10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: July 20, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. Constitution provides fundamental right against the forced self-incrimination by the accused under article 20(3) which states that no person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.

Statement 2 is incorrect. India signed the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1997 but has not ratified it so far.

21st Law Commission under Justice B.S. Chauhan(retd.) recommended on implementation of convention by legislation. It proposed amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. In addition, the Commission submitted a draft Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017 which defines acts that should constitute torture and prescribed punishments for such acts.

Statement 1 is correct. Malabar exercise is a trilateral naval exercise involving the United States, Japan and India as permanent partners. It began in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between India and the United States, in 2015, Japan became a permanent partner. Singapore and Australia have in past participated as non-permanent partners.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) is an informal strategic forum between the United States, Japan, Australia and India.

Statement 1 is correct. Plea Bargaining is legal mechanism whereby the accused may bargain with the prosecution for a lesser punishment. Typically, the accused will plead guilty to a lesser crime or for a fewer charges than originally charged, in exchange for a more lenient punishment than the he/she would get if convicted at trial.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Plea bargaining was introduced in 2006 by amendments to the CrPC under Sections 265A to 265L. The Section 265A provides that it is not applicable to an offence which attracts punishment of death or of imprisonment for life or of imprisonment for a term exceeding seven years.

Further it does not apply where such offence affects the socio-economic condition of the country or has been committed against a woman, or a child below the age of fourteen years.

All of the above gas/oil fields are correctly matched.

Farzad B Gas Field is located in Persian Gulf under the control of Iran. India has plans to invest in the exploration of this oilfield.

Baghjan Oil field is in Tinsukia district of Assam. Recently a massive fire engulfed the damaged Baghjan oil well in Assam.

Ghawar Oil Field is located in Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, owned and operated by state-owned Saudi Aramco. It is one of the largest conventional oil field in the world, and accounts for roughly a third of the cumulative oil production of Saudi Arabia.

Statement 1 is correct. The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty. It complements traditional monetary poverty measures by capturing the acute deprivations in health, education, and living standards that a person faces simultaneously.

In the global MPI, a person is identified as multidimensionally poor if they are deprived in at least one third of the weighted MPI indicators.

Statement 2 is correct. The Multidimensional Poverty Index 2020: Charting pathways out of multidimensional poverty: Achieving the SDGs has been released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

As per the report India saw the most people moving out of multidimensional poverty – some 270 million people between 2005/6 and 2015/16.

MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (H) and the average intensity of poverty (A).

Option 1 is correct. BlackRock malware has been reported to be stealing password and credit card details from 337 apps including some of the popular ones like Gmail, Amazon, Netflix, Uber, and more in android devices.

Option 2 is correct. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has reported that malware known as WellMess and WellMail have been used in attempts to steal information and intellectual property from multiple organisations involved in COVID-19 vaccine development by group known as CozyBear or APT29.

Option 3 is incorrect. TraceTogether is a contact tracing app released by the Singapore Government in response to COVID-19 pandemic.

Both statements are correct.

KURMA mobile application was launched on the occasion of World Turtle Day, May 23, 2020.

It has been developed by the Indian Turtle Conservation Action Network (ITCAN) in collaboration with the Turtle Survival Alliance-India and Wildlife Conservation Society-India. It provides users a database to identify a species and also location of the nearest rescue center for turtles across the country.

Tortoise and freshwater turtles are heavily trafficked in India. The TRAFFIC reported in 2019 that at least 200 tortoises and freshwater turtles are subjected to poaching and smuggling every week.

A disease is said to be in Community transmission stage when there is no clear source of origin of the infection in a new person/community. It can no longer be identified who became infected after being exposed to someone, who interacted with infected people.

The source and chain of infections can no longer be established. Therefore contact tracing becomes difficult and has limited use in arresting the spread of disease.

Herd immunity occurs when a large portion of a community becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. This can happen in two ways: Many people contract the disease and in time build up an immune response to it (natural immunity) or many people are vaccinated against the disease to achieve immunity.

Statement 1 is correct. At present, as per DGFT Foreign Trade policy, import of urea for agriculture purposes is a canalized item and can be imported only through the State Trading Enterprises (STEs) as notified by DGFT from time to time.

Currently MMTC Limited (MMTC), State Trading Corporation Limited (STC) and Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF) are permitted to import Urea for agricultural purposes.

Statement 2 is incorrect. India has been a net importer of NPK fertilizers for past decade.

Both statements are correct.

Passive immunity is provided when a person is given antibodies to a disease rather than producing them through his or her own immune system. A newborn baby acquires passive immunity from its mother through the placenta.

Antibodies are transported across the placenta during the last 1–2 months of pregnancy. As a result, a full-term infant will have the same antibodies as its mother. These antibodies protect the infant from some diseases upto an year.

In passive immunity; protection is immediate but lasts only for a few weeks or months. Only active immunity is long-lasting.