Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• The Sahitya Akademi was formally inaugurated by the Government of India on 12 March 1954. It was registered as a society on 7^th January 1956, under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
• It gives 24 awards annually to literary works in the languages it has recognized and an equal number of awards to literary translations from and into the languages of India, both after a year long process of scrutiny, discussion and selection.
• Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is the central institution for literary dialogue, publication and promotion in the country and the only institution that undertakes literary activities in 24 Indian languages, including English.

Explanation :

• The houbara bustard, which lives in arid climates, comes in two distinct species as recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, one residing in North Africa (Chlamydotis undulata) and the other in Asia (Chlamydotis macqueenii).
• The population of the Asian houbara bustards extends from northeast Asia, across central Asia, the Middle East, and the Arabian Peninsula to reach the Sinai desert
• The species have been categorised as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
• Population of Houbara is declining due to number of reasons, mainly habitat degradation, habitat loss, fragmentation and hunting.

Explanation :

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) was launched in 2015 with the aim of providing basic civic amenities like water supply, sewerage, urban transport, parks as to improve the quality of life for all especially the poor and the disadvantaged.
• The focus of the Mission is on infrastructure creation that has a direct link to provision of better services to the citizens.
• The mission’s thrust areas are Water Supply system, Sewerage, Septage, Storm Water Drainage, Urban Transport, Green Space and Parks, Reforms management and support, Capacity building.
• The Priority zone of the Mission is water supply followed by sewerage.
• Under this mission, 10% of the budget allocation will be given to states and union territories as incentive based on the achievement of reforms during the previous year.

Explanation :

• Pinaka Missile System has been jointly developed by various Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories viz Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Research Centre Imarat (RCI), Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Proof & Experimental Establishment and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL).
• Pinaka was designed to replace the BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher systems of the Indian Army.
• It is an artillery missile system capable of striking into enemy territory up to a range of 75 kilometres with high precision.
• It is a multifaceted system integrating high energy propulsion, sub-munition warheads, servo-controlled launcher configuration and fire control computer.
• The navigation system of the missile is aided by the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also known as NAVIC.
• The system is based on the 8×8 vehicle. Each battery is composed of six launcher vehicles, six loader-cum replenishment vehicles and two command post vehicles.
• Each Pinaka rocket is capable of carrying a 100kg payload for a range of 40km. A single Pinaka battery can neutralise a surface area of 700m x 500m. The system can engage targets with a circular error probability (CEP) of one to two percent of range.

Explanation :

• Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index which helps us understand the growth of three sectors in the Indian economy such as mining, electricity and manufacturing and does not cover gas, water supply and construction.
• The Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) is responsible for the compilation and publication of the IIP since 1950.
• It is compiled as a simple weighted arithmetic mean of production relatives by using Laspeyre’s formula.
• The base year of the index is given a value of 100. The current base year for the IIP series in India is 2011-12.

Explanation :

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.
• The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in the United States of America.
• The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.
• It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French.
• The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

Explanation :

• औद्योगिक उत्पादन सूचकांक (IIP) एक सूचकांक है जो भारतीय अर्थव्यवस्था के तीन क्षेत्रों जैसे खनन, बिजली और विनिर्माण के विकास को समझने में मदद करता है तथा इसमें गैस, पानी की आपूर्ति और निर्माण शामिल नहीं है।
• केंद्रीय सांख्यिकी संगठन (CSO) 1950 से IIP का संकलन और प्रकाशन करता है।
• इसे लासपेयर के फ़ॉर्मूले का उपयोग करके उत्पादन सापेक्ष के एक सरल भारित अंकगणित माध्य के रूप में संकलित किया गया है।
• सूचकांक के आधार वर्ष को 100 का मान दिया गया है। भारत में IIP श्रृंखला के लिए वर्तमान आधार वर्ष 2011-12 है।

Explanation :

• अंतर्राष्ट्रीय न्यायालय (ICJ) संयुक्त राष्ट्र (UN) का प्रमुख न्यायिक अंग है। यह जून 1945 में संयुक्त राष्ट्र के चार्टर द्वारा स्थापित किया गया था जिसने अप्रैल 1946 में काम करना शुरू किया ।
• कोर्ट हेग (नीदर लैंड्स) के पीस पैलेस में स्थित है। संयुक्त राष्ट्र के छह प्रमुख अंगों में से एक है जो संयुक्त राज्य अमेरिका में स्थित नहीं है।
• न्यायालय 15 न्यायाधीशों से बना है, जो संयुक्त राष्ट्र महासभा और सुरक्षा परिषद द्वारा नौ साल के लिए चुने जाते हैं।
• इसकी आधिकारिक भाषाएं अंग्रेजी और फ्रेंच हैं।
• न्यायालय देशों द्वारा इसे प्रस्तुत कानूनी विवादों और अधिकृत संयुक्त राष्ट्र के अंगों और विशेष एजेंसियों द्वारा निर्दिष्ट कानूनी प्रश्नों पर सलाह देता है।

Explanation :

• Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is a complication of delivery and the most common cause of maternal death, accounting for about 35% of all maternal deaths worldwide.
• PPH is commonly defined as a blood loss of 500 ml or more within 24 hours after birth, while severe PPH is defined as a blood loss of 1000 ml or more within the same time frame according to World Health Organisation (WHO).
• It is a major cause of morbidity and mortality with in the first 24 hours following delivery and this is regarded as primary PPH: whereas any excessive bleeding from the birth canal occurring between 24 hours and 12 weeks postnatally (after delivery) is termed as secondary PPH.

Causes

• Uterine atony
• Genital trauma
• Coagulation problem

Treatment

• The treatment of patients with PPH has 2 major components: (1) resuscitation and management of obstetric hemorrhage and, possibly, hypovolemic shock and (2) identification and management of the underlying causes of the hemorrhage.

Explanation :

• The Rare Earth Elements (REE) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
• 15 REE are- lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and lutetium (Lu).
• The principal economic sources of rare earths are the minerals bastnasite, monazite, and loparite and the lateritic ion-adsorption clays.
• Although these elements are referred to as rare they are not particularly rare in the earth’s crust. Cesium is the 25th most abundant crustal element and lutetium, the scarcest REE, is about the 60th most abundant.

REEs are categorized as being either light or heavy:

• Light REEs (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium and scandium) are produced in global abundance and are in surplus supply
• Heavy REEs (terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium and yttrium) are produced mainly in China and are in limited supply.

Uses

• Their unique magnetic, luminescent, and electrochemical properties make them essential to such products as smartphones, electric cars, camera lenses, X-ray scanners, wind turbines, and computer hard drives.
• REE are essential raw materials for a wide range of applications, including metallurgy (metal refining and metal alloying), catalysts in the automotive and the petro-chemical industry, colouring of glass/ceramics, phosphors (LEDs, compact fluorescent lamps, flat panel displays), lasers, rechargeable solid state batteries (Ni-MH), fibre optics and others.
• Additionally, REE are vital elements in emerging technologies such as solid state fuel cells, superconductors, magnetic cooling, hydrogen storage and high performance permanent magnets.