Inspired by: Species extinction in India

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/species-extinction-in-india/

Answer: (d)

Faunal species extinct from India

• Cheetah (Acionyx jubatus)
• Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensisi) are considered extinct in India.
• The pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllaceai) is feared extinct since 1950
• The Himalayan quail (Ophrysia supercililios) was last reported in 1876.

Inspired by: Deep Ocean Mission

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/deep-ocean-mission/

Answer: (c)

Exclusive Economic Zones

• An EEZ is a sea zone prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over which a state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
• It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from its coast. In colloquial usage, the term may include the continental shelf.
• The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nmi limit.
• The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.
• The surface waters, as can be seen in the map, are international waters.

Inspired by: https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/the-international-charter-space-and-major-disasters/

Answer: (a)

International Charter “Space and Major Disasters”

• It is a non-binding charter which provides for the charitable and humanitarian retasked acquisition of and transmission of space satellite data to relief organizations in the event of major disasters.
• It was initiated by the European Space Agency and the French space agency CNES after the UNISPACE III conference held in Vienna, Austria in July 1999.
• Since 2000, when the Charter came into operation there have been about 600 activations and data from 61 satellites have helped with disaster operations in 125 countries.
• Charter addresses both natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, tsunamis, ocean storms, volcanic eruptions and man-made disasters like oil spills and industrial accidents.
• India has signed the charter in 2001.

Inspired by: Explained: Renaming of States

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/explained-renaming-of-states/

Answer: (d)

Procedure for renaming a state 

• Unlike in the case of renaming cities, to change the name of a state, approval from the Centre’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is required under provisions laid down in its 1953 guidelines.
• The Union MHA then takes over and gives it consent after it receives No Objection Certificates (NOCs) from several agencies such as the Ministry of Railways, Intelligence Bureau, Department of Posts, Survey of India and Registrar General of India.
• This means that a Constitutional amendment becomes necessary to affect this change.
• The proposal has to first come from the state government.
• If the proposal is accepted, the resolution, introduced as a Bill in the Parliament, becomes a law and the name of the state is changed thereafter.
• A bill for renaming a state may be introduced in the Parliament on the recommendation of the President.
• Before the introduction of the bill, the President shall send the bill to the respective state assembly for expressing their views within a stipulated time.

Inspired by: CSP 2017, All India Tiger Estimation Report – 2018

https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/all-india-tiger-estimation-report-2018/

Answer: (b)

M-STrIPES, short for Monitoring System for Tigers – Intensive Protection and Ecological Status is a GIS software-based monitoring system launched across Indian tiger reserves by the Indian government’s National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2010.