Daily Current Affairs Quiz: September 16, 2022

ANSWER: B

• Recently, Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnav unveiled a statue of Lok Shahir (balladeer) Annabhau Sathe at the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow.

About:

• Annabhau Sathe (1 August 1920 – 18 July 1969)
• Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe, popularly known as Anna Bhau Sathe was a social reformer, folk poet, and writer from Maharashtra.
• He was a Dalit born into the untouchable community, and his upbringing and identity were central to his writing and political activism.
• In 1930, his family left the village and came to Mumbai. Here, he worked as a porter, a hawker and even a cotton mill helper.
• During his days at the Matunga Labour Camp, he got to know R B More, an associate of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar in the famous ‘Chavdar Lake’ satyagraha at Mahad, and joined the Labour Study Circle.
• Sathe was a Marxist-Ambedkarite mosaic, initially influenced by the communists but he later became an Ambedkarite.
• He is credited as a founding father of ‘Dalit Literature’ and played vital role in Samyukta Maharashtra Movement.
• In 1939, he wrote his first ballad ‘Spanish Povada’.
• Almost six of his novels were turned into films and many translated into other languages, including Russian.

Russian connection:

• He was once called the Maxim Gorky of Maharashtra.
• He was immensely inspired by Gorky’s ‘The Mother’ and the Russian revolution, which was reflected in his writings.
• He travelled to Russia in 1961 along with a group of other Indians.

ANSWER: A

• Recently, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that it faces difficulties in dealing with the issue of “hate speech” during elections.

 Election Commission’s statement:

• Hate speech has not been defined under any existing law in India.
• In the absence of any specific law governing ‘hate speech’ and ‘rumour mongering’ during elections, the Election Commission of India employs various provisions of the IPC and the RP Act-1951 to ensure that members of the political parties or even other persons do not make statements to the effect of creating disharmony between different sections of society.

 What is Hate Speech?

• There is no international legal definition of hate speech, and the characterization of what is ‘hateful’ is controversial and disputed.
• The term hate speech is understood as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factors.

 Indian Constitution and hate speech:

• Freedom of Speech and Expression: 
• It is protected as a fundamental right in the Constitution of India under Article 19(1) (a) which states that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression.
• Article 19(2): 
• A reasonable restriction has been put forth by the Indian constitution where the word reasonable should strike a balance between the use and misuse of this freedom.

ANSWER: C

• Recently, eight of the 11 Congress MLAs in the Goa Assembly defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Anti-defection Law

Origin:

• Aaya Ram Gaya Ram was a phrase that became popular in Indian politics after a Haryana MLA Gaya Lal changed his party thrice within the same day in 1967.
• The anti-defection law was a response to the similar toppling of multiple state governments by party-hopping MLAs.
• Parliament added it to the Constitution in 1985.

 Constitutional Basis:

• The Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution by the 52nd Amendment Act.
• It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection.

 Applicable to:

• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

 Deciding authority:

• The Presiding Officers of the Legislature (Speaker, Chairman) are the deciding authorities in such cases.
• The Supreme Court has held legislators can challenge their decisions before the higher judiciary.

Views of Committees on Anti-Defection Law

Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990)

• Disqualification should be limited to cases where (a) a member voluntarily gives up the membership of his political party, (b) a member abstains from voting, or votes contrary to the party whip in a motion of vote of confidence or motion of no-confidence.
• The issue of disqualification should be decided by the President/ Governor on the advice of the Election Commission.

 Law Commission (170th Report, 1999)

• Provisions which exempt splits and mergers from disqualification to be deleted.
• Pre-poll electoral fronts should be treated as political parties under anti-defection law.
• Political parties should limit issuance of whips to instances only when the government is in danger.

 Election Commission

• Decisions under the Tenth Schedule should be made by the President/ Governor on the binding advice of the Election Commission.

 Constitution Review Commission (2002)

• Defectors should be barred from holding public office or any remunerative political post for the duration of the remaining term.
• The vote cast by a defector to topple a government should be treated as invalid.

ANSWER: B

• Scientists from Seoul National University and the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy have made a major breakthrough in their pursuit of clean nuclear energy by creating an ‘artificial sun’ at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor.
• Reportedly, the reactor reached temperatures upward of 100 million degree Celsius for 30 seconds.
• Comparatively, the core of the sun hits temperatures around 15 million degrees.

 Significance

Energy security

• By mimicking the natural reaction of the sun, scientists are hoping that the technology may help humanity harness vast amounts of energy and help battle the energy crisis.

 Cleaner energy:

• It is pertinent to note that nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of energy and it is what powers our sun.
• It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy, which is the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
• The process requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste materials, unlike the nuclear fission process that powers commercial nuclear energy production.
• Unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases.

 Less Disaster: 

• Physicists also claim that there is far less risk of an environmental disaster.

ANSWER: A

• Recently, the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2022, was released, with 384 drugs in it across 27 categories.
• While 34 new drugs are on the list, 26 drugs from the earlier NLEM were dropped.

