Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• Mahavir Swami was born to King Siddhartha of Kundagrama and Queen Trishala, a Lichchhavi princess in the year 540 BC in the Vajji kingdom, identical with modern day Vaishali in Bihar.
• He belonged to the Ikshvaku dynasty.
• Also known as Vardhamana, he was the 24th tirthankara of Jainism. He was the spiritual successor of 23rd tirthankara Parshvanatha.
• Mahavira practiced intense meditation and severe austerities for 12 years, after which he is believed to have attained Kevala Jnana (omniscience).
• He taught that observance of the vows of ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truth), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (chastity), and aparigraha (non-attachment) are necessary for spiritual liberation.
• He taught the principles of Anekantavada (many-sided reality): syadvada and nayavada.
• Mahavira's teachings were compiled by Indrabhuti Gautama (his chief disciple) as the Jain Agamas.

Explanation :

• The Artemis (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) program is an ongoing crewed spaceflight program carried out predominantly by NASA, with the goal of landing "the first woman and the next man" on the Moon, specifically at the lunar south pole region by 2024.
• Other partners in the mission include European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Australian Space Agency (ASA).

Mission Objectives

• Find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration
• Investigate the Moon’s mysteries and learn more about our home planet and the universe
• Learn how to live and operate on the surface of another celestial body where astronauts are just three days from home
• Prove the technologies we need before sending astronauts on missions to Mars, which can take up to three years roundtrip

Key Details

• NASA sees Artemis as the next step towards the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable presence on the Moon, laying the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy, and eventually sending humans to Mars
• NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft nearly a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit.
• The agency will fly two missions around the Moon to test its deep space exploration systems. NASA is working toward launching Artemis I, an uncrewed flight to test the SLS and Orion spacecraft together, followed by the Artemis II mission, the first SLS and Orion test flight with crew.
• NASA will land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 on the Artemis III mission and about once a year thereafter.

Explanation :

• The Patriot (MIM-104) is a long-range, all-altitude, all-weather air defence system to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced aircraft.
• The Patriot System replaced the Nike Hercules system as the U.S. Army's primary High to Medium Air Defense (HIMAD) system, and replaced the MIM-23 Hawk system as the U.S. Army's medium tactical air defense system.
• The missile has a range of 70km and a maximum altitude greater than 24km.
• It is equipped with a track-via-missile (TVM) guidance system.
• Midcourse correction commands are transmitted to the guidance system from the mobile engagement control centre.

Explanation :

• The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on (GRACE-FO) mission is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
• Launched on 22 May 2018, GRACE-FO is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which began orbiting Earth on March 17, 2002
• The primary objective of the GRACE-FO Mission is to obtain precise global and high-resolution models for both the static and the time variable components of the Earth's gravity field.
• The GRACE missions measure variations in gravity over Earth's surface, producing a new map of the gravity field every 30 days.
• Thus, GRACE shows how the planet's gravity differs not only from one location to another, but also from one period of time to another.

Significance

• It will continue the work of tracking Earth's water movement to monitor changes in underground water storage, the amount of water in large lakes and rivers, soil moisture, ice sheets and glaciers, and sea level caused by the addition of water to the ocean.
• These discoveries provide a unique view of Earth's climate and have far-reaching benefits to society and the world's population.

Explanation :

• Community reserves in India are terms denoting protected areas of India which typically act as buffer zones to or connectors and migration corridors between established national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserved and protected forests of India.
• Such areas are designated as conservation areas if they are uninhabited and completely owned by the Government of India but used for subsistence by communities and community areas if part of the lands is privately owned.
• These protected area categories were first introduced in the Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act of 2002 − the amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.
• These categories were added because of reduced protection in and around existing or proposed protected areas due to private ownership of land, and land use.
• These categories roughly correspond to IUCN Category V (conservation reserves) and VI (community reserves) protected areas.
• Keshopur Chamb, Gurdaspur (Punjab) is India's first community reserve.

