UPSC Quiz – 2021 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 18th August 2021

Solution (d)

SAMVAD (Support, Advocacy & Mental health interventions for children in Vulnerable circumstances And Distress) is a National Initiative and Integrated Resource that works in child protection, mental health and psychosocial care.

The programme is aimed at mental health outreach for children who are abandoned and orphaned, child survivors of trafficking, or in conflict with law.

SAMVAD is an initiative of the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences is in charge of the implementation body (NIMHANS).

The NIMHANS is the world’s leading centre for mental health and neuroscience research and teaching. It is run independently by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

With the recent launch of 2nd phase of SAMVAD, it will engage with functionaries in Panchayats thereby ushering in a silent revolution in addressing psychosocial challenges amongst vulnerable children.

SAMVAD is slated to begin work with Panchayati Raj systems to integrate child protection and mental health in aspirational districts across the country to facilitate awareness generation and improve service delivery at the grassroot level.

SAMVAD’s new initiatives with regards to mental health and psychosocial care of children in difficult circumstances encompasses a specialized training curriculum on childhood trauma, interventions for children in conflict with the law, forensics in child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health, education and mental health support to children with special needs, protection and care in the context of adoption and foster care and integration of child protection and mental health in the Panchayati Raj systems.

Article Link: Union WCD Minister commemorates one year of SAMVAD

Solution (b)

Gati Shakti will be a National Infrastructure Master Plan for our country which will lay the foundation of holistic Infrastructure.

100 lakh crores rupees will be dedicated to the plan.

The plan will help raise the global profile of local manufacturers and help them compete with their counterparts worldwide.

It also raises possibilities of new future economic zones.

Article Link: PM Gati Shakti Master Plan

Solution (a)

Karez is a type of water management and irrigation system.

This is a system of underground vertical shafts in a gently sloping tunnel that is built from an upland aquifer to ground level, is present in several countries.

Some historians and archaeologists have attributed people in the southeast Arabian Peninsula as the first developers. Others, however, ascribe it to the ancient Persians.

The Qanat / Karez system, wherever it was developed, soon spread to many Persian, Arab and Turkic lands.

It even came to the Indian Subcontinent during the 800-year-old Islamic Period.

The system was brought in the Indian Subcontinent during the Bahamani Sultanate, founded by Alaudin Bahman Shah.

It later broke into five other Sultantates: Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar and Berar.

The Bahamani Sultanate was Persianate in nature and encouraged many things Persian, among them, the Karez.

Article Link: Will Afghanistan’s centuries-old ‘Karez’ system of irrigation survive the Taliban

Solution (d)

The greater adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) is a member of the stork family, Ciconiidae.

Its genus includes the lesser adjutant of Asia and the marabou stork of Africa. 

Once found widely across southern Asia, mainly in India but extending east to Borneo, the greater adjutant is now restricted to a much smaller range with only three breeding populations; two in India, with the largest colony in Assam, a smaller one around Bhagalpur; and another breeding population in Cambodia.

They help farmers by killing rats and other farm pests.

The widespread destruction and degradation of the wetlands that this scavenger bird needs to forage (i.e. search for food) and the loss of its nesting trees, led to a decline.

Conservation Status: The greater adjutant stork is classified as ‘endangered ‘on the IUCN’s Red List 2004 of threatened species and listed under Schedule IV of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.

Article Link: Bihar plans GPS trackers for endangered Greater Adjutant Storks

Solution (c)

The Taiwan Strait is a 180-kilometer wide strait separating the island of Taiwan and continental Asia. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to the East China Sea to the north.

Among the most heavily policed strips of water in the world, the strait has remained an active battlefield between People’s Republic of China (mainland China) and republic of China (Taiwan).

It is also part of flashpoint between US-China over freedom-of-navigation in Indo-Pacific region.

Article Link: After G-7, Quad includes Taiwan Strait in talks