Daily Current Affairs MCQ / UPSC / IAS / 10-07-19 | PDF Downloads

 
MCQ 1

1. Aspirational District Programme was launched by NITI aayog in all districts of India
2. The states are the main drivers in the programme. 3. District collector has been given special responsibilities in this program.

Choose correct
(A) 1 & 2
(B) 1 & 3
(C) 2 & 3
(D) All

• ADP is Aspirational District Programme.
• It aims to quickly and effectively transform some of India’s most underdeveloped districts.
• It will identify areas of immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.
• The broad ideas of the programme include –
• Convergence of central and state schemes
• Collaboration of central, state level ‘prabhari’ (in-charge) officers and district collectors
• Competition among districts
• The states are the main drivers in the programme.
• Deliberately, the districts have been described as aspirational rather than backward.
• The motive is to view them as areas of opportunity and hope rather than of distress and hopelessness.
• It is the first time that a government in India has focussed on India’s most backward districts.
• However the exercise envisages a serious re-imagination of government and governance, and deepens cooperative federalism.
• The programme is informed by the failures of the past and therefore has a more contemporary vision of how public services are best delivered to those who need them most. How were the districts selected?
• The senior officials of the Union Government choose 115 districts after consulting with the state officials on the basis of a complex index.
• The parameters included are –
• deprivation enumerated under Socio-Economic Caste Census
• key health and education performance indicators
• state of basic infrastructure What is the present ranking based on?
• The present ranking is based on 49 indicators across 5 sectors.
• These sectors are areas that have been targeted for transformation –
• health and nutrition
• education
• agriculture and water resources
• financial inclusion and skill development
• basic infrastructure
• A minimum of one district was chosen from every State.
• Apparently, the largest concentration of districts is in the States which have historically underperformed.
• This includes states such as UP and Bihar, or which are afflicted by left-wing extremism such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
• The present ranking would be followed by delta ranking of these districts based on their “incremental progress”. How will be the progress observed?
• NITI Aayog in partnership with the government of Andhra Pradesh has created a dashboard.
• This is for monitoring the real-time progress of the districts.
• District collectors of all the aspirational districts can input the latest available data of their respective districts.
• The dashboard will be kept open for the public. Why is ADP important?
• It is the first time India’s most backward districts are being focused.
• ADP is a better vision of how public services are best delivered to those who need them the most.
• Achieving success in this programme necessitates the contribution of all 3 tiers of government.
• The role of states is important in terms of facilitating resource, personnel, etc.
• On financial inclusion, the full cooperation of banks is necessary and only the Central government has leverage over them.
• The most crucial is the role of District Magistrate or Collector.
• As she/he is familiar with the challenges of his or her geography and has considerable power to implement government schemes.
• The spirit of cooperation needs to be supplemented by a culture of competition.
• ADP takes the principle of competitive federalism down to district administrations.
• ADP has opened its door to civil society and leveraged the tool of corporate social responsibility.
• This will bring new ideas and fresh energy from non-government institutions, to join the “official” efforts.
• Many schemes of the Centre have flexible spending components, permitting autonomy at local level.
• But these are seldom used in practice due to controlling Central and State machineries.
• Thus ADP focuses on not spending more but spending better.
• There is no financial package or large allocation of funds in ADP.
• It only aims at leveraging the already existing resources of several government programmes, to use them more efficiently.
• Data collection is often delayed or lacking in quality in India, distorting the development policy efforts.
• With real time data in ADP, those on the ground level can alter strategies after accurate feedback.
• In a way, the ADP reorients how government does its business of delivering development

