National Affairs Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The International Judicial Conference 2020 was held in New Delhi.

It was organised by the Supreme Court of India in February 2020 on the theme 'Judiciary and the Changing World', with judges from more than 20 countries attending, and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister.

Tokyo and Paris were not the venues, and the conference was not held in Bangalore.

Answer: B

The answer is P. Chidambaram.

The case was Government of NCT of Delhi v. Union of India, decided by a five-judge Constitution Bench on 4 July 2018. It held that the Lieutenant Governor is bound by the aid and advice of the elected Council of Ministers in matters within the Delhi Assembly's competence, and has no independent decision-making power except where he refers a difference of opinion to the President.

The Delhi Government, headed by the Aam Aadmi Party, was represented by a team of senior advocates that included P. Chidambaram, Gopal Subramanium, Rajeev Dhavan and Indira Jaising. Ram Jethmalani's link with the party in this period was a different matter, his defence of Arvind Kejriwal personally in a defamation suit. Of the four senior advocates named, the key identifies Chidambaram as the one who argued for the Delhi Government in the Lieutenant Governor case.

Answer: C

Statements 1 and 3 are correct, so the answer is Only 1 and 3.

The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 sets out to regulate the use of DNA technology for establishing the identity of persons (1), and DNA is indeed a double helix of two coiled strands carrying genetic instructions (3).

Statement 2 is wrong: human cells carry 23 pairs of chromosomes, not 26, and chromosomes are made of DNA rather than the other way round. Statement 4 is wrong because the Bill's schedule allows DNA profiling in civil matters too, such as paternity disputes, immigration, and identifying missing persons and unidentified remains, not only in criminal cases. Every option containing 2 or 4 therefore fails.

Answer: A

Only statement 1 is true, so the answer is Only 1.

The Kochi-Lakshadweep Islands submarine optical fibre cable project, announced by the Prime Minister on Independence Day 2020, connects 11 islands of Lakshadweep to Kochi on the mainland, so statement 1 is true.

Statement 2 is false. The project is funded by the Government through the Universal Service Obligation Fund, with BSNL as the project execution agency; it is not a public-private partnership and Reliance Industries is not a partner in it. That rules out 'Only 2' and 'Both 1 and 2', and 'Neither' is wrong because statement 1 holds.

Answer: B

Only Statement II is true, so the answer is Only II.

The NHRC's advisory of October 2020 on the rights of women in the context of COVID-19 recommended that women in sex work be recognised as informal workers and registered, so that they could receive the benefits and relief available to informal workers, on humanitarian grounds (Statement II).

Statement I reverses this: sex workers had no statutory status as informal workers that the advisory proposed to change into 'women at work'. The advisory sought to bring them into the informal worker category, not out of it, so options accepting Statement I are wrong.

Answer: B

Statements 1 and 2 are correct, so the answer is Only 1 and 2.

The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020 sought to amend the MTP Act, 1971 (1). It provided for State-level Medical Boards to decide whether a pregnancy may be terminated after 24 weeks on account of substantial foetal abnormalities (2).

Statement 3 is wrong on the limit. For special categories of women, such as survivors of rape, victims of incest, differently abled women and minors, the Bill raised the limit from 20 to 24 weeks, on the opinion of two doctors, not to 28 weeks. So options including statement 3 fail.

Answer: A

Meira Kumar's vote share was 34.35%.

In the 2017 presidential election Ram Nath Kovind won with about 65.65 per cent of the electoral college's vote value, and Meira Kumar, the opposition candidate, received the remaining 34.35 per cent. The two shares add to 100 per cent.

\[ 100 - 65.65 = 34.35 \]

The other figures are too high: 42% or even 38% would have been a far closer contest than the one held. Her share was nonetheless the highest for a losing candidate since 1967, which is the point of the question.

Answer: D

India was ranked 136 in the 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

The index is published every year by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and ranks 180 countries. In 2017 India slipped three places, from 133 in 2016 to 136, with the report pointing to attacks on journalists and online campaigns against them.

133 is the trap: it was India's rank the year before. 57 and 113 are not India's rank in either year.

Answer: B

The protests were triggered by a social media post of Saba Dewan.

After 15-year-old Junaid Khan was killed by a mob on a train near Ballabgarh in June 2017, the documentary filmmaker Saba Dewan wrote a Facebook post calling for a protest. It spread quickly, and 'Not in my name' protests against mob lynchings were held in Delhi and many other cities on 28 June 2017.

Gauri Lankesh was a journalist killed in Bengaluru in September 2017, after these protests. Shabana Azmi took part in protests and Aamir Khan had spoken of intolerance in 2015, but neither started this campaign.

Answer: B

The Dhola-Sadiya Bridge is built over the Lohit.

The bridge, about 9.15 km long and named the Bhupen Hazarika Setu, was opened by the Prime Minister on 26 May 2017. It crosses the Lohit river, a major tributary that joins the Siang and Dibang to form the Brahmaputra, and links Assam with eastern Arunachal Pradesh.

The Brahmaputra is the obvious distractor, since the crossing lies in the upper Brahmaputra valley, but the channel bridged is the Lohit. The Barak flows through southern Assam, and the Teesta through Sikkim and north Bengal.