10 PM Daily Current Affairs Quiz | February 26 2021

Statement 1 is incorrect. The Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution in 1985. It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.

A legislator is deemed to have defected if he either voluntarily gives up the membership of his party or disobeys the directives of the party leadership on a vote. This implies that a legislator defying (abstaining or voting against) the party whip on any issue can lose his membership of the House. The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

Statement 2 is correct. The law does not specify a time-period for the Presiding Officer to decide on a disqualification plea. There have been several cases where the Courts have expressed concern about the unnecessary delay in deciding such petitions.

Statement 1 is correct. According to the Constitution, the powers, privileges and immunities of Parliament and MPs are to be defined by Parliament. No law has so far been enacted in this respect. In the absence of any such law, it continues to be governed by conventions.

Statement 2 is correct. The Constitution of India specifies some of the privileges. These are freedom of speech in Parliament; immunity to a member from any proceedings in any court in respect of anything said or any vote given by him in Parliament or any committee thereof; immunity to a person from proceedings in any court in respect of the publication by or under the authority of either House of Parliament of any report, paper, votes or proceedings.

Statement 1 is incorrect and 2 is correct.

Nidhi Company is a financial institution or a type of NBFC that is involved in depositing and lending money to their members. This company is registered under the Companies Act, 2013 and is managed, as per the RBI’s guidelines.

All the transactions are performed by the company’s members only. Since all the transactions are focused on the shareholders of the Nidhi Company, RBI has exempted the notified Nidhi companies from the core acts of RBI.

#Ministry of Corporate Affairs has advised investors to verify the antecedents / status of a Nidhi Company especially their declaration of their status as Nidhi Company by the Central Government before becoming its member and investing their hard-earned money in such companies.

The 24th edition of the India-USA Executive Steering Group (ESG) meeting was held at New Delhi from 22 to 24 Feb 2021. The meeting was attended by a 12-member delegation from the US Army in person and virtually by 40 officers from different locations from the USA.

The forum is an Army-to-Army engagement that meets every year alternately in India and USA to discuss Army to Army cooperation.

A number of contemporary issues of mutual interests were discussed with an aim to enhance the engagements in diverse fields. For the first time the meeting was held both in person and through virtual mode owing to restrictions of COVID-19.

Amidst growing concerns around lack of transparency, accountability and rights of users related to digital media and after elaborate consultation with the public and stakeholders, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 has been framed in exercise of powers under section 87 (2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and in supersession of the earlier Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011.

Statement 1 is correct. The Rules seek to empower the users by mandating the intermediaries, including social media intermediaries, to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for receiving resolving complaints from the users or victims.

Intermediaries shall appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with such complaints and share the name and contact details of such officer. Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within twenty-four hours and resolve it within fifteen days from its receipt.

Statement 2 is incorrect. To encourage innovations and enable growth of new social media intermediaries without subjecting smaller platforms to significant compliance requirement, the Rules make a distinction between social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries.

This distinction is based on the number of users on the social media platform. Government is empowered to notify the threshold of user base that will distinguish between social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries. The Rules require the significant social media intermediaries to follow certain additional due diligence.

The Swachh Iconic Places (SIP) initiative of Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen (SBM-G) initiative aims at enhancing the experience of both domestic and foreign visitors by improving the sanitation and cleanliness standards at and around the sites. The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Jal Shakti has announced the selection of the following Twelve (12) iconic sites under Phase IV of SIP:

1. Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra; 2. Sanchi Stupa, Madhya Pradesh; 3. Kumbhalgarh Fort, Rajasthan; 4. Jaisalmer Fort, Rajasthan; 5. Ramdevra, Rajasthan; 6. Golconda Fort, Telangana; 7. Sun Temple, Konark Odisha; 8. Rock Garden, Chandigarh; 9. Dal Lake, Jammu & Kashmir; 10. Banke Bihari Temple Mathura, Uttar Pradesh; 11. Agra Fort, Uttar Pradesh; and 12. Kalighat Temple, West Bengal.

Phase I Iconic sites: 1. Ajmer Sharif Dargah; 2. CST Mumbai; 3. Golden Temple, Amritsar; 4. Kamakhya Temple, Assam; 5. Maikarnika Ghat, Varanasi; 6. Meenakshi Temple, Madurai; 7. Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, Katra, J&K; 8. Shree Jagannath Temple, Puri; 9. The Taj Mahal, Agra; 10. Tirupati Temple, Tirumala

Phase II Iconic sites: 1. Gangotri; 2. Yamunotri; 3. Mahakaleshwar Temple, Ujjain; 4. Char Minar, Hyderabad; 5. Church and Convent of St. Francis of Assissi, Goa; 6. Adi Shankaracharya’s abode Kaladi in Ernakulam; 7. Gomateshwar in Shravanbelgola; 8. Baijnath Dham, Devghar; 9. Gaya Tirth in Bihar; 10. Somnath Temple in Gujarat.

Phase III Iconic sites: 1. Sree Dharma Sastha Temple; 2. Mana Village, Uttarakhand; 3. Vidur Kuti Temple, Uttar Pradesh; 4. Shri Sarveshwar Mahadev Temple; 5. Shri Nag Vasuki Temple; 6. Kanvashram, Uttar Pradesh; 7. Ema Keithel, Manipur; 8. Hazarduari Palace, West Bengal; 9. Pangong Tso; 10. Sri Raghvendra Swamy Mutt Mantralayam

Statement 1 is correct. The City Innovation Exchange (CiX) platform was launched recently by Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The CiX will connect cities to innovators across the national ecosystem to design innovative solutions for their pressing challenges. The platform will ease the discovery, design& validation of solutions through a robust, transparent and user centric process that will reduce barriers for innovators and cities to discover fitting solutions.

Statement 2 is incorrect. No such provision has been made. The platform will bring together Citizen Organisations-Academia- Businesses- Government to co-create for the future of Urban India in a transparent and sustainable manner.

To showcase the strength and opportunities of the India’s biotechnology sector at national level and to the global community, the second edition of Global Bio-India will be organised from 1-3 March 2021 on digital platform. The theme for this year is “Transforming lives” and tag line “Biosciences to Bioeconomy”.

Global Bio-India is one of the largest biotechnology stakeholders’ conglomerates that is being co-organised by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology along with its Public Sector Undertaking, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) in partnership with industry association Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE) and Invest India.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) was established as an autonomous body in 1999 under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and is a unit of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO).

Statement 2 is correct. Provides round-the-clock monitoring and warning services for the coastal population on tsunamis, storm surges, high waves, etc. through the in-house Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC).

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO designated ITEWC as a Regional Tsunami Service Provider (RTSP) to provide tsunami warnings to countries on the Indian Ocean Rim.

# The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is planning to take the help of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for aerial mapping of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep to get a better picture of the ocean floor, also called ‘bathymetric’ study.

The National Waterway 1 of length 1620 km on Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly River System (Haldia – Allahabad) passes through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand & West Bengal.

# A Memorandum of Understanding is signed between IWAI and MOL (Asia Oceania) Pte. Ltd for transportation of LPG (Liquified Natural Gas) through barges on National Waterways-1 and National Waterways-2