MCQ 2

1. The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security
2. It has a goal of Zero hunger by 2050 in the world

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

• Coffee Table Book commemorating 50 years of partnership with UNWFP towards food and nutrition security in India has been launched.
• The book showcases key milestones achieved by the Government of India in its efforts to make the nation free from hunger and malnutrition and WFP’s role in this endeavour.
• The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food-assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security. According to the WFP, it provides food assistance to an average of 91.4 million people in 83 countries each year.
• From its headquarters in Rome and from more than 80 country offices around the world, the WFP works to help people who cannot produce or obtain enough food for themselves and their families. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and part of its executive committee
• Born in 1961, WFP pursues a vision of the world in which every man, woman and child has access at all times to the food needed for an active and healthy life
• The objectives of the World Food Programme are:
• Save lives and protect livelihoods in emergencies.
• Support food security and nutrition and (re)build livelihoods in fragile settings and following emergencies.
• Reduce risk and enable people, communities and countries to meet their own food and nutrition needs.
• Reduce under-nutrition and break the inter-generational cycle of hunger.
• Zero Hunger in 2030. Born in 1961, WFP pursues a vision of the world in which every man, woman and child has access at all times to the food needed for an active and healthy life.

 “World Hunger Map”:

• Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba will work with WFP to develop digital “World Hunger Map”. The map will help to monitor global hunger and operations to end scourge by 2030 which is one of UN’s key Sustainable Development goals. It also aims to boost efficiency of interventions and shorten emergency response times.

MCQ 3

1. The government had set up the ₹40,000 crore NIIF in 2015 as an investment vehicle
2. It was for funding stalled projects only
3. The NIIF is being operationalized by establishing three Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) under the RBI Regulations

Choose correct
(A) 1 & 2
(B) 2 & 3
(C) 1 only
(D) 3 only

• National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Signs MoU with National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) for funding highway projects.
• About NIIF:
• The government had set up the ₹40,000 crore NIIF in 2015 as an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled infrastructure projects.
• The Indian government is investing 49% and the rest of the corpus is to be raised from third-party investorssuch as sovereign wealth funds, insurance and pension funds, endowments, etc.
• NIIF’s mandate includes investing in areas such as energy, transportation, housing, water, waste management and other infrastructure-related sectors in India.
• NIIF currently manages three funds each with its distinctive investment mandate. The funds are registered as Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
• The NIIF is being operationalized by establishing three Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) under the SEBI Regulations. The proposed corpus of NIIF is Rs. 40,000 Crores (around USD 6 Billion).
• GOI’s contribution to the AIFs under the NIIF scheme shall be 49% of the total commitment.
• NIIF has mandate to solicit equity participation from strategic anchor partners, like overseas sovereign/quasi-sovereign/ multilateral/bilateral investors.
• The three funds are:
• Master Fund: The Master Fund is an infrastructure fund with the objective of primarily investing in operating assets in the core infrastructure sectors such as roads, ports, airports, power etc.
• Fund of Funds: Fund of Funds anchor and/or invest in funds managed by fund managers who have good track records in infrastructure and associated sectors in India. Some of the sectors of focus include Green Infrastructure, Mid-Income & Affordable Housing, Infrastructure services and allied sectors.
• Strategic Investment Fund: Strategic Investment Fund is registered as an Alternative Investment Fund II under SEBI in India. The objective of “Strategic Fund” is to invest largely in equity and equity-linked instruments. The Strategic Fund will focus on green field and brown field investments in the core infrastructure sectors.

MCQ 4

1. Bharatmala Project is largest highways construction project in the country
2. Bharatmala will look to improve connectivity particularly on economic corridors, border areas and far flung areas with an aim of quicker movement of cargo and boosting exports.

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

• The Government of India has approved Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana with financial outlay of Rs 5,35,000 crore to develop 24,800 km Highways along with 10,000 km residual NHDP stretches over a period of five years.

What is Bharatmala project?

