Miscellanous Quiz: Revision |4 Apr, 2021

To help support the efforts to address the COVID-19 emergency, SIDBI is supporting MSMEs manufacturing products or providing services related to fighting the Coronavirus with the launch of two schemes- the SIDBI Assistance to Facilitate Emergency response against coronavirus (SAFE scheme) and SAFE Plus.

· Under the schemes, loans are being extended at a low rate of interest of 5% within 48 hours.

· SAFE Plus has been especially introduced to provide emergency working capital against confirmed government orders, with the same rate of interest of 5%.

Source: ForumIAS factly

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is a composite indicator that measures changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products.

· The index is compiled and published monthly by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme. It is implemented six weeks after the reference month ends, i.e a lag of six weeks.

· The Base Year of the Index of Eight Core Industries has been revised from the year 2004-05 to 2011-12 from April, 2017.

Source: The Hindu

Arabithittu Wildlife Sanctuary comprises of Arabithittu State Forest located in Hunsur Taluk of Mysore district of Karnataka State.

· It lies between latitudinal range 12º 17′ 16″ to 12º 20′ 41″ North and longitudinal range 76º 22′ 43″ to 76º 28′ 51″ East. Formerly this area was in Hunsur Territorial range.

· All the sides of the sanctuary are surrounded by private agricultural land except in the North east portion which belongs to the Defence Research Development Organisation of Ministry of Defence.

· Since the area is very small zonation is not done. Zone of influence outside the boundary is agricultural fields.

· The boundary of the sanctuary is consolidated by erecting chain link mesh by Defence Research Development Organisation of Ministry of Defence.

· Even then, the pressure for grazing land by the adjacent farmers is high. Nearby quarries in the private land have been banned from operation.

Source: The Hindu

In 1983, the Central government appointed a three-member Commission on Centre–state relations under the chairmanship of R S Sarkaria, a retired judge of the Supreme Court. The Commission made 247 recommendations to improve Centre–state relations. The important recommendations are mentioned below:

· A permanent Inter-State Council called the Inter-Governmental Council should be set up under Article 263.

· Article 356 (President’s Rule) should be used very sparingly, in extreme cases as a last resort when all the available alternatives fail.

· The institution of All-India Services should be further strengthened and some more such services should be created.

· The residuary powers of taxation should continue to remain with the Parliament, while the other residuary powers should be placed in the Concurrent List.

· When the president withholds his assent to the state bills, the reasons should be communicated to the state government.

Source: Laxmikanth

The Zonal Councils are the statutory (and not the constitutional) bodies. They are established by an Act of the Parliament, that is, States Reorganization Act of 1956.

· The act divided the country into five zones (Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern) and provided a zonal council for each zone.

· Each zonal council consists of the following members: (a) home minister of Central government. (b) Chief Ministers of all the States in the zone. (c) Two other ministers from each state in the zone. (d) Administrator of each union territory in the zone.

· The home minister of Central government is the common chairman of the five zonal councils.

· Each chief minister acts as a vice-chairman of the council by rotation, holding office for a period of one year at a time.

Source: Laxmikanth

The trial of Raja Nand Kumar is an example of how arbitrary and capricious the justice of administration was in British India.

· This trial is popularly known as the judicial murder of Raja Nand Kumar.

· This is a historically significant trial because later on this trial became a major ground for the impeachment of Governor General Warren Hastings and Chief Justice Impey of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, by the House of Commons, after they returned to England.

Source: Grover & Grover

Lord Cornwallis, the British Governor General of India, introduced 48 regulations in 1793 which are generally known as the Cornwallis Code.

· This Code originated from a number of earlier regulations, viz, the orders and regulations introduced between 1772 and 1790, Hindu and Muslim laws, traditional institutions, the regulations of permanent settlement, and the British laws.

· The aim of the Cornwallis Code was to introduce an institutional code of law and an administrative system suitable for British colonial state.

· On 1 May 1793, Cornwallis announced his Code. Permanent settlement is the main subject of the Cornwallis Code.

· Earlier, the District Collector was at the same time the tax administrator, judge and magistrate.

· Now, a judge is appointed for every district and by separating the judiciary from the administration, judicial and magisterial power is vested with the judge.

· A gradation of civil courts was set up.

Source: Grover & Grover

5G is a wireless communication technology using radio waves or radio frequency (RF) energy to transmit and receive data.

· It is the next generation mobile networks technology after 4G LTE networks.

· 5G technologies will enter services gradually, beginning in 2019 and advance to a full range of services by 2024.

· 5G will provide the capacity and bandwidth as per the need of the user to accommodate technologies such as Internet of Things.

· It will provide Faster Data Speed, Ultra-low latency etc.

Source: ForumIAS factly

An allocation of the scarce resource of the economy gives rise to a particular combination of different goods and services.

· Given the total amount of resources, it is possible to allocate the resources in many different ways and, thereby achieving different mixes of all possible goods and services.

· The collection of all possible combinations of the goods and services that can be produced from a given amount of resources and a given stock of technological knowledge is called the production possibility set/frontier of the economy.

Source: Ramesh Singh

The agricultural subsidies which cause minimal or no distortions to trade are put under the green box. They must not involve price support.

· This box basically includes all forms of government expenses, which are not targeted at a particular product, and all direct income support programmes to farmers, which are not related to current levels of production or prices.

· This is a very wide box and includes all government subsidies like—public storage for food security, pest and disease control, research and extension, and some direct payments to farmers that do not stimulate production like restructuring of agriculture, environmental protection, regional development, crop and income insurance, etc.

Source: Ramesh Singh