[Mission 2023] Current Affairs Quiz , 7 January 2023

Solution: c)

A major international environmental conference has just concluded in Montreal, Canada, promising to take urgent action to protect and restore the world’s biodiversity.

Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a 1993 agreement, meet every two years — not annually like the climate meetings — to work on a global plan to halt biodiversity loss and restore natural ecosystems. The Montreal meeting was the 15th edition of this conference, hence the name COP15 — or the 15th Conference of the Parties to the CBD.

The Montreal Conference has delivered a new agreement called the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which contains four goals and 23 targets that need to be achieved by 2030. The GBF is being compared to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change that is guiding global climate action.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CBD were both outcomes of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit — as was the third member of the family, the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), which deals specifically with the issue of land degradation.

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Solution: c)

The Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) will be establishing India’s largest liquid waste treatment plant. The plant will adopt the phytorid technology for its operation.

Phytorid technology involves the treatment of wastewater under a sedimentation process to eliminate solid matter after which, the water is made to flow in a serpentine motion into a sub-surface chamber containing multiple barricades.

Further, saplings are planted atop a porous medium containing gravel and stones which helps to eliminate the organic matter.

Solution: c)

A recent article says the endangered Asian Elephant has lost most of its “optimal” habitat: flat terrain that is easily negotiable.

The WG [Western Ghats] is an escarpment running north–south along the western coastline of India, interrupted towards the south by the low-lying Palghat Gap that separates the northern from the southern elephant populations. This gap has been transformed by agriculture for several centuries, is 3 km at its narrowest, and 40 km at its widest.

The Palghat Gap is a break in the Ghats that is “relatively flat and consequently easily negotiable by elephants”. However, human settlements and crop cultivation have hindered the movement of the elephants, keeping them confined to the hilly areas, considered sub-optimal habitats.

Over thousands of years, elephants roamed freely across South-East Asia, all the way to China, but “anthropogenic pressures” have restricted them to mountain chains. Ironically, most elephant reserves in India are found in mountainous habitats.

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Solution: b)

Leaders of many faiths have joined hands to save a hill that the Jain community considers sacred. The outcry is against a Jharkhand government decision that could change the demographic of visitors to Sammed Sikharji at Parasnath Parvat (hill), Giridih district, taking it from a “place of pilgrimage” to a “religious tourist destination”. The protestors demand that the Jharkhand government revoke its decision to promote Parasnath Parvat “as a part of eco-tourism or any kind of tourism”.

It is believed that 20 of the 24 Tirthankaras (enlightened beings) attained moksha (salvation) here. The hill itself is named after Parasnath, the 23rd Tirthankara. 

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Solution: b)

• HSN stands for Harmonised System of Nomenclature code. It is mandatory for both B2B and B2C tax invoices on the supplies of Goods and Services.
• This was introduced in 1988 by the World Customs Organization (WCO). This was introduced for a systematic classification of goods both national and international. This is a 6-digit code that classifies various products. India has been using HSN codes since 1986 to classify commodities for Customs and Central Excise.
• HSN codes apply to Customs and GST. The codes prescribed in the Customs tariff are used for the GST purposes too. HSN is used all over the world. There are different HSN codes for various commodities.
• HSN codes remove the need to upload details about the goods which makes filing of GST returns easier.
• HSN code is required for anything from animal products, mineral products, plastic articles to footwear, arms and ammunition and machinery.