IAS Prelims GS Questions and Answers - Feb 28 & 29, 2016

ANSWER: Cervical Cancer

Explanation:

• Cervical Cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer in women and seventh overall.
• Human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines that prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus. Available vaccines protect against two, four, or nine types of HPV. All vaccines protect against at least HPV 16 and 18 that cause the greatest risk of cervical cancer.

ANSWER: Bangladesh

Explanation:

• Bangladesh at highest risk of sea level rising. A 1.5 m rise in next century will affect 16% land area and 15% population of Bangladesh.
• Other affected countries are – India, Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam.
• Island nations too will be affected.
• Low lying nations like – Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, etc. can be affected even by few inches of rise in sea level. Some of them are considering mass migration.
• The Paris Consensus was on keeping the average global temperature rise this century well below 2°C above pre-industrial level.

ANSWER: Port city

Explanation:

• Muziris was an ancient seaport and urban center in the Malabar Coast (modern day Indian state of Kerala) that dates from at least the 1st century BC, if not before it. Muziris has found mention in the bardic Sangam literature and a number of classical European historical sources.
• The port was a key to the trade between southern India and the Phoenicians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Roman Empire.
• Muziris Heritage Project is a tourism venture by Tourism Department of Kerala to reinstate the historical and cultural significance of Muziris. The idea of the project came after the extensive excavations and discoveries at Pattanam by Kerala Council for Historical Research. The project also covers various other historically significant sites and monuments in central Kerala.
• The nearby site of Kottapuram, a 16th-century fort, was also excavated (from May 2010) as part of the Muziris Heritage Project.
• It is believed that a devastating flood that changed the course of the Periyar river or an earthquake in the 14th century led to the decline of Muziris.
• The primary trade was of Spices.

ANSWER: Kerala

Explanation:

• The Gender Park, first of its kind in India is an autonomous institution promoted by the Department of Social Justice, Govt. Of Kerala to resolve the gender inequity in development.
• The first Gender Park is proposed to set up at vellimadukunnu of Kozhikode district.
• It acts as a convergence for women studies, activities, research institutions, entrepreneurships, organizations, individuals, policies/ programmes/projects, etc. which helps to tackle the problems and issues of women and also to ensure better social security within the 'totality' of their well-being.
• It will provide a strong impetus to gender-inclusive growth.
• This Park will not only provide a platform to non-governmental organizations, academia and civil society to undertake gender-related research activity, but also test and replicate new interventions in the field of women empowerment.
• Already, the Gender Park is testing innovative programmes such as the She Taxi and Sandesh One, which are bringing women into economic spaces not ventured by them before. The research and knowledge base emanating from the Gender Park will have long-term benefits.
• Key areas of focus of The Gender Parks include Training and Research, Culture, Art, Literature and Media, Social Security and Law, Documentation and Library, Education, Health and Support, Business and Trade, Productive Sectors etc.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• With a view to improve the Governance of Public Sector Banks (PSBs), the Government had decided to set up an autonomous Banks Board Bureau.
• The Bureau will recommend for selection of heads - Public Sector Banks and Financial Institutions and help Banks in developing strategies and capital raising plans.
• Former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai appointed as the first Chairman of Banks Board Bureau.
• The BBB will also be a link between the government and banks and will be engaged with banks to evolve strategies for them.
• The bureau will be a six-member board comprising three from the private sector and three government nominees, while the chairman will be a distinguished banker or regulator.
• Autonomous Banks Board Bureau will help lenders raise capital for meeting expansion needs.
• The government members are ex-officio. They are - Secretary, Department Financial Services; Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises and Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India.

ANSWER: 1, 2

Explanation:

• Invertebrates are a group of animals that have no backbone.
• Bees, butterflies, beetles, moths, flies, etc. are invertebrate pollinators.
• World food stocks in danger from decline in pollinator population

ANSWER: 1, 3

Explanation:

• Vertebrates have backbone.
• Vertebrate Pollinators include birds and bats. E.g. humming bird.
• Vertebrates, mainly bats and birds, but also some non-bat mammals (monkeys, lemurs, possums, rodents) and some reptiles (lizards and snakes) pollinate certain plants.
• Humans can be pollinators.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• Among the reasons are — the way farming has changed so there’s not enough diversity and wild flowers for pollinators to use as food; pesticide use, habitat loss to cities; disease, parasites and pathogens; and global warming.
• The variety and multiplicity of threats to pollinators and pollination generate risks to people and livelihoods.
• These risks are largely driven by changes in land cover and agricultural management systems, including pesticide use.
  
• But these are problems that can be fixed, and unlike global warming, the solutions don't require countries to agree on global action — they can act locally. The solutions offered mostly involve changing the way land and farming is managed.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• The New Development Bank (NDB) and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) — both geared towards infrastructure development in Asia and the Global South — are reshaping the global financial architecture, a field that had been monopolized by western backed International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
• The New Development Bank (NDB) is a multilateral lender with a focus on the Global South of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping.
• NDB President is K.V. Kamath.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:

• The Drug Controller General of India — the referee for drug trials in the country — approved a phase 2b trial (a limited test of a prospective drug in humans to prove its potency) to test a combination of three TB drugs to treat multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB).
• The promise of this combination — called PaMZ (PA-824 + moxifloxacin + pyrazinamide) — is to cut treatment time by at least a third and cost by a tenth. Moreover, it was purportedly effective even when tested on HIV patients.
• The drug is developed in collaboration with the international Global Alliance on Tuberculosis by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
• It is waiting for funding for trials.
• Apart from the health benefits, the drug trial would have been the first such attempt by the CSIR-led Open Source Drug Development (OSDD) consortium — an initiative to discover and test new drugs for infectious diseases that are widespread in poor countries by using expertise outside the confines of traditional pharmaceutical companies — to test a new drug in India.