Daily Current Affairs Quiz: July 31, 2023

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: B

• The border between India and Myanmar runs for 1,643 km in the four states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.
• The FMR is a mutually agreed arrangement between the two countries that allows tribes living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa.
• The FMR was implemented in 2018 as part of the Act East policy at a time when diplomatic relations between India and Myanmar were on the upswing.
• Background
  • The border between India and Myanmar was demarcated by the British in 1826, without seeking the opinion of the people living in the region.
  • People in the region have strong ethnic and familial ties across the border. In Manipur’s Moreh region, there are villages where some homes are in Myanmar. In Nagaland’s Mon district, the border actually passes through the house of the chief of Longwa village, splitting his home into two.
• Concerns
  • Although beneficial to local people and helpful in improving Indo-Myanmar ties, the FMR has been criticised for unintentionally aiding illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and gun running.

ANSWER: C

• The offer-for-sale (OFS) of Rail Vikas Nigam was subscribed 1.7 times.
• The OFS saw bids for 18.91 crore shares as against a total of 11.18 crore shares on offer.
• An Offer for Sale is a simpler method wherein promoters in public companies can sell their shares and reduce their holdings in a transparent manner through the bidding platform for the Exchange.
• The OFS method was brought in by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in 2012 as a simpler one to aid promoters of listed forms to dilute their stake and comply with the minimum public shareholding norms by June 2013.
• Anyone can bid for these shares, be it foreign institutional investors, retail investors or companies.
• Any shareholder holding 10% stake in the company can participate in an offer for sale.

ANSWER: B

• Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, became the first Indian city to be part of the World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF), which is a global network of cities that share research and intelligence.
• Bengaluru became the 41^st city to join the forum and the network currently includes 40 cities across six continents.

ANSWER: D    

• World Day against Trafficking in Persons is held annually on July 30^th.
• Theme for 2023 is, “Reach every victim of trafficking, leave no one behind”.

ANSWER: D

• The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) of Papua New Guinea signed a MoU for sharing India Stack.
• India Stack is the moniker for a set of open Application Programming Interface (APIs) and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at population scale. Although the name of this project bears the word India, the vision of India Stack can be applied to any nation.

ABOUT PAPUA NEW GUINEA

• It is an island country that lies in the south-western Pacific.
• It includes the eastern half of New Guinea (the world’s second largest island after Greenland) and many small offshore islands.
  • Land boundary with Indonesia to the west,
  • Marine neighbors– Australia to the south and Solomon Islands to the south-east.
• Capital: Port Moresby
• Linguistically, it is the world’s most diverse country, with more than 800 languages.

ANSWER: C

• The Parkachik Glacier in Ladakh is likely to have three lakes of different dimensions due to subglacial over-deepening — a characteristic of basins and valleys eroded by glaciers, shows a new study.
• Main reasons for rapid melting of glacier are global warming and increasing temperatures, and a lower altitude than other glaciers in Zanskar region.
• Parkachik Glacier is located in Suru sub-basin of Upper Indus River, Zanskar Himalaya.
  • Suru River valley is a part of southern Zanskar Ranges in western Himalayas.

ANSWER: B

• Hanging fire for over 11 years, the ambitious Sukharhar medium irrigation project proposed by the then state government in the Jawali area of Kangra district in 2012 has been approved by the State Level Scheme Sanctioning Committee of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yozna (PMKSY).
• The project had earlier been cleared by the State Technical Advisory Committee
• The committee accorded approval to the project to be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 223.49 crore for inclusion under the scheme for the current fiscal year.