Daily Current Affairs MCQ UPSC / IAS / 15-06-19 | PDF Downloads

 MCQ 1
About Sahitya academy

1. It awards writings in any of the official languages of 8th schedule
2. Yuva puraskar is given to writers below 25 years of age

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

• Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters has selected a list of 22 writers as recipients of Bal Sahitya Puraskar and 23 writers for Yuva Puraskar for 2019.
• About Yuva Puraskar
• Criteria: This Award relates to books published by an author who is 35 years of age and below as on 1st January of the year of award.
• 23 recipients of Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2019 includes- Poetry Books (11)- including works by Anuj Lugun (Hindi), Sagar Nazir (Kashmiri), Anuja Akathoottu (Malayalam) among others Short Story (6)- including Tanuj Solanki (English), Ajay Soni (Gujarati), Keerti Parihar (Rajasthani) among others Novel (5)- by Moumita (Bengali), and Salman Abdus Samad (Urdu) among others Literary criticism (1).
• About Bal Sahitya Puraskar
• Criteria: The Awards relate to books 1st published during five years period immediately before the year Award is conferred, which means between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2017. However, during initial 10 years (from 2010 to 2019) award may also be given to an author based on his/her total contribution to Children Literature.
• 22 winners of Bal Sahitya Puraskar 2019 includes- Children’s Poetry Books (6) – by authors Vijay Sharma (Dogri), Naji Munauwar (Kashmiri), and Sanjay Chaubey (Sanskrit) Story Books (5) – by authors Govind Sharma (Hindi), Mohammad Khalil (Urdu), and Swmim Nasrin (Assamese) Other 5 authors for their total contribution in children’s literature. Folk Tale (1) author- Lakhminath Brahma (Bodo language) Novels (3)- by Chandrakanth Karadalli (Kannada), Salim Sardar Mulla (Marathi), and Pawan Harchandpuri (Punjabi) History book (1)- Devika Cariapa (English) Play (1)- R K Sanahanbi Chanu (Manipuri).

MCQ 2

1. The akshaya patra foundation works officially under sarva shiksha abhiyaan
2. A mid day meal programme was introduced in 1925 in madras corporation by the british administration

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

• Akshaya Patra, a Bengaluru-based non-profit organisation (NGO) running one of the world’s largest school meals project in India was awarded BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) World Service Global Champion Award for the programme.
• Background: Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO in India was founded by Madhu Pandit Dasa in 2000. Since its establishment it is running mid-day meal programme across India. Almost 20 years ago it started with providing 1,500 free school lunches every day and today it feeds 1.75 million children all over India with freshly prepared meals.
• TAPF commonly known as The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a nonprofit organisation in India that runs school lunch programme across India.
• The organisation was established in 2000.
• Once the Mid-Day Meal Scheme was mandated centrally by the Government of India in 2003, Akshaya Patra partnered with the Government to serve cooked meals at all Government schools. To be able to work towards tackling classroom hunger in association with the Government on the format of Public-Private Partnership[2] was a welcome progression for Akshaya Patra
• The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme of the Government of India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide.
• The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government, government aided, local body, Education Guarantee Scheme, and alternate innovative education centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project schools run by the ministry of labour.
• Serving 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, it is the largest of its kind in the world.
• Under article 24, paragraph 2c of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a party, India has committed to yielding “adequate nutritious foods” for children. The programme has undergone many changes since its launch in 1995. The Midday Meal Scheme is covered by the National Food Security Act, 2013. The legal backing to the Indian school meal programme is akin to the legal backing provided in the US through the National School Lunch Act.
• Supreme court order
• In April 2001, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) initiated the public interest litigation (Civil) No. 196/2001, People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India & Others – popularly known as the “right to food” case.
• The PUCL argued that article 21 – “right to life” of the Indian constitution when read together with articles 39(a) and 47, makes the right to food a derived fundamental right which is enforceable by virtue of the constitutional remedy provided under article 32 of the constitution.
• The PUCL argued that excess food stocks with the Food Corporation of India should be fed to hungry citizens. This included providing mid day meals in primary schools.
• The scheme came into force with the supreme court order dated 28 November 2001,which requires all government and government-assisted primary schools to provide cooked midday meals.

