10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: August 30, 2020

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the Voices of the Hungry (VOH) project in 2013 to provide up-to-date information about food insecurity that is policy-relevant and actionable. The project developed a methodology to measure the severity of food insecurity as experienced by individuals or households in a way that is comparable across countries.

An important goal of the VOH Project is to promote the adoption of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) methodology by national governmental institutions. The FIES developed by VOH is a measure of access to food at the level of individuals or households.  It measures severity of food insecurity based on people’s responses to questions about constraints on their ability to obtain adequate food.

In the preamble to the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is expected to ensure availability of safe and wholesome food for the people in India. Therefore, FSSAI has embarked on a large-scale effort to transform the country’s food system in order to ensure safe, healthy and sustainable food for all Indians through the ‘Eat Right India’ movement.

The movement is based on three key themes, ‘if it’s not safe, it’s not food’ (safe food), ‘food should not only serve the palate but is also meant for body and mind’ (healthy diets) and ‘food has to be good both for people and the planet’ (sustainable diets).

# Eat Right Challenge is an annual competition for districts and cities across the country to encourage them to strengthen the food safety and regulatory environment and awareness among consumers to make better food choices.

Option 1 is incorrectly matched. Al-Aqsa Mosque located in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel and is among the holiest site in Islam.

The mosque is located in close proximity to historical sites significant in Judaism and Christianity, most notably the site of the Second Temple, the holiest site in Judaism. As a result, the area is highly sensitive, and has been a flashpoint in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Option 2 is correctly matched. Idlib is a city in northwestern Syria, southwest of Aleppo, which is the capital of the Idlib Governorate.

The province – along with parts of Hama, Latakia and Aleppo – is the last stronghold of the rebel and jihadist groups that have been trying to overthrow President Assad since 2011.

Option 3 incorrectly matched. Minsk is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislač and the Nyamiha Rivers.

Recently Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in office in a disputed election, prompting protesters to take to the streets in cities across the country.

Statement 1 is incorrect. National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) is not a statutory body, it was established in 1953 by the Government of India and is operating as a not for profit company under Companies Act 2013.

The primary objective of NRDC is to promote, develop and commercialize the technologies / know-how / inventions / patents / processes emanating from various national R&D institutions / Universities

Statement 2 is correct. It works under the administrative control of the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology.

Recently an Innovation-cum-Incubation Centre has been established jointly by National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL) to promote Aerospace engineering start-ups.

Statement 1 is correct. An open API, also called public API, is an application programming interface made publicly available to software developers. An API is a software intermediary that makes it possible for application programs to interact with each other and share data.

Statement 2 is correct. The recently launched Aarogya Setu Open API Service will enable organizations to check the status of the Aarogya Setu app of their employees and integrate it into its various Work from Home features.

The new feature called ‘Open API Service’ will help people, businesses and the economy to return to normalcy, and aims to address the fear/risk of COVID-19 infection. The Open API (application programme interface) shall only provide the Aarogya Setu status and name of the Aarogya Setu User with their consent.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by the Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism.

In the Heads of State Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in June 2017 (Astana), the status of a full member of the Organization was granted to the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Statement 2 is correct. The organisation has two permanent bodies — the SCO Secretariat based in Beijing and the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) based in Tashkent.

Statement 1 is correct. The Health Facility Registry (HFR) is a comprehensive repository of health facilities of the country across different systems of medicine.

It includes both public and private health facilities including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic laboratories and imaging centers, pharmacies, etc. It is one of the fundamental modules of the “National Digital Health Mission” and is a key building block needed to support the unified digital health ecosystem of the country.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Registration of health facilities to the NDHM portal is not mandatory; it is optional and completely voluntary. However, to avail various benefits arising out of registration, it is highly recommended. Registration will enable health facilities to get connected to India’s digital health ecosystem and gain access to a host of digital services through the NDHM platform.

Option 1 is incorrect. The Contingency Fund (CF) is a specific provision meant for meeting unexpected contingencies that arise from RBI’s monetary policy and exchange rate operations. It is not part of Currency and Gold Revaluation Account (CGRA) of RBI.

Option 2 and 3 are correct. RBI reserves are invested mainly in foreign and Indian government securities (essentially promissory notes bearing an interest rate against which these governments borrow) and gold.

The Currency & Gold Revaluation Account (CGRA) is a type of reserve with RBI that represents the value of the gold and foreign currency that the RBI holds on behalf of India. It is maintained by the Reserve Bank to take care of currency risk, interest rate risk and movement in gold prices.

Statement 1 is correct. Department for promotion of Industry & Internal Trade has developed Industrial Information System (IIS) portal, a GIS-enabled database of industrial areas/clusters across the country to adopt a committed approach towards resource optimization, industrial upgradation and sustainability.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Industrial Information System (IIS) aims to provide:

-Information on available land for prospective investors looking at setting up units in the Country

-GIS Mapping of Industrial Clusters

-The system also holds the information about the existing External and Internal Infrastructure such as rail, road, air and port connectivity and other common facilities in and around the manufacturing clusters

-Links to State GIS Portals and State Land Banks

At present, the database covers more than 3,350 parks/clusters covering about 475,000 hectares land across 31 States/UTs.

The Fujiwhara effect refers to tendency of two nearby tropical cyclones to rotate cyclonically about each other.

When two hurricanes spinning in the same direction pass close enough to each other, they begin an intense movement around their common center. If one hurricane is a lot stronger than the other, the smaller one will orbit it and eventually come crashing into its vortex to be absorbed.

Two storms closer in strength can gravitate towards each other until they reach a common point and merge, or merely spin each other around for a while before shooting off on their own paths. In rare occasions, the effect is additive when the hurricanes come together, resulting in one larger storm instead of two smaller ones.

# Two tropical storms named Marco and Laura forming in the western Atlantic Ocean at nearly the same time are likely to impact the Gulf of Mexico sparking concerns of the rare Fujiwhara effect.