Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Polity & International Relations) | November 8,2020

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is the Treaty banning all nuclear explosions – everywhere, by everyone.
•The Treaty was negotiated at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
•It was opened for signature on 24 September 1996. The Treaty has not entered into force yet.
•The signature to a treaty indicates that the country accepts the treaty.
•The ratification symbolizes the official sanction of a treaty to make it legally binding for the government of a country.
•The CTBT is essentially a “zero-yield” treaty.
•This means that the agreement prohibits all nuclear explosions that produce a self-sustaining, supercritical chain reaction of any kind whether for weapons or peaceful purposes.
Source: The Hindu

Source: The Hindu

The WHO was established in 1948 as a United Nations (UN) specialised agency. The WHO has a three-tiered structure, comprising:
•The World Health Assembly- It is the supreme decision making body comprising all member states to determine policy direction.
•The Executive Board- It comprises of technical experts to oversee the implementation of WHA’s decisions.
•The Secretariat- It is headed by the Director General and functions as WHO’s administrative and technical organ with the overall responsibility for implementing its activities.
Funding- The WHO is funded through a system of assessed and voluntary contributions.
•Assessed contributions are paid by all member states, and are calculated on the basis of a country’s gross national product and population.
•Voluntary contributions are amounts voluntarily paid by other UN organisations, private companies, individuals, NGOs as well as member states.
•The US was the WHO’s largest contributor and paid a total of $893 million in both assessed and voluntary contributions in 2019.
Source: WHO

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) recently published the Global Report on Internal Displacement, 2020 (GRID, 2020).
•Globally, 33.4 million new displacements took place in 2019 which is the highest figure since 2012.
•South Asia region has the highest share of new displacements.
•Total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached 50.8 million.
•18.3 million IDPs are children under 15 and 3.7 million are over 60.
•India had the highest number of new disaster displacements (five million) in the world in 2019.
Source: Indian Express

Sanctioning of cinematograph films for exhibition – comes under union list.
•Money lending and money lenders, relief of agriculture indebtedness comes under state list.
•Preventive detention for the reasons connected with the security of a state, the maintenance of public order, or the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the community comes under concurrent list.
Source: Laxmikanth

The Directive Principles resemble the ‘Instrument of Instructions’ enumerated in the Government of India Act of 1935.
•In the words of Dr B R Ambedkar, ‘the Directive Principles are like the instrument of instructions, which were issued to the Governor-General and to the Governors of the colonies of India by the British Government under the Government of India Act of 1935.
•What is called Directive Principles is merely another name for the instrument of instructions.
•The only difference is that they are instructions to the legislature and the executive’.
Source: Laxmikanth

Source: BBC

As the government abrogated Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Article 371, which has special provisions for other States, mostly from the Northeast, has invited some attention.
•Article 371(A) states that no act of Parliament shall apply to the State of Nagaland in respect of the religious or social practices of the Nagas, its customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law and ownership and transfer of land and its resources.
•Article 371B deals with special provision with respect to the State of Assam.
•The main objective of inserting Article 371B was to facilitate the creation of the sub-State ‘Meghalaya’.
•Article 371C deals with special provisions with respect to Manipur which became a State in 1972.
•Articles 371F, 371H talk about special provisions with respect to States of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, respectively.
•Article 371 gives the power to the President of India to establish separate development boards for Vidarbha, Marathwada regions of Maharashtra and the rest of the State and Saurashtra, Kutch and rest of Gujarat.
Special provisions with respect to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Goa are dealt in Articles 371D and 371E, 371J, 371I respectively.
Source: Laxmikanth

The Indian Constitution adopts universal adult franchise as a basis of elections to the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.
• Every citizen who is not less than 18 years of age has a right to vote without any discrimination of caste, race, religion, sex, literacy, wealth and so on.
• The voting age was reduced to 18 years from 21 years in 1989 by the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act of 1988.
Source: Laxmikanth

The 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution (which talks about the anti-defection law) is designed to prevent political defections prompted by the lure of office or material benefits or other like considerations.

• The Anti-defection law was passed by Parliament in 1985 and reinforced in 2002.
• The 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution popularly referred to as the ‘Anti-Defection Law’ was inserted by the 52nd Amendment (1985) to the Constitution.
• The anti-defection law was enacted to ensure that a party member does not violate the mandate of the party and in case he does so, he will lose his membership of the House.
• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

Source: Laxmikanth