10 PM Daily Current Affairs Quiz | April 1 2021

The Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 emerged as a major milestone of the twentieth century in the field of public health, and it identified primary health care as the key to the attainment of the goal of Health for All. It stated:

— Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

— The people have a right and duty to participate individually and collectively in the planning and implementation of their health care.

— Primary health care is essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound, and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families.

Statement 1 is correct. India and Mauritius signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) on 22 February 2021. The CECPA is the first trade Agreement signed by India with a country in Africa.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The Agreement is a limited agreement, which will cover Trade in Goods, Rules of Origin, Trade in Services, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Financial services, Customs Procedures and Cooperation in other Areas.

As regards trade in services, Indian service providers will have access to around 115 subsectors from the 11 broad service sectors and India has offered around 95 sub-sectors from the 11 broad services sectors.

# Both sides have completed their internal legal procedures and the India-Mauritius CECPA will enter into force on Thursday, 01 April 2021.

Statement 1 is correct. The Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process is a regional initiative of Afghanistan and the Republic of Turkey, which was launched in 2011 in Istanbul, with the motto “İSTANBUL PROCESS ON REGIONAL SECURITY AND COOPERATION FOR A SECURE AND STABLE AFGHANISTAN”. The process aims to promote regional security, economic and political cooperation centered on Afghanistan through dialogue and confidence building measures.

Statement 2 is incorrect. India is a participant in the HoA-Istanbul process and took part at recent 9th Heart of Asia Conference in Tajikistan.

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet. A collection of recent advances in a number of different technologies has made it practical:

— Affordable and low-power sensor technology are making IoT technology possible for more manufacturers.

— The increase in the availability of cloud platforms enables both businesses and consumers to access the infrastructure they need to scale up without actually having to manage it all.

— With advances in machine learning and analytics, along with access to varied and vast amounts of data stored in the cloud, businesses can gather insights faster and more easily. The emergence of these allied technologies continues to push the boundaries of IoT and the data produced by IoT also feeds these technologies.

— Advances in neural networks have brought natural-language processing (NLP) to IoT devices (such as digital personal assistants Alexa, Cortana, and Siri) and made them appealing, affordable, and viable for home use.

# To monitor the rural drinking water supply systems in villages, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has decided to take the digital route to uses ensor-based IoT devices to effectively monitor the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in more than six lakh villages.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona. They can eject billions of tons of coronal material and carry an embedded magnetic field (frozen in flux) that is stronger than the background solar wind interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength.

The CMEs can funnel particles into near-Earth space. A CME can jostle Earth’s magnetic fields creating currents that drive particles down toward Earth’s poles. When these react with oxygen and nitrogen, they help create the aurora, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights.

Additionally, the magnetic changes can affect a variety of human technologies. High frequency radio waves can be degraded: Radios transmit static, and GPS coordinates stray by a few yards.

# Researchers at Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciences (ARIES), Nainital along with their collaborators from Royal Observatory of Belgium, have led to the development of an algorithm, CMEs Identification in Inner Solar Corona (CIISCO) to detect and track the accelerating solar eruption in the lower corona.

Statement 1 is correct. In May 2016, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act, 1934 was amended to provide a statutory basis for the implementation of the flexible inflation targeting framework.

The amended RBI Act explicitly provides the legislative mandate to the Reserve Bank to operate the monetary policy framework of the country.

The framework aims at setting the policy (repo) rate based on an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation; and modulation of liquidity conditions to anchor money market rates at or around the repo rate. Repo rate changes transmit through the money market to the entire the financial system, which, in turn, influences aggregate demand – a key determinant of inflation and growth.

Statement 2 is incorrect. The amended RBI Act also provides for the inflation target to be set by the Government of India, in consultation with the Reserve Bank, once in every five years.

# The Centre has decided to retain the inflation target of 4%, with a tolerance band of +/- 2 percentage points for the Monetary Policy Committee of the RBI for the coming five years; April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2026.

As per the Report of the Fifteenth Finance Commission:

— The total size of the grant to local governments should be Rs. 4,36,361 crores for the period 2021-26.

— Of these total grants, Rs. 8,000 crores are performance-based grants for incubation of new cities and Rs. 450 crores are for shared municipal services. A sum of Rs. 2,36,805 crores are earmarked for rural local bodies, Rs.1,21,055 crore for urban local bodies and Rs. 70,051 crores for health grants through local governments.

— Urban local bodies have been categorised into two groups, based on population, and different norms have been used for flow of grants to each, based on their specific needs and aspirations. Basic grants are proposed only for cities/towns having a population of less than a million. For Million-Plus cities, 100 per cent of the grants are performance-linked through the Million-Plus Cities Challenge Fund (MCF).

Statement 1 is correct. The PM Yoga Awards would be given in two categories – National and International. The awards would be given to entities with impeccable track record and outstanding contribution in the promotion and development of Yoga.

Statement 2 is incorrect. PM Yoga Awards were announced first in 2016. Due to pandemic of Covid-19, the applications for the award were not invited in 2020. However, this year like previous years, the Ministry of AYUSH (MoA) will be felicitating the achievers and unsung heroes and institutions of the domain of Yoga, from different parts of the country and across the world with the Prime Minister’s Yoga Awards (PMYA). The award will be hosted on the My Gov platform.

The Union Cabinet has approved the Central Sector Scheme – “Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Processing Industry (PLISFPI)”.

–The first component relates to incentivising manufacturing of four major food product segments viz. Ready to Cook/ Ready to Eat (RTC/ RTE) foods, Processed Fruits & Vegetables, Marine Products, Mozzarella Cheese.

–Innovative/ Organic products of SMEs including Free Range -Eggs, Poultry Meat, Egg Products in these segments are also covered under above component.

–The second component relates to support for branding and marketing abroad to incentivise emergence of strong Indian brands.

–For promotion of Indian Brand abroad, the scheme envisages grant to the applicant entities for – in store Branding, shelf space renting and marketing.

–Scheme will be implemented over a six-year period from 2021-22 to 2026-27.

Statement 1 is correct. The Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) is a specific response to the unprecedented situation COVID-19. It seeks to provide much needed relief to the MSME sector by incentivizing Member Lending Institutions (MLIs) to provide additional credit of up to Rs. 3 lakh crores at low cost, thereby enabling MSMEs to meet their operational liabilities and restart their businesses.

All Scheduled Commercial Banks are eligible as MLIs. NBFCs which have been in operation for at least 2 years and d Financial Institutions (FIs) will also be eligible as MLIs under the Scheme.

Statement 2 is correct. The entire funding provided under the scheme shall be provided with a 100% credit guarantee coverage by National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company (NCGTC) under the Scheme. No additional collateral shall be asked by MLIs for additional credit extended under GECL.

# In recognition of the continuing adverse impact of COVID-19 pandemic on certain service sectors, the Government has now extended the scope of ECLGS through introduction of ECLGS 3.0 to cover business enterprises in Hospitality, Travel & Tourism, Leisure & Sporting sectors.

# Further, the validity of ECLGS i.e. ECLGS 1.0, ECLGS 2.0 & ECLGS 3.0 have been extended up to 30.06.2021 or till guarantees for an amount of Rs. 3 lakh crores are issued.