[Mission 2023] Insta– QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 27 June 2022

Solution: d)

Microfinance is a form of financial service which provides small loans and other financial services to poor and low-income households. 

Microcredit is delivered through a variety of institutional channels viz., (i) scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) (including small finance banks (SFBs) and regional rural banks (RRBs)) lending both directly as well as through business correspondents (BCs) and self-help groups (SHGs), (ii) cooperative banks, (iii) non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), and (iv) microfinance institutions (MFIs) registered as NBFCs as well as in other forms.

Solution: b)

The IUCN Green Status of Species, a new Global Standard to measure how close a species is to being fully ecologically functional across its range, and how much it has recovered thanks to conservation action.

Solution: d)

A geomagnetic reversal is a change in a planet’s magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged (not to be confused with geographic north and geographic south). Another interesting consequence will be that animals that use Earth’s magnetic field for navigation—including birds, salmon, and sea turtles—could get lost during their routine journeys. 

Because sea turtles use both marine and terrestrial habitats during their life cycles, the affects of climate change are likely to have a devastating impact on these species.

Because sea turtles are reptiles, they rely on the temperature of the sand in which the eggs incubate to determine the gender of the hatchling in a nest. Typically, the eggs in the lower, cooler, part of the nest will become males, while the eggs in the upper, warmer, part of the nest will become females. With increasing nest temperatures, scientists predict that there will be more female than male hatchlings, creating a significant threat to genetic diversity. 

Solution: b)

The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has three main objectives which guide its functioning. These are:

• The Social Objective – Providing employment in rural areas.
• The Economic Objective – Providing salable articles.
• The Wider Objective – Creating self-reliance amongst people and building up a strong rural community spirit.

Establishing a major khadi industry in every village is not a listed objective and may not be economically feasible as well.

Solution: a)

The Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing arrangement between US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It evolved during the Cold War as a mechanism for monitoring the Soviet Union and sharing classified intelligence. It is often described as the world’s most successful intelligence alliance. But recently it has suffered an embarrassing setback.