[MISSION 2023] INSIGHTS CURRENT AFFAIRS (28 June 2022 ) REVISION THROUGH MCQS

Ans: (a)

Explanation:

• S2: NATO’s main headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, while NATO’s military headquarters are near Mons, Belgium.
• S1: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance established by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the Washington Treaty) of April, 1949, by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.
• S3: India is not a member country of NATO.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/nato-to-raise-its-response-force-from-40000-to-3-lakh-troops/

Ans: (c)

Explanation:

• CoWIN app is an extension of the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN)that provides real-time information on vaccine stocks and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country
• It is a cloud-based IT platformand it handles minute details for India’s Covid-19 immunization programme
• It includes:
  • registering beneficiaries, allocating vaccination centres
  • sending text messages with the name of their vaccinator to beneficiaries and live monitoring of vials in cold storage.
• The Co-WIN platform is owned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfareand was earlier the platform used for conducting Pulse Polio and other crucial immunization programmes across the country.
• The Ministry of Electronics and IT along with the National Informatics Centre are handling the backend and the tech infrastructure for it.

Refer: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/many-in-andhra-get-sms-on-vaccination-without-taking-a-jab/

Ans: (a)

Explanation:  Venkatraman Krishnamurthy (1925-2022)

• Context: Death recently
• Contributions:
  • Called ‘Father of PSUs’ and ‘Turnaround Man’as he was the founding chairman of Maruti Udyog, he revived BHEL, GAIL and SAIL PSUs.

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (d)

Explanation:

• The term boyfriend loophole refers to a gap in American gun legislation that allows access to guns by physically abusive ex-boyfriends and stalkers with previous convictions.

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (c)

Explanation: Status of Salt sector in India:

• Central control: Salt is under the Union List of the 7th schedule
• India is the world’s third-largest producer of salt, after US and China.
• Salt is mainly produced through a solar-evaporation process of seawater.
• Nodal Agency: Salt Commissioner’s Organisation (an attached Office under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry)
• Occupational Health hazards related to salt: Chronic dermatitis (skin ulcers), vision loss
• States: Gujarat accounts for almost 80% of the country’s production, followed by Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan (through mining), Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Himachal Pradesh (through mining).

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (d)

Explanation:

• During February-April, data analytics noted that the average pack size of FMCG products in India shrank by nearly 15% year on year.
• Concept: Shrinkflation is the practice of reducing the size (or sometimes quality)of a product while the price of the product remains the same or slightly increases.

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (b)

Explanation:

• NASA delays Psyche mission(part of NASA’s Discovery Program) to asteroid because of late software delivery.
• What is Psyche?
• Psyche is an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.What makes it unique is that it appears to be the exposed nickel-iron core of an early planet, one of the building blocks of our solar system.

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (d)

Explanation:

• Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFAs) are areas notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India around Protected Areas, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries. The purpose of declaring ESZs is to create some kind of “shock absorbers” to the protected areas by regulating and managing the activities around such areas. They also act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to areas involving lesser protection.
• The Environment Protection Act, 1986 does not mention the word “Eco-sensitive Zones”.
• The section 3(2)(v) of the Act,says that Central Government can restrict areas in which any industries, operations or processes shall not be carried out or shall be carried out subject to certain safeguards
• Besides the section 5 (1)of this act says that central government can prohibit or restrict the location of industries and carrying on certain operations or processes on the basis of considerations like the biological diversity of an area, maximum allowable limits of concentration of pollutants for an area, environmentally compatible land use, and proximity to protected areas.
• The above two clauses have been effectively used by the government to declare Eco-Sensitive Zones or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFA). The same criteria have been used by the government to declare No Development Zones.
• National Board for Wildlife (which replaced the Indian Board for Wildlife in 2002) decided that the “delineation of ESZs would have to be site specific and relate to regulation, rather than prohibition of specific activities”.

Refer: facts for prelims: https://www.insightsonindia.com/2022/06/28/mission-2023-insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-summary-28-june-2022/

Ans: (a)

Explanation:

• Statement 3 is absurd. Rest of them are correct.
• S1: RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression or translation.
• S2: Since the discovery of RNAi and its regulatory potentials, it has become evident that RNAi has immense potential in suppression of desired genes (gene silencing).
• Numerous studies have demonstrated that RNAi can provide a more specific approach to inhibit tumor growth by targeting cancer-related genes (i.e., oncogene).
• S4:RNAi has resulted in the invention of novel crops such as nicotine-free tobacco, decaffeinated coffee, nutrient fortified vegetation, and hypoallergenic crops. The genetically-engineered Arctic apples received FDA approval in 2015.
• While it was known that plants expressing virus-specific proteins showed enhanced tolerance or resistance to viral infection, it was not expected that plants carrying only short, non-coding regions of viral RNA sequences would show similar levels of protection. Researchers believed that viral RNA produced by transgenes could also inhibit viral replication.
• The reverse experiment, in which short sequences of plant genes were introduced into viruses, showed that the targeted gene was suppressed in an infected plant. This phenomenon was labeled “virus-induced gene silencing” (VIGS), and the set of such phenomena were collectively called post transcriptional gene silencing.
• See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_interference

Refer: UPSC CSE 2019

Ans: (d)

Explanation:

• Justification: S1 and S2:Selection of resistant microorganisms is exacerbated by inappropriate use of antimicrobials since a number of microbes are resistant to these anti-biotics. So, S1 is irrelevant to MDR.
• The practice of adding antibiotics to agricultural feed promotes drug resistance.
• S3:As per WHO, the high volume of antibiotics in food-producing animals contributes to the development of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, particularly in settings of intensive animal production. These bacteria can be transmitted from animals to humans via direct contact between animals and humans, or through the food chain and the environment. See https://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/antimicrobial-resistance/amrfoodchain/en/
• S4:This is a confusing option, nonetheless seems correct.
• Many medical advances are dependent on the ability to fight infections using antibiotics, such as for treatment of chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis (See https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html), and thus, multiple chronic diseases in some people may lead them to take more anti-biotics than others exacerbating the problem.
• Sometimes healthcare providers prescribe antimicrobials inappropriately, wishing to placate an insistent patient who has a viral infection or an as-yet undiagnosed condition. At times there could be a wrong identification of the disease. All these worsen the problem. Whether this is actually a reason or not is hard to testify unless we find a solid evidence, but based on reasoning alone this would be correct.
• Also, MDR provokes obstruction in disease control by intensifying the possibility of spreading of resistant pathogens, thus, declining efficacy of treatment and, hence, resulting in prolonged time of infection in patient. See https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ipid/2014/541340/

Refer: UPSC CSE 2019