Explanation :

• Amidst the global coronavirus crisis, India, on 2^nd April, 2020, launched an 18-hour operation called 'Operation Sanjeevani' to deliver 6.2 tonnes of essential medicines and hospital consumables to Maldives.
• The Indian Air Force lifted medicines from airports in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Madurai and delivered to the Maldives.
• Medicines including influenza vaccines, anti-viral drugs such as Lopinavir and Ritonavir (these two medicines are being used in other countries to treat COVID-19 ) have gone to the Maldives.
• Consumables including catheters, nebulisers, urine bags and infant feeding tubes and other medications for cardiac conditions, kidney ailments, hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, allergies and cancer treatment, anticonvulsants have been delivered too.

Explanation :

• The Malabar large-spotted civet (Viverra civettina), also known as the Malabar civet, is a viverrid endemic to the Western Ghats of India.
• It has a dark mark on the cheek, large transverse dark marks on the back and sides, and two obliquely transverse dark lines on the neck.
• These dark marks are more pronounced than in the large Indian civet.

Distribution

• In the 19th century, the Malabar civet occurred throughout the Malabar coast from the latitude of Honnavar to Kanyakumari.
• It inhabited the forests and richly wooded lowland, and was occasionally found on elevated forest tracts.
• It was considered abundant in Travancore.

Threats

• Until a few decades ago, local merchants in Kerala reared Malabar civets to obtain civetone, an extract from the scent gland, which was used in medicine, and as an aromatic.

Conservation Status

• IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered.
• Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972: Schedule I
• CITES: Appendix III

Explanation :

• On 1^st April, 2020, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has set up price monitoring and resource unit (PMRU) in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The unit shall help the NPPA and the State Drug Controller in ensuring availability and accessibility of medicines at affordable prices.
• With this J&K has become the 12th State/UT where the PMRU has been set up.
• PMRUs have already been set up by the drug price regulator NPPA in 11 states such as Kerala, Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Mizoram.
• It is to be noted that the Kerala has become the first State to set up a price monitoring and research unit (PMRU) in February, 2019.

Price Monitoring & Resource Unit

• It is a registered society, which function under the direct control and supervision of State Drug Controller of respective states.
• The unit is being funded by NPPA for its recurring and non-recurring expenses.

Functions

• Help NPPA and State Drug Controller in ensuring availability and accessibility of medicines at affordable prices.
• Organise seminars, training programs and other information, education and communication (IEC) activities in the areas of availability and affordability of medicines for all.
• Collect samples of medicines, collect and analyse data and make reports with respect to availability and over-pricing of medicines for taking action under the provisions of Drug Price Control Order (DPCO).

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA)

• Formed in August 1997, it is a government regulatory agency that controls the prices of pharmaceutical drugs in India.
• NPPA fixes ceiling price of essential medicines that are listed in Schedule I of DPCO, 2013.

Explanation :

• The countercyclical capital buffer is intended to protect the banking sector against losses that could be caused by cyclical systemic risks increasing in the economy.
• It aims to ensure that banking sector capital requirements take account of the macro-financial environment in which banks operate.
• It require banks to hold capital at times when credit is growing rapidly so that the buffer can be reduced if the financial cycle turns down or the economic and financial environment becomes substantially worse.
• Banks can use the capital buffers they have built up during the growth phase of the financial cycle to cover losses that may arise during periods of stress and to continue supplying credit to the real economy.
• The rule was first introduced in Basel III as an extension of another buffer (called the capital conservation buffer).

Explanation :

• Sodium hypochlorite is a chemical compound with the formula NaOCl or NaClO, comprising a sodium cation (Na+) and a hypochlorite anion (OCl−or ClO−).
• It may also be viewed as the sodium salt of hypochlorous acid.
• The anhydrous compound is unstable and may decompose explosively.
• Sodium Hypochlorite is a chlorine compound often used as a disinfectant or a bleaching agent.
• Household bleach is, in general, a solution containing 3–8% sodium hypochlorite, by weight, and 0.01–0.05% sodium hydroxide; the sodium hydroxide is used to slow the decomposition of sodium hypochlorite into sodium chloride and sodium chlorate.