• Bharatmala Project is the second largest highways construction project in the country since NHDP, under which almost 50,000 km of highway roads were targeted across the country. Bharatmala will look to improve connectivity particularly on economic corridors, border areas and far flung areas with an aim of quicker movement of cargo and boosting exports.
• About NHAI:
• The National Highways Authority of India was constituted by an act of Parliament, the National Highways Authority of India Act,1988.
• It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways entrusted to it and for matters connected or incidental thereto. The Authority was operationalised in Feb, 1995.
• Bharatmala envisages improving the efficiency of the National Corridor (Golden-Quadrilateral and NS-EW corridor) by decongesting its choke points through lane expansion, construction of ring roads, bypasses/ elevated corridors and logistics parks at identified points. Around 5,000 kms of the National Corridor will be taken up in Phase-I of Bharatmala at an estimated cost of Rs 100,000 crore.
• The programme has identified around 26,200 km of Economic Corridors or routes that have heavy freight traffic, of which 9,000 kms are being taken up for development in Phase-I at an estimated cost of Rs 1,20,000 crore. It is planned to develop these corridors end to end to ensure seamless and speedy travel and uniformity in standards. Besides this, around 8,000 km of Inter-Corridors and around 7,500 km of Feeder Corridors have also been identified under Bharatmala, of which around 6000 km will be developed in Phase I at an estimated cost of Rs 80,000 crore. Stretches of roads connecting more than 2 corridors are classified as InterCorridors routes, while other routes connecting to 1 or 2 corridors are termed as Feeder Corridors. These corridors will be developed so as to address the infrastructure asymmetry that exists at many places .
• Bharatmala also envisages building 3300 kms of Border Roads of strategic importance along international boundaries and 2000 km of International Connectivity roads to promote trade with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar . Out of this around 2000 km will be taken up under Phase-I at an estimated cost of Rs 25,000 crore.
• In addition to the above, around 2,100 km of coastal roads and 2000 km of port connectivity roads have been identified under Bharatmala of which 2,000 kms are being taken up under Phase-I at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore. About 1,900 km of stretches have been identified for development of green-field expressways of which around 800 kms will be taken up under Phase-I of the programme at an estimated cost of Rs.40,000 crore. The 10,000 km of balance road work under NHDP will be completed at a cost of Rs 1,50,000 crore.
• The identification of the project stretches under the various components of Bharatmala has been done based on detailed O-D(Origin-Destination) study, freight flow projections and verification of the identified infrastructure gaps through geo mapping, using data from Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG) as well as from other sources. This O-D study has also taken into account integration of economic corridors with the ongoing projects under NHDP and infrastructure asymmetry in major corridors.
• In addition to Rs. 5,35,000 crore for Bharatmala Phase-I, there is a requirement of Rs. 1,57,324 crore for ongoing schemes like NH(O), SARDP-NE, EAP and LWE under implementation in the Highways Sector. Thus, the overall outlay for Bharatmala and all existing schemes put together will be Rs 6,92,324 crore over a period of 5 years.
• Gross Budgetary Support for the Bharatmala program and existing schemes from 2017- 18 to 2021–22 will be restricted to Rs. 2,37,024 crore from Central Road Fund (CRF), Rs 59,973 crore as Budgetary support, Rs. 34,000 crore from expected monetization through ToT route and Rs. 46,048 crore collected as Toll-Permanent Bridge Fee Fund (PBFF) by NHAI.

MCQ 5
‘Order of Zayed’ honour was given to our PM by

1. Qatar
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Bahrain
4. None

MCQ 6
Amrabad Tiger Reserve is located in

1. Tamil Nadu
2. AP
3. UP
4. None

MCQ 7
Plan Bee program of railways is for

1. Cultivating bees in railway coaches
2. Raising funds for bee conservation
3. To save elephants
4. It’s a energy efficiency program

MCQ 8

1. The Global Study on Homicide 2019 has been published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
2. UNODC is a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime.
3. Its UN’s specialized agency

Choose correct
(A) 1 & 2
(B) 2 & 3
(C) 1 & 3
(D) All

• The Global Study on Homicide 2019 has been published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Key findings:

