DAY – 12 ( INSTA REVISION TEST)INSTA REVISION PLAN 3.0, 2020

Solution: D

Solution: B

States and territories with borders on the sea (clockwise from north) include: the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Solution: A

IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) is a science-based network of more than 9,000 volunteer experts from almost every country of the world, all working together towards achieving the vision of, “A just world that values and conserves nature through positive action to reduce the loss of diversity of life on earth”.

Working in close association with IUCN’s Global Species Programme, SSC’s major role is to provide information to IUCN on biodiversity conservation, the inherent value of species, their role in ecosystem health and functioning, the provision of ecosystem services, and their support to human livelihoods. This information is fed into The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

SSC members also provide scientific advice to conservation organisations, government agencies and other IUCN members, and support the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.

https://www.iucn.org/commissions/species-survival-commission/about

Solution: B

Solution: C

The World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research non-profit organization established in 1982 with funding from the MacArthur Foundation under the leadership of James Gustave Speth.W

WRI’s activities are focused on seven areas: food, forests, water, energy, cities, climate and ocean.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) maintains international offices in the United States, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil.  The organization’s mission is to promote environmental sustainability, economic opportunity, and human health and well-being.

WRI partners with local and national governments, private companies, publicly held corporations, and other non-profits, and offers services including global climate change issues, sustainable markets, ecosystem protection, and environmental responsible governance services.

https://www.wri.org/about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Resources_Institute

Solution: B

Solution: B

Solution: C

The Darfur region lies in the western part of the Sudan (Africa’s largest country), near the borders with Libya, Chad, and Central African Republic. The population of Darfur was estimated in 2002 at about six million, eighty percent of whom live in the rural areas.

Solution: C

There are two types of body waves. They are called P and S-waves. P-waves move faster and are the first to arrive at the surface. These are also called ‘primary waves’. The P-waves are similar to sound waves. They travel through gaseous, liquid and solid materials. S-waves arrive at the surface with some time lag. These are called secondary waves. An important fact about S-waves is that they can travel only through solid materials. This characteristic of the S-waves is quite important. It has helped scientists to understand the structure of the interior of the earth. Reflection causes waves to rebound whereas refraction makes waves move in different directions. The variations in the direction of waves are inferred with the help of their record on seismograph. The surface waves are the last to report on seismograph. These waves are more destructive. They cause displacement of rocks, and hence, the collapse of structures occurs.

Emergence of Shadow Zone

Earthquake waves get recorded in seismographs located at far off locations. However, there exist some specific areas where the waves are not reported. Such a zone is called the ‘shadow zone’. The study of different events reveals that for each earthquake, there exists an altogether different shadow zone. It was observed that seismographs located at any distance within 105° from the epicentre, recorded the arrival of both P and S-waves. However, the seismographs located beyond 145° from epicentre, record the arrival of P-waves, but not that of S-waves. Thus, a zone between 105° and 145° from epicentre was identified as the shadow zone for both the types of waves. The entire zone beyond 105° does not receive S-waves. The shadow zone of S-wave is much larger than that of the P-waves. The shadow zone of P-waves appears as a band around the earth between 105° and 145° away from the epicentre. The shadow zone of S-waves is not only larger in extent but it is also a little over 40 per cent of the earth surface.

Solution: D

National Election Watch (NEW) is a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGOs and other citizen led organizations working together on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India.
The campaign is active in almost all states of India and has been doing election watches for the State Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections since 2002.

Among others, the Election Watch activities comprise of collecting data from the affidavits filed by the contesting candidates in the elections, collating this information in an easy way for the voters to understand and then disseminating this information via media and other channels.

The campaign enables voters to know about the candidates contesting from their constituency and other electoral process information.

https://adrindia.org/content/national-election-watch

Solution: A

Some important minor plates are listed below:

(i) Cocos plate : Between Central America and Pacific plate

(ii) Nazca plate : Between South America and Pacific plate

(iii) Arabian plate : Mostly the Saudi Arabian landmass

(iv) Philippine plate : Between the Asiatic and Pacific plate

(v) Caroline plate : Between the Philippine and Indian plate (North of New Guinea)

(vi) Fuji plate : North-east of Australia.

Solution: C

Archaean Gneisses and Schists [4 Billion Years]

Gneiss == Mineral composition varies from granite to gabbro.

Schists == mostly crystalline, include mica, talc, hornblende, chlorite, etc.

These rocks are:

• Oldest rocks [pre-Cambrian era] [formed about 4 billion years ago].
• Rocks formed due to solidification of molten magma – the earth’s surface was very hot then.
• Known as the ‘Basement Complex’ [They are the oldest and forms the base for new layers]
• Azoic or unfossiliferous,
• Foliated (consisting of thin sheets),
• Thoroughly crystalline (because they are volcanic in origin),
• Plutonic intrusions (volcanic rocks found deep inside).

Dharwar System [4 – 1 Billion Years]

• Formation period ranges from 4 billion years ago to – 1 billion years ago.
• Highly metamorphosed sedimentary rock-system. [formed due to metamorphosis of sediments of Archaean gneisses and schists].
• They are the oldest metamorphosed rocks.
• Found in abundance in the Dharwar district of Karnataka.
• Economically the most important rocks because they possess valuable minerals like high grade iron-ore, manganese, copper, lead, gold, etc.

Solution: C

One Planet Summit (“One Earth Summit”) is the title of an extraordinary or additional world climate summit announced by French President Emmanuel Macron at COP 23 in Bonn in November 2017 on December 12, 2017.

The One Planet Summit will bring together local, regional and national leaders, as well as those working in public and private finance to discuss how they can support and accelerate global efforts to fight climate change. 

