10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: November 24, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. The Information Technology Act, 2000 provides for legal recognition to the electronic records as well as the electronic signatures.

The electronic signature under the act means authentication of any electronic record by a subscriber by means of the electronic technique specified in the Second Schedule and includes digital signature.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Section 66A of the IT Act that provided for punishment to person sending offensive messages, has been struck down by Supreme Court’s Order dated 24th March, 2015 in the Shreya Singhal vs. Union of India, 2015.

Statement 1 is correct. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has amended the guidelines of the scheme based on the learning from its implementation during the first year.

Now, besides barren, fallow and agricultural lands, solar power plants can also be installed on pasture land and marshy land of farmers.

To support small farmers, solar projects smaller than 500 kW may be allowed by states based on techno-commercial feasibility.

Statement 2 is correct. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has issued an order for the scale-up and expansion of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) Scheme. The target now is to achieve enhanced solar capacity of 30.8 (GW) by 2022 with revised Central financial support.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The UMANG mobile app (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is a Government of India all-in-one single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app. providing access to high impact services of various Government of India Departments and State Governments.

Statement 2 is correct. UMANG’s international version in coordination with Ministry of External Affairs was launched recently for select countries that include USA, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

It will help Indian international students, NRIs and Indian tourists abroad, to avail Government of India services, anytime. It will also help in taking India to the world through ‘Indian Culture’ services available on UMANG and create interest amongst foreign tourists to visit India.

The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Training and Learning (ATAL) Academy Faculty Development Programmes (FDPs) aims to train teachers of higher education institutions associated with AICTE in thrust and emerging areas in technology.

ATAL Academy is conducting FDPs in online mode, including the process of registration till certificate disbursal mechanism. In the year 2020-21, new thrust areas in the field of Engineering, Management, Life Skills, Design & Media have been incorporated. The online FDPs will be conducted according to the new National Education Policy (2020).

# ATAL Academy has been included in the Book of World Records. The London-based organization has recognized the FDPs as a world record, under which 1,000 online FDPs in over 100 emerging areas will benefit one lakh faculty members across premier institutions like IITs, NITs, and IIITs.

The virtual 4th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies co-organised by the Basel Institute on Governance, Interpol and Europol, the conference gathers cryptocurrency experts, money laundering investigators and other law enforcement representatives from around the world was held from November 18 to 19.

The conference is an initiative of the Working Group on Cryptocurrencies and Money Laundering established in 2016 by the three organisations, launched with an objective of strengthening knowledge, expertise and best practices for investigations into financial crimes and intelligence on virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.

# Over 2,000 representatives from 132 countries attended the virtual 4th Global Conference.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Laos is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia bordered by Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Statement 2 is correct. The East Asia Summit has 18 members – the ten ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) along with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. ASEAN leads the forum, and the chair position rotates between ASEAN Member States annually.

One Health is a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.

It has gained importance as many of the same microbes infect animals and humans, as they share the eco-systems, they live in. Efforts by just one sector cannot prevent or eliminate the problem.

: Statement 1 is correct. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are known to cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

# Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surface.

Statement 2 is correct. Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans in China in 2002 and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans. The SARS-CoV-2 is being claimed to have transmitted from bats to humans.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Chang’e-4 spacecraft made a soft touch down on the Moon’s far-side. The Chang’e-5 is going to target a nearside location called Mons Rümker, a high volcanic complex in a region known as Oceanus Procellarum.

Statement 2 is correct. It is a multi-step mission that involves an orbiter, a lander-ascender and finally a return component that uses a capsule to survive a fast and hot entry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of the mission to bring back sample from Lunar surface.

# The last sample returned from the moon was delivered by the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 spacecraft in 1976.

A multi-disciplinary technical committee in the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti has recommended five technologies, specifically three technologies for drinking water and two technologies for sanitation as innovative technologies out of the ten technologies considered by it and these technologies would now be listed in the innovation portal of the department

The technologies include Grundfos AQpure, a solar energy-based water treatment plant based on ultra-filtration, Janajal Water on Wheel, an Internet of Things (IoT) based electric vehicle to deliver safe water to households and Presto Online Chlorinator, a non-electric online chlorinator for disinfection of water for removal of bacterial contamination.

The other two are Johkasou technology, an inbuilt packaged black (sewage) and greywater (kitchen and bath water) treatment system having advanced anaerobic-aerobic configuration that can be installed underground, while FBTec is a site assembled decentralised sewage treatment system using fixed filter media.