[Mission 2023] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 3 September 2022

Solution: b)

Option A: An import quota is a type of protectionist trade restriction that sets a physical limit on the quantity of a good that can be imported into a country in a given period of time.

Option B: FDI is related to the capital sector and overall investment policy of the nation. FDI is not considered a trade component.

Option C: Such standards can effectively clog imports from competitor nations, for e.g. China in case of India.

Option D: A barrier to trade is a government-imposed restraint on the flow of international goods or services. The most common barrier to trade is a tariff—a tax on imports. Tariffs raise the price of imported goods relative to domestic goods (goods produced at home).

Solution: d)

Kurinji or Neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthianus) is a shrub that is found in the shola forests of the Western Ghats in South India.

Nilgiri Hills, which literally means the blue mountains, got their name from the purplish blue flowers of Neelakurinji that blossoms only once in 12 years.

Besides the Western Ghats, Neelakurinji is also seen in the Shevroys in the Eastern Ghats, Anamalai hills Idukki district and Agali hills in Palakad in Kerala and Sanduru hills of Bellary district in Karnataka.

Solution: b)

Dissolved oxygen (DO) is a measure of how much oxygen is dissolved in the water – the amount of oxygen available to living aquatic organisms. The amount of dissolved oxygen in a stream or lake can tell us a lot about its water quality.

Oxygen concentrations are much higher in air, which is about 21% oxygen, than in water, which is a tiny fraction of 1 percent oxygen.

Dissolved oxygen levels decrease with increasing temperature and atmospheric oxygen content is far higher than dissolved oxygen levels.

Ice and snow reduce the amount of sunlight reaching aquatic plants, thereby reducing photosynthesis and oxygen production.

Solution: d)

Carbon offsetting allows a country to help reach its own emissions reduction targets by funding emission reductions in another country. Companies are also increasingly using carbon credits to offset their emissions.

The first major offsetting scheme, the U.N.s clean development mechanism (CDM), was set up under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which 190 countries agreed country-by-country emission reduction targets.

The scheme was designed to help fund emission reduction projects in developing countries, while also providing offset credits to the developed world to help meet its Kyoto targets.

More than 8,100 projects in 111 countries have registered with the CDM scheme, which has handed out over 2 billion carbon credits, called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), representing 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide reduction.

Projects registered under the scheme range from capturing and using methane gasses in pig manure to create electricity to replacing traditional wood and coal burning cookstoves with cleaner alternatives such as ethanol. Offsets can be bought by individuals, companies or countries.

Solution: b)

Pentavalent vaccine protects against five major diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTP-hepB-Hib).