Daily Current Affairs (MCQ's) | 28-09-2022

 Q1. Which of the following countries are members of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework?

1. India
2. South Korea
3. Fiji

Select the correct option from the code given below

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

Answer (d)

Explanation:

Jobs grew in final quarter of last fiscal, manufacturing is largest contributor: survey

• Manufacturing continues to be the largest institutional employer in the country, employing about 38.5% of the workers, according to the fourth round (January-March 2022) of the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), which is a part of the All India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey (AQEES).
• The survey estimated that around 3.18 crore workers were employed in about 5.31 lakh establishments between January and March. It claimed an increase of about four lakh workers compared with the third round of QES, which was done for the last three months of 2021.

• Education, manufacturing, trade and financial services together accounted for 84% of the total estimated “Manufacturing sector accounts for the largest percentage (38.5%) of the total number of workers, followed by education sector with 21.7%, IT/BPO sector with 12% and health sector 10.6%,” the survey said.

• Almost 80% of the establishments engaged 10 to 99 workers. About 12% of the establishments reported fewer than 10 workers. Only 4% of the establishments surveyed reported at least 500 workers. “Such large establishments were mostly in the IT/ BPO sector and in the health sector,” the report said.
• The participation of women workers witnessed a marginal increase from 31.6% in the third quarter to 31.8% in the fourth quarter However, women workers constituted about 52% of the workforce in the health sector, while the corresponding percentages in education, financial services and IT/ BPO sectors stood at 44%, 41% and 36%, respectively.
• The survey said 86.4% of the workers were regular employees, and 7% were contractual employees followed by casual employees (2.3%) and self-employed (2%). “The share of fixed term employees in the establishments was found to be the least (0.7%) over all,” the survey said.
• The Labour Bureau had taken up AQEES to provide quarterly estimates about employment and related variables of establishments in both organised and unorganised segments of nine sectors — manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurant, IT / BPO and financial services.

Q2. Which of the following is the purpose of the Jaldoot app?

1. Monitor the groundwater levels across the country
2. Predict rainfall across the country
3. Water consumption monitor for household
4. Virtual Water Export Tracker

Answer (a)

Explanation:

Govt. app to capture data on groundwater levels

• With the rapidly declining water table threatening to push many regions into drought, the Union government launched a mobile application — Jaldoot — jointly developed by the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Ministries to monitor the groundwater levels across the country.

• The app will be used to capture the water levels of two or three open wells in every village twice a year, from May 1 to 31 during the pre- monsoon time and from October 1 to 31.

Arrival of foreign tourists took big hit in 2021, data show

• The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions saw foreign tourist arrivals in India dip by 44.5% in 2021. While in 2020, 2.74 million foreign tourists had visited India, in 2021, the number was 1.52 million.

• According to the India Tourism Statistics 2022, released here by Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankar, the arrival of NRIs, however, increased by 52.6% in 2021 compared with 2020.
• In 2021, the top 15 countries from which foreign tourists arrived in India included the S., the U.K., Bangladesh, Canada, Nepal, Afghanistan and Australia.
• These nations accounted for nearly 81% of foreign tourist arrivals in India last year. The report goes on to say that air travel was the most favoured mode of travel for foreign tourists with 5% opting for it.
• Interestingly, the number of Indian nationals departing the country saw a rise in 2021 as compared to 2020. In 2021, 8.55 million Indian nationals departed the country as compared with 29 million in 2020— a 7.3% increase.

• The UAE was the top destination for Indians in 2021, followed by the S., Qatar, Oman and the U.K.

Bam! NASA spacecraft crashes into asteroid

• A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.
• The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 11.3 million km away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 22,500 kmph. Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.
• It will take as long as a couple of months to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed. The $325 million mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid in space.
• Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

• The anticipated orbital shift of 1% might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years.