10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: September 22, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. Droplet transmission occurs when a person is in in close contact (within 1 m) with someone who has respiratory symptoms (e.g., coughing or sneezing) and is therefore at risk of having his/her mucosae (mouth and nose) or conjunctiva (eyes) exposed to potentially infective respiratory droplets.

Statement 2 is correct. Airborne transmission refers to situations where droplet nuclei (residue from evaporated droplets) or dust particles containing microorganisms can remain suspended in air for long periods of time.

Droplet nuclei, which are generally considered to be particles <5μm in diameter, can remain in the air for long periods of time and be transmitted to others over distances greater than 1 m.

Statement 1 is incorrect. India has pulled out of Russia’s Kavkaz 2020 (Caucasus-2020) military exercises (September 15-26), where it was scheduled to participate alongside other Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states. The issue of logistics during COVID-19 pandemic has been conveyed as the official reason for India’s pull-out.

Statement 2 is incorrect. Parts of five countries – Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkey – fall within both Europe and Asia, but in every instance the larger section is in Asia.

Through the recently signed Abraham Accords, Israel and two Arab Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have formally and publicly established diplomatic relations.

The U.A.E. and Bahrain are the third and fourth Arab countries to open diplomatic relations with Israel; Egypt and Jordan were the first two.

# The UAE and Bahrain do not have any territorial dispute with Israel, nor have they ever been at war with it.

The National Election Commission of the Republic of Korea first proposed the creation of a global election management body institution to the Association of Asian Election Authorities (AAEA) in 2010.

Statement 1 is correct. The A-WEB Secretariat provides training programs for election officials of member nations and undertakes country programs at the request of member organization, providing support during the election cycle to boost election management capacity.

Statement 2 is correct. Election Commission of India is a member and has been very closely associated with the process of formation of A-WEB since 2011-1    ECI hosted   the 4th General Assembly of A-WEB on 03 Sep 2019 at Bengaluru and took over as Chair of A-WEB for 2019-2021 term.

Statement 1 is correct. The Official Secrets Act provides punishment for spying, espionage, disclosure of secret information.

Secret information can be any official code, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, or information. Under Section 5, both the person communicating the information and the person receiving the information can be punished.

Statement 2 is correct. Section 8 of the Right to Information Act provides for cases of exemption from disclosure of information. It further states under clause 8(2) that notwithstanding anything in the Official Secrets Act, 1923 nor any of the exemptions permissible in under RTI Act Section 8(1), a public authority may allow access to information, if public interest in disclosure outweighs the harm to the protected interests.

Further Section 22 of the RTI Act provides for its primacy vis-a-vis provisions of other laws, including OSA. This gives the RTI Act an overriding effect, notwithstanding anything inconsistent with the provisions of OSA.

Statement 1 is correct. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was signed April 8, 2010, in Prague by the United States and Russia. New START replaced the 1991 START I treaty, which expired December 2009, and superseded the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which terminated when New START entered into force.

New START is the first verifiable U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty to take effect since START I in 1994.

Statement 2 is incorrect. New START limits went into effect in 2018. It capped accountable deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550, down approximately 30 percent from the 2,200 limit set by SORT and down 74 percent from the START-accountable limit of 6,000.

Deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers assigned to nuclear missions are limited to 700.

Deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and bombers are limited to 800.

New START does not limit the number of non-deployed ICBMs and SLBMs, but it does monitor them.

The treaty’s duration is ten years from entry into force (Feb. 2021) unless it is superseded by a subsequent agreement and can be extended for an additional five years, until 2026.

India’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-I) INS Vikrant is under construction at Kochi Shipyard and is soon expected to undergo sea trials. Since 2017, after INS Viraat was decommissioned, India has been operating a single carrier — INS Vikramaditya.

The Dassault Rafale is a twin-jet combat aircraft capable of carrying out a wide range of short and long-range missions, including ground and sea attacks, designed and built by Dassault Aviation.

Astra is an all-weather beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation.

Statement 1 is incorrect. More than 50 United Nations Member States have never been Members of the Security Council.

A State which is a Member of the United Nations but not of the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in its discussions when the Council considers that country’s interests are affected.

Both Members and non-members of the United Nations, if they are parties to a dispute being considered by the Council, may be invited to take part, without a vote, in the Council’s discussions; the Council sets the conditions for participation by a non-member State.

Statement 2 is correct. The Council is composed of 15 Members: Five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.

# India’s two-year term will begin on January 1, 2021.

The Code on Social Security, 2020 has defined “gig worker” as a person who performs work or participates in a work arrangement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer-employee relationship.

Traditional workers have a long-term employer-employee relationship in which the worker is paid by the hour or year, earning a wage or salary.

Gig work may include freelancing, temp agency work, self-employment, and subcontracted work.

# NOTE: On September 19, the government withdrew three Bills related to labour laws and replaced them with new versions with some changes as– Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2020, Code on Social Security Bill, 2020 and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code Bill, 2020.

Questions have been asked previously on the Blog based on these codes, aspirants are advised to keep track of the major changes introduced [The Hindu, IE-Explained, ForumIAS 9 PM Current Affairs Brief].

Six countries border with the Black Sea, including Ukraine to the north, Russia and Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.