[Mission 2023] QUIZ : Insights Current Affairs Quiz , 26 July 2022

Solution: c)

India and Namibia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to reintroduce the African cheetah in India. The agreement will prepare the ground for the relocation of the first batch of cheetahs from Namibia to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park.

The Asiatic cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952 and is a critically endangered species surviving only in Iran. In 1947, there were confirmed records of the cheetah’s presence in India.

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Solution: d)

Agriculture Orientation Index (AOI) — an index which was developed as part of the Goal 2 (Zero Hunger) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 emphasises an increase in investment in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, development of technology to enhance agricultural productivity and eradication of poverty in middle- and lower-income countries.

The AOI is calculated by dividing the agriculture share of government expenditure by the agriculture value added share of GDP. In other words, it measures the ratio between government spending towards the agricultural sector and the sector’s contribution to GDP. India’s index is one of the lowest, reflecting that the spending towards the agricultural sector is not commensurate with the sector’s contribution towards GDP.

Solution: b)

In the last few years, the Indian Supreme Court has delivered some judgments of far-reaching consequence.

It declared the right to privacy a fundamental right; decriminalised consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex; recognised transgender persons as the third gender; and outlawed triple talaq.

Solution: a)

Jim Corbett National Park is Located in the Himalayan foothills near the tourist hill station of Nainital.

With its hills, grasslands, and streams, Corbett is ideal tiger territory. The place from where Project Tiger was launched in 1973, with its tiger population at 163, it boasts of a single largest tiger population in a tiger reserve and one of the highest tiger densities in the country.

Set up in 1936 as India’s — and Asia’s — first national park, it was named Hailey National Park. Shortly after Independence, it was renamed Ramganga National Park after the river that flows through it, and was rechristened yet again as Corbett National Park in 1956.

Rajaji National Park is an Indian national park and tiger reserve that encompasses the Shivaliks, near the foothills of the Himalayas.

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Solution: a)

The study under National Mission on Himalayan Studies revealed a strong link between habitat use by Snow Leopard and its prey species Siberian ibex and blue sheep.

Spiti Valley possessed a good habitat in and outside the protected areas which could support a viable population of both snow leopard and its prey species.  

Classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red list and listed in Schedule-I species of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, snow leopards are elusive mountain cats whose survival depends on depends primarily on wild ungulates.

Higher up in the mountains, predators such as snow leopards regulated the populations of herbivores such as the blue sheep and Siberian ibex, thereby safeguarding the health of grasslands and a long-term absence of snow leopards could cause trophic cascades as ungulate populations would likely increase, leading to depletion of vegetation cover.

Snow leopards have a vast but fragmented distribution across the mountainous landscape of central Asia, which covers different parts of the Himalayas such as Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim.

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