10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: September 14, 2020

Statement 1 is incorrect. Article 93 states that the House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

There no provision for the Deputy Speaker to be mandatorily be from the opposition party members.

Statement 2 is correct. The salaries and allowances of the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States and the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of the People are the expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India.

The Quick Estimates of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) are released on 12th of every month (or previous working day if 12th is a holiday) with a six weeks lag and compiled with data received from source agencies, who in turn receive the data from the producing factories/ establishments.

Statement 1 is correct. The weightage of Manufacturing, Mining and Electricity production in overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is 77.63 per cent, 14.37 per cent and 7.99 per cent respectively.

Statement 2 is correct. There have been nine revision of base year of all-India IIP since the beginning of its dissemination with first being 1937. Currently base year for IIP calculations is 2011-12.

Option 1 is incorrectly matched. Sherathang is a town in Sikkim near the Nathula Pass in India. The location is the site for excise, customs and checking for trade between India and China. Rinqingang is the corresponding location in China.

Option 2 is correctly matched. Lipulekh is a Himalayan pass on the border between Uttarakhand state and the Tibet region of China, near their trijunction with Nepal.

Option 3 is correctly matched. Nathu La is a mountain pass in the Himalayas in East Sikkim district. It connects the Indian state of Sikkim with China’s Tibet Autonomous Region.

# Ministry of External Affairs organizes Kailash Mansarovar Yatra during June to September through two different routes – Lipulekh Pass (Uttarakhand) and Nathu La Pass (Sikkim).

The Singapore Convention on Mediation also called UN Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation which was opened for signature in August 2019, it is an international agreement regarding the recognition of mediated settlements.

Statement 1 is incorrect. As of September 2020, the Convention has 53 signatories, including the United States, China and India.

In 2019, India was among the first group of signatories to the ‘Singapore Mediation Convention’. It is yet to be ratified.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation came into force recently and will provide a more effective way for enforcing mediated settlements of corporate disputes involving businesses.

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 regulates foreign donations and ensures that such contributions do not adversely affect internal security.

Some of the Foreign Sources, as defined in Section 2(1) (j) of FCRA, 2010 include:

-the Government of any foreign country or territory and any agency of such Government;

-any international agency, not being the United Nations or any of its specialized agencies, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund or such other agency as the Central Government may notify;

Central Govt. has notified several international bodies to be not covered by the definition of ‘foreign source’. The list among others includes Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Geneva.

-a trade union in any foreign country or territory;

-a foreign trust or a foreign foundation;

-a society, club or other association or individuals formed or registered outside India;

-a citizen of a foreign country.

Statement 1 is incorrect. In India, the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) with its network of cancer registries was started in December 1981 with the coordinating center at Bengaluru. Presently it is operated by the ICMR-National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (NCDIR), Bengaluru.

Statement 2 is correct. As per the report Tobacco related cancers are estimated to constitute 27% of all cancers in India.

Statement 1 is correct. The President shall from time to time summon each House of Parliament to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit, but six months shall not intervene between its last sitting in one session and the date appointed for its first sitting in the next session. [Article 85(1)]

Statement 2 is incorrect. The President may from time to time— (a) prorogue the Houses or either House; (b) dissolve the House of the People. [Article 85(2)]

The Council of States is not be subject to dissolution, but as nearly as possible one-third of the members thereof retire on the expiration of every second year. [Article 83(1)]

Statement 3 is correct. Every Minister and the Attorney-General of India shall have the right to speak in, and otherwise to take part in the proceedings of, either House, any joint sitting of the Houses, and any committee of Parliament of which he may be named a member, but shall not by virtue of this article be entitled to vote. [Article 88]

Tibetan Buddhism has four major schools, namely Nyingma, (8th century), Kagyu, (11th century), Sakya, (1073), and Gelug, (1409).

Sowa-Rigpa is one of the oldest, living and well documented medical traditions popular in the world. The term ‘Sowa Rigpa’ is derived from Bhoti language which means ‘Knowledge of Healing’. It is an ancient medical system which was enriched in the entire Trans-Himalayan region.

The government has recently set up an expert committee headed by former comptroller and auditor general (CAG) Rajiv Mehrishi to assess the impact of “waiving of interest and waiving of interest on interest on the Covid-19-related moratorium” on the economy and financial stability.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had in March this year allowed banks to offer a three-month moratorium on principal and interest payments beginning March 1 to provide relief to borrowers hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This was later extended by another three months to August 31.

The Thai Canal or Kra Isthmus Canal is a project that would connect the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman Sea across the Kra Isthmus in southern Thailand.

The canal would provide an alternative to transit through the Straits of Malacca and shorten transit for shipments of oil to Japan and China.