Current Affairs Quiz 01 March 2023

Answer : c
The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Government of India has recently issued Gazette notification making it mandatory for all States/UTs to grant certificate of disability through online mode only using UDID portal.

UDID Portal
• Unique ID for Persons with Disabilities project is being implemented since 2016 with a view of creating a National Database for PwDs, and to issue a Unique Disability Identity Card to each person with disabilities.
• The project will not only encourage transparency, efficiency and ease of delivering the government benefits to the person with disabilities, but also ensure uniformity.
• The project will also help in stream-lining the tracking of physical and financial progress of beneficiary at all levels of hierarchy of implementation – from village level, block level, District level , State level and National level.

Answer : c
• India has recently welcomed the US support for relaxation in the norms of the agreement on TRIPS to ensure quick and affordable access to COVID vaccines and medicines for developing countries.
• In October last year, in view of COVID-19 pandemic, India and South Africa had proposed in WTO for temporary waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement.
• As a result of proactive outreach by India and other like-minded countries, the proposal has received the support of more than 120 countries.

TRIPS Agreement
• The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international legal agreement between all the member nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• It sets down minimum standards for the regulation by national governments of many forms of intellectual property (IP) as applied to nationals of other WTO member nations.
• TRIPS was negotiated at the end of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) between 1989 and 1990 and is administered by the WTO.
• The TRIPS agreement introduced intellectual property law into the multilateral trading system for the first time and remains the most comprehensive multilateral agreement on intellectual property to date.

TRIPS requires WTO members to
• Provide copyright rights, covering authors and other copyright holders, as well as holders of related rights, namely performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organizations; geographical indications;
• Industrial designs;
• Integrated circuit layout-designs;
• Patents;
• New plant varieties;
• Trademarks;
• Trade names and undisclosed or confidential information.
• TRIPS also specifies enforcement procedures, remedies, and dispute resolution procedures.
• All the WTO agreements (except for a couple of “plurilateral” agreements) apply to all WTO members.
• The members each accepted all the agreements as a single package with a single signature — making it, in the jargon, a “single undertaking”.
• The TRIPS Agreement is part of that package. Therefore it applies to all WTO members.
• Article 31 allows compulsory licensing and government use of a patent without the authorization of its owner.
• But this can only be done under a number of conditions aimed at protecting the legitimate interests of the right holder.

Ans. A
Vinayak Savarkar and his brother Ganesh Savarkar started Mitra Mela, a revolutionary secret society in Nasik in 1899.
It was one among several such melas (revolutionary societies) functioning in Maharashtra at that time, which believed in the overthrow of British rule through armed rebellion.
In 1904, in a meeting attended by 200 members from various towns in Maharashtra, Vinayak Savarkar renamed it Abhinav Bharat.
He was also involved in the Swadeshi movement and later joined Tilak’s Swaraj Party. His instigating patriotic speeches and activities incensed the British Government.
As a result the British Government withdrew his B.A. degree.
Savarkar was a radical and his Hindutva too was a radical break in the Hindu thought: anti-caste, reformist, modernist and futuristic. It was a modern Hindu response to the modern world
In June 1906, Veer Savarkar, left for London to become Barrister. However, once in London, he united and inflamed the Indian students in England against British rule in India. He founded the Free India Society. The Society celebrated important dates on the
Indian calendar including festivals, freedom movement landmarks, and was dedicated to furthering discussion about Indian freedom.
In 1908, brought out an authentic informative researched work on The Great Indian Revolt, which the British termed as “Sepoy Mutiny” of 1857. The book was called “The Indian War of Independence 1857”.
Vinayak Savarkar was a president of Hindu Mahasabha from 1937 to 1943. When congress ministries offered resignation on 22nd oct 1939, Hindu mahaasabha under his leadership cooperated with Muslim league to form government in provinces like Sindh, Bengal and NWFP.
Veer Savarkar also founded the two-nation theory in his book ‘Hindutva’ calling Hindus and Muslims two separate nations.
A fierce critic of the Indian National Congress (INC) and Mahatma Gandhi; Savarkar opposed the ‘Quit India Movement’ and later objected to INC’s acceptance of Indian partition. He proposed the co-existence of two nations in one country.

Answer: A
The drainage basin of the Nile river covers 11 countries: Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya,
Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

Answer : c
Red Sea Corals
• The corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, have been known to be resistant to higher temperatures.
• By studying them at the laboratory, researchers have now decoded the full molecular mechanism behind this resistance.
• The coral Stylophora pistillata has a rapid gene expression response and recovery pattern when exposed to heat stress.
• The team noted that the algae and bacteria they live in symbiosis with the coral can also withstand average temperatures 5°C higher than what they typically experience.