DAY – 27 (InstaTest-27): Insta 75 Days Revision Plan-2022: Topic – GOVERNMENT SCHEMES, ORGANISATIONS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Subject-wise Tests 10 & 29, Text Book Based Test 13, December 2021 CA

Solution: D

The World Bank Group consists of five organizations:

• The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) lends to governments of middle-income and creditworthy low-income countries.

• The International Development Association

The International Development Association (IDA) provides interest-free loans — called credits — and grants to governments of the poorest countries.

• Together, IBRD and IDA make up the World Bank.
• The International Finance Corporation

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. We help developing countries achieve sustainable growth by financing investment, mobilizing capital in international financial markets, and providing advisory services to businesses and governments.

• The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency

The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) was created in 1988 to promote foreign direct investment into developing countries to support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve people’s lives. MIGA fulfills this mandate by offering political risk insurance (guarantees) to investors and lenders.

• The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) provides international facilities for conciliation and arbitration of investment disputes.

India is not a member of The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Members of ICSID

Solution: A

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 190 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

Created in 1945, the IMF is governed by and accountable to the 190 countries that make up its near-global membership.

The IMF is a quota-based institution. Quotas are the building blocks of the IMF’s financial and governance structure. An individual member country’s quota broadly reflects its relative position in the world economy. Quotas are denominated in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), the IMF’s unit of account.

The IMF’s Board of Governors conducts general quota reviews at regular intervals (no more than five years). Any changes in quotas must be approved by an 85 percent majority of the total voting power, and a member’s own quota cannot be changed without its consent.

Two main issues addressed in a general quota review are the size of an overall quota increase and the distribution of the increase among the members.

Country Representation

Unlike the General Assembly of the United Nations, where each country has one vote, decision making at the IMF was designed to reflect the relative positions of its member countries in the global economy. The IMF continues to undertake reforms to ensure that its governance structure adequately reflects fundamental changes taking place in the world economy.

Accountability

Created in 1945, the IMF is governed by and accountable to the 190 countries that make up its near-global membership. Decision making at the IMF was designed to reflect the relative positions of its member countries in the global economy.

Solution: C

The only tripartite U.N. agency, since 1919 the ILO brings together governments, employers and workers of 187 member States , to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men.

As the ILO celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2019, it is timely to reflect on the many life-changing events which are linked to the ten decades of ILO history.

The Organization has played a role at key historical junctures – the Great Depression, decolonization, the creation of Solidarność in Poland, the victory over apartheid in South Africa – and today in the building of an ethical and productive framework for a fair globalization.

It was created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles, that ended World War I, to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace can be accomplished only if it is based on social justice.

Solution: A

International Civil Aviation Organization

ICAO is funded and directed by 193 national governments to support their diplomacy and cooperation in air transport as signatory states to the Chicago Convention (1944).

Its core function is to maintain an administrative and expert bureaucracy (the ICAO Secretariat) supporting these diplomatic interactions, and to research new air transport policy and standardization innovations as directed and endorsed by governments through the ICAO Assembly, or by the ICAO Council which the assembly elects.

The ICAO standards never supersede the primacy of national regulatory requirements. It is always the local, national regulations which are enforced in, and by, sovereign states, and which must be legally adhered to by air operators making use of applicable airspace and airports.

Solution: B

The International Science Council (ISC) is a non-governmental organization with a unique global membership that brings together 40 international scientific Unions and Associations and over 140 national and regional scientific organizations including Academies and Research Councils.

The ISC was created in 2018 as the result of a merger between the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC).

It is the only international non-governmental organization bringing together the natural and social sciences and the largest global science organization of its type.

Solution: A

WIPO is the global forum for intellectual property (IP) services, policy, information and cooperation. We are a self-funding agency of the United Nations, with 193 member states.

Our mission is to lead the development of a balanced and effective international IP system that enables innovation and creativity for the benefit of all. Our mandate, governing bodies and procedures are set out in the WIPO Convention, which established WIPO in 1967.

The predecessor to WIPO was the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (Bureaux Internationaux Réunis pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle, with the French acronym “BIRPI”), which had been established in 1893 to administer the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

WIPO was formally created by the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, which entered into force on 26 April 1970. That date is commemorated annually as World Intellectual Property Day, which raises awareness of the importance of IP. Under Article 3 of this Convention, WIPO seeks to “promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world”. WIPO became a specialized agency of the UN in 1974.

Solution: B

The World Food Programme (WFP) is the leading humanitarian organization saving lives and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience.

As the international community has committed to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030, one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat. Food and food-related assistance lie at the heart of the struggle to break the cycle of hunger and poverty.

For its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, WFP was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

Funded entirely by voluntary donations, WFP raised a record-breaking US$8 billion in 2019. WFP has 20,000 staff worldwide of whom over 90 percent are based in the countries where the agency provides assistance.

