QUIZ – 2020: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 19 February 2021

Solution: d)

Source

Solution: d)

Cess and surcharge is not part of the divisible pool. However, it’s not in the hands of the Finance Commission to cap it. This requires a constitutional amendment. It was in 2000 during the period of (then PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee when there was a constitutional amendment that kept cess and surcharge outside the divisible pool. If cess and surcharge are to be part of the divisible pool, there has to be a constitutional amendment. 

Between the 14th and 15th (Finance Commissions), the incidence of cess and surcharge has gone up. 

Source

Solution: b)

Solution: a)

Bottom trawling is an industrial fishing method where a large net with heavy weights is dragged across the seafloor.

When the weighted nets and trawl doors are dragged along the seafloor, everything in their path is disturbed or destroyed, including seagrasses, coral reefs or rock gardens where fish hide from predators.

Bottom trawls are used in catching marine life that live on the seafloor, such as shrimp, cod, sole and flounder.

The damage from bottom trawling is not limited to habitat destruction. As the net drags along the seafloor, all creatures in its path—fish, animals, marine mammals, plants, and turtles—are scooped up along the way.

India has taken measures to stop bottom trawling by its fishermen in the waters near the Sri Lankan coastline.

Recent initiatives taken by the Government of India to end bottom trawling in the Palk Bay area include the launch of a programme on diversification of bottom trawlers into deep-sea fishing vessels for tuna long lining under the Blue Revolution Scheme, construction of Mookaiyur and Poompuhar fishing harbours, and capacity-building programmes for fishermen of the Palk Bay area in deep sea tuna long lining.

Solution: c)

Sinjar Mountains are a 100-kilometre-long mountain range that runs east to west, rising above the surrounding alluvial steppe plains in north-western Iraq. The western and lower segment of these mountains lies in Syria. These mountains are regarded as sacred by the Yazidis.