[Mission 2022] QUIZ – 2021: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 22 September 2021

Solution: c)

The Botanical Survey of India, in its new publication Plant Discoveries 2020 has added 267 new taxa/ species to the country’s flora.

Among the new discoveries this year, nine new species of balsams (Impatiens) one species of wild banana (Musa pradhanii) were discovered from Darjeeling, one species each of wild jamun (Sygygium anamalaianum) from Coimbatore and fern species (Selaginella odishana) were recorded from Kandhamal in Odisha.

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Solution: d)

The Account Aggregator (AA) framework, which was first announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) back in 2016, will now be open for users to access account aggregation services.

In order to provide an institutional framework for seamless and secure data sharing digitally between let’s say a borrower and a bank for credit access, the AA network was created instead of dedicating time in collating information such as scanned copies of bank statements, stamped documents from notaries, bank statements, GST returns, cash flow, etc., and then sharing it with the lender.

According to the RBI, AAs are a new class of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) that offers account aggregation services.

Here, financial assets could be bank deposits including fixed deposits, saving deposits, recurring deposits, current deposits, deposits with NBFCs, SIPs, government securities, equity shares, bonds, debentures, ETFs, insurance policies, balances under the National Pension System (NPS), etc. With AA services, the user is not required to physically share hard copies of documents from various entities or confidential login details of his/her documents or browse through different sites for information required by financial service providers.

The data shared by AAs with banks or other financial institutions with the user’s consent is encrypted and can be decrypted only by the recipient. Moreover, the time period for which the institution would have access to the data will be visible to the user at the time of giving consent for sharing the data.

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Solution: c)

Classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “zoonotic illness that is transmitted to people from animals”, the Nipah infection can also be passed on through contaminated food or from person to person.

In infected people, it causes a range of illnesses. While some remain asymptomatic, others can have acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis. The virus can also cause severe disease in animals such as pigs. Fruit bats of the family Pteropodidae – particularly, species belonging to the Pteropus genus – are the natural hosts for the virus, says the WHO.

Symptoms include fever, headaches, muscle pain, vomiting and sore throat. This can be followed by dizziness, drowsiness, altered consciousness, and neurological signs that indicate acute encephalitis. The WHO says patients with severe infection get encephalitis and seizures and end up in coma in 24 to 48 hours.

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Solution: a)

There is no treatment or vaccine available for either people or animals infected with nipah virus. The primary treatment for humans is supportive care.

In the case of Covid-19, treatment is provided to manage and reduce symptoms.

In nipah virus infection, the mortality rate is as high as around 92%.

The mortality rate for Covid-19 cases is not as high as in the case of nipah virus.

Solution: b)

Some of the major resources ocean floors offer are polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich manganese crust, hydrothermal deposits and gas hydrates. Of these, only gas hydrates are found in India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in mineable quantities in the order of ~950 trillion cubic m.