Daily Current Affairs Quiz: February 27, 2023

ANSWER: D

ANSWER: B

 ANSWER: C

 ANSWER: A

• A medicinal plant commonly called ‘Bor Thekera’ in the Assamese language, traditionally forbidden for raw consumption, has been found to protect from heart diseases.
• Garcinia pedunculata popularly known as Bor Thekera in Assamese, is an evergreen tree related to the more familiar purple mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana).
• The tree is endemic to the south-eastern regions of Asia such as parts of Myanmar and north-eastern parts of India.
• Uses:
  • The sun-dried slices of the Bor Thekera are used for culinary and medicinal purposes and are known to have therapeutic properties like anti-inflammatory, anthelmintic, antibacterial, antifungal, antidiabetic, hypolipidemic, nephroprotective, and even neuroprotective activity.
  • Multiple studies have been reported that G.pedunculata is a rich source of antioxidants.
  • In Assam, such slices are much valued and used for preparing delicacies like “tenga diya masor jol” meaning Assamese sour fish curry.

 ANSWER: C

• Recently, Brazil has halted its beef exports to China after a case of Mad Cow Disease was confirmed in the northern state of Para.

About Mad Cow Disease

• Also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is degenerative, transmissible, slowly progressive, and a fatal infection that affects the central nervous system of adult cattle.
• Causes:
  • BSE is caused by a protein called a prion normally found on cell surfaces, the normal prion protein changes into an abnormal prion protein that is harmful.
  • After getting altered, these proteins destroy the nervous system tissue- the brain and spinal cord.
  • The body of a sick cow does not even know the abnormal prion is there. Without knowing it is there, the cow’s body cannot fight off the disease.
• Transmission: A cow gets BSE by eating feed contaminated with parts that came from another cow that was sick with BSE.
• Symptoms:
  • A common sign of BSE in cows is incoordination. A sick cow has trouble walking and getting up and may also act very nervous or violent.
  • It usually takes four to six years from the time a cow is infected with the abnormal prion to when it first shows symptoms of BSE. This is called the incubation period. During the incubation period, there is no way to tell that a cow has BSE by looking at it.
  • Once a cow starts to show symptoms, it gets sicker and sicker until it dies, usually within two weeks to six months.
• Treatment:
  • There is no treatment for BSE and no vaccine to prevent it.

 ANSWER: B

• Amazon has announced that it will join the Indian government’s ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) platform.
• In 2022, Microsoft became the first big technology company to join the network with an intention of introducing group buying in the Indian market through social e-commerce.
• ONDC is an open e-commerce protocol set up by the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
• Under ONDC, it is envisaged that a buyer registered on one participating e-commerce site may purchase goods from a seller on another participating e-commerce site.
  • Presently, buyers and sellers have to be on the same app for a transaction which happens through the same platform.

 ANSWER: C

• Recently, four police personnel in Chennai were suspended for aiding orangutan smugglers.

About Orangutans

• Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra.
• Habitat: Orangutan means “man of the forest” in the Malay language. The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees.
• Characteristics: They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies. Bornean and Sumatran orangutans differ a little in appearance and behavior. While both have shaggy reddish fur, Sumatran orangutans have longer facial hair.
• Threats: Human activities have caused severe declines in populations and ranges. Threats to wild orangutan populations include poaching (for bushmeat and retaliation for consuming crops), habitat destruction and deforestation (for palm oil cultivation and logging), and the illegal pet trade.
• Declining population & IUCN Status:
  • A century ago there were probably more than 230,000 orangutans in total, but
  • The Bornean orangutan is now estimated at about 104,700 based on updated geographic range categorized as Endangered and
  • The Sumatran with numbers around 7,500 is categorized as Critically Endangered.
  • Tapanuli orangutan: A third species of orangutan was announced in November, 2017. With no more than 800 individuals in existence, the Tapanuli orangutan is the most endangered of all great apes.

