10 PM Current Affairs Quiz: September 9, 2020

Statement 1 is correct. In parliamentary systems, the chief executive’s term of office is directly linked with that of the legislature, while in presidential systems the terms are not linked.

-The executive is selected by the assembly and the executive remains in office subject to legislative confidence.

Statement 2 is incorrect. In a presidential system, the President, who is the chief executive as well as the symbolic head of government, is chosen by a separate election and not from the Legislature.

-Ministers/Secretaries usually are not simultaneously members of the legislature, although their appointment may require the advice and consent of the legislative branch.

Statement 1 is correct. Bandung Asian-African Conference is the most immediate antecedent to the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. This Conference was held in Bandung on April 18-24, 1955 and gathered 29 Heads of States.

The principles that would govern relations among large and small nations, known as the “Ten Principles of Bandung“, were proclaimed at that Conference. Such principles were adopted later as the main goals and objectives of the policy of non-alignment.

The fulfillment of those principles became the essential criterion for Non-Aligned Movement membership; it is what was known as the “quintessence of the Movement”

Statement 2 is correct. India and Pakistan both are NAM members.

Pakistan has participated in the deliberation of NAM as a guest until its assumption of full membership during 1979 Havana Summit.

With the primary objective of dealing with any kind of emergency or distress situation, like posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to provide relief to the affected, a public charitable trust under the name of ‘Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund’ (PM CARES Fund)’ has been set up.

Statement 1 is incorrect. The fund consists entirely of voluntary contributions from individuals/organizations and does not get any budgetary support.

Statement 2 is correct. PM CARES Fund has also got exemption under the FCRA and a separate account for receiving foreign donations has been opened. This enables PM CARES Fund to accept donations and contributions from individuals and organizations based in foreign countries.

# This is consistent with respect to Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF). PMNRF has also received foreign contributions as a public trust since 2011.

The ‘Health in India’ report recently published by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO) is based on the 75th round of the National Sample Survey (July 2017-June 2018) on household social consumption related to health.

Statement 1 is correct. Almost 94 percent of the children in India are vaccinated by BCG vaccine injected in a single dose shortly after birth, which protects against a childhood attack of tuberculosis.

Statement 2 is incorrect. As per the report, only 59.2% of children under five years are fully immunised across the country. This contradicts the Centre’s Health Management Information System portal data, which claimed that full immunisation coverage for 2017-18 stood at 86.7%.

Full immunisation means:

The BCG vaccine; the measles vaccine; the oral polio vaccine (OPV) whose first dose is given at birth, followed by two more doses at intervals of four weeks; and the DPT/pentavalent vaccine, which is meant to protect a child from diphtheria, pertussis or whooping cough, tetanus, Hepatitis B, and meningitis and pneumonia caused by hemophilus influenza type B.

Booster doses for OPV and DPT are also given between 16 and 24 months.

The 8th of September was proclaimed International Literacy Day by UNESCO in 1966.

Statement 1 is correct. International Literacy Day 2020 focuses on “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond,” especially on the role of educators and changing pedagogies. The theme highlights literacy learning in a lifelong learning perspective, and therefore, mainly focuses on youth and adults.

Statement 2 is correct. The issue of literacy is a key component of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The SDG 4 focusses on ‘ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. It has as one of its targets ensuring all young people achieve literacy and numeracy and that adults, who lack these skills are given the opportunity to acquire them.

‘Rare Mango/Real Mango’ is illegal software for railway ticket booking that has been busted by the Railway Protection Force.

The software logs in to the IRCTC website through multiple IRCTC Ids. The illegal software is sold through a five-tiered structure with the system admin receiving payment in bitcoins.

It has been found that it bypasses captcha, synchronises bank OTP with the help of a mobile app and feeds it to the requisite form to book tickets automatically. It also auto-fills the passenger and payment details in the forms, he said.

Statement 1 is correct. Corticosteroids are a class of drug that lowers inflammation in the body. They also reduce immune system activity. Because corticosteroids ease swelling, itching, redness, and allergic reactions, doctors often prescribe them to help treat diseases like: asthma, arthritis.

Three commonly used corticosteroids are dexamethasone, hydrocortisone, and methylprednisolone.

Statement 2 is correct. Corticosteroids are listed in the WHO model list of essential medicines, readily available globally at a low cost.  World Health Organization encourages countries to maintain sufficient stocks of corticosteroids to treat COVID-19 and the other diseases.

World Health Organization recently recommended systemic corticosteroids for the treatment of patients with severe and critical COVID-19. It suggests snot to use corticosteroids in the treatment of patients with non-severe COVID-19 as the treatment brought no benefits, and could even prove harmful.

The International Solar Alliance hosted the First World Solar Technology Summit on a virtual platform, with a focus on new Technologies and Innovations in the field of Solar, on 8 September 2020.

Its objective is to bring the spotlight on state-of-the-art technologies as well as next-generation technologies which will provide impetus to the growth and propagation of Solar Energy globally. The Summit will provide a global platform for stakeholders to engage on innovations in technology that will catapult the world towards a high solar growth trajectory.

Nash Equilibrium is (in economics and game theory) a stable state of a system involving the interaction of different participants, in which no participant can gain by a unilateral change of strategy if the strategies of the others remain unchanged.

Price’s square root law: 50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people participate in the work.

Pareto principle: for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Strategic dominance occurs when one strategy is better than another strategy for one player, no matter how that player’s opponents may play.

Statement 1 is correct. Start-Up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) is implemented by Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana –National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development, as a sub-scheme since 2016.

Activities under SVEP are designed to promote rural enterprises, one of the key areas is to develop pool of community resource persons – enterprise promotion (CRP-EP) who are local and support entrepreneurs setting-up rural enterprises.

Another key area is to promote the block resource center (BRC) in SVEP blocks, to monitor and manage the community resource persons, appraise SVEP loan application and acts as the repository of enterprise related information in the concern block.

Statement 2 is correct. SVEP promotes both individual and group enterprises, set-up and promote enterprises majorly on manufacturing, trading and service sectors. The program invested largely on building the capacities of the entrepreneurs to run the businesses profitably based on the local demand and eco-system.