt
• Sudan
• Eritrea
• Djibouti

Solution: D

Electoral bonds

• Electoral Bonds that allow donors to pay political parties using banks as an intermediary.
• Although called a bond, the banking instrument resembling promissory notes will not carry any interest.
• It will be a bearer instrument.
• It will not carry the name of the payee.
• It can be bought for any value, in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh or Rs 1 crore.
• Electoral bonds will be valid for 15 daysfrom the date of purchase.

Eligibility:

• May be purchased by a citizen of India, or entities incorporated or established in India.
• A person being an individual can buy electoral bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
• Only the registered Political Parties which have secured not less than one per cent of the votes polled in the last Lok Sabha elections or the State Legislative Assembly are eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds.

Solution: D

‘Mo Sarkar’ Initiative:

• Odisha has launched a new governance initiative– ‘Mo Sarkar’- on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti
• The ‘Mo Sarkar’ was launched at all police stations across the State along with 21 district headquarters hospitals and three government-run medical college hospitals at Cuttack, Berhampur and Sambalpur.
• The programme will be effective at all the 30 district headquarters hospitals of the State by October 30.
• The objective of the programme is to provide service with dignity to people who are coming to government offices for different purposes.

Solution: B

Google has unveiled Project Navlekha to make online content relevant for more Indian users especially in local languages.

The project aims to bring 135,000 local language publishers online by making web hosting smooth and simple.

Solution: A

Oxytocin:

• Oxytocin has also been dubbed the hug hormone, cuddle chemical, moral molecule, and the bliss hormone due to its effects on behavior, including its role in love and in female reproductive biological functions in reproduction.
• Oxytocin is a hormone that is made in the brain, in the hypothalamus. It is transported to, and secreted by, the pituitary gland, which is located at the base of the brain.
• It acts both as a hormone and as a brain neurotransmitter.
• The release of oxytocin by the pituitary gland acts to regulate two female reproductive functions: Childbirth and Breast-feeding.
• The health ministry in April 2018 notified a ban on private firms from manuacturing and selling oxytocin, stating that it wanted to restrict the responsibility of supplying the drug to a Karnataka-based public sector manufacturer to avoid its misuse in the veterinary field.