Pre-independence and post-independence initiatives

• The roots of the programme can be traced back to the pre-independence era, when a mid day meal programme was introduced in 1925 in Madras Corporation by the British administration. A mid day meal programme was introduced in the Union Territory of Puducherry by the French administration in 1930.
• Initiatives by state governments to children began with their launch of a mid day meal programme in primary schools in the 1962–63 school year. Tamil Nadu is a pioneer in introducing mid day meal programmes in India to increase the number of kids coming to school; K. Kamaraj, then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, introduced it first in Chennai and later extended it to all districts of Tamil Nadu.
• During 1982, July 1 onwards, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. G. Ramachandran upgraded the existing Mid-day meal scheme in the state to ‘Nutritious food scheme’ keeping in the mind that 68 lakh children suffer malnutrition.
• Gujarat was the second state to introduce an MDM scheme in 1984, but it was later discontinued.
• A midday meal scheme was introduced in Kerala in 1984, and was gradually expanded to include more schools and grades. By 1990–91, twelve states were funding the scheme to all or most of the students in their area: Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka, Orissa, and West Bengal received international aid to help with implementation of the programme, and in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan the programme was funded entirely using foreign aid.
• In Karnataka, Children’s LoveCastles Trust started to provide mid-day meals in 1997. A total of eight schools were adopted and a food bank programme and an Angganwasi milk Programme were started. The food-bank programme was replaced by the State Government midday meal scheme

MCQ 3
World Investment Report 2019 is released by
(A) IMF
(B) World Bank
(C) WTO
(D) UNCTAD

• According to the World Investment Report 2019, released by United Nation Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows to India grew by 6% to USD 42 billion in 2018. India was ranked among the top 20 host economies for FDI inflows in 2017-18.
• FDI to India: It grew by 6% to $42 billion in 2018 saw strong inflows in manufacturing, financial services sectors, communication and crossborder merger and acquisition activities.
• India received foreign direct investments worth $42 billion in 2018, helped by robust inflows in manufacturing, communication and financial services, a United Nations trade report said Wednesday.
• In South Asia, FDI inflows increased by 3.5% to $54 billion, said the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Report 2019. So, India attracted over 77% of the total foreign direct investments that came to the South Asian region.
• “Investment in India – the subregion’s largest recipient – rose by 6% to$42 billion with strong inflows in manufacturing, communication, financial services and crossborder merger and acquisition activities,” said the report.

Highlights of the WIR 2019

• Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows slid by 13% in 2018, to US$1.3 trillion from $1.5 trillion the previous year – the third consecutive annual decline, according to UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2019.
• The contraction was largely precipitated by United States multinational enterprises (MNEs) repatriating earnings from abroad, making use of tax reforms introduced by the country in 2017, designed for that purpose.
• Hardest hit by the earnings repatriation were developed countries, where flows fell by a quarter to $557 billion – levels last seen in 2004.
• “FDI continues to be trapped, confined to post-crisis lows. This does not bode well for the international community’s promise to tackle urgent global challenges, such as abject poverty and the climate crisis,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.
• “Geopolitics and trade tensions risk continuing to weigh on FDI in 2019 and beyond,” he cautioned.
• The tax-driven fall in FDI, which occurred in the first two quarters, was cushioned by increased transaction activity in the second half of 2018. The value of cross-border merger and acquisitions (M&As) rose by 18%, fueled by United States MNEs using liquidity in their foreign affiliates.
• Developing country flows managed to hold steady (rising by 2%), which helped push flows to the developing world to more than half (54%) of global flows, from 46% in 2017 and just over a third before the financial crisis.
• Half of the top 20 host economies in the world are developing and transition economies.
• Despite the FDI decline, the United States remained the largest recipient of FDI, followed by China, Hong Kong (China) and Singapore.
• In terms of outward investors, Japan became the largest followed by China and France. The United States was out of the top 20 list, due to its MNEs massive repatriation of investment earnings.

• The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body.
• UNCTAD is the part of the United Nations Secretariat dealing with trade, investment, and development issues. The organization’s goals are to: “maximize the trade, investment and development opportunities of developing countries and assist them in their efforts to integrate into the world economy on an equitable basis”. UNCTAD was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1964 and it reports to the UN General Assembly and United Nations Economic and Social Council.
• The primary objective of UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development including trade, aid, transport, finance and technology. The conference ordinarily meets once in four years; the permanent secretariat is in Geneva.
• One of the principal achievements of UNCTAD (1964) has been to conceive and implement the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).
• It was argued in UNCTAD that to promote exports of manufactured goods from developing countries, it would be necessary to offer special tariff concessions to such exports. Accepting this argument, the developed countries formulated the GSP scheme under which manufacturers’ exports and import of some agricultural goods from the developing countries enter duty-free or at reduced rates in the developed countries. Since imports of such items from other developed countries are subject to the normal rates of duties, imports of the same items from developing countries would enjoy a competitive advantage.

