10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: June 27, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. A sovereign credit rating is an independent assessment of the creditworthiness of a country or sovereign entity. Investors use sovereign credit ratings as a way to assess the riskiness of a particular country’s bonds.

Statement 2 is correct. An investment grade is a rating that signifies a relatively low risk of default. The speculative grade often referred to as ‘junk grade’ rating signifies a higher risk of default.

Statement 3 is incorrect. India has been rated by in investment grade for many years, and still is rated in investment grade.

Standard & Poor’s gives a BBB- or higher rating to countries it considers investment grade, and grades of BB+ or lower are deemed to be speculative or “junk” grade. Moody’s considers a Baa3 or higher rating to be of investment grade, and a rating of Ba1 and below is speculative.

Statement 1 is correct. ‘Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM) is a platform that facilitates hosting of all the courses, taught in classrooms from Class 9 till post-graduation to be accessed by anyone, anywhere at any time.

Statement 2 is correct. Courses delivered through SWAYAM are available free of cost to the learners, however learners wanting a SWAYAM certificate should register for the final proctored exams that come at a fee and attend in-person at designated centers on specified dates.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Central Water Commission is a premier Technical Organization of India in the field of Water Resources and is presently functioning as an attached office of the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

Statement 2 and 3 are correct. Major functions of CWC are:

–Hydrological observations and studies,

-Maintaining water resources information system for each river basin,

-Providing assistance in regulation and development of Inter‐state Rivers,

–Issuing flood/inflow forecasts,

-Carrying out techno‐economic appraisal of projects,

-Taking up survey and investigation of projects on request,

-Providing design consultancy, and

-Advising and assisting the Government of India on related matters

All statements are correct.

Mahatma Gandhi proposed his scheme of Nai Talim (New Education) in a well formulated approach to education in 1937 in his newspaper ‘Harijan’. It was a philosophy of education based on experiments he did from 1904 when he was in South Africa to his stay in ashrams in India at Sabarmati (Gujarat) and Sevagram (Maharashtra). Its features included:

-Education or learning in mother tongue along with handicraft work,

-Work should be linked with most useful vocational needs of the locality,

-Learning should be linked with vocational work, and

-Work should be socially useful and productive needed for living.

Statement 1 is incorrect. India has 106km land border with Afghanistan through Gilgit Baltistan (Ladakh UT), under Pakistan’s occupation.

Statement 2 is correct. India-Afghanistan signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement in October 2011.

It provides for assistance to help rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure and institutions, education and technical assistance to rebuild indigenous Afghan capacity, encouraging investment in Afghanistan’s natural resources, support for an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of peace and reconciliation.

Statement 3 is correct. Afghan-India Friendship Dam (Salma Dam), a hydroelectric and irrigation dam project located on the Hari River and Parliament in Afghanistan have been built in Collaboration with India.

Statement 4 is correct. One of the objectives of building Zaranj-Delaram road by India was to boost bilateral economic relations besides offering Afghanistan another outlet to a seaport (Chabahar).

Statement 1 is correct. As per SIPRI report 2020, India is third largest military spender in the world after USA and China.

Statement 2 is correct. As per the table below (Source:PIB), Defence Expenditure is increasing every year in absolute terms:

In Union Budget for the financial year 2020-21 allocation of Rs 4,71,378 crore has been done for defence sector.

“COVID-19 and child labour: A time of crisis, a time to act” has been published by International Labour Organization (ILO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It states that with the COVID-19 pandemic, world is facing the risk of reverting years of progress and may see an increase in child labour for the first time in 20 years.

ILO Convention 182 on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour and ILO Convention 138 on the Minimum Age of Employment recognize the right of every child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to interfere with the child’s education or harm the child’s health.

Statement 1 is correct. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the nodal Ministry for drug demand reduction which coordinates and monitors all aspects of drug abuse prevention which include assessment of the extent of the problem, preventive action, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, dissemination of information and public awareness.

Statement 2 is correct. National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India’ was conducted by National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi under guidance of MoSJ&E.

Statement 3 is correct. Nasha Mukt Bharat: Annual Action Plan (2020-21) for 272 Most Affected Districts’ was launched by Ministry of State for Social Justice and Empowerment on the occasion of “International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking” on June 26.

Paracel islands and Spratly islands are in the South China Sea.

The Senkaku/Diaoyudao Islands are in East China Sea.

The following classes of electors are entitled for postal ballots:

–Service Voters: members of the armed forces of the Union, members of an armed police force of a State who are serving outside that State, persons who are employed under the Government of India in a post outside India (e.g. Ambassadors of India abroad, their staff etc.).

– Special Voter means any person holding an office declared by the President to be an office to which the provisions of sub-section (4) of Section 20 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 (Ordinary resident provisions) are declared to apply.

-The wives of service voters and special voters.

–Elector subjected to Preventive Detention: means any person subjected to preventive detention under any law for the time being in force.

–A voter on election duty; means Polling agent, Polling Officer, or Presiding Officer, security personnel, or any other such public servant who is an elector in the constituency appointed for election duties

-any person belonging to a class of persons notified by the Election Commission in consultation with the Government to give his vote by postal ballot.

On June 19, the Ministry of Law and Justice notified a change in the rules, allowing those aged 65 years and above, COVID-19 suspect or affected persons to opt for postal ballot.