QUIZ – 2020: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 12 June 2021

Solution: d)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.

World Trade Organization, as an institution, was established in 1995. It replaced General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which was in place since 1946.

• The WTO officially commenced on 1 January 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, signed by 123 nations on 15 April 1994.
• India has been a member of GATT since 1948; hence it was party to Uruguay Round and a founding member of WTO.
• While WTO came in to existence in 1995, GATT didn’t cease to exist. It continues as WTO’s umbrella treaty for trade in goods.

Solution: c)

NASA has selected two missions to the planet Venus, Earth’s nearest neighbour. The missions called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS have been selected based on their potential for scientific value and the feasibility of their development plans.

Both missions are part of the space agency’s Discovery Program, which began in 1992 to give scientists the chance to launch some missions that use fewer resources and have shorter developmental times.

DAVINCI+ is short for ‘Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging’ and is the first US-led mission to the planet’s atmosphere since 1978.

VERITAS is short for ‘Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy’ and will map the planet’s surface to determine its geologic history and understand the reasons why it developed so differently from Earth.

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Solution: d)

Indian Railways commissioned country’s first governmental Waste to Energy Plant.

This Waste to Energy Plant, a patented technology called POLYCRACK, is first-of-its-kind in Indian Railways and fourth in India. It is world’s first patented heterogeneous catalytic process which converts multiple feed stocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water. Polycrack Plant can be fed with all types of Plastic, Petroleum sludge, Un-segregated MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) with moisture up to 50%, E–Waste, Automobile fluff, Organic waste including bamboo, garden waste etc., and Jatropha fruit and palm bunch. 

The process is a closed loop system and does not emit any hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere. The combustible, non-condensed gases are re-used for providing energy to the entire system and thus, the only emission comes from the combustion of gaseous fuels. The emissions from the combustion are found to be much less than prescribed environmental norms. This process will produce energy in the form of Light Diesel Oil which is used to light furnaces.

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Solution: c)

The National Income estimates is released by National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

About Gross Domestic product and Gross Value Added:

• GDP is a measure of economic activity in a country. It is the total value of a country’s annual output of goods and services. It gives the economic output from the consumers’ side.
• GVA is the sum of a country’s GDP and net of subsidies and taxes in the economy.
• GVA is defined as the value of output minus the value of intermediate consumption and is a measure of the contribution to growth made by an individual producer, industry or sector.
• It provides the rupee value for the number of goods and services produced in an economy after deducting the cost of inputs and raw materials that have gone into the production of those goods and services.

Gross Value Added = GDP + subsidies on products – taxes on products.

Solution: b)

A meteor is a space rock—or meteoroid—that enters Earth’s atmosphere. As the space rock falls toward Earth, the resistance—or drag—of the air on the rock makes it extremely hot. What we see is a “shooting star.” That bright streak is not actually the rock, but rather the glowing hot air as the hot rock zips through the atmosphere.

When Earth encounters many meteoroids at once, we call it a meteor shower.

According to NASA, over 30 meteor showers occur annually and are observable from the Earth.