UPSC Quiz – 2021 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 12th August 2021

Solution (b)

Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a Central Sector Scheme.

It is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

The scheme aims to supplement the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income.

Under the PM-KISAN scheme, all landholding farmers’ families shall be provided the financial benefit of Rs. 6000 per annum per family payable in three equal installments of Rs. 2000 each, every four months.

All land holding eligible farmer families (subject to the prevalent exclusion criteria) are to avail of the benefits under this scheme.

The entire responsibility of identification of beneficiary farmer families rests with the State/UT Governments.

Article Link: PM-Kisan scheme: State govt writes letters to beneficiaries, slams Centre

Solution (c)

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS): 

• It is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities.
• It lays down a comprehensive regime of law and order in the world’s oceans and seas establishing rules governing all uses of the oceans and their resources. 
• It embodies in one instrument traditional rules for the uses of the oceans and at the same time introduces new legal concepts and regimes and addresses new concerns. 
• The Convention also provides the framework for further development of specific areas of the law of the sea.
• The Convention has become the legal framework for marine and maritime activities.
• The Convention has created three new institutions:

• The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
• The International Seabed Authority.
• The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

• India has signed as well as ratified the convention in 1995. Although the United States helped shape the Convention and its subsequent revisions, and though it signed the 1994 Agreement on Implementation, it has not signed the Convention as it objected to Part XI of the Convention.

Recently, The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has been accepted by the UN Security Council as the legal framework applicable to activities in the oceans, including countering illicit activities at sea.

Article Link: Choppy waters: On global maritime security

Solution (b)

An Fugitive Economic Offender (FEO) is defined by The Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Act, 2018 as any individual against whom a warrant for arrest in relation to a scheduled offence has been issued by any court in India, who: 

• has left India so as to avoid criminal prosecution
• being abroad, refuses to return to India to face criminal prosecution

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 empowers any special court (set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002) to confiscate all properties and assets of economic offenders who are charged in offences measuring over INR 100 crores and are evading prosecution by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts.

The Act also provides for provisional attachment of all properties of the offender and confiscation of the same on declaration as fugitive economic offender by the Special Court.

Article Link: India, UK review permission granted to Nirav Modi to appeal against extradition

Solution (d)

Dara Shikoh was the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

In the war of succession which ensued after Shah Jahan’s illness in 1657, Dara was defeated by his younger brother Prince Muhiuddin (later, the Emperor Aurangzeb). He was executed in 1659 on Aurangzeb’s orders in a bitter struggle for the imperial throne.

He was a liberal-minded unorthodox Muslim as opposed to the orthodox Aurangzeb; he authored the work The Confluence of the Two Seas, which argues for the harmony of Sufi philosophy in Islam and Vedanta philosophy in Hinduism.

Dara Shikoh devoted much effort towards finding a common mystical language between Islam and Hinduism. Towards this goal he completed the translation of fifty Upanishads from their original Sanskrit into Persian in 1657 so that they could be studied by Muslim scholars.

The title of Shahzada-e-Buland Iqbal (“Prince of High Fortune”) was given to him by his father Shah Jahan.

The biography of Moinuddin Chisti, the founder of the Chishti Order in India, was written by  Jahan Ara. She was the second and the eldest surviving child of Emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal.

Article Link: Have not located Dara Shikoh’s grave, says Archaeological Survey of India

Solution (b)

Mount Merapi is an active stratovolcano located in Indonesia.

It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548.

Indonesia is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.

Article Link: Indonesia’s Mount Merapi erupts with bursts of lava, ash