As a result,

The World Bank announced that it would no longer finance projects for the development of oil and natural gas from 2019. The insurance company Axa announced that it would no longer insure new coal-fired power plants in the future and that it would invest twelve billion euros in “green” projects by 2020.

https://www.unenvironment.org/events/summit/one-planet-summit

Solution: B

Acidic Rocks

• Acidic rocks are characterised by high content of silica (quartz and feldspar) — up to 80 per cent.
• The rest is divided among aluminium, alkalis, magnesium, iron oxide, lime etc.
• These rocks have a lesser content of heavier minerals like iron and magnesium. Hence, they are less dense and are lighter in colour than basic rocks.
• These rocks constitute the sial portion of the crust.
• Due to the excess of silicon, acidic magma cools fast, and it does not flow and spread far away.
• High mountains are formed of this type of rock.
• Add rocks are hard, compact, massive and resistant to weathering.
• Granite, quartz and feldspar are typical examples.

Basic Rocks

• These rocks are poor in silica (about 40 per cent); magnesia content is up to 40 per cent, and the remaining is spread over iron oxide, lime, aluminium, alkalis, potassium etc.
• Due to low silica content, the parent material of such rocks cools slowly and thus, flows and spreads far away. This flow and cooling give rise to plateaus.
• Presence of heavy elements imparts to these rocks a dark colour. Not being very hard, these rocks are weathered relatively easily.
• Basalt, gabbro and dolerite are typical examples.

Solution: B

The Carbon Initiative for Development (Ci-Dev) is a World Bank trust fund that mobilizes private finance for clean energy access in low-income countries. It delivers results-based finance to innovative and transformative business models driven by the private sector. Through 2025, Ci-Dev will have mobilized more than $250 million in private finance to provide low-carbon energy to more than 10 million people in the communities most vulnerable to climate change.

https://www.ci-dev.org/who-we-are

Solution: A

Erosion by glaciers is tremendous because of friction caused by sheer weight of the ice. The material plucked from the land by glaciers (usually large-sized angular blocks and fragments) get dragged along the floors or sides of the valleys and cause great damage through abrasion and plucking. Glaciers can cause significant damage to even unweathered rocks and can reduce high mountains into low hills and plains.

As glaciers continue to move, debris gets removed, divides get lowered and eventually the slope is reduced to such an extent that glaciers will stop moving leaving only a mass of low hills and vast outwash plains along with other depositional features.

Glacial Erosional Landforms

• Cirque/Corrie
• Glacial Trough
• Hanging Valley
• Arete
• Horn
• D-Fjord

Glacial Depositional Landforms

• Outwash Plain
• Esker
• Kame Terraces
• Drumlin
• Kettle Holes
• Moraine

Solution: B

Farzad B Gas Field is the gas field which is located in Persian Gulf under the control of Iranian sovereignty and India is progressing on acquisition and exploration of this.

Solution: C

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.

It defines what is a forest offence, what are the acts prohibited inside a Reserved Forest, and penalties leviable on violation of the provisions of the Act.

State Government may constitute any forest-land or waste-land which is the property of Government, or over which the Government has proprietary rights, or to the whole or any part of the forest-produce of which the Government is entitled, a reserved forest in the manner hereinafter provided.

Powers of Forest Settlement-officers.—For the purpose of such inquiry, the Forest Settlement-officer may exercise the following powers, that is to say:—

(a) power to enter, by himself or any officer authorised by him for the purpose, upon any land, and to survey, demarcate and make a map of the same; and

(b) the powers of a Civil Court in the trial of suits.

https://indiankanoon.org/doc/654536/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Forest_Act,_1927

Solution: C

A mission called Hope, the Arab region’s first attempt to go interplanetary, is on its way to Mars. Hope blasted off from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center.

Tanegashima Island is located in East China Sea.

Lesbos (also called Lesvos or Mitilini) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/31/greece-refugee-healthcare-crisis-island-camps-lesbos-moria-coronavirus

The Chagos Archipelago or Chagos Islands are a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres south of the Maldives archipelago.

Solution: D

Raqqa, also called Raqa, Rakka and ar-Raqqah, is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometres east of Aleppo. It is located 40 kilometres east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria’s largest dam.

Al-Baghuz Fawqani is a town in Syria, located in Abu Kamal District, Deir ez-Zor. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics, Al-Baghuz Fawqani had a population of 10,649 in the 2004 census

Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq. Located approximately 400 km north of Baghdad, Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank.

Solution: A

The Bosphorus is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey. It forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and divides Turkey by separating Anatolia from Thrace.

Solution: C

Solution: C

Israeli researchers say they have discovered the world’s longest salt cave.

The 10km (6.2 miles) of passages and chambers inside Malham Cave, overlooking the Dead Sea, were mapped out over two years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47731943

Solution: D

Mount Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It has three volcanic cones: Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira. It is the highest mountain in Africa and the highest single free-standing mountain in the world.

Mount Merapi is an active stratovolcano located on the border between Central Java and Special Region of Yogyakarta provinces, Indonesia. It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548.

Mount Vesuvius is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about 9 km east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of several volcanoes which form the Campanian volcanic arc.

Solution: C

Core Investment Companies (CICs) are a specialized Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).

1. They have asset size of Rs 100 crore and above.
2. Their main business is acquisition of shares and securitieswith certain conditions.
3. It holds not less than 90%of its net assets in the form of investment in equity shares, preference shares, bonds, debentures, debt or loans in group companies.

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/rbi-panel-moots-tighter-norms-for-cics/article29904499.ece