QUIZ – 2020: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 27 August 2020

Solution: a)

The SCO’s main goals are: strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states; promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy, research, technology and culture, as well as in education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, and other areas; making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region; and moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.

Solution: c)

US Agency for International Development (USAID) and India’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) have launched Forest-PLUS 2.0.

Forest-PLUS 2.0 is a five-year programme initiated in December 2018 that focuses on developing tools and techniques to bolster ecosystem management and harnessing ecosystem services in forest landscape management.

Forest-PLUS 2.0 comprises pilot project in three landscapes — Gaya in Bihar, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and Medak in Telangana. The choice of these sites was driven by the contrast in their landscapes – Bihar is a forest deficit area, Telangana is a relatively drier area where there is ample scope for community livelihood enhancement and Kerala is rich in biodiversity.

Solution: b)

• The 1995 Basel Ban Amendment, a global waste dumping prohibition, became an international law after Croatia ratified it on September 6, 2019.
• Croatia became the 97th country to ratify the ban, which was adopted by the parties to the Basel Convention in 1995, to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes, according to Basel Action Network (BAN).
• BAN is a Unites States-based charity organisation and is one among the organisations and countries, which created the Basel Ban Amendment — hailed as a landmark agreement for global environmental justice.
• The Ban Amendment prohibits all export of hazardous wastes, including electronic wastes and obsolete ships from 29 wealthiest countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to non-OECD countries.

Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal:

• Opened for signature on 22 March 1989
• entered into force on 5 May 1992
• Parties — 187.
• It is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).
• It does not address the movement of radioactive waste.

Solution: b)

United Nations has marked 2030 as a global target to eliminate TB worldwide but the Government of India has made 2025 as its target to eliminate tuberculosis from the country. 

Why is Tuberculosis a major cause of concern?

• TB is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and the leading cause from a single infectious agent, ranking above HIV/AIDS.
• TB is an infectious disease caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
• It typically affects the lungs (pulmonary TB) but can also affect other sites.
• The disease is spread when people who are sick with pulmonary TB expel bacteria into the air, for example by coughing.

India TB report 2019- key findings:

• The number of HIV-infected people who go on to develop Tuberculosis (TB) is increasing in India.
• TB is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among People Living with HIV (PLHIV). This group is 21 times more likely to develop TB than persons without the virus.
• The co-morbidity of TB don’t come in form of HIV only. Diabetes and tobacco-related ailments too play a role.

Percentage of pediatric tuberculosis (TB among the population aged less than 15 years) cases have also slightly gone up.

Solution: c)

The Black Sea is bordered by Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia.

The Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea, via the Aegean Sea and various straits, and is navigable to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Bosporus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the Strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. The Black Sea is also connected, to the north, to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait.