[Mission 2023] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 27 February 2023

Solution: c)

On the January 28, 1950, two days after India became a sovereign democratic republic, the Supreme Court of India came into being. 

The Supreme Court of India replaced both the Federal Court of India and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which were then at the apex of the Indian court system.

The original Constitution of 1950 envisaged a Supreme Court with a Chief Justice and 7 puisne judges – leaving it to Parliament to increase this number. In the early years, all the judges of the Supreme Court sat together to hear the cases presented before them. As the work of the Court increased and arrears of cases began to accumulate, Parliament increased the number of Judges.

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Solution: b)

Scientists have created a new type of ice that matches the density and structure of water, perhaps opening a door to studying water’s mysterious properties. The ice is called medium-density amorphous ice.

Normally, when water freezes, it crystallizes and its molecules are arranged into the familiar hexagonal, solid structure that we call ice. Ice is less dense than its liquid form — an unusual property for a crystal. Depending on conditions such as pressure and the speed of freezing, water can also solidify in any of two dozen other regular arrangements. Amorphous ice is different: it has no such order.

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Solution: d)

The earth’s crust is broken up into tectonic plates that are constantly moving, slowly, often getting stuck at their edges due to friction. When the stress on the edge overcomes the friction, there is an earthquake that releases energy in waves that travel through the earth’s crust, resulting in the vibration felt.

A network of seismographs are used to record earthquakes with each individual seismograph recording and measuring the movement of the ground in its location. A seismograph is securely mounted onto the surface of the earth so that when the earth shakes, the entire unit shakes with the exception of the mass on the spring, which remains in its place because of inertia.

During shaking, the recording device on this mass records the relative motion between itself and the rest of the instrument, thus recording the ground motion. According to the USGS, these mechanisms are no longer manual, but instead work by measuring electronic changes produced by the motion of the ground with respect to the mass.

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Solution: b)

CITES is an international agreement to which States and regional economic integration organizations adhere voluntarily. States that have agreed to be bound by the Convention (‘joined’ CITES) are known as Parties. Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties – in other words they have to implement the Convention – it does not take the place of national laws. Rather it provides a framework to be respected by each Party, which has to adopt its own domestic legislation to ensure that CITES is implemented at the national level.

CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of IUCN (The World Conservation Union).

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Solution: d)

Import cover is the number of months of imports that could be covered for by a country’s international reserves. Import cover is an important indicator of the stability of a currency.

‘Import Substitution’ (IS) generally refers to policy that eliminates the importation of the commodity and allows for the production in the domestic market. The objective of this policy is to bring about structural changes in the economy.