 About National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM)

• The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) is a list released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

• The medicines listed in the NLEM are sold below a price ceiling fixed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

• In India, it was framed on the lines of the Essential Medicines List (EML)released by the WHO.
• It is a dynamic document and is revised on a regular basis considering the changing public health priorities as well as advancement in pharmaceutical knowledge.
• It was first formulated in 1996 and was revised thrice in 2003, 2011 and 2015, before 2022.
• They have to be licensed by the DCGI, have proven efficacy, a safety profile based on scientific evidence and are cost effective.

Purpose: 

• Guide safe and effective treatment of priority disease conditions of a population.
• Promote the rational use of medicines.
• Optimize the available health resources of a country. It can also be a guiding document for:

• State governments to prepare their list of essential medicines
• Procurement and supply of medicines in the public sector.

ANSWER: D

• Recently, the Union Cabinet approved the addition of four tribes to the list of Scheduled Tribes, including those from Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.
• The Hatti tribe in the Trans-Giri area of Sirmour district in Himachal Pradesh, the Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran hill tribes of Tamil Nadu and the Binjhia in Chhattisgarh, who were listed as ST in Jharkhand and Odisha but not in Chhattisgarh, were the communities newly added to the list.
• Further, the Cabinet approved a proposal to bring the Gond community residing in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, under the ST list from the Scheduled Caste list.
• This includes the five subcategories of the Gond community (Dhuria, Nayak, Ojha, Pathari, and Rajgond).

Process of Inclusion

• The process to include tribes in the ST list begins with the recommendation from the respective State governments, which are then sent to the Tribal Affairs Ministry, which reviews and sends them to the Registrar General of India for approval.
• This is followed by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes’ approval before the list is sent to the Cabinet for a final decision.

ANSWER: C

• INS Satpura and a P8 I Maritime Patrol Aircraft of the Indian Navy reached Darwin in Australia, for participation in the multinational Exercise Kakadu – 2022, hosted by the Royal Australian Navy(RAN).

Exercise Kakadu 2022

About:

• The exercise Kakadu is the RAN’s flagship biennial regional International engagement activity and has grown in size and complexity since its inception in 1993.
• It  is a two-week-long exercise, both in harbour and sea, involving ships and maritime aircraft from 14 navies. During the harbour phase of the exercise, the ship’s crew will engage in operational planning interactions and sports activities with the participating naval forces.

Significance:

• The exercise provides an opportunity for regional partners to undertake multinational maritime activities ranging from constabulary operations to high-end maritime warfare in a combined environment.
• It underscores India’s vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and shared objectives of the two countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain and strengthening cooperation.

ANSWER: B

• The Jharkhand Government recently approved a proposal to grant 77 per cent reservation in the state government jobs for people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes, OBC and other economically weaker sections.
• The state government of Jharkhand has approved a bill to amend the Jharkhand Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services Act, 2001.
• The amendment bill provides 77 per cent reservation to SC, ST, BC, OBCs and economically weaker sections.
• It has increased the OBC reservation to 27 per cent from the present 14 per cent.
• It provides quota of 12 per cent for people belonging to local SC communities and 28 per cent for local ST communities.
• The extremely Backward Class people are given 15 per cent reservation and OBCs are given 12 per cent reservation.
• Economically backward individuals who are not included in other reserved categories are given 10 per cent reservation.
• The reservations in the government jobs would curtail migration of people to other states across India.
• Increasing reservation limits, especially for other backward classes (OBCs) has been a long-pending demand in Jharkhand.
• The state government also approved the “Jharkhand definition of local persons and for extending the consequential, social, cultural and other benefits to such local persons Bill, 2022”.
• Those who are landless or do not have their or their families’ names in the 1932 Khatiyan, respective gram sabha would have the power to certify them based on language and customary traditions.
• This decision comes after the tribes demanded that the last land survey conducted by the British in 1932 must be used for determining who the local inhabitants were.
• The State Government has decided to request the Central Government to include the bill in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

ANSWER: C

• The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has given an in-principal approval to the innovative Urban Transport Ropeway project worth Rs 1,546.4 crore for Shimla.
• The ropeway network will have a length of 14.9 km, with several boarding and disembarking points
• Tourists to park their vehicles at entry points of Shimla. They will then use the ropeway network
• Eco-friendly mode of transportation as the project will be carbon neutral
• The ropeway project would start off from Taradevi and would have a combination of smart parkings, lifts and escalators integrated with the existing transport networks,” said Thakur.

ANSWER: A

• In the world’s highest ultra marathon Khardungla Challenge, Divya Vashisht of Dharamsala has secured the second position in the Veteran category.
• In the competition held in Leh on September 9, Divya completed the race in the senior category of 50 plus age in 12:48 hours in the tough Khardungla Challenge Marathon of 72 km.
• In the marathon which started at 3:00 am in minus degree temperature, Divya has completed this race on her own strength

Khardung La

• Khardung La or Khardung Pass is a mountain pass in the Leh district of the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The pass is on the Ladakh Range, north of Leh, and connects the Indus river valley and the Shyok river valley. It also forms the gateway to the Nubra valley, beyond which lies the Siachen Glacier.