10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: February 25, 2020

Citing the World Happiness Report, 2018, in which India ranked 133 among 155 nations in the global rankings, the curriculum calls for schools in India to promote development in cognition, language, literacy, numeracy and the arts along with addressing the well-being and happiness of students. It further says that future citizens need to be “mindful, aware, awakened, empathetic, and firmly rooted in their identity…” based on the premise that education has a larger purpose, which cannot be in isolation from the “dire needs” of today’s society. The objectives of this curriculum include developing self-awareness and mindfulness, inculcating skills of critical thinking and inquiry, enabling learners to communicate effectively and helping learners to apply life skills to deal with stressful and conflicting situations around them.

According to a 2019 report by the Economic Advisory Council (EAC), India’s investment in R&D has shown a consistent increasing trend over the years. However, it is still fraction of India’s GDP as it has remained constant at around 0.6% to 0.7% of India’s GDP. This is below the expenditure of countries like the US (2.8), China (2.1), Israel (4.3) and Korea (4.2). The report has also said that the public expenditure is the driving force of R&D in India which is in contrast to the advanced countries where the private sector is the dominant and driving forces of R&D spend.

Pakke Tiger Reserve also known as Pakhui Tiger Reserve is a Project Tiger reserve located in the East Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh. The tiger reserve is surrounded by the Nameri National Park of Assam in the south and south-east, Pakke River to the east and Bhareli or Kameng River to the west. Recently, the Arunachal Pradesh Government has cleared the 692.7 km highway through the Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR) to build the East-West Industrial Corridor.

Launched in December 2014 after Maharashtra experienced consecutive droughts, the project aimed at rolling out measures that could potentially mitigate water scarcity in the most drought-prone villages in a systematic manner. Nearly 52 per cent of the state’s geographical area is prone to drought, either naturally or due to poor rainfall. This includes Marathwada and adjoining areas of Madhya Maharashtra and large parts of Vidarbha. The project targeted strengthening and streamlining existing water resources like canals, bunds and ponds by arresting maximum run-off rainwater during monsoon. Tasks to widen and deepen natural water streams and connect them to nearby water storage facilities like earthern or concrete check-dams were proposed. In the first phase, planned during 2015 – 2019, Jalyukta Shivar envisaged to make 5,000 villages drought-free, every year. During its proposed tenure, the government eyed at making 25,000 drought-prone villages water-sufficient. The Maharashtra Government has officially stopped the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan due to substandard work being carried out under the mission.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 by the Ministers of its Member jurisdictions.  The objectives of the FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.  The FATF is therefore a “policy-making body” which works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas. The FATF has developed a series of Recommendations that are recognised as the international standard for combating of money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.