[Mission 2023] Current Affairs Quiz ,1 December 2022

Solution: b)

CDSL, or Central Depositories Services India Ltd, is a government-registered share depository, alongside its other state-owned counterpart National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL).

Share depositories hold shares in an electronic or dematerialised form and are an enabler for securities transactions, playing a somewhat similar role to what banks play in handling cash and fixed deposits. While banks help customers keep their cash in electronic form, share depositories help consumers store shares in a dematerialised form.

CDSL was founded in 1999. It is a Market Infrastructure Institution or MII that is deemed as a crucial part of the capital market structure, providing services to all market participants, including exchanges, clearing corporations, depository participants, issuers and investors.

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Solution: c)

The 14th Dalai Lama was conferred the Gandhi Mandela Award 2022.

What is the Gandhi Mandela Award?

A government of India registered Trust, the Gandhi Mandela Foundation is a non-profit organisation, formed with the motive to promote Mahatma Gandhi’s and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela’s values of non-violence. It has constituted an international prize, the Gandhi Mandela Award.

The foundation instituted the award on the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, MK Gandhi.

Who gets the award and how are they selected?

The award is given to personalities who have carried forward the legacies of Gandhi and Mandela by making significant contributions in the fields of Peace, Social Welfare, Culture, Environment, Education, Healthcare, Sports and Innovation.

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Solution: d)

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is an international agreement between governments — 184 at present — to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species. The convention entered into force in 1975 and India became the 25th party — a state that voluntarily agrees to be bound by the Convention — in 1976.

All import, export and re-export of species covered under CITES must be authorised through a permit system.

Every two years, the Conference of the Parties (CoP), the supreme decision-making body of CITES, applies a set of biological and trade criteria to evaluate proposals from parties to decide if a species should be in Appendix I or II.

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Solution: b)

CITES Appendix I lists species threatened with extinction — import or export permits for these are issued rarely and only if the purpose is not primarily commercial. CITES Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction but in which trade must be strictly regulated.

The international ivory trade was globally banned in 1989 when all African elephant populations were put in CITES Appendix I. However, the populations of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe were transferred to Appendix II in 1997, and South Africa’s in 2000 to allow two “one-off sales” in 1999 and 2008 of ivory stockpiled from natural elephant deaths and seizures from poachers.

The endangered Asian elephant was included in CITES Appendix I in 1975, which banned the export of ivory from the Asian range countries. In 1986, India amended The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 to ban even domestic sales of ivory. After the ivory trade was globally banned, India again amended the law to ban the import of African ivory in 1991.

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Solution: d)

The proportionality test is a standard of review that is invoked to keep a check on the infringement of bodily integrity and privacy of an individual by the state.

The Disaster Management Act of 2005 and the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 empower the States to undertake effective measures to mitigate the harms caused during a medical emergency. 

Being a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, India is bound to take all possible measures to progressively realise the enjoyment of “highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” of its citizens under Article 12 thereof.