10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: July 10, 2020

Article 69A of the Information Technology Act empowers the Central Government where it is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do, in the interest of:

–sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above;

-it may by order, direct any agency of the Government or intermediary to block for access by the public or cause to be blocked for access by the public any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource.

Malabar Naval Exercise is a trilateral naval exercise involving the United States, Japan and India. It originally began as bilateral exercise between India and United States in 1992; Japan became a permanent partner in 2015.

There have proposals in past and recently as well to include Australia as a permanent member to the Exercise. Inclusion of Australia in the Malabar exercise would complete the military aspect of the Quad group.

Statement 1 is incorrect. No such qualification for contesting election exists in the Constitution. Article 84 of the Constitution provides for qualification for membership of Parliament: a person shall not be qualified to be chosen to fill a seat in Parliament unless s/he

-is a citizen of India, and makes and subscribes before some person authorized in that behalf by the Election Commission an oath or affirmation according to the form set out for the purpose in the Third Schedule;

-is, in the case of a seat in the Council of States, not less than thirty years of age and, in the case of a seat in the House of the People, not less than twenty-five years of age; and

-possesses such other qualifications as may be prescribed in that behalf by or under any law made by Parliament.

Statement 2 is correct. Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 provides that a person convicted of any offence and sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years shall be disqualified from the date of such conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his release.

Statement 1 is correct. India is signatory to WHO’s International Health Regulations 2005.

The International Health Regulations (2005) aims to prevent, protect against, control and respond to the international spread of disease while avoiding unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.

Statement 2 is correct. It is an international law that entered into force on 15 June 2007 and is binding on 194 countries across the globe, including all WHO Member States.

The IHR (2005) were agreed upon by consensus among WHO Member States as a balance between their sovereign rights and shared commitment to prevent the international spread of disease. But the IHR (2005) do not include an enforcement mechanism per se for States which fail to comply with its provisions.

Statement 3 is correct. The IHR (2005) require States to notify WHO of all events that may constitute a public health emergency of international concern and to respond to requests for verification of information regarding such events.

Statement 1 is correct. Droplet transmission can occur through direct, indirect, or close contact with infected people through infected secretions such as saliva and respiratory secretions or their respiratory droplets, which are expelled when an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks or sings.

Respiratory droplets are >5-10μm in diameter whereas droplets <5μm in diameter and are referred to as droplet nuclei or aerosols.

Statement 2 is correct. Airborne transmission is defined as the spread of an infectious agent caused by the dissemination of droplet nuclei (residue from evaporated droplets) that remain infectious when suspended in air over long distances and time.

These organisms must be capable of surviving for long periods of time outside the body and must be resistant to drying.

Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v Union of India (2015) case struck down section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which provided provisions for the arrest of those who posted allegedly offensive content on the internet, upholding freedom of expression.

In Lily Thomas v. Union of India case, Supreme Court ruled that any Member of Parliament (MP), Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) or Member of a Legislative Council (MLC) who is convicted of a crime and given a minimum of two years’ imprisonment, loses membership of the House with immediate effect. Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, which allowed elected representatives three months to appeal their conviction, was declared unconstitutional.

Supreme Court in Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug v. Union of India and Others allowed passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state.

A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Puttuswamy v. Union of India declared that the right to privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution.

Tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis. M. tuberculosis is carried in airborne particles, called droplet nuclei, of 1– 5 microns in diameter. Infectious droplet nuclei are generated when persons who have pulmonary or laryngeal TB disease cough, sneeze, shout, or sing.

Varicella (chickenpox) is an acute infectious disease that is caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV). It is highly infectious; the virus can spread from person to person by direct contact, inhalation of aerosols from vesicular fluid of skin lesions of acute varicella or zoster, and possibly through infected respiratory secretions that also may be aerosolized.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that lives in the nose and throat mucus of an infected person. It can spread through the air from respiratory droplets and small aerosol particles. Also, measles virus can live for up to two hours in an airspace where the infected person coughed or sneezed.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The Ministerial on Climate Action (MoCA) is an annual meeting attended by ministers and high-level representatives from over 30 countries, including ministers from the G20 and chairs of key party groupings in the UN climate negotiations. The MoCA meetings are co-hosted by Canada, the EU and China.

The meetings provide a space for discussions on the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Statement 2 is correct. India was represented at the virtual MoCA 2020 by the Union Environment Minister. The Minister highlighted that:

-India has achieved reduction of 21% in emission intensity of its GDP between 2005 and 2014, thereby achieving its pre-2020 voluntary target.

-India’s renewable energy installed capacity has increased by 226% in last 5 years and stands more than 87GW.

-The share of non-fossil sources in installed capacity of electricity generation increased from 30.5% in March 2015 to 37.7% in May 2020.

-India provided 80 million LPG connections in rural areas, providing them with clean cooking fuel and healthy environment.

-India’s total forest and tree cover is 8,07,276 sq. km. which is 24.56% of the total geographical area of the country.

-More than 360 million LED bulbs have been distributed under UJALA scheme, which has led to energy saving of about 47 billion units of electricity per year and reduction of 38 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

-India has also leapfrogged from Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) to Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) emission norms by April 1, 2020.

-India had levied a coal cess of INR 400/- as, part of one of the most explicit green initiatives & this is now subsumed under Goods and Services Tax (GST).

-Under Smart Cities Mission, Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework 2019 has been launched.

The GALactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) survey is a Large Observing Program using the HERMES (High Efficiency and Resolution Multi-Element Spectrograph) instrument with the Anglo-Australian Telescope of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

The formation and evolution of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems of modern astrophysics. The goal of galactic archaeology is to reconstruct the lost stellar substructures of the early Milky Way, thereby obtaining a detailed physical picture of its formation and evolution.

GALAH will obtain precise radial velocities and abundances of over 15 different chemical elements per star for approximately one million stars. Elemental abundances representing the main nucleosynthetic processes in both dwarf and giant stars will allow chemical tagging of the individual stars to their original formation event.

It will allow us to investigate the history of star formation in the Galaxy, the regularity, and importance, of merger events, and the changes in stellar dynamics over time.

Statement 1 is correct. The Balance of Payments (BoP) records economic transactions between a country and the rest of the world. The BoP account mainly consists of the current account and the capital account.

Statement 2 is correct. Economic transactions that enter the current account are presented in two parts viz., i) Merchandise and ii) Invisibles. A surplus on current account leads to an acquisition of assets or repayment of debts previously contracted and a deficit involves withdrawal of previously accumulated assets or is met by borrowings.

India has managed a small current account surplus of US$ 0.6 billion (0.1 percent of GDP) in fourth quarter of 2019-20; for the entire fiscal 2019-20m the current account deficit narrowed to 0.9 per cent of GDP. The last time current account had ended in a surplus in any quarter was in January-March’2007.