Daily Current Affairs MCQ / UPSC / IAS / 21-11-19 | Free PDF

MCQ 1

1. Uighurs are a Muslim minority community concentrated in the country’s northwestern Xinjiang region in Tibet
2. According to India Xinjiang shares borders with Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan & Pakistan

 Choose correct

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

•  For some months now, international concern has been growing about what China is doing to its Uighur population. Reports have emerged of China ‘homogenizing’ the Uighurs.

What’s the issue now?

• Around a million Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslims have been bundled into internment camps, where they are allegedly being schooled into giving up their identity, and assimilate better in the communist country dominated by the Han Chinese.
• China resolutely denies all such allegations, claiming the camps to be ‘educational centres’ where the Uighurs are being cured of “extremist thoughts” and radicalization, and learning vocational skills.

Who are Uighurs?

• Uighurs are a Muslim minority community concentrated in the country’s northwestern Xinjiang province.
• They claim closer ethnic ties to Turkey and other central Asian countries than to China, by brute — and brutal — force.

Why is China targeting the Uighurs?

• Xinjiang is technically an autonomous region within China — its largest region, rich in minerals, and sharing borders with eight countries, including India, Pakistan, Russia and Afghanistan.
• Over the past few decades, as economic prosperity has come to Xinjiang, it has brought with it in large numbers the majority Han Chinese, who have cornered the better jobs, and left the Uighurs feeling their livelihoods and identity were under threat.
• This led to sporadic violence, in 2009 culminating in a riot that killed 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, in the region’s capital Urumqi. And many other violent incidents have taken place since then.
• Beijing also says Uighur groups want to establish an independent state and, because of the Uighurs’ cultural ties to their neighbours, leaders fear that elements in places like Pakistan may back a separatist movement in Xinjiang.
• Therefore, the Chinese policy seems to have been one of treating the entire community as suspect, and launching a systematic project to chip away at every marker of a distinct Uighur identity

MCQ 2

1. Every insured bank pays premium amounting to 0.1% of its deposits to DICGC every year.
2. All types of cooperative banks are insured by the DICGC.

Choose correct

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

• With the failure of the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank reigniting the debate on the low level of insurance for deposits held by customers in banks in India, the central government now plans to raise the cover. A legislation in this regard is likely in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament.

What is deposit insurance? How is it regulated in India?

• Deposit insurance is providing insurance protection to the depositor’s money by receiving a premium.
• The government has set up Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) under RBI to protect depositors if a bank fails.
• Every insured bank pays premium amounting to 0.001% of its deposits to DICGC every year.

What happens to depositors’ money when a bank fails?

• When a bank is liquidated, depositors are entitled to receive an insurance amount of ₹1 lakh per individual from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (DICGC).
• The ₹1 lakh insurance limit includes both principal and interest dues across your savings bank accounts, current accounts, fixed deposits and recurring deposits held with the bank.

What is the procedure for depositors to claim the money from a failed bank?

• The DICGC does not deal directly with depositors.
• The RBI (or the Registrar), on directing that a bank be liquidated, appoints an official liquidator to oversee the winding up process.
• Under the DICGC Act, the liquidator is supposed to hand over a list of all the insured depositors (with their dues) to the DICGC within three months of taking charge.
• The DICGC is supposed to pay these dues within two months of receiving this list.
• In FY19, it took an average 1,425 days for the DICGC to receive and settle the first claims on a de-registered bank.

 Who are insured by the DICGC?

• The corporation covers all commercial and co-operative banks, except in Meghalaya, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Besides, Only primary cooperative societies are not insured by the DICGC.
• The DICGC does not include the following types of deposits:
• Deposits of foreign governments.
• Deposits of central/state governments.
• Inter-bank deposits.
• Deposits of the state land development banks with the state co-operative bank.
• Any amount due on account of any deposit received outside India.
• Any amount specifically exempted by the DICGC with previous approval of RBI.

 Reforms:

• Enhance the insurance cover and the insured amount.
• Allow private players to provide insurance cover.
• Reduce the time delay in settling claims.

MCQ 3

1. Nationally there was no NRC exercise in the past
2. In the case of Assam, there was a cut-off date of July,19, 1948

Choose correct

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

• The NRC is the list of Indian citizens and was prepared in 1951, following the census of 1951.
• The process of NRC update was taken up in Assam as per a Supreme Court order in 2013.
• In order to wean out cases of illegal migration from Bangladesh and other adjoining areas, NRC updation was carried out under The Citizenship Act, 1955, and according to rules framed in the Assam Accord. Scrap updated NRC, Assam govt. urges Centre. Monitored by SC, it was published on August 31

Scrap updated NRC, Assam govt. urges Centre.

