IAS Prelims GS Questions and Answers - Mar 01, 2016

ANSWER: Musical Instrument

Explanation:

• Robab is musical instrument.
• It is mostly used for Sufi devotional music.
• Sarod is a descendent of the robab.
• Amjad Ali Khan’s ancestors are said to have brought the robab from Afghanistan to India and developed the sarod.

ANSWER: 6

Explanation:

• Scientists have discovered a new elementary particle - a rare tetraquark consisting of four distinct types or 'flavours' of quarks.
• Quarks are point-like elementary particles that typically come in packages of two or three, the most familiar of which are the proton and neutron (each is made of three quarks).
• Tetraquarks - four quarks together - are much rarer and are not well understood.
• There are six types, or "flavours," of quark to choose from - up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top. Each of these also has an antimatter counterpart.
• While all other observed tetraquarks contain at least two of the same flavour, the new particle X(5568) has four different flavours - up, down, strange and bottom.
• It is exciting to discover a new and unusual particle that will help us understand the strong interaction - one of the four known fundamental interactions in physics.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• A document on the Ministry’s website, ‘Low Carbon Lifestyles’, lists several commonsensical tips to save electricity: use solar inverters instead of the conventional one, compact fluorescent lamps instead of incandescent bulbs; and ensure your car’s tyres have adequate pressure.
• Each of these recommendations rests on some math. For e.g. switching off the ignition at traffic red lights reduces annual CO2 emissions by 85 - 122 kg.
• Yoga, by comparison, was zero emission and therefore — the study avers — saved enough fuel to prevent the chopping of 44 trees per year. Studies have, however, found that yoga, though an effective form of exercise, doesn’t burn calories as fast as say running or on a treadmill.
• Use a table lamp for studying. It provides better task based lighting; use a cold cycle in the washing machine, Dry clothes in sun, eat together to avoid warming of food repeatedly, etc.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:

• Begging is currently a crime under the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959. Under the Act, a person found begging can be sent to a shelter home or even jail without trial. The draft ‘The persons in destitution (protection, care and rehabilitation) Bill 2015’ looks at the issue as a social menace.
• The government has drafted a Bill that seeks to decriminalize beggary and offer a life of dignity to the beggars, homeless and others who live in poverty or abandonment.
• In the Bill, ‘destitution’ refers to a state of poverty or abandonment, arising from economic or social deprivation and ‘persons in destitution’ include the homeless, beggars, people with physical and mental disabilities, the old and infirm and others who are in a state of poverty or abandonment.
• According to the bill, concerned state governments will constitute Outreach and Mobilisation Units in districts and conduct surveys for the purpose of mapping areas and identifying persons in destitution, create awareness among them about the Act and provide them assistance in procuring documents required to avail the benefits of any such scheme or legislation.
• Also, the state governments will establish rehabilitation centres for the care, protection and vocational or skill development training for such people.
• Persons in destitution, apart from training, medical support and shelter also require emotional and psychological support for which the state government will constitute counseling units attached to each rehabilitation centre.
• The draft bill states that the District Welfare Officer, Department of Social Welfare or the concerned Department handling the issues of destitute and beggary in the states shall be responsible for the supervision, monitoring and coordination of the implementation of this Act in the districts and Director, Social Welfare, shall be responsible for that at the state level, the draft bill says.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• The Visa on Arrival will be given to Japanese nationals. This facility will be available at six airports Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Home Ministry said, this facility can be availed for the purposes of business, tourism, conference and medical. The Validity of this visa after entry will be for a period of 30 days.
• Business and Tourist Visas constitute around 78 per cent of these. It is expected that extension of this facility to Japanese nationals will further strengthen the business and tourism ties between the two countries.

ANSWER: 2

Explanation:

• A fine sheet of pure carbon, graphene is as thin as an atom, making it the skinniest material known. It is known as the wonder material.
• At the same time though, it is 100 times stronger than steel, hugely pliable and can conduct electricity and heat better than anything else.
• Samsung, the world’s number one smartphone maker, has taken out the most graphene patents — over 490 — followed by China’s Ocean’s King Lighting and IBM.

ANSWER: Neither 1 nor 2

Explanation:

• Applications by live-in partners of Indian origin people for Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards have put the government in a fix as the facility is offered only to spouses.
• The Home Ministry is now examining the relevant rules and mulling over what to do with such applications.
• The rules are clear that OCI cards can be issued only to the spouse of an Indian origin person even if the spouse does not have any root in India.
• There is no mention of live-in partners. Besides, there are no rules regarding children of such live-in couples.

ANSWER: China

Explanation:

• The Headquarters Agreement with the Chinese government will officially launch the bank for operations.
• With Africa also one of its focal points, the NDB is set to open an African Regional Centre, headquartered in Johannesburg, by the second half of 2016. It would aim to develop a “project pipeline” for the continent.
• On the eve of its operational launch, the NDB has bagged a AAA institutional rating from domestic credit rating agencies in China.

ANSWER: Loan with lenient terms

Explanation:

• A soft loan is basically a loan on comparatively lenient terms and conditions as compared to other loans available in the market. These easier conditions might be in the form of lower interest rates, prolonged repayment duration, etc.
• The newly launched New Development Bank (NDB) of BRICS is aid to be not geared to issue soft loans and will go by market standards.
• The repayment of these soft loans might also include interest holidays. This process of extending soft loans is also known as soft financing or concessional funding. As the loans extended are at much easier terms, these are generally not provided by private financial institutions. They are primarily provided by government agencies.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:

• It is for easing the burden of the Supreme Court cases.
• The lawyer had approached the Union Ministry for Law and Justice with his proposal after the Supreme Court asked the government to hear him out through a judicial order.
• In its order, the Ministry cited three grounds for rejecting the idea — The Supreme Court always sits in Delhi as per the Constitution Article 130; the Chief Justices of India in the past have “consistently opposed” the idea of a National Court of Appeal or regional Benches to the Supreme Court; and the Attorney-General said a National Court of Appeal would “completely change the constitution of the Supreme Court.”.
• The Supreme Court on Friday admitted a petition of V. Vasanthakumar, a Chennai lawyer, for setting up a National Court of Appeal with regional benches to act as the final courts of justice in criminal and civil cases. In doing so, the court has at one stroke questioned the past views of its own Chief Justices of India about bifurcation of judicial powers and a government order in 2014 that such a court of appeal is constitutionally impermissible.
• The question is whether the apex court should be burdened with the responsibility of examining the correctness of every case decided by the High Courts, and whether it should not be allowed to devote its time entirely to settling questions of constitutional importance.
• Constitutional questions may refer to the validity of a statute or a rule, or to issues that require interpretation of the Constitution.
• A concern relates the oft-cited difficulties of litigants from different parts of the country for whom New Delhi may be too far.
• The solutions put forward include dividing the Supreme Court into a ‘Constitutional Division’ and a ‘Legal Division’; or secondly having the principal Constitution Bench in Delhi and creating four regional Benches to hear appeals on High Court orders; and, third, creating a National Court of Appeal that will have four ‘Cassation Benches’ for the adjudication of non-constitutional matters. The National Court of Appeals will deal with appeals from high Court cases and Supreme Court will deal with constitutional law.
• Petition seeks that the benches for National Court of Appeals should be established at Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.