WFP is governed by a 36-member Executive Board. It works closely with its two Rome-based sister organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. WFP partners with more than 1,000 national and international NGOs to provide food assistance and tackle the underlying causes of hunger.

Created in 1961 (at the behest of US President Dwight Eisenhower) as an experiment to provide food aid through the UN system, WFP is to be reassessed within three years. In 1965, WFP is enshrined as a fully-fledged UN programme: it is to last for “as long as multilateral food aid is found feasible and desirable”.

Solution: A

In 1978, a pivotal conference was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, bringing together health experts and world leaders to commit to health for all. Endorsed at that conference, the declaration formed the foundation for the last 40 years of global primary health care efforts.

Solution: D

The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to encourage businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation.

Solution: A

The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) is a framework for the provision of support through liquidity and precautionary instruments in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures. It was established in 2015 by the BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The legal basis is formed by the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, signed at Fortaleza, Brazil on 15 July 2014. It entered into force upon ratification by all BRICS states, announced at the 7th BRICS summit in July 2015.

The objective of this reserve is to provide protection against global liquidity pressures. This includes currency issues where members’ national currencies are being adversely affected by global financial pressures. The CRA is generally seen as a competitor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and along with the New Development Bank is viewed as an example of increasing South-South cooperation.

Solution: a)

Justification: Put simply, concessional finance is below market rate finance provided by major financial institutions, such as development banks and multilateral funds, to developing countries to accelerate development objectives. The term concessional finance does not represent a single mechanism or type of financial support but comprises a range of below market rate products used to accelerate a climate or development objective.

Concessional finance targets high-impact projects responding to globally significant development challenges – from climate change mitigation and resilience to vaccine deployment, water sanitation and education – that otherwise could not go ahead without specialised financial support.

As an example, a developing country may want to move away from fossil fuels and develop a series of renewable energy projects but does not have enough of its own capital to get started, nor access to reasonably priced loans and risk-friendly investors. Concessional finance support can help such projects get off the ground and contribute to global efforts to achieve net zero goals.

How is concessional finance used?

The most common financial products used to deliver concessional finance come in the form of loans, grants and, to some extent, equity investments. How these products are delivered must remain flexible to the unique needs of each development challenge.

Q Source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/09/16/what-you-need-to-know-about-concessional-finance-for-climate-action

Solution: d)

Justification: Retrofit of Air-conditioning to improve Indoor Air Quality for Safety and Efficiency (RAISE) is a national programme to improve indoor air quality.

• It is launched by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), under the administration of Ministry of Power.
• It is developed for healthy and energy efficient buildings, in partnership with US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) MAITREE programme.
• The pilot focuses on improving indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal comfort, and energy efficiency (EE) in EESL office’s air conditioning system.
• It can potentially alleviate the issue of bad air quality in workspaces across the nation.

Q Source: Govt schemes

Solution: c)

Justification: RKVY scheme was initiated in 2007 as an umbrella scheme for ensuring holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors.

• The scheme incentivizes States to increase public investment in Agriculture & allied sectors.
• In 2017, the component of Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture and Allied Sector Rejuvenation (RKVY-RAFTAAR) was added.
• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in the ratio of 60: 40 except in the case of north-eastern and hilly states where the sharing pattern is 90:10.
• For UTs the grant is 100% as Central share.
• The main objective is to develop farming as a main source of economic activity.
• It provides all the states with autonomy and flexibility in making plans as per their local needs.
• It aims to reduce the risk of farmers by focusing on increasing the income generation through mushroom cultivation, integrated farming, floriculture, etc.
• Union Ministry of Agriculture is funding start-ups under the innovation and agri-preneurship component of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
• These start-ups are in various categories such as agro-processing, artificial intelligence, digital agriculture, farm mechanization, waste to wealth, dairy, fisheries etc.

Q Source: Govt schemes

Solution: b)

Justification:  It has evolved as an umbrella scheme for a seamless innovation ecosystem booster. Major links of the innovation to market value chain would be supported and strengthened at various nodes (each node signifying a cluster of 3 neighbouring districts) across the country to attain the mission of nation building through innovation, entrepreneurship and incubation.

The specific components of NIDHI are – grand challenge and competitions for scouting innovations; promotion and acceleration of young and aspiring innovators and startups (PRAYAS) – support from idea to prototype; entrepreneur in residence (EIR) – support system to reduce risk; startup-NIDHI through innovation and entrepreneurship development centres (IEDCs) in academic institutions for encouraging students to promote start-ups; start-up centre in collaboration with MHRD – inculcating a spirit of entrepreneurship in national institutions of higher learning; technology business incubator (TBI) – converting innovations to startups; accelerator – fast tracking a start-up through focused intervention; seed support system (SSS) – providing early stage investment; centres of excellence (COE) – a world class facility to help startups go global and/or scale up.

