Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• Arrow 2 is an advanced missile defence system developed jointly by Israel and US.
• It is part of the multi-layered system Israel has developed to defend against both short- and mid-range rockets fired from Gaza and Lebanon, as well as Iran's long-range missiles. It includes Iron Dome, David's Sling and the Arrow-3 system - capable of defending against threats from outside the atmosphere.
• It is a two-stage missile equipped with solid propellant booster and sustainer rocket motors.
• The United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to co-develop and co-fund the Arrow program on May 6, 1986.
• The Arrow missiles family was designed for a theater missile defense system that would be more effective against ballistic missiles than the MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile.
• Arrow 2 is able to intercept its targets above the stratosphere, high enough so that any nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons do not scatter over Israel.

Explanation :

• Mount Sinabungis a Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano of andesite and dacite in the Karo plateau of Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia.
• It is among more than 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific’s Ring of Fire.

Explanation :

• Loya Jirga is a mass national gathering that brings together representatives from the various ethnic, religious, and tribal communities in Afghanistan.
• In Afghanistan, loyajirgas have been reportedly organized since at least the early 18th century when the Hotaki and Durrani dynasties rose to power.
• It is a highly respected centuries-old consultative body that has been convened at times of national crisis or to settle national issues.
• According to the Afghan Constitution, it is considered the highest expression of the Afghan people.
• However, it is not an official decision-making body and its decisions are not legally binding.

Explanation :

• The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defined the EEZ as a zone in the sea over which a sovereign nation has certain special rights with respect to the exploration and usage of marine resources, which includes the generation of energy from wind and water, and also oil and natural gas extraction.
• The EEZ is an area that is adjacent to and beyond the territorial sea.It can extend to a maximum of 200 nautical miles from the baseline. The baseline is normally measured as the low-water line along the coast as indicated on large-scale charts officially approved by the coastal state.
• The EEZ does not include the territorial sea and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles.
• The EEZ includes the contiguous zone.

Rights of a country in the EEZ

• Explore and exploit, conserve and manage the natural resources (living or non-living).
• Produce energy from wind, currents and water.
• Establish and use artificial islands, structures and installations.
• Conduct marine scientific research.
• Protect and preserve the marine environment.

Explanation :

• China has completed its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System constellation, coming up with a product that can potentially rival the US Global Positioning System (GPS).
• China initiated BeiDou in 1994 with aims to integrate its application in different sectors, including fishery, agriculture, special care, mass-market applications, forestry and public security.
• The name BeiDou comes from Chinese word for the Big Dipper or Plough constellation.
• It consists of 27 satellites in medium Earth orbit, five in geostationary orbit and three more in inclined geosynchronous orbits.
• The navigation satellite system was completed in three steps: BDS-1 which provided services to China, BDS- 2 to provide services to the Asia-Pacific region and BDS-3 which provides services worldwide.
• China’s navigation system uses a network of satellites and can provide positional accuracies of under ten meters (GPS provides positioning accuracies of under 2.2 meters).
• BeiDou offers services including accurate positioning, navigation and timing as well as short message communication.

Other Countries’ Navigation Systems

• The GPS is owned by the US government and operated by the US Air Force.
• Apart from this, Russia has its navigation system called GLONASS, the European Union (EU) has Galileo, while India’s is called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).

Explanation :

• Chabahar Port is a seaport in Chabahar located on the Makran coast of Sistan and Balochistan Province, next to the Gulf of Oman and at the mouth of Strait of Hormuz.
• It serves as Iran's only oceanic port, and consists of two separate ports named Shahid Kalantari and ShahidBeheshti.
• Development of the port was first proposed in 1973 by the last Shah of Iran, though development was delayed by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
• Being close to Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, etc., it has been termed the "Golden Gate" to these land-locked countries.

Explanation :

• The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty covering over 100 developing countries.
• The original MPI was co-designed and launched in 2010 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report Office (HDRO) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at University of Oxford. It was first published in 2010 as part of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Human Development Report (HDR).
• The MPI assesses poverty at the individual level. If a person is deprived in a third or more of ten (weighted) indicators, the global MPI identifies them as ‘MPI poor’. The extent – or intensity – of their poverty is also measured through the percentage of deprivations they are experiencing.

Dimensions

MPI uses three dimensions and ten indicators which are:

• Education: Years of schooling and child enrollment (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);
• Health: Child mortality and nutrition (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);
• Standard of living: Electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and assets (1/18 weightage each, total 2/6)

Explanation :

• The United Arab Emirates Mars Mission called “Hope” was announced in 2015 with the aim of creating mankind’s first integrated model of the Red planet’s atmosphere.
• The mission is officially named the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) and the orbiter has been named Hope or ‘Al Amal’.
• It is scheduled to take off from its launch site, Tanegashima Space Center, Japan.
• Hope weighs over 1500 kg, and will carry scientific instruments mounted on one side of the spacecraft, including the Emirates eXploration Imager (EXI), which is a high-resolution camera, the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EMUS), a far-UV imaging spectrograph, the Emirates Mars InfraRed Spectrometer (EMIRS), and FTIR scanning spectrometer.
• The spacecraft will orbit Mars to study the Martian atmosphere and its interaction with outer space and solar winds.
• Hope will collect data on Martian climate dynamics, which should help scientists understand why Mars’ atmosphere is decaying into space.

Explanation :

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that measles and rubella have been eradicated from Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
• This makes them the first two countries in WHO South-East Asia Region to achieve measles and rubella elimination ahead of the 2023 target.
• Maldives reported last endemic case of measles in 2009 and of rubella in October 2015, while Sri Lanka reported last endemic case of measles in May 2016 and of rubella in March 2017.
• Member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region had set 2023 as target for elimination of measles and rubella, revising the goal of the flagship programme that since 2014 had focused on measles elimination and rubella control.
• Bhutan, North Korea and East Timor were also declared to be measles-free.

Explanation :

Golden Triangle

• It is represented by the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers.
• It is Southeast Asia’s main opium-producing region and one of the oldest narcotics supply routes to Europe and North America.

Golden Crescent

• This space overlaps three nations, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, whose mountainous peripheries define the crescent.
• It is a principal global site for opium production and distribution in South Asia.