Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Polity & International Relations) –October 14th,2020

India and Russia are expected to conclude a mutual logistics agreement (Agreement on Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS) and review the setting up of joint ventures for manufacturing spares for Russian defense platforms in India. Logistics agreements are administrative arrangements facilitating access to military facilities for exchange of fuel and provisions on mutual agreement when the Indian military is operating abroad.
Source: Indian Express

The new global standard on Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) reduces the possibility for tax evasion.
•It provides for the exchange of non-resident financial account information with the tax authorities in the account holders’ country of residence.
•Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) is the exchange of information between countries without having to request it.
•In the first tranche of information, Switzerland has shared bank account details with the Indian government under the AEOI (Automatic Exchange of Information) framework.
Source: The Hindu

Blue Dot Network.
•Led by the US’s International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the Blue Dot network was jointly launched by the US, Japan (Japanese Bank for International Cooperation) and Australia (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) in November 2019 on the sidelines of the 34th ASEAN Summit in Thailand.
•It is meant to be a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to bring governments, the private sector and civil society together to promote “high quality, trusted standards for global infrastructure development”.
Source: Indian Express

•The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is a permanent organ of the SCO which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.
•At SCO summit, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on June 2004, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) was established.
•The Head of RATS is elected to a three-year term. Each member state also sends a permanent representative to RATS.
•The grouping of four democracies –India, Australia, US and Japan– known as the quadrilateral security dialogue or quad, was first mooted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007.
•However, the idea couldn’t move ahead with Australia pulling out of it, apparently due to Chinese pressure.
•With the aim to counter China’s aggressive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region, India, Australia, US and Japan, formed the “quadrilateral” coalition on November 12, 2017.
•India is not a member of both Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and ASEAN.
Source: The Hindu

Global Gender Gap Report, 2020 by World Economic Forum benchmarks 153 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions:
•Economic Participation and Opportunity
•Educational Attainment
•Health and Survival, and
•Political Empowerment.
India slipped four places to 112th rank and has closed two-thirds of its overall gender gap (score of 66.8%). While India has improved in political empowerment, it has fallen in other three indicators. India is the only country among the 153 countries studied where the economic gender gap is larger than the political one.
Source: The Hindu

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
•The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
•A functional commission of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), it was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946.
•The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
•In 1996, ECOSOC in resolution 1996/6 expanded the Commission’s mandate and decided that it should take a leading role in monitoring and reviewing progress and problems in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and in mainstreaming a gender perspective in UN activities.
Source: Laxmikanth

Open Government Data (OGD) Platform India – data.gov.in – is a platform for supporting Open Data initiative of Government of India.
•The portal is intended to be used by Government of India Ministries/ Departments their organizations to publish datasets, documents, services, tools and applications collected by them for public use.
•It intends to increase transparency in the functioning of Government and also open avenues for many more innovative uses of Government Data to give different perspective.
•The Open Government Data Platform India is a joint initiative of Government of India and US Government.
•Open Government Data Platform India is also packaged as a product and made available in open source for implementation by countries globally.
Source: The Laxmikanth Governance

e-Pramaan is a National e-Authentication service offered by DeitY.
•e-Pramaan provides a simple, convenient and secure way for the users to access government services via internet/mobile as well as for the government to assess the authenticity of the users.
•e-Pramaan builds up confidence and trust in online transactions and encourages the use of the e-services as a channel for service delivery.
Source: The Hindu

Meghalaya became the first state in India to operationalise a law that makes social audit of government programmes and schemes a part of government practice. Chief Minister of Meghalaya launched ‘The Meghalaya Community Participation and Public Services Social Audit Act, 2017’, at a national convention in Shillong.
Source: The Hindu

The Election Commission is a permanent and an independent body established by the Constitution of India directly to ensure free and fair elections in the country.
•Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, the office of president of India and the office of vice-president of India shall be vested in the election commission.
•Thus, the Election Commission is an all-India body in the sense that it is common to both the Central government and the state governments.
•It must be noted here that the election commission is not concerned with the elections to panchayats and municipalities in the states.
Source: Laxmikanth