10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: July 21, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. PASSEX (Passage Exercise) is a maritime exercise conducted between two or more navies which consist or navigation and communication drills as ships coordinate manoeuvres alongside each other.

It increases operational readiness and interoperability among the naval forces.

Statement 2 is correct. The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group of USA recently transited through Indian Ocean Region. During the passage, Indian Navy units undertook Passage Exercise (PASSEX) with US Navy.

Indian Navy had also conducted similar PASSEXs with Japan and French Navy in recent past.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The Manodarpan is an initiative by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India as part of Atma-Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

Statement 2 is correct. It aims to monitor and promote the mental health issues and concerns of students and teachers and to facilitate providing of support to address the mental health and psychosocial aspects during conditions like COVID 19 and beyond.

Manodarpan initiative provides psychological counseling through website, toll free helpline, national directory of counselors and through interactive chat platform.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The United States and the Soviet Union are the only two countries to land a spacecraft on Mars.

The Mars 3 lander of Soviet Russia in 1973 successfully landed on Mars but lost contact after few seconds of transmission.

NASA lander missions to Mars: Viking 1 and Viking 2 (both 1976), Pathfinder (1997), Spirit and Opportunity (both 2004), Phoenix (2008), Curiosity (2012) and InSight (2018).

Statement 2 is correct. The United States, Russia, the European Space Agency and India have successfully sent spacecraft to enter Mars’ orbit.

Recently United Arab Emirates has sent an orbiter named Hope from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center.

China’s Tianwen1 (Heavenly Questions) orbiter, lander, and rover Mars mission is planned to be launched in 2020 itself.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Godhan Nyay Yojana is a recently launched program of the Chhattisgarh state government.

Statement 2 is correct. Under the scheme, the state government will procure cow dung from livestock owners at Rs 2 per kilogram and will use the procurement as a raw material for production of organic fertilizers.

The ‘Gauthan Samitis’ will procure cow dung from livestock owners and women self-help groups will prepare vermin compost using the cow dung procured. The compost so produced is to be sold at the rate of Rs 8 per kg.

Scheme was launched on the Hareli Festival, a popular festival of Chhattisgarh. It is celebrated in the month of Shravan by the farmers; they worship cows and other farming equipments on this occasion.

Both statements are correct.

The Oxford University vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is made from a virus (ChAdOx1), a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees. It has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans.

Genetic material has been added to the ChAdOx1 construct, which is used to make proteins from the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) called Spike glycoprotein.

Oxford University has entered into a partnership with global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for large-scale manufacture and potential distribution of the vaccine, which has entered into collaboration with Serum Institute of India.

Statement 1 is correct. Solar Orbiter is collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA to study the Sun. Launched in Feb 2020, the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June.

The first images from ESA/NASA’s Solar Orbiter are now available, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun. The pictures show thousands of tiny solar flares that scientists dubbed “campfires”.

They could be mini-explosions known as nanoflares: tiny but ubiquitous sparks theorized to help heat the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, to its temperature 300 times hotter than the solar surface. More data from orbiter is expected to clarify on these ‘campfires.’

Statement 2 is incorrect. Solar Orbiter has snapped the closest pictures of the Sun to date. Other spacecraft have been closer, but none have carried Sun-facing imagers.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe holds the record for closest approach to the Sun by a human-made object. The spacecraft passed the current record of 26.55 million miles from the Sun’s surface on Oct. 29, 2018.

Both statements are correct.

Central Ground Water Authority has been constituted under Section 3 (3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The authority exercises powers as per the provisions of the said act.

The authority was established to regulate and control, management and development of ground water in the country and to issue necessary regulatory directions for the purpose.

It is engaged in various activities related to regulation of ground water development to ensure its long-term sustainability:

-regulating withdrawal of ground water by industries/ projects in 802 Over-exploited and 169 Critical Assessment Units.

-CGWA has notified critical and overexploited areas in several states and UTs.

-Construction of new ground water structures is prohibited in the notified areas.

-CWGA can resort to penal provisions contained in the Act.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The Tejas Express provides rail passengers with state of the art facilities onboard. The train coaches for the Tejas express have been built at Integral Coach Factory, Chennai and Rail Coach Factory, Kapurthala.

All passengers on IRCTC train are provided with Rail Travel Insurance of up to Rs. 25 Lakhs, free of cost by IRCTC. Services in the train are provided with standards similar to that of airlines.

Statement 2 is correct. IRCTC operates India’s first corporate passenger train as Lucknow-Delhi and Ahmedabad-Mumbai Tejas Express.

The Indian Railway Catering And Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) is a subsidiary PSU under Ministry of Railways.

Statement 1 is correct. The case-fatality rate is the proportion of persons with a particular condition (cases) who die from that condition. It is a measure of the severity of the condition.

Statement 2 is correct. A mortality rate is a measure of the frequency of occurrence of death in a defined population during a specified interval. It is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1,000 individuals per year.

Statement 3 is correct. Comorbidity means more than one disease/condition is present in a person at the same time. It describes the effect of all other conditions an individual patient might have other than the primary condition, and it can be physiological or psychological.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The National Crime Records Bureau is not a statutory organization; it was established in 1986 as an attached office to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The NCRB, at present, functions through: Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), Central Finger Print Bureau, Statistical Branch, Training Branch, and Data Centre and Technical Branch.

The objectives for the NCRB include:

– To function as a clearing house of information on crime and criminals so as to assist all the stakeholders in understanding of criminality in the society.

-To collect and analyze statistics on crime, accidental deaths & suicides at national level.

-To provide training facilities to police personnel of States/UTs.

-To function as the national storehouse of fingerprint (FP) records of convicted persons.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Each Interpol member country hosts an INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB). This connects their national law enforcement with other countries and with the General Secretariat.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is designated as the National Central Bureau of India. The Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation is the ex-officio Head of the NCB-India.