10 PM Daily Current Affairs Quiz | May 9 2021

• Statement 1 is correct: India is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol and does not have a national refugee protection framework
• Statement 2 is correct: The 1951 Refugee Convention is the key legal document that forms the basis of UNHCR’s work. It defines the term ‘refugee’ and outlines the rights of the displaced, as well as the legal obligations of States to protect them. The convention also defines a refugee’s obligations to host countries and specifies certain categories of people, such as war criminals, who do not qualify for refugee status.
• Statement 3 is incorrect: Correct answer is UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), not UNHRC (UN Human Rights Council).

• UNHCR serves as the guardian of 1951 convention

• Statement 1 is correct: The United Nations International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) attempts to ensure the protection of civil and political rights. It was adopted by the United Nations’ General Assembly on December 19, 1966, and it came into force on March 23, 1976. The International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the ICCPR and its two Optional Protocols, are collectively known as the International Bill of Rights.

• Countries that have ratified the Covenant are obligated to protect and preserve basic human rights and to take administrative, judicial, and legislative measures in order to protect the rights enshrined in the treaty and to provide an effective remedy.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: India is a state party to ICCPR

‘Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach’ (SUTRA) is a mathematical model devised by IIT scientists to predict active COVID cases in country. model uses three main parameters to predict the course of the pandemic.

• The first is called beta, or contact rate, which measures how many people an infected person infects per day.
• It is related to the R0 value, which is the number of people an infected person spreads the virus to over the course of their infection
• The other two parameters are ‘reach’, which is a measure of the exposure level of the population to the pandemic, and ‘epsilon’ which is the ratio of detected and undetected cases

Recently, the white-bellied heron was spotted at Walong in the Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh. This is the first time the white-bellied heron was sighted at a height of 1,200 meters above sea level in India.

• It is one of the rarest birds in the world. At present, it is found only in Bhutan, Myanmar and the Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh, India.
• But the bird has also recorded in the Kamlang Tiger Reserve in Lohit district in Arunachal Pradesh through camera trap images.

Phase 2b clinical trials of R21/Matrix M (a new malaria vaccine) have shown the efficacy of 77%. It is a new version of RTS, S — another candidate against malaria. Experts believe that this new version could be a game-changer in curtailing the spread of malaria across the globe, especially during pandemic times.

Read more: R21/Matrix M

• In 1990, the government accepted the recommendations of the Mandal Commission and implemented it. By this, the reservation in India raised to 49.5 per cent.

• 22.5% reservation for SCs and STs (7.5% for STs, 15% for SCs)

• 27% reservation for the OBCs

• The government under the 103rd Constitution Amendment Act, 2019 again provided a 10% reservation for the EWS in India. The Act also amended Article 15 and 16 correspondingly.
• So at present, the total reservation stands at 59.5 per cent. Few State governments also provide the reservation over and above 59.5 per cent. (Statement 1 is wrong)
• The Supreme Court recently declared the Maratha reservation law as unconstitutional. The judgement also upheld the constitutional validity of the 102nd Amendment Act, the President alone has the power to notify backward classes from now on. Further, the Central List will now be the “only list” for the SEBC. This means that the Centre alone is empowered to identify SEBC from now on.

Maharastra government appointed a nine-member Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission headed by Justice M.G. Gaikwad. The commission recommended reservation for the Marathas in 2018.

In 2018 itself, the Maharashtra government enacted a law, it provides 16 per cent reservation to the Maratha community in jobs and admissions. But recently the Supreme court held that as unconstitutional.

US launched 4 astronauts to the International Space Station(ISS) as part of a collaboration between NASA and SpaceX under the Commercial Crew Program. The mission is called Crew-2 Mission.

The Crew missions aim to perform research operations in International Space Stations.

• Crew 1 Mission conducted microgravity studies at the ISS.

• Crew 2 Mission aims to conduct research on a series of Tissue Chips.

Read More: Crew Mission

• Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) belongs to one of the highly reactive gases known as oxides of nitrogen or nitrogen oxides (NOx). Other nitrogen oxides include nitrous acid and nitric acid.

• Formation: NO2 is formed when fossil fuels like coal, oil, gas and diesel are burned at high temperatures. It is also formed during the burning of wood and natural gases.

• They are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada. Under this, thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.
• The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the Olive-Ridley. This is followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.