[Mission 2023] Current Affairs Quiz , 15 March 2023

Solution: d)

A stock broker is a member of a recognised stock exchange, who is permitted to do trades on the screen-based trading system of different stock exchanges. He is enrolled as a member of the concerned exchange and is registered with Sebi. As of February 16, 2023, there are 5,340 registered stock brokers registered with Sebi.

A depository is an organisation which holds securities (like shares, debentures, bonds, government securities, mutual fund units etc.) of investors in electronic form at the request of the investors through a registered depository participant.

As of February 16, 2023, a total of 919 depository participants (639 at CDSL and 280 at NSDL) are registered with Sebi. A depository participant is an agent of the depository – National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) and Central Depository Services (India) Ltd CDSL – through which it interfaces with the investor and provides depository services.

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Solution: b)

The Special Marriage Act of 1954 (SMA) was passed by the Parliament on October 9, 1954. It governs a civil marriage where the state sanctions the marriage rather than the religion.

Issues of personal law such as marriage, divorce, adoption are governed by religious laws that are codified. These laws, such as the Muslim Marriage Act, 1954, and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, require either spouse to convert to the religion of the other before marriage.

The SMA enables marriage between inter-faith or inter-caste couples without them giving up their religious identity or resorting to conversion.

The applicability of the Act extends to the people of all faiths, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, and Buddhists, across India.

The minimum age to get married under the SMA is 21 years for males and 18 years for females.

AS per Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, the minimum age of marriage is 21 years in case of males, and 18 years in case of females.

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Solution: d)

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri BVR Subrahmanyam, IAS (Retd.) as Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog.

Formed on January 1, 2015, NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog replaced the Planning Commission. The first meeting of NITI Aayog was chaired by Prime Minister on February 8, 2015.

As the apex think tank of India’s government, NITI Aayog provides both directional and policy inputs.

The numerous objectives of the NITI Aayog include fostering cooperative federalism, evolving a shared vision of national development priorities, sectors and strategies with the active involvement of states, and developing mechanisms to formulate credible plans at the village level and aggregate these progressively at higher levels of government.

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Solution: c)

International Mother Language Day is observed every year on February 21 to honour those in Bangladesh who sacrificed their lives to protect their mother tongue, Bangla, against the then rulers of West Pakistan and to honour the ethno-linguistic rights of individuals across the world.

The UN proclaimed the period between 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, “to draw global attention to the critical status of many indigenous languages around the world and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization, and promotion.

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Solution: c)

Earlier in February, 14 pilot whales were stranded near the shore of Kalpitiya, a town located on Sri Lanka’s west coast.

Apart from Sri Lanka, Australia’s Tasmania has also seen mass beaching of whales. Last year in September, more than 230 pilot whales were stranded on the west coast of the region.

Whale stranding is a phenomenon in which whales are stuck on land, usually on a beach. Other aquatic animals like dolphins and porpoises are also known to beach. Most of the stranding events involve single animals but sometimes, mass strandings, consisting of hundreds of marine animals at a time, can happen.

The reasons for mass strandings are several, including the topography of the region, illness, human activities and increasing noise pollution in the oceans.

Among the major hotspots for the beaching of aquatic animals are Tasmania, New Zealand‘s Golden Bay and Massachusetts’s Cape Cod in the United States. Pirotta explained that these areas witness several instances of stranding possibly because the deep water here quickly becomes shallow due to tidal variations.

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