 
MCQ 4

1. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) of the Central Government of India headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cleared setting up of new agency called Defence Space Research Agency.
2. It will raise a defence army stationed at the proposed space station of India and it will destroy enemies from space during warfare

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

• Defence Space Research Agency (DSRA):
• The Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cleared the setting up of the Defence Space Research Agency (DSRA).
• DSRA has been entrusted with the task of creating space warfare weapon systems and technologies.
• The agency would be provided with a team of scientists which would be working in close coordination with the tri-services integrated Defence staff officers.
• It would be providing the research and development support to the Defence Space Agency (DSA) which comprises members of the three services.
• The DSA has been created “to help the country fight wars in the space”.
• The Defence Space Agency is being set up in Bengaluru under an Air Vice Marshal-rank officer and will gradually take over the space-related capabilities of the three forces.
• About Defence Space Agency (DSA)
•  It is being set up in Bengaluru under an Air Vice Marshal-rank officer and will gradually take over the space-related capabilities of the three armed forces. DSA has been created to help India fight wars in the space.
• In April, the government established DSA to command the space assets of tri services, including military’s anti-satellite capability. It is responsible for formulating strategy to protect India’s interests in space, including addressing space-based threats.
• In March 2019, India carried out a successful Anti Satellite Test (ASAT) which demonstrated the country’s capability to shoot down satellites in space. With this test it joined an elite club of four nations (only United States, Russia, China, and India) with similar capability. The test also helped India to develop deterrence capability against adversaries who may want to attack Indian satellites to cripple systems in times of war.
• The Defence Space Research Agency would be provided with a team of scientists who would be working in close coordination with tri-services (Indian Army, Navy and Air Force) Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) officers. The IDS was set up in October 2001 under Ministry of Defence in aftermath of ‘Operation Vijay’ (Kargil Operations) as an organisation that will be responsible for fostering coordination and enabling prioritisation across all branches of Indian Armed Forces.

MCQ 5

1. Global Peace Index (GPI) is released by OPHI
2. The GPI 2019 report includes new research on possible effects of climate change on peace.
3. India has improved its rank from last year
4. It takes only domestic conflicts of the countries for rankings.

Choose correct
(A) 1,2,3
(B) 2 & 4
(C) 2 only
(D) 1,2 & 4

• Global Peace Index (GPI) measures the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. The GPI ranks 163 independent states and territories (99.7 per cent of the world’s population) according to their levels of peacefulness. In the past decade, the GPI has presented trends of increased global violence and less peacefulness.
• The GPI is a report produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
• The Index was first launched in May 2007, with subsequent reports being released annually. In 2017 it ranked 163 countries, up from 121 in 2007. The study was conceived by Australian technology entrepreneur Steve Killelea, and is endorsed by individuals such as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, former President of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, economist Jeffrey Sachs, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Jan Eliasson and former United States president Jimmy Carter. The updated index is released each year at events in London, Washington, DC; and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

India slips 5 places to 141 on Global Peace Index 2019; Iceland again tops

• Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world, replacing Syria
• In South Asia, Bhutan topped the index with 15th rank, followed by Sri Lanka 72
• India’s rank has slipped five places to 141 among 163 countries on the Global Peace Index 2019, while Iceland remains the most peaceful country and Afghanistan the least peaceful nation, says a report.
• Australian think tank Institute for Economics & Peace ranks countries according to their level of peacefulness based on three thematic domains — the level of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict and the degree of militarization.
• Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the Global Peace Index (GPI) by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark.
• Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world, replacing Syria, which is now the second least peaceful. South Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq comprise the remaining five least peaceful countries.
• In South Asia, Bhutan topped the index with 15th rank, followed by Sri Lanka 72, Nepal 76 and Bangladesh 101. The neighbouring country Pakistan has been ranked 153rd on the index.
• India together with Philippines, Japan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan are the nine countries with the highest risk of multiple climate hazards. The country has the 7th highest overall natural hazard score, the report’s findings said.
• India, the US, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia are the top five countries with the largest total military expenditure, it added.
• According to the report, South Asia’s score for every indicator in ongoing conflict is less peaceful than the global average, with four out of six deteriorating last year. Only deaths from internal conflict improved, with fewer fatalities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India than the year prior.
• The score for internal conflicts fought had the highest rating at five in both India and Pakistan. China, Bangladesh, and India, score in the bottom half of the GPI and have significant exposure to climate hazards, with 393 million people in high climate hazard areas, the report observed.
• While global peacefulness improved for the first time in five years, as per the index findings, the world remains less peaceful than a decade ago.
• This year’s report includes new research on the possible effects of climate change on peace. Since 2008 global peacefulness has deteriorated by 3.78 per cent, the report revealed.
• The GPI was founded by Steve Killelea, an Australian technology entrepreneur and philanthropist.
• “Clearly it is good news that state sponsored terror has declined markedly over the last decade, with 62 countries improving their scores while only 42 deteriorated. However, incarceration shows the opposite trend with 95 countries increasing the incarceration rate compared to 65 that improved,” Killelea said.
• The report covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population and uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources to compile the index.

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