[Mission 2023] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 1 November 2022

Solution: b)

Article 361 of the Constitution prohibits the court from initiating proceedings against a Governor or the President for any act done in exercise of their powers. They enjoy complete immunity from court proceedings.

It may be noted that the Governor while declaring that he withholds assent will have to disclose the reason for such refusal. If the grounds for refusal disclose mala fide or extraneous considerations or ultra vires, the Governor’s action of refusal could be struck down as unconstitutional. This point has been settled by a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in Rameshwar Prasad and Ors. vs Union Of India and Anr.

Since the Constitution does not fix any timeline for the Governor to decide the question of assent, he can wait for any length of time without doing anything. Not fixing any time line does not and cannot mean that the Governor can indefinitely sit on the Bill that has been passed by an Assembly.

Source

Solution: c)

The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had developed a framework and action plan for the effective prevention and control of stubble burning. The framework/action plan includes in-situ management, i.e., incorporation of paddy straw and stubble in the soil using heavily subsidised machinery (supported by crop residue management (CRM) Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare). Ex-situ CRM efforts include the use of paddy straw for biomass power projects and co-firing in thermal power plants, and as feedstock for 2G ethanol plants, feed stock in CBG plants, fuel in industrial boilers, waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, and in packaging materials, etc.

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Solution: d)

Who are de-notified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes?

These are communities who are the most vulnerable and deprived. Denotified tribes (DNTs) are communities that were ‘notified’ as being ‘born criminal’ during the British regime under a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. Nomadic and semi-nomadic communities are defined as those who move from one place to another rather than living at one place all the time.

A National Commission for De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes (NCDNT) was constituted in 2006 by the then government. It was headed by Balkrishna Sidram Renke and submitted its report in June 2008, in which it said, “It is an irony that these tribes somehow escaped the attention of our Constitution makers and thus got deprived of the Constitutional support unlike Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.”

Solution: a)

IEA – International Energy Agency

• Created in 1974 to ensure the security of oil supplies, the International Energy Agency has evolved over the years.
• The IEA was born with the 1973-1974 oil crisis, when industrialised countries found they were not adequately equipped to deal with the oil embargo imposed by major producers that pushed prices to historically high levels. 
• A candidate country to the IEA must be a member country of the OECD.
• The IEA operates within the broader framework of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
• IEA member nations are required to store the equivalent of at least 90 days’ worth of oil, measured according to their previous year’s net oil imports.

India is an Associated country.

Solution: c)

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at the nanoscale, at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications.

Some nanostructured materials are stronger or have different magnetic properties compared to other forms or sizes of the same material.

Although modern nanoscience and nanotechnology are relatively new, nanoscale materials have been used for centuries.