Current Affairs Quiz 26 November 2022

Ans:- c) Only 3

Explanation:-

Statement 1 is not correct because , MSP is decided before sowing the crops , Statement 2 is not correct because the MSP is fixed on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) of the Union government takes a final decision on the level of MSPs and other recommendations made by the CACP.

Statement 3 is correct because it is 1.5 times cost of production

Answer: D

Ans;- a) Only 1
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, MGNREGA, is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’. This act was passed in September 2005.
• It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
• It covers all districts of India except the ones with 100% urban population.
• MGNREGA is to be implemented mainly by gram panchayats (GPs). The involvement of contractors is banned.
• Apart from providing economic security and creating rural assets, NREGA can help in protecting the environment, empowering rural women, reducing rural-urban migration and fostering social equity, among others.

How MGNREGA came to be?
• In 1991, the P.V Narashima Rao government proposed a pilot scheme for generating employment in rural areas with the following goals:
○ Employment Generation for agricultural labour during the lean season.
○ Infrastructure Development
○ Enhanced Food Security
• This scheme was called the Employment Assurance Scheme which later evolved into the MGNREGA after the merger with the Food for Work Programme in the early 2000s.

Features of MGNREGA
• It gives a significant amount of control to the Gram Panchayats for managing public works, strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions.
• Gram Sabhas are free to accept or reject recommendations from Intermediate and District Panchayats.
• It incorporates accountability in its operational guidelines and ensures compliance and transparency at all levels.

Objectives of MGNREGA
• Provide 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to rural unskilled labour
• Increase economic security
• Decrease migration of labour from rural to urban areas.

Ans;- a) Slow down the speed of neutrons

Explanation;-

• The function of heavy water in a nuclear reactor is to slowing down the speed of neutrons.
• Heavy water is used in certain types of nuclear reactors, where it acts as a neutron moderator to slow down neutrons so that they are more likely to react with the fissile uranium-235 than with uranium-238, which captures neutrons without fissioning.
• Water cooled nuclear reactors slow neutrons down to “thermal” speed to increase the probability of their interactions with other nuclei.

About Heavy Water

• Water containing significantly more than the natural proportions (one in 6,500) of heavy hydrogen (deuterium, D) atoms to ordinary hydrogen atoms.
• Heavy water is used as a moderator in some reactors because it slows down neutrons effectively and also has a low probability of absorption of neutrons.
• Heavy water is one of the two moderators that can be used which allow a nuclear reactor to operate using natural uranium. The other moderator is graphite.
• The heavy water is kept under pressure which increases its boiling point so that it can operate at high temperatures without boiling.
• In the laboratory heavy water is employed as an isotopic tracer in studies of chemical and biochemical processes.
• The heavy water is not manufactured, but rather it is extracted from the quantity that is found naturally in lake water. The water is separated through a series of towers, using hydrogen sulphide as an agent. Owing to AECLs CANDU programme, Canada is the world’s supplier of heavy water.

Ans. A
Island Development Agency
• The Union Government constituted the Island Development Agency on 1st June, 2017 for the development of islands.
• The meetings of the Agency is chaired by the Union Home Minister.

Holistic Development of Islands Program
• For the first time in the country, under the guidance of IDA, an initiative of sustainable development in the identified Islands within scientifically-assessed carrying capacity has been taken-up.
• Development Plans with focus on creation of jobs for the islanders through tourism promotion as well as export of seafood and coconut-based products made in the Islands have been prepared and are being implemented in four islands of Andaman & Nicobar and five islands of Lakshadweep.
• In the second phase, suitable sites in 12 more islands of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and 5 islands in Lakshadweep have been covered.