Daily Quiz – 2nd Jan 2024

Explanation:

• The Padma Awards are one of the highest civilian honours of India announced annually on the eve of Republic Day.
• The Awards are given in three categories: Padma Vibhushan (for exceptional and distinguished service), Padma Bhushan (distinguished service of higher order) and Padma Shri (distinguished service).
• The award seeks to recognize achievements in all fields of activities or disciplines where an element of public service is involved.
• The Padma Awards are conferred on the recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee, which is constituted by the Prime Minister every year.
• The nomination process is open to the public. Even self-nomination can be made.

Explanation:

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully conducted its maiden flight test of indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile ‘Pralay’, from Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.
• The mission has met all its objectives. The new missile followed the desired quasi ballistic trajectory and reached the designated target with high degree accuracy, validating the control, guidance and mission algorithms.
• All the sub-systems performed satisfactorily. All the sensors deployed near the impact point across the eastern coast, including the down range ships, tracked the missile trajectory and captured all the events.
• The Missile is powered with a solid propellant rocket motor and many new technologies. The missile has a range of 150-500 kilometre and can be launched from a mobile launcher.
• The missile guidance system includes state-of-the-art navigation system and integrated avionics.

Explanation:

• The Government has notified the scheme of Electoral Bonds to cleanse the system of political funding in the country.
• The broad features of the scheme are given below:
  • Electoral Bond would be a bearer instrument in the nature of a Promissory Note and an interest free banking instrument. A citizen of India or a body incorporated in India will be eligible to purchase the bond.
  • Electoral bonds would be issued/purchased for any value, in multiples of `1,000, `10,000, `1,00,000, `10,00,000 and `1,00,00,000 from the specified branches of the State Bank of India (SBI).
  • The purchaser would be allowed to buy electoral bond(s) only on due fulfilment of all the extant KYC norms and by making payment from a bank account. It will not carry the name of the payee. Electoral Bonds would have a life of only 15 days during which it can be used for making donation only to the political parties registered under section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and which secured not less than one percent of the votes polled in the last general election to the House of the People or a Legislative Assembly.
  • The bonds under the Scheme shall be available for purchase for a period of 10 days each in the months of January, April, July and October, as may be specified by the Central Government. An additional period of 30 days shall be specified by the Central Government in the year of the General election to the House of People.
  • The bond shall be encashed by an eligible political party only through a designated bank account with the authorised bank

Explanation:

• The NMMS App permits taking real time attendance of workers at Mahatma Gandhi NREGS worksites along with geotagged photographs, which will increase citizen oversight of the programme besides potentially enabling processing payments faster.
• Area Officer Monitoring App facilitates them to record their findings online along with time stamped and go-coordinate tagged photographs for all the schemes of Dept of Rural Development- Mahatma Gandhi NREGS, PMAYG, PMGSY.
• This would also enable not only better record keeping of inspections by field and supervisory officials but also facilitate analysis of the findings for better programme implementation.

Explanation:

• Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a chronic single gene disorder causing a debilitating systemic syndrome characterised by chronic anaemia, acute painful episodes, organ infarction and chronic organ damage and by a significant reduction in life expectancy.
• Under the National Health Mission, Government of India supports the states for prevention and management of sickle cell disease as per their annual PIP proposals. The Ministry has also released technical operational guidelines for prevention and control of hemoglobinopathies in 2016 including sickle cell anaemia. Further in terms of treatment, support is given under NHM for capsule hydroxyurea, free blood transfusion for all Sickle cell patients (men & women) as per State’s proposal.
• In the union budget of FY 2023-24, it is announced to launch a mission to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047. The mission entails focus on awareness creation, universal screening of approximately seven crore people in the 0-40 years age group in affected tribal areas and counselling through collaborative efforts of central ministries and state governments.