Consider the following statements regarding Indian National Congress
The first session of the Indian National Congress was presided over by Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee.
The first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Calcutta in December 1885.
Kadambini Ganguly was the first woman president to address the Congress session.
Which of the above statements is/are incorrect?
a) 1 only
b) 2, 3
c) 1, 3
d) 1, 2, 3
2)Consider the following statements regarding Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya.
He had not served as the President of the Indian National Congress.
He participated in the Second Round Table Conference.
3. He was a social reformer who opposed untouchability and worked for the temple entry of Dalits.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
a) 1, 2
b) 1, 3
c) 3 only
d) 2, 3
3)Which of the following explains the U-shaped economic recovery?
a) The economy which quickly rises like a phoenix after a crash.
b) It is the scenario in which growth after falling, stagnates at low levels and does not recover for a long, long time.
c) It is a scenario in which the economy, after falling, struggles and muddles around a low growth rate for some time, before rising gradually to usual levels.
d) The growth rises sharply from the lows much higher than the trend-line and stays there.
Map of the Day
Prelims Specific News Analysis
1) India’s forex reserves crossed $600 mark for the first time and as on June 4, it stood at $605 billion. With this, India equals Russia as the fourth largest reserve holder worldwide.
India’s Forex Reserves include:
Foreign Currency Assets
Gold
Special Drawing Rights
Reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
2)UN General Assembly (UNGA) has approved nomination of Rebecca Grynspan to head United Nations Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD). She is an economist from Costa Rica. Key Points She will be the first woman and Central American to lead Geneva-based organisation, UNCTAD.
3)European Space Agency (ESA) has announced about its probe called ‘EnVision’ to study Venus, after American Space agency NASA decided to send two missions to the planet. About EnVision EnVision will be the next orbiter to circle over Venus. It will provide a holistic view of planet from its inner core to upper atmosphere.
4)G7 meet major decisions :-
G7 leaders to sign Carbis Bay Declaration to prevent pandemic in 100 days :- Under the Carbis Bay Declaration, the UK, which holds the presidency for the G7 Leaders’ Summit 2021, will establish a new centre to develop vaccines.
5) All about NSD :- The National School of Drama (NSD) is foremost theatre training institutions in the world.
Established in 1959, the National School of Drama is the only one of its kind in India and is an autonomous organization, fully financed by the Ministry of Culture.
One of the foremost theatre training institution in the world, NSD was incepted under the aegis of the Sangeet Natak Akademi and became an independent entity in 1975.
National School of Drama had been declared as deemed university by University Grant Commission in 2005.
However, National School of Drama has requested the government to declare it as institute of national importance and therefore status of deemed university was not accepted.
6)15-metre tree discovered in Andaman & Nicobar Islands :- A 15-meter-tall tree that belongs to the genus of the coffee family has recently been discovered from the Andaman Islands by a team of researchers from India and the Philippines. The new species, Pyrostria laljii, is also the first record of the genus Pyrostria in India, the researchers said. Plants belonging to genus Pyrostria are usually found in Madagascar but the recently discovered species is new to science.
The tree is distinguished by a long stem with a whitish coating on the trunk, and oblong-obovate leaves with a cuneate base, and was first reported from South Andaman’s Wandoor forest. The other places in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where the tree could be located are the Tirur forest near the Jarawa Rerserve Forest and the Chidia Tapu (Munda Pahar) forest.
As per IUCN it is classified as Critically endangered.
7)Rare earth metals at the heart of China-U.S. rivalry :–
What if China were to cut off the United States and Europe from access to rare minerals that are essential to electric vehicles, wind turbines and drones?
At a time of frequent geopolitical friction among those three powers, Washington and Brussels want to avoid this scenario by investing in the market for 17 minerals with unique properties that today are largely extracted and refined in China.
In 2019, the United States imported 80 percent of its rare earth minerals from China, the US Geological Survey says.
The European Union gets 98 percent of its supply from China, the European Commission said last year.
Rare earth minerals with names like neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium are crucial to the manufacture of magnets used in industries of the future like wind turbines and electric cars. And they are already present in consumer goods such as smartphones, computer screens and telescopic lenses.
Others have more traditional uses, like cerium for glass polishing and lanthanum for car catalysts or optical lenses.
Editorials of the Day
- The world is hardly wired for cyber resilience :- In this Article the Author highlights the recent Cyberattacks which will increase in Future since the world is moving towards the data and technology .
This has reinforced the need for improved defences against actual, and potential, cyberattacks by all countries across continents.
Some Recent Attacks :- Towards the end of 2020, for instance, a major cyberattack headlined ‘SolarWinds’ — and believed to have been sponsored from Russia — had rocked the U.S. It involved data breaches across several wings of the U.S. government, including defence, energy and state. Before the U.S. could even recover from this breach, thousands of U.S. organisations were hacked in early 2021 in an unusually aggressive cyberattack, by a Chinese group Hafnium, which had exploited serious flaws in Microsoft’s software, thus gaining remote control over affected systems.
The obsession of military cyber planners has been to erect defences against software vulnerabilities referred to as ‘Zero-day’, that had the capability to cripple a system and could lie undetected for a long time. (The most celebrated Zero-day software of this kind to date is Stuxnet, which almost crippled Iran’s uranium enrichment programme
some years back).
Data has 3 important phases in its cycle :- The data life cycle can broadly be classified into data at rest (when it is being created and stored), data in motion (when it is being transmitted across insecure and uncontrolled networks), and data in use (when it is being consumed). Author says that there is a need to have proper safeguard measures for all the phases of the Data.
What can be done :- Building deep technology in cyber is essential. New technologies such as artificial intelligence, Machine learning and quantum computing, also present new opportunities.
Nations that are adequately prepared — conceptually and technologically — and have made rapid progress in artificial intelligence and quantum computing and the like will have a clear advantage over states that lag behind in these fields. Pressure also needs to be put on officials in the public domain, as also company boards, to carry out regular vulnerability assessments and create necessary awareness of the growing cyber threat.