• Asia, which accounts for 60% of the global population, recorded the lowest rate of homicide in 2017 with only 2.3 killings per 1,00,000 people.
• Americas had the highest homicide rate.
• About 4,64,000 people across the world were victims of homicidal violence in 2017, an increase from 395,542 in 1992. The number of homicides in 2017 far surpassed the 89,000 killed in armed conflicts in the same period.
• The global homicide rate, measured as the victims of homicide per 1,00,000 people, declined from 7.2 in 1992, to 6.1 in 2017.
• Asia accounted for 23% of total homicide victims worldwide.
• Asia’s low continental average, however, can be partly explained by the huge populations of countries such as China, Japan and Korea, which all boast less than one homicide per 100,000 people in a year. In addition, their secret lies in the push for modernization policies – with a special emphasis on educational achievements – along with a culture that rewards long-term plans. • Young men at highest risk in all regions.
• While women and girls account for a far smaller share of victims than men, they continue to bear “by far the greatest burden” of intimate partner and family-related homicide, the report finds, adding that more than nine in 10 suspects in homicide cases are men.
• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is a United Nations office that was established in 1997 as the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention by combining the United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division in the United Nations Office at Vienna.
• It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and was renamed the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2002.
• UNODC incorporates the secretariat of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)
• In 2016–2017 it has an estimated biannual budget of US$700 million
• These are the main themes that UNODC deals with: Alternative Development, anti-corruption, Criminal Justice, Prison Reform and Crime Prevention, Drug Prevention, -Treatment and Care, HIV and AIDS, Human Traffickingand Migrant Smuggling, Money Laundering, Organized Crime, Piracy, Terrorism Prevention.
• There are three drug related treaties that guide UNODC’s drug related programs. These are:

1. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol ;
2. the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 and the
3. United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988.

• The World Drug Report is a yearly publication that presents a comprehensive assessment of the international drug problem, with detailed information on the illicit drug situation. It provides estimates and information on trends in the production, trafficking and use of opium/heroin, coca/cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants. The Report, based on data and estimates collected or prepared by Governments, UNODC and other international institutions, attempts to identify trends in the evolution of global illicit drug markets.[6]
• Through the World Drug Report, UNODC aims to enhance Member States’ understanding of global illicit drug trends and increase their awareness of the need for the more systematic collection and reporting of data relating to illicit drugs.

Campaigns

• Blue Heart Campaign Against Human Trafficking
• “Think AIDS” – World AIDS Campaign
• “Your No Counts” – International Anti-Corruption Campaign
• “Do Drugs Control Your Life”? – World Drug Campaign

MCQ 9
Hills of conegliano and valdobbiadene, which is home to world-famous sparkling wine prosecco is located in

1. Iraq
2. Myanmar
3. Italy
4. France

• Italy’s hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, which is home to worldfamous sparkling wine Prosecco, were added by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to World Heritage list. The decision to add hills to list was taken at a meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Baku in Azerbaijan.
• It has now become Italy’s 55th World Heritage site.

MCQ 10
National Youth Corps (NYC) is a scheme of ministry of

1. Parliamentary affairs
2. Youth affairs
3. NITI aayog
4. None

• The National Youth Corps (NYC) is a scheme implemented by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, Ministry of Youth affairs and Sports, Government of Inda, to tap the potential of the youth and channeling their energy towards nation building.
• The scheme is being implemented since 2010-11, amalgamating the existing two volunteer schemes namely National Service Volunteer (NSV) and Rashtriya Sadbhawana Yojana (RSY).
• Every year, a total of 12,000 volunteers shall be deployed at the block level in the country.

Eligibility

• Young men and women falling in the age group of 18-29 would be eligible to become volunteers.
• Education qualification : – Minimum class 10 th pass
• Preference in selection may be given to the following :
• Candidates having higher educational qualification and basic knowledge of computer application.
• Preferably, Candidates having the android mobile phone and basic knowledge of operating different Apps pertaining to e – banking /Dgidhan etc.
• Members of NYKS affiliated youth clubs.
• Students who have enrolled themselves as a regular students are not eligible for deployment under the scheme, keeping in view of the nature of their full time assignment.
• Participation of weaker sections such as SC/ST community will be encouraged and 50:50 gender ratios should be maintained to the extent possible.
• Honorarium
• The NYC Scheme enables young men and women in the age group of 18-29 years to serve up to two years (including the period of training which will be for 4 weeks) in the identified development activities on a full time basis for which they receive an honorarium of Rs 5000/-per month. Representation from the weaker sections of the society and gender balance is encouraged.

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