[Mission 2023] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 29 September 2022

Solution: a)

United Nations Security Council (UNSC):

• The Security Council was established by the UN Charter in 1945.
• It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
• Its primary responsibility is to work to maintain international peace and security.
• The council is headquartered at New York.

The council has 15 members:

• Five (5) permanent members
• Ten (10) non-permanent members elected for two-year terms

• Each year, the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of ten in total) for a two-year term.
• The ten non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis.
• The council’s presidency is a capacity that rotates every month among its 15 members.

Permanent members: United States, the Russian Federation, France, China and the United Kingdom

Solution: a)

Nuclear weapon club:

• Five members, the same five as the P-5.
• India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have since joined the club.

Solution: d)

Judges of the higher judiciary are appointed only through the collegium system, and the government has a role only after names have been decided by the collegium. Names that are recommended for appointment by a High Court collegium reaches the government only after approval by the CJI and the Supreme Court collegium.

The role of the government in this entire process is limited to getting an inquiry conducted by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) if a lawyer is to be elevated as a judge in a High Court or the Supreme Court. The government can also raise objections and seek clarifications regarding the collegium’s choices, but if the collegium reiterates the same names, the government is bound, under Constitution Bench judgments, to appoint them as judges.

Source

Solution: b)

What does the Constitution say on the appointment of judges in the higher judiciary?

Articles 124(2) and 217 of the Constitution deal with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court and High Courts. The appointments are made by the President, who is required to hold consultations with “such of the judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts” as he may think is needed. But the Constitution does not lay down any process for making these appointments.

Article 124(2) says: “Every Judge of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with such of the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts in the States as the President may deem necessary for the purpose and shall hold office until he attains the age of sixty-five years. Provided that in the case of appointment of a Judge other than the Chief Justice, the Chief Justice of India shall always be consulted.”

Source

Solution: d)

Precision agriculture is basically the ‘right-input’ at the ‘right-time’ in the ‘right-amount’ at the ‘right-place’ and in the ‘right-manner’ for improving productivity, conserving natural resources and avoiding any ecological or social tribulations.

Today, precision agriculture is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI). IoT, satellite imagery, drones, Web-GIS frameworks, Big Data, cloud and machine learning are expected to improve global agricultural productivity in the near future.

But to arrive at these desired results, huge amounts of data collation is required. Environmental data, through technological intervention, has already fuelled better farming techniques in developed countries.

Sensors and analysis tools can boost crop yield. In order to do this, environmental data is collected in the geospatial format to measure quantifiable variables like weather, soil moisture, volumetric soil temperature, fertiliser rates, water run-off, agrochemicals movement and rain.