Daily Current Affairs MCQ / UPSC / IAS / 16-07-19 | PDF Downloads

 
MCQ 1

1. Often dubbed as the “Road to Peace” – will connect Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district.
2. The construction of the corridor will allow visa-free access to pilgrims from India.
3. Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur on the banks of the beas river

Choose correct
(A) 1 & 2
(B) 2 & 3
(C) All
(D) None

• The 16th century Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur is on the banks of the river Ravi.
• The gurudwara was established by the first Sikh Guru in 1522.
• This would also be open to pilgrims of Indian origin who are citizens of other countries.
• A four-lane Highway will connect Dera Baba Nanak from GurdaspurAmritsar Highway to International border.
• The length of the corridor is about 4 km, 2 km on either side of the International Border.
• It comes at the time of 550th birth anniversary year of Guru Nanak.
• The second round of talks with Pakistan on the modalities for operationalisation of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor was recently held at Wagah, Pakistan.

Pakistan has agreed in principle to allow visa-free, year-long travel to the Sikh shrine.

• Concerns raised by India:
• India conveyed its concerns to Pakistan on the possible attempts by individuals and groups to disrupt the Kartarpur Sahib pilgrimage and the possible flooding of the Dera Baba Nanak due to earth-filled embankment road or a causeway proposed by Islamabad.

What is the “Kartarpur Corridor” project?

• The corridor – often dubbed as the “Road to Peace” – will connect Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district. The construction of the corridor will allow visa-free access to pilgrims from India. The proposal for the corridor has been on the table since 1988, but tense relations between the two countries led to the delay.

Background:

• The Union Cabinet has already approved the building and development of the Kartarpur corridor from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district to the international border, in order to facilitate pilgrims from India to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur on the banks of the Ravi river, in Pakistan, where Shri Guru Nanak Devjispent eighteen years.

Implementation:

• The Kartarpur corridor will be implemented as an integrated development project with Government of India funding, to provide smooth and easy passage, with all the modern amenities.
• The shrine:
• The gurdwara in Kartarpur stands on the bank of the Ravi, about 120 km northeast of Lahore.
• It was here that Guru Nanak assembled a Sikh community and lived for 18 years until his death in 1539.
• The shrine is visible from the Indian side, as Pakistani authorities generally trim the elephant grass that would otherwise obstruct the view.
• Indian Sikhs gather in large numbers for darshan from the Indian side, and binoculars are installed at Gurdwara Dera Baba Nanak.

MCQ 2
Jalyukta Shivar is a flagship program of _______ Govt.

1. UP
2. MP
3. MH
4. None

Jalyukta Shivar

• It is the flagship programme of the Maharashtra government.
• It aims to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity.
• It target the drought-prone areas by improving water conservation measures to make them more water sustainable.
• It also proposed to strengthen and rejuvenate water storage capacity.
• Dedicated committees were formed to assist in construction of watersheds like farm ponds, cement nullah bunds alongside rejuvenating the existing water bodies in the villages.
• More than 11,000 villages where Jalyukta Shivar was introduced are declared drought-free.
• The water storage capacity has been improved and the overall agriculture productivity jumped up 30 to 50 % in these areas.

MCQ 3

1. El Nino (The Little Boy) is a climate pattern with unusual warming of surface waters in equatorial Indian Ocean.
2. The year without El-Nino is bringing lesser rains and droughts in India

Choose correct
(A) Only 1
(B) Only 2
(C) Both
(D) None

• El Nino
• A weak El Nino prevailing in the Pacific Ocean since the start of this year is beginning to dissipate as reported recently.
• It is a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs every 2-7 years, and can last anywhere between nine months and two years.
• El Nino (The Little Boy) is a climate pattern with unusual warming of surface waters in equatorial Pacific Ocean.
• It is the “Warm phase”, off the coast of Peru.
• The opposite of El Nino is La Nina (The Little Girl), is when sea surface temperatures in the Pacific drop to lower-than-normal levels.
• It is the “Cool phase”.
• These warm and cool phases are part of a recurring climate pattern that occurs across this section of the Pacific, known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
• The air circulation as a result of difference in surface pressure and temperature over the western and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is known as Walker circulation.
• The two conditions influence weather events worldwide, including the Indian monsoon.
• It affects precipitation in few areas, drought can be widespread affecting southern Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Australia.
• El Nino is known to suppress rainfall during the monsoon months in India.
• During an El Niño, the trade winds weaken in the central and western Pacific.
• The clouds and rainstorms associated with warm ocean waters also shift toward the east.
• So, the beginning of dissipation of El Nino is a good news for India which is hoping to get good rainfall in the remaining part of the monsoon season.
• Other effects around the world include,
• Flooding in South America
• Drought in Indonesia and Australia
• Warmer, drier winters in the eastern and midwestern US
• Wetter winters in California and the Southwest
• Declining fisheries
• More hurricanes in the Pacific, fewer in the Atlantic
• Higher global temperatures

MCQ 4
Recently a person in news Alan Turing belongs to

1. USA
2. Russia
3. India
4. UK

• Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (/ˈtjʊərɪŋ/; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.
• Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Despite these accomplishments, he was never fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime, due to his homosexuality, which was then a crime in the UK, and because his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.
• During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. For a time he led Hut 8, the section that was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Here, he devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.
• Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war. Counterfactual history is difficult with respect to the effect Ultra intelligence had on the length of the war, but at the upper end it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives.
• After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers[14] and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.
• Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that “gross indecency” was a criminal offence in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning.
• In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”. Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013.
• The Alan Turing law is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts

MCQ 5

1. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been constituted under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967.
2. Under the power to investigate offences committed outside India, NIA’s jurisdiction will be subject to international treaties and domestic laws of India.

Choose correct
(A) Only 1
(B) Only 2
(C) Both
(D) None

NIA (Amendment) Bill 2019

• Three major amendments made to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act of 2008.
• Under existing Act, the NIA can investigate offences under Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967. The amendment will enable the NIA to additionally investigate offences related to,

1. human trafficking,
2. counterfeit currency,
3. manufacture or sale of prohibited arms,
4. cyber-terrorism, and
5. offences under the Explosive Substances Act, 1908.

• NIA officers have the same power as other police officers and these extend across the country.
• The Bill amends this to give NIA officers the power to investigate offences committed outside India.
• NIA’s jurisdiction will be subject to international treaties and domestic laws of other countries.
• Existing Act allows the Centre to constitute special courts for NIA’s trials for the “scheduled offences”. • The Bill enables the Central government to designate sessions courts as special courts for such trials.
• The amendment bill, will strengthens and widens the scope of the investigating agency.

NIA

• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been constituted under the NIA Act, 2008.
• It was set up in 2009 in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack.
• It acts as the Central Counter Terrorism Law Enforcement Agency.
• It functions under Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The agency is empowered to deal with terror related crimes across states without special permission from the states.
• It aims to set the standards of excellence in counter terrorism and other national security related investigations at the national level, matching the best international standards.
• It strives towards developing a highly trained, partnership oriented workforce to excel in its objective.

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