[Mission 2024] Current Affairs Quiz , 1 November 2023

Solution: b)

Statement 3 is incorrect.

A company or business is said to be “over leveraged” if it has unsustainably high debt against its operating cash flows and equity. Such a company would find it difficult to make interest and principal repayments to its creditors, and may struggle to meet its operating expenses as well. In the latter case, the company may be forced to borrow even more just to keep going, and thus enter a vicious cycle. This situation can ultimately lead to the company going bankrupt.

Solution: c)

Statement 3 is incorrect.

The sources of arsenic are natural or may partly stem from anthropogenic activities like intense exploitation of groundwater, application of fertilizers, burning of coal and leaching of metals from coal-ash tailings.

Arsenic is introduced into soil and groundwater during weathering of rocks and minerals followed by subsequent leaching and runoff.

Among the various arsenic removal technologies, lime softening and iron coprecipitation have been reported to be the most effective.

Solution: b)

Statement 2 is incorrect.

El Niño years in India have witnessed extreme heat and below normal rainfall levels during monsoon, even though El Niño might not be the only factor or even have direct links to them. In 2014, a El Niño year, India received 12 per cent deficient rainfall from June to September.

On the other hand, La Nina years are known to favour the Indian summer monsoon.

El Niño has been associated with rising heatwaves and extreme temperatures.

India’s Northeast monsoon rainfall remained subdued during past La Niña events, but the 2021 monsoon remains an exception in recent years.

Intense hurricanes and cyclones have frequently occurred in the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Bengal during La Nina years.

Solution: b)

Statement 2 is incorrect.

The Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH) Investment Fund I is a social impact fund specifically formed for completing stressed and stalled residential projects.

The Fund is sponsored by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and is managed by SBICAP Ventures Ltd., a State Bank Group company.

Since the Fund considers first-time developers, established developers with troubled projects, developers with a poor track record of stalled projects, customer complaints and NPA accounts, and even projects where there are litigation issues, it is considered as the lender of last resort for distressed projects. The Fund’s presence in a project often acts as a catalyst for better collections and sales primarily in projects that were delayed for years.

Solution: a)

Only Statement 1 is correct.

Raw sugar is what mills produce after the first crystallisation of juice obtained from crushing of cane. This sugar is rough and brownish in colour, with an ICUMSA value of 600-1,200 or higher. ICUMSA, short for the International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis, is a measure of the purity of sugar based on colour. The lower the value, the more the whiteness.

Raw sugar is processed in refineries for removal of impurities and de-colourisation. The end product is refined white cane sugar having a standard ICUMSA value of 45. The sugar used by industries such as pharmaceuticals has ICUMSA of less than 20.