Daily Current Affairs Quiz: 15 May 2021

ANSWER: B

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The World Bank has released a report titled “Migration and Development Brief, 2020”.

About Migration and Development Brief Report:

• Prepared by: The report is prepared by the Migration and Remittances Unit, Development Economics (DEC)- the premier research and data arm of the World Bank.
• Aim: The report aims to provide an update on key developments. Especially in the area of migration and remittance flows and related policies over the past six months.
  • The report also provides medium-term projections of remittance flows to developing countries.
• The report is produced twice a year.

Key Findings of the Migration and Development Brief:

 Findings Related to India:

• India has received the highest amount of remittances in 2020. This was followed by China, Mexico, the Philippines, Egypt, Pakistan, France and Bangladesh.
• India’s Remittances: India has received over USD83 billion in remittances in 2020. This was despite the pandemic that devastated the world economy.
  • In 2019, India had received USD83.3 billion in remittances.
• India’s remittances fell by just 0.2% in 2020. This was due to a 17% fall in remittances from the United Arab Emirates. However, this was offset by the resilient flows from the United States and other host countries.
• Remittances outflow from India in 2020 was USD7 billion. In 2019, it was around USD7.5 billion.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Six young girls from Assam have developed a biodegradable and compostable yoga mat called ‘Moorhen Yoga Mat’.

Note: The Mat was developed with the support of the North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach(NECTAR). NECTAR is an autonomous body under the Department of Science & Technology(DST).

About Moorhen Yoga Mat:

• The ‘Moorhen Yoga mat’ is named after Kam Sorai or Purple moorhen (a resident bird of Deepor Beel Wildlife sanctuary).
• The mat has been developed from Water Hyacinth. The mat is 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable mat.
• The mat comes in a cotton canvas cloth bag. So that no zip or metal closures are used.

Benefits of the Mat: The Moorhen Yoga mat has the following benefits:

• The Mat can improve the aquatic ecosystem of the wetland through the removal of water hyacinth
• It can provide sustainable production of utility products with community engagement
• The mat can generate livelihood for indigenous communities to become completely ‘Atma Nirbhar’.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Biodegradable “Moorhen Yoga Mat” developed from “Water Hyacinth”

About Water Hyacinth:

• Water hyacinth is a free-floating and flowering invasive aquatic plant that originated from Amazon Basin, South America.

Why is Water Hyacinth considered invasive?

• It grows rapidly and can form thick layers over the water. So Water hyacinth is considered invasive throughout the world.
• These mats shade out the other aquatic plants. Eventually, these shaded plants die and decay.
• The decaying process depletes the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water. As oxygen levels decline, many fish are unable to survive.
• Hence, often the waters below water hyacinth masses witness the absence of life.

Other Effects of Water Hyacinth:

• Water Hyacinth interferes with boat navigation and prevents fishing, swimming and other recreational activities.
• The water hyacinth may also clog intake pipes used for drinking water, hydropower or irrigation.
• Moreover, it creates a prime habitat for mosquitoes that carry a variety of infectious diseases. So, water hyacinth is also considered a serious threat to biodiversity and human health.

Water Hyacinth in India:

• States like Assam and Kerala are highly affected by the Water Hyacinth.
• Water Hyacinth is also referred to as the Bengal terror. This is because of its effect on the local ecology and lives of the people.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Recently, Israeli armed forces attacked Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Haram esh-Sharif in Jerusalem, ahead of a march by Zionist nationalists commemorating Israel’s capture of the eastern half of the city in 1967.
• The threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah escalated the crisis further.

Al-Aqsa Mosque:

• It is one of the holiest structures in the Islamic faith. It sits inside a 35-acre site known by Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and by Jews as the Temple Mount.
• The site is part of the Old City of Jerusalem, sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims.
• It is believed to have been completed early in the 8th century and faces the Dome of the Rock, the golden-domed Islamic shrine that is a widely recognized symbol of Jerusalem.
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has classified the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls as a World Heritage Site.

Sheikh Jarrah Issue:

• Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced out of their homes when the State of Israel was created in historical Palestine in 1948.

• Twenty-eight of those Palestinian families moved to Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem to settle there.
  • In 1956, when East Jerusalem was ruled by Jordan, the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development and the UN Relief and Works Agency facilitated the construction of houses for these families in Sheikh Jarrah. But Israel would capture East Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967.
• By the early 1970s, Jewish agencies started demanding the families leave the land.
  • Earlier this year (2021), the Central Court in East Jerusalem upheld a decision to evict four Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in favour of Jewish settlers.
  • The issue remains unresolved and potentially inflammable.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• The Prime Minister of India paid tribute to Jagadguru Basaveshwara on the occasion of Basava Jayanthi.
• In November 2015, the Prime Minister of India inaugurated the statue of Basaveshwara along the bank of the river Thames at Lambeth in London.

About:

• He was an Indian 12th-century Philosopher, Statesman and a social reformer.
• He was Lingayat saint in the Shiva-focussed Bhakti movement, and Hindu Shaivite social reformer during the reign of the Kalyani Chalukya/Kalachuri dynasty.
• The Lingayats are a Hindu sect with a wide following in southern India that worships Shiva as the only deity.
• He is also known as Bhakti Bhandari (literally, the treasurer of devotion), or Basaveswara (Lord Basava).

Contribution:

• Basavanna spread social awareness through his poetry known as Vachanaas.
• Several important Lingayat works are credited to Basavanna, including Vachana such as the Shat-sthala-vachana, Kala-jnana-vachana, Mantra-gopya, Ghatna Chakra-vachana and Raja-yoga-vachana.
• Basavanna, like Gautama Buddha, taught people how to live happily in a rational social order which later came to be known as the Sharana movement.
• The Sharana movement attracted people from all castes, and like most strands of the Bhakti movement, produced a corpus of literature, the vachanas, that unveiled the spiritual universe of the Veerashaiva saints.
• Basava fought against the inhuman practice of the caste system, which discriminated against people based on their birth.
• The Anubhava Mantapa established by Basava laid down the foundation of social democracy.
• Basava believed that man becomes great not by his birth but by his conduct in the society.
• He taught the dignity of manual labour by insisting on work as worship.

ANSWER: A

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Ujjwala Singhania takes over as 38th National President FICCI FLO

ABOUT:

• Ujjwala Singhania has been appointed as the National President of FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO), the oldest women-led & women-centric business chamber of Southeast Asia.
• As the 38th National President of FLO Singhania will focus on empowering women by facilitating an enabling environment that promotes entrepreneurship, industry participation and economic development of women.
• Under her leadership, FLO will carry out many interventions towards fostering larger contributions of women in India’s Industrial and economic growth story.

ANSWER: C

WHY IN NEWS ?

• 1st Parsi on Indian cricket team since 1975.

ABOUT:

• Arzan Nagwaswalla, a 23-year-old left-arm seamer from Gujarat, has been picked as a reserve player in the Indian Test squad named for the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton.
• Arzan Rohinton Nagwaswalla, hailing from a Parsi community in a village of Nargol, Nagwaswalla near the Maharashtra border, is the first Parsi cricketer to break into the national team since 1975 and the only active Parsi cricketer.
• Farokh Engineer played his final Test for India in 1975, while Diana Edulji’s last game in the women’s team came in July 1993.