• Monitored by SC, it was published on August 31
• Following Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement in the Rajya Sabha that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise would be conducted across India and repeated in Assam, the State’s Finance Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said Assam had asked the Centre to reject the updated final NRC in the State. The final NRC, monitored by the Supreme Court, was published on August 31. More than 19 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants were left out of the register that took five years to compile and cost the exchequer ₹1,220 crore.
• The NRC in Assam was a culmination of the Assam Accord signed in 1985 after a six-year agitation, spearheaded by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) for detection, disenfranchisement and deportation of foreigners.

‘It will be catastrophic’

• According to human rights activist Harsh Mander, the NRC exercise, if conducted across the country, would be catastrophic for the social fabric and future of India as a secular, democratic republic. “I just returned from Assam and met families excluded from NRC. The enormous human suffering that this has entailed is hard to describe. If it is now imposed in the country after the Citizenship Amendment Bill, it means that only our Muslim brothers and sisters will have to prove their citizenship based on documents that most of us will not be able to produce as it is decades old. This is truly the destruction of the country based on the idea of equal citizenship,” he said. The Citizenship Amendment Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to undocumented non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to be taken up in the ongoing winter session of Parliament.

MCQ 4

1. India has been the signatory to the Hong Kong International Convention for Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, since 2009.
2. The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for enactment of Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019

 Choose correct

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

• The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for enactment of Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 and accession to the Hong Kong International Convention for Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009.

Key features of the bill

• It restricts and prohibits the use or installation of hazardous material, which applies irrespective of whether a ship is meant for recycling or not.
• For new ships, such restriction or prohibition on use of hazardous material will be immediate, that is, from the date the legislation comes into force, while existing ships shall have a period of five years for compliance.
• Restriction or prohibition on use of hazardous material would not be applied to warships and non-commercial ships operated by Government.
• Ships shall be surveyed and certified on the inventory of hazardous material used in ships.
• Under the Bill, ship recycling facilities are required to be authorized and ships shall be recycled only in such authorized ship recycling facilities.
• It also provides that ships shall be recycled in accordance with a ship-specific recycling plan. • Ships to be recycled in India shall be required to obtain a Ready for Recycling Certificate in accordance with the HKC- Hong Kong International Convention for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships.

What is Hong Kong convention?

• The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships, 2009 (the Hong Kong Convention), was adopted at a diplomatic conference held in Hong Kong, China in 2009.
• It was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 2009.
• The Convention is aimed at ensuring that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of their operational lives, do not pose any unnecessary risks to human health, safety and to the environment.
• It also addresses concerns raised about the working and environmental conditions at many of the world’s ship recycling locations.
• The Convention is yet to come into force because it has not been ratified by 15 nations, representing 40 per cent of the world merchant shipping by gross tonnage (capacity) and a maximum annual ship recycling volume of not less than 3 per cent of the combined tonnage of the countries.

 Implications:

• The Bill, when enacted by the Parliament, requires ship recycling facilities to obtain authorisation to operate and only authorised yards will be permitted to import ships for recycling.
• Ship-specific Ship Recycling Plans (SRPs) will need to be prepared for incoming vessels and incoming ships will need to obtain a “Ready for Recycling Certificate” in accordance with the HKC.
• When India accedes to the IMO’s treaty, after the approval by the Parliament, it will become the 14th contracting state to ratify the Convention.

Need for legislation:

• India is the leader in the global ship recycling industry, with a share of over 30% of the market.
• As per UNCTAD report on Review of Maritime Transport, 2018, India had demolished 6323 tonnes in 2017, of known ship scrapping across the world.
• The ship-recycling industry is a labour-intensive sector, but it is susceptible to concerns on environmental safety.

MCQ 5

1. The new labour code on industrial relations 2019 will subsume 8 labour laws in it
2. According to it all labourers will get a guaranteed minimum wage.

Choose correct

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

•  The industrial relations code is the third out of four labour codes that have got approval from the cabinet. The Labour Code on Wages has already been approved by Parliament in August while the Labour Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions has been referred to the standing committee of labour.
• The Union cabinet has approved the Labour Code on Industrial Relations 2019.
• The code will combine

1. Industrial disputes act, 1947,
2. The trade unions act, 1926, and the
3. Industrial employment (standing orders) act, 1946.

 Key features of the bill:

• It seeks to allow companies to hire workers on a fixed-term contract of any duration.
• The code has retained the threshold on the worker count at 100 for prior government approval before retrenchment, but it has a provision for changing ‘such number of employees’ through notification.
• It also provides setting up of a two-member tribunal (in place of one member) wherein important cases will be adjudicated jointly and the rest by a single member, resulting speedier disposal of cases.
• It has vested powers with the government officers for adjudication of disputes involving penalty as fines.

 Implications:

• While this means workers can be hired seasonally for six months or a year it also means that all workers will be treated at par with regular workers for benefits.

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