Q Source: Ch on Skill Development: IYB

Solution: c)

Justification:  The Government has taken up detailed review of NHs network with a view to develop the road connectivity to border areas, development of coastal roads including road connectivity for non-major ports, improvement in the efficiency of national corridors, development of economic corridors, inter corridors and feeder routes along with integration with Sagarmala, etc., under Bharatmala Pariyojana.

The project will build highways from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and then cover the entire string of Himalayan territories – Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand – and then portions of borders of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar alongside Terai, and move to West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and right up to the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur and Mizoram.

The ambitious umbrella programme will subsume all existing Highway Projects including the flagship National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998.

It is both enabler and beneficiary of other key Government of India schemes, such as Sagarmala, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Industrial corridors, UDAN-RCS, BharatNet, Digital India, Parvatmala and Make in India.

Q Source: Ch on Transport: IYB

Solution : D

• Asset monetisation would not involve the selling of land.
• Asset monetisation is undertaken only for brownfield assets and not for green field projects.
• Projects have been identified across sectors, with roads, railways and power being the top segments.

Solution: B

• DGQI survey assesses different Ministries /Departments’ performance on the implementation of Central Sector Schemes (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS).
• It is conducted by Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) under NITI Aayog.
• Its objective is to assess data preparedness of Ministries / Departments on a standardized framework to drive healthy competition among them and promote cooperative peer learning from best practices.

Solution: A

The new global project to prevent plastic litter from shipping and fisheries has been launched by the IMO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Initial funding for the project is from the Government of Norway.

Solution: C

SDR includes US dollar, Euro, Pound, Yen, and Chinese Renminbi.

Solution: D

PARAM Ganga – High-Performance Computing (HPC) system under the NSM has been established at IIT Roorkee.

Answer B

1)A minimum

Answer B

The black colour of Indian soil is due to the presence of a small proportion of titaniferous magnetite

Humus accumulates in cold climates as bacterial growth is slow. With undecomposed organic matter because of low bacterial activity, layers of peat develop in sub- arctic and tundra climates.

population of 5,000;

2) At least 75 percent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits; and

3) A density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km.

Answer D

Laterization is inverse process to that of podzolization i.e. the process that removes silica, instead of sesquioxides from the upper layers and thereby leaving sesquioxides to concentrate in the solum.

The process operates under rain forests of tropical areas, warm and humid (tropical) climate and basic parent materials are favourable for such soils.

Podzolization (Russian, pod means under and zola means ash):

It is the process of eluviation of oxide of iron and aluminium (sesqui oxides) and also humus under acidic condition (pH 4-5), removal of carbonates by organic acids formed by organic matter and illuviation of the silicon in surface horizon.

Answer D

As per the report, the Annual Replenishable Ground Water Resource for the entire country is 433 billion cubic metre (bcm), Net Annual Ground Water Availability is estimated as 399 billion cubic metre whereas the Annual ground water draft for irrigation, Domestic & Industrial was 231 billion cubic metre and their Stage of Ground Water Development for the Country as a whole is 58%.

More than 60% of irrigated agriculture and 85% of drinking water supplies are dependent on groundwater. Urban residents increasingly rely on groundwater due to unreliable and inadequate municipal water supplies

Answer D

Answer D

Sol.(d)

Given HCF of two natural numbers m and n = 24

and their product, m × n = 552

LCM of two natural numbers = Product of m and n / HCF of m and n = 552/24 = 23

Here, no set of m and n is possible satisfying the given conditions.

Sol.(a)

Let f(x) = 2x³ + x² – x – 2 = (x – 1)(2x² + 3x + 2)

and g(x)= 3x³ – 2x² + x – 2 = (x -1)(3x² + x + 2)

Hence, the highest common factor of f(x) and g(x) is (x – 1).

Sol.(b)

HCF of (22n + 7, 33n + 10) is always 1.

Illustration: For n = 1, HCF (29, 43) = 1

For n = 2, HCF (51, 76) = 1

For n= 3, HCF (73, 109) = 1

Sol.(c)

Time after which they will hit the target again together

= LCM (5, 6, 7 and 8)

= 5 × 3 × 7 × 2 × 4

= 840 s

They will hit target together = 840/60 = 14 min.

So, they will hit together again at 9:14 am.

Solution : b

Author in the passage states that issue of food production, marketing and prices, especially price affordability of the poor in developing world has gained prominence and it needs global thinking and solution. The above stated problem can be solved by improving price affordability of poor and by regulating the conditions for marketing. So, the option (b) will be the best choice as answer.