Ans: B

Exp

Recently, External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar hosted his counterparts for the 2nd BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in New Delhi 

About BIMSTEC

• • The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a multilateral regional organisation established with the aim of accelerating shared growth and cooperation between littoral and adjacent countries in the Bay of Bengal region.
  • The first edition of the BIMSTEC Foreign Ministers’ Retreat was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 17 July 2023.

• Option (b) is correct: It has a total of seven member countries – five from South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, and two from Southeast Asia, including Myanmar and Thailand. 

Ans: D

Exp: 

Recently heat waves that engulfed large parts of the country for a few months this year and the El nino year with less expected rainfall . It can be argued that the resulting crop damage and livestock mortality led to K-shaped inflation.

Rural inflation remains high and sticky:

• Possible reasons for urban inflation is falling, but rural inflation remains high and sticky. 
• Much of this is driven by a wide difference between food and fuel prices. One would think rural food inflation should be lower than urban food inflation, given that rural India grows the food.
• Major hypotheses as to why rural food prices remain much higher. 

• Statement 1 is correct: With incomes hurt, farmers are making more of an effort to sell food to urban procurers where returns are higher, leaving less supply for rural areas. 
• Statement 2 is correct: Higher proportion of food was imported this time around, with port-to-fork infrastructure likely to be more efficient in urban India.
• Statement 3 is correct: Diverging fuel inflation dynamics are more straightforward. The government cut prices of petrol, diesel and LPG. With all three consumed more in urban India, urban energy inflation fell more quickly than rural inflation.

Ans: D

Exp: 

Recently,  At least 15 cases, including eight pregnant women, of Zika have been discovered so far in Pune, Maharashtra. 

About Zika Virus

• Statement 1 is Correct:  Zika virus disease is caused by a virus from the Flavivirus genus, Flaviviridae family. Zika is mostly transmitted through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) which acts as vectors for dengue and yellow fever as well. 

World Mosquito Program (WMP)

• Statement 2 is Correct:  It  is a not-for-profit group of companies owned by Monash University that works to protect the global community from mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Zika, yellow fever and chikungunya. 
• Since releasing the first Wolbachia mosquitoes in 2011, evidence from international pilot studies shows that we can use Wolbachia more broadly to decrease the risk of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmitting viruses

What is Wolbachia?

• Statement 3 is Correct:  Wolbachia are extremely common bacteria that occur naturally in 50 per cent of insect species, including some mosquitoes, fruit flies, moths, dragonflies and butterflies.
• Wolbachia is safe for humans and the environment. 
• Wolbachia method helps to protect communities from mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, Zika, chikungunya, Mayaro and yellow fever and does so without risk to natural ecosystems or human health.

Ans: B

Exp: 

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath said that “we should be able to go and meet” the asteroid Apophis when it passes by Earth at a distance of 32,000 km in 2029. 

Asteroid Classifications:

•  Pairs I is Incorrectly matched: Main Asteroid Belt – The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, generally with not very elongated orbits. 
  • The belt is estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter, and millions of smaller ones. 
•  Pairs II is Correctly matched: Trojans – These asteroids share an orbit with a larger planet, but do not collide with it because they gather around two special places in the orbit (called the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points). 
  • There, the gravitational pull from the Sun and the planet are balanced by a trojan’s tendency to otherwise fly out of orbit. 
  • The Jupiter trojans form the most significant population of trojan asteroids. 
  • It is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids in the asteroid belt. 
  • There are Mars and Neptune trojans, and NASA announced the discovery of an Earth trojan in 2011.
• Pairs III is Correctly matched: Near-Earth Asteroids – These objects have orbits that pass close by that of Earth. Asteroids that actually cross Earth’s orbital path are known as Earth-crossers.

Ans: A

Exp: 

Recently, the first mothership carrying cargo from the Xiamen Port in China called at the Vizhinjam international seaport, India’s first deep-water container transshipment port,

Vizhinjam International Seaport Project

• Statement I is Correct: The Vizhinjam International Transhipment Deepwater Multipurpose Seaport is an ambitious project taken up by the Government of Kerala. It’s India’s first deep-water container transshipment port.
• It is designed to primarily cater to the transshipment and gateway container business with provision for a cruise terminal, liquid bulk berth and facilities for additional terminals.

Potential Benefits

• Enabling a transhipment hub in India that can attract Indian and regional transhipment traffic from the current hubs, save significant revenue loss, reduce logistics inefficiencies for Indian trade, reduce risks to the country’s export competitiveness and create an opportunity for India to become a large hub for Asia-Africa, Asia-US/Europe container traffic trade.
• Statement II is correct: This will accrue significant benefits such as forex savings, foreign direct investment, increased economic activity at other Indian Ports, enhanced logistics infrastructure and thus, efficiencies, employment generation, and increased revenue share. Thus, Statement-II is the correct explanation for Statement-I.