ANSWER: C

• Every year, April 11is observed as World Parkinson’s Day to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease, which is a progressive nervous system disorder.
• This year, the theme is integrated healthcare.
• The day marks the birthday of Dr James Parkinson from London, who was the first person to systematically describe the six individuals with the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Additionally, the month of April is observed as Parkinson’s Awareness Month.

ANSWER: A

• Assam Chief Minister, presented the country’s highest literary award, the 56th Jnanpith for the year 2021to one of the most celebrated poets of Assam, Nilamani Phookan.
• Nilmani Phookan is the third person to win the Jnanpith Award from Assam after Mamoni Roisom Goswami and Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya. The Award carried a Citation, a shawl, and Rs. 11 lakh.
• The octogenarian was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990 and received the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002. He was selected as an ‘Emeritus Fellow’ for a period of two years by Cultural Department, Govt. of India in 1998. Assam Sahitya Sabha also conferred ‘Sahityacharya’ honour to him. The notable works of Phukan are ‘Xurjya Henu Naami Aahe Ei Nodiyedi’, ‘Kabita’ and ‘Gulapi Jamur Lagna’.

ANSWER: D

• SECI’s objective is to develop healthy competition among the states to perform better and provide quality energy services to users in their states.
  • The index is based on 2019-20 data.
  • The states have been categorized based on size and geographical differences as larger states, smaller states, and UTs.
• Index ranks the states’ performance on 6 parameters-
  • Discom performance
  • Access, acessibility and reliability of eergy
  • Clean energy inititatives
  • Energy efficiency
  • Environmental sustainability
  • New initiatives

Key findings

• Gujarat, Kerala (access, affordability and reliability category), and Punjab (discom performance) have been ranked as top performers in larger states category.
• In smaller states category, Goa, Tripura and Manipur emerged as top-performing states.
• Among UTs top performers are Chandigarh, Delhi, and Daman & Diu/Dadra & Nagar Haveli.

Significance of the index

• Can be used by the states and UTs to benchmark their performance against their peers,
• Analyse the potential challenges to develop better policy mechanisms, and
• Efficiently manage their energy resources.

Recommendations made

• Best practices for all indicators in better-performing states can be adopted by other states to improve their performance.
• Data up dation and validation need to be a priority of state governments going forward to help them design better policies.

ANSWER: A

• It was recently released by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
• NTRS 2022 presents the annual report of cargo clearance process through four categories of ports-
  • seaport,
  • Inland Container Depots (ICDs),
  • Air Cargo Complexes (ACC) and
  • Integrated Check Posts (ICPs).
• NTRS 2022 has reported improvement in the average cargo release time for all the four port categories in 2022.
• Time Release Study is a performance measurement tool for assessing cargo clearance process of international trade, as recommended by World Trade Organization (WTO) under Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and World Customs Organization (WCO).

ANSWER: B

• It was launched recently which is an annual one-month long people centric fuel conservation campaign of the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA).
• Its objective is to spread the message of fuel conservation and greener environment across India.
• PCRA is a registered society set up under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.
• It helps the government in proposing policies and strategies for petroleum conservation, aimed at reducing excessive dependence of the country on oil requirement.

ANSWER: C

• Recently, indigenously developed helicopter launched Anti-Tank Guided Missile ‘HELINA’ was successfully flight tested.

About HELINA (Helicopter based NAG):

• It is third generation fire and forget class anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system mounted on the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH).
• The system has all weather day and night capability.
• It can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as explosive reactive armour.
• Developed by: Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

ANSWER: B

• Barbara forest is significant as it is known as Asia’s largest Teak and Sal forest.
• It is located near Chilika lake in coastal Odisha and is inhabited by Sabara tribes.
  • Ecotourism is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education”.
• It aims to support Forest & Wildlife conservation by providing alternative livelihood to Forest dependent communities in State.
• In order to promote ecotourism, Ministry of Tourism has also formulated a Draft National Strategy and Roadmap for Sustainable Tourism with focus on ecotourism.