 ANSWER: B

• India was among 190 countries that participated in GBBC 2023 recently.
• It is an annual event that brings bird enthusiasts, students and nature enthusiasts together for counting birds they see around the places where they live, work or study.
• West Bengal reported the highest number of species (489 species) followed by Uttarakhand (426), Arunachal Pradesh (407), Assam (397) and Karnataka (371) during the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) 2023. Tamil Nadu and Kerala took the eighth and ninth spots with 349 and 325 species.
• India’s birds are thriving in diverse habitats from the city to the countryside. A remarkable increase in participation across the country helped India upload the second-highest number of checklists after the United States of America and the third-highest species of any country.

About GBBC

• The GBBC was launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, and was the first online citizen-science project (also referred to as community science) to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real time.
  • Bird Count India organises the GBBC in the country.
• In 2013, it became a global project after entering data into eBird, the world’s largest biodiversity-related citizen science (community science) project.

Bird Count India

• Bird Count India is an informal partnership of organisations and groups working together to increase collective knowledge about bird distributions and populations.
• It supports listing and monitoring of birds in India: from individuals maintaining their bird lists, to groups of students or birders monitoring local birds, to large India-wide projects to document the abundance and distribution of species.

 ANSWER: D

• India ranked 42^nd on International IP Index released by US Chambers of Commerce.
• S topped the index.
• Annual Index evaluates protection of Intellectual Property (IP) rights in 55 of world’s leading economies, together representing around 90% of global GDP.
• Key Findings for India
  • Improved enforcement against copyright-infringing content and provides a best-in-class framework to promote better understanding and utilisation of IP assets.
  • Concerns: Dissolution of IP Appellate Board (2021), under-resourced and overstretched judiciary, limited framework for the protection of biopharmaceutical IP rights etc.

 ANSWER: A

• National Stock Exchange (NSE) launched India’s first municipal bond index- IBMX- to track performance of bonds issued by municipal corporations.
• Municipal bond market has seen a three-fold rise in fund raising since 2017 (from ₹2,342 crore in 2017 to ₹6,252 crore in 2022.)
• Index will have 28 municipal bonds, which were issued by 10 issuers.
• Bonds in the index have a credit rating of AA

ANSWER: C

• SS Rajamouli’s directorial, ‘RRR’ has bagged the ‘Best International Film’ award at the Hollywood Critics Association Film Awards.
• Before bagging the ‘Best International Film’ award, ‘RRR’ won three awards at HCA – ‘Best Action Film’, ‘Best Stunts’, and ‘Best Original Song’.

 ANSWER: D

• The Kerala government has launched robotic scavenger, “Bandicoot”, to clean sewages in the temple town of Guruvayur, becoming the first state in the country to use robotic technology to clean all its commissioned manholes.
• Genrobotics, a Technopark-based company, have developed “the world’s first robotic scavenger” Bandicoot in an effort to eliminate manual scavenging providing respite for workers engaged in manhole cleaning.
• The robotic Tron Unit, which is the major component of Bandicoot, enters the manhole and removes sewage using robotic hands, similar to a man’s limbs.
• The machine has waterproof, HD vision cameras and sensors that can detect harmful gases inside the manholes.

 ANSWER: C

• The state government has received the first instalment of grant-in-aid of Rs 225 crore from the Department of Pharmaceuticals of the Central Government for the development of common infrastructure for the bulk drug park at Haroli in Una district.
• The grant-in-aid has been given under the scheme guidelines for the promotion of the bulk drug park scheme notified by the Department of Pharmaceuticals of the Union Ministry of Chemical and Fertiliser.

 ANSWER: A

• The SJVN (Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam) has bagged the Central Board of Irrigation and Power (CBIP) award for best performing utility in the hydropower sector.
• The award is in recognition to the outstanding contribution made to nation building by successfully executing and operating mega hydropower stations — 1,500 MW Nathpa Jhakri station and 412 MW Rampur station — in the state.
  • The Rampur station is being successfully operated in tandem with the country’s largest Nathpa Jhakri hydropower station.
• As a result of the meticulously followed annual plant maintenance schedule using the latest technology, both the power stations have generated more than 9,000 million units during the past three years against the combined design energy of 8,490 million units.