10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: September 4, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. National Health Stack (NHS) as proposed by NITI Aayog in its strategy paper in 2018 is digital infrastructure built with the aim of making the health insurance system more transparent and robust, while factoring in the uniqueness of India’s health sector, and the political realities of federalism

Statement 2 is correct. The key components of the National Health Stack are:

–National Health Electronic Registries: to create a single source of truth for and manage master health data of the nation;

-A Coverage and Claims platform: building blocks to support large health protection schemes, enable horizontal and vertical expansion of Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission by states and robust fraud detection;

-A Federated Personal Health Records (PHR) Framework: to solve twin challenges of access to their own health data by patients and availability of health data for medical research, critical for advancing our understanding of human health;

-A National Health Analytics Platform: to bring a holistic view combining information on multiple health initiatives and feed into smart policy making, for instance, through improved predictive analytics;

-Other horizontal Components: including, and not restricted to, unique Digital Health ID, Health Data Dictionaries and Supply Chain Management for Drugs, payment gateways etc. shared across all health programs.

Statement 1 is correct. The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 defines “child” means a person who, if a male, has not completed twenty-one years of age, and if a female, has not completed eighteen years of age; “child marriage” means a marriage to which either of the contracting parties is a child.

Statement 2 is incorrect. It treats underage marriages as valid, but voidable. An underage marriage is valid as long as the minors involved in the marriage want it to remain valid.

The petition for such action may be filed at any time but before the child filing the petition completes two years of attaining majority.

The PCMA also treats those underage marriages as void or having no legal validity, where they involve trafficking, enticement, fraud and deceit.

Option 1 is correctly matched. The Ahom dynasty (1228–1826) ruled the Ahom kingdom in present-day Assam, India for nearly 600 years. The dynasty was established by Sukaphaa, a Shan prince of Mong Mao who came to Assam after crossing the Patkai Mountains.

Option 2 is correctly matched. The Kakatiya dynasty (12^th century AD) was a South Indian dynasty whose capital was Orugallu, now known as Warangal. It was eventually conquered by the Delhi Sultanate.

Option 3 is correctly matched. The Chera dynasty was one of the principal lineages in the early history of the present-day states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in southern India. Together with the Cholas and the Pandyas, the early Cheras were major powers of south India in the early centuries of the Common Era.

Statement 1 is correct. ‘Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana’ aims to provide quality medicines at affordable prices to the masses through dedicated outlets called ‘Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Kendra’.

These provide generic medicines at much lesser price. The potency of these medicines is same as compared to expensive branded medicines available in the open market.

Statement 2 is incorrect. BPPI (Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India), under the administrative control of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals& Fertilizers is the implementation agency for the PMBJP.

# Generic drugs are marketed under a non-proprietary or approved name rather than a proprietary or brand name. Generic drugs are equally effective and inexpensive compared to their branded counterparts.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional organization comprising seven Member States lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal constituting a contiguous regional unity.

Statement 1 is incorrect. It constitutes seven Member States: five deriving from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and two from Southeast Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand.

Bhutan and Nepal are land-locked countries.

Statement 2 is correct. After a span of 17 years of the founding of BIMSTEC, Permanent Secretariat was established in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2014 to serve the BIMSTEC Member States.

The name Novichok means “newcomer” in Russian, and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.

They were known as fourth-generation chemical weapons and were developed under a Soviet programme codenamed Foliant.

Novichok agents have similar effects to other nerve agents – they act by blocking messages from the nerves to the muscles, causing a collapse of many bodily functions.

While some Novichok agents are liquids, others are thought to exist in solid form. This means they could be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder.

Nerve agents enter the body primarily through the respiratory tract, although they may be absorbed through the eyes or skin. In the liquid state, nerve agents are hazardous via skin or eye contact and through ingestion. Generally, all nerve agents are highly toxic and fast acting.

# Britain says Russia used Novichok to poison former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury two years ago.

# Germany says Novichok was used to poison Alexei Navalny, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Statement 1 is correct. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) aims to eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention, transfer or use of chemical weapons by States Parties. States Parties, in turn, must take the steps necessary to enforce that prohibition in respect of persons (natural or legal) within their jurisdiction.

All States Parties have agreed to chemically disarm by destroying any stockpiles of chemical weapons they may hold.

States Parties have also agreed to create a verification regime for certain toxic chemicals and their precursors in order to ensure that such chemicals are only used for purposes not prohibited under the Convention.

A unique feature of the Convention is its incorporation of the ‘challenge inspection’, whereby any State Party in doubt about another State Party’s compliance can request a surprise inspection. Under the Convention’s ‘challenge inspection’ procedure, States Parties have committed themselves to the principle of ‘anytime, anywhere’ inspections with no right of refusal.

Statement 2 is correct. India has signed and ratified the CWC (1996).

Statement 1 is incorrect. A gravitational wave is an invisible (yet incredibly fast) ripple in space. Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). These waves squeeze and stretch anything in their path as they pass by. A gravitational wave is an invisible (yet incredibly fast) ripple in space.

In 2015, scientists detected gravitational waves for the very first time. They used a very sensitive instrument called LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). These first gravitational waves happened when two black holes crashed into one another. The collision happened 1.3 billion years ago.

Statement 2 is incorrect. A black hole is a region of space where matter has collapsed in on itself and the gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Black holes emerge from the explosive demise of certain large stars, but some are truly gargantuan and are billions of times the mass of our Sun.

Black holes are detected from the way they influence their surroundings, they produce observable gravitational waves as they spiral in to each other.

# Scientists from LIGO and Virgo have detected the largest collision between two black holes to date, which appears to have created an “intermediate-mass” black hole.

# LIGO-VIRGO collaboration operates three super-sensitive gravitational wave-detection systems in America and Europe.

Statement 1 is correct. The Group of Twenty, or G20, is the premier forum for international cooperation on the most important aspects of the international economic and financial agenda.

The objectives of the G20 are:

-Policy coordination between its members in order to achieve global economic stability, sustainable growth;

-To promote financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises; and

-To create a new international financial architecture.

Statement 2 is correct. The G20 Foreign Ministers’ Extraordinary Meeting was convened by the current G20 Chair, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on 3rd September, 2020.

India has proposed for the development of voluntary ‘G-20 Principles on Coordinated Cross-Border Movement of People’ with three elements: a) Standardisation of testing procedures and universal acceptability of test results; b) Standardisation of ‘Quarantine procedures’; c) Standardisation of ‘movement and transit’ protocols.

The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, EU, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK and USA.

Option 1 is correct. The Kangla Fort is situated along the banks of the Imphal River in the city of Imphal, Manipur and is also called the Palace of Kangla. The word Kangla belongs to an ancient language Meitei, which means ‘dry land’.

In ancient times, this fort was the royal palace of King Pakhangba and is a structure of political and religious significance.

In 2004 the Assam Rifles moved out of Imphal’s Kangla Fort, from where Manipuri kings ruled for 2,000 years. The para military force had occupied the fort for 113 years.

Option 2 is correct. Moirang, which is one of the largest towns in Manipur, has a rich history. It had served as the headquarters of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Azad Hind Fauj. Moirang also has a museum of the Indian National Army

Option 3 is incorrect. Pakke Tiger Reserve, also known as Pakhui Tiger Reserve, is a Project Tiger reserve in Arunachal Pradesh.