[Mission 2024] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 16 September 2023

Solution: c)

A barrier to trade is a government-imposed restraint on the flow of international goods or services. The most common barrier to trade is a tariff—a tax on imports. Tariffs raise the price of imported goods relative to domestic goods (goods produced at home).

An import quota is a type of protectionist trade restriction that sets a physical limit on the quantity of a good that can be imported into a country in a given period of time.

FDI is related to the capital sector and overall investment policy of the nation. FDI is not considered a trade component. 

Solution: d)

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established Champions of the Earth in 2005 as an annual awards programme to recognize outstanding environmental leaders from the public and private sectors, and from civil society. The Champions of the Earth award is the UN’s highest environmental honour.

Solution: c)

Unlike many other natural hazards, cyclones give adequate warning of their arrival. In the Indian context, it takes them between four and five days to reach the landmass from the north Indian Ocean, both on the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal sides. If a sufficient number of weather instruments are monitoring them, from the oceans as well as from satellites, everything about the cyclones — speed, intensity, trajectory, associated wind speeds — can be predicted accurately.

Longer landfalls have a greater potential to cause destruction. The most dramatic landfall was in the case of the Odisha supercyclone of 1998, the most devastating cyclone to have hit India in recent decades. That process had continued for nearly 30 hours.

Usually, cyclones lose their energy very quickly once they cross over to land.

“In a way, every cyclone is unique. No two cyclones have the same characteristics.

Solution: b)

Statement 2 is incorrect.

An old pension scheme (OPS), commonly known as the PAYG scheme, is defined as an unfunded pension scheme where current revenues fund pension benefits. Under this scheme, the contribution of the current generation of workers was explicitly used to pay the pensions of existing pensioners. OPS involved a direct transfer of resources from the current generation of taxpayers to fund the pensioners.

NPS is a defined contribution pension scheme. NPS enables an individual to undertake retirement planning while in employment. With systematic savings and investments,

NPS facilitates the accumulation of a pension corpus during their working life. NPS is designed to deliver a sustainable solution of having adequate retirement income in old age or upon superannuation.

The current National Pension Scheme requires employees to contribute 10% of their basic salary and the government 14%. The eventual payout depends on the market returns on that corpus, which is mostly invested in federal debt.

In contrast, the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) guarantees a fixed pension of 50% of an employee’s last drawn salary, without requiring them to contribute anything during their working life.

NPS is mandatory for central government employees joining services on or after January 1, 2004, and almost all state governments have adopted it for their employees. NPS is regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

Ethnoveterinary medicine (EVM) involves the use of traditional / herbal preparations in treating diseases of cattle.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a One Health issue. It accelerates due to the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials in human health, animal health, food-animal production, aquaculture and crop production.

Waste from farms, factories, community and healthcare settings contributes to the emergence and spread of AMR through environmental routes.

Prevention implies the adoption of strategies and approaches that can reduce the need for antimicrobials. For example, in human health sector, better sanitation, access to clean water and appropriate hand hygiene can reduce chances of infection and need for antimicrobials.

Similarly, better biosecurity, timely vaccinations, use of alternatives and appropriate waste management can prevent infectious diseases in food-animal production systems.