10 PM Current Affairs Quiz #9 September 11, 2019

Explanation: Scientists from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) have discovered two new species of Zingiber, commonly referred to as ginger, from Nagaland. While Zingiber perenense has been discovered from the Peren district of Nagaland, Zingiber dimapurense was found in the Dimapur district of the State. Details of both discoveries were published in two peer-reviewed journals earlier this year. Of the two species, Zingiber dimapurense is taller in size, with leafy shoots measuring 90-120 cm high, whereas the leafy shoots of Zingiber perenense reach up to 70 cm in height. For Zingiber dimapurense, the lip of the flower (modified corolla) is white in colour, with dense dark- purplish red blotches. Its pollen is a creamy-white and ovato-ellipsoidal, whereas the fruit is an oblong 4.5 cm-5.5 cm long capsule. In the case of Zingiber perenense, which was discovered about 50 km from where the other species was found, the lip of the flower is white with purplish-red streaks throughout, and the pollen is ellipsoidal.

Explanation: A five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court looked at the scope of the Union’s power to remove Governors in the landmark case of B.P. Singhal v. Union of India (2010). In this case, the Supreme Court spoke about the dual role of the Governor — as the constitutional head of the State government and as a vital link between the State and Union governments. Elucidating the specific functions of the Governor, the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice R.V. Raveendran, said that the Governor is “not an employee of the Union Government, nor the agent of the neither party in power nor required to act under the dictates of political parties”. The Court further anticipated that there “may be occasions when he may have to be an impartial or neutral Umpire where the views of the Union Government and State Governments are in conflict”.

Explanation: On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will scale up its ambition to restore degraded land. PM Modi’s announcement, at the ongoing 14th Conference of Parties (CoP) of the United Nation’s Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Greater Noida, is significant from the standpoint of the country’s global environmental commitments. The country will now restore 26 million hectares by 2030, five million hectares more than what it had pledged at the Paris Climate Change Meet in 2015. Monday’s announcement is also salutary given the growing crisis of desertification. According to ISRO’s Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas, nearly 30 per cent of land in the country is degraded. This, PM Modi said, “would be reversed by adopting a landscape-restoration approach”. It will require the environment ministry to shift focus from its plantation-oriented afforestation schemes and recognize the importance of ecosystem services of land and forests such as watershed management, biodiversity conservation and improving soil health.

Explanation: National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd.(NAFED) was established on the auspicious day of Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd October 1958. Nafed is registered under the Multi State Co-operative Societies Act. Nafed was setup with the object to promote Co-operative marketing of agricultural produce to benefit the farmers. Agricultural farmers are the main members of Nafed, who have the authority to say in the form of members of the General Body in the working of Nafed. The objectives of the NAFED shall be to organize, promote and develop marketing, processing and storage of agricultural, horticultural and forest produce, distribution of agricultural machinery, implements and other inputs, undertake inter-state, import and export trade, wholesale or retail as the case may be and to act and assist for technical advice in agricultural, production for the promotion and the working of its members, partners, associates and cooperative marketing, processing and supply societies in India.

Explanation: In a bid to woo tribals, who constitute 21.09 per cent of the state’s population, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh has come out with a scheme to lend them support on traditional occasions. Customs often include throwing a feast on the occasion of a child birth and also ‘mrityubhoj’ — a gathering organised after a death in the family. Called the Mukhyamantri Assistance Scheme, the programme aims to help beneficiaries avoid borrowing from local moneylenders for organising these gatherings. The scheme will be implemented in 89 tribal blocks across 20 districts, where the tribal population is 80.67 lakh. As many as 47 of the 230 Assembly constituencies in the state are reserved for tribals.