Explanation: Context: The first-ever International Day of Zero Waste was celebrated on March 30, 2023, to encourage people to prevent and minimize waste and promote a circular economy and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (11 and 12).

● Established by: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)

● Objective: To raise awareness about zero-waste initiatives and their importance in tackling the global waste crisis.

● The USA generates more waste than any other nation in the world with 4.5 pounds (2 kg) of municipal solid waste (MSW) per person per day. In comparison, the average per capita waste in India is about 670 grams per day.

Explanation: The National Tiger Conservation Authority is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

● It was constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation.

● Set up under the Chairmanship of the Minister for Environment and Forests. The Authority will have eight experts or professionals having qualifications and experience in wildlife conservation and welfare of people including tribals, apart from three Members of Parliament of whom two will be elected by the House of the People and one by the Council of States.

● Functions of NTCA are as follows:

○ Ensuring normative standards in tiger reserve management.
○ Preparation of reserve specific tiger conservation plan.
○ Laying down annual/ audit report before Parliament.
○ Instituting State level Steering Committees under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister and establishment of Tiger Conservation Foundation.
○ According approval for declaring new Tiger Reserves.

Explanation: Preservation of forest areas in India under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 has been continuously monitored by the Supreme Court since the Godavarman case judgment in 1996.

● While the concept of deemed forests has not been clearly defined in any law including the Forest Conservation Act of 1980.

● Deemed forests, which comprise about 1% of India’s forest land, are a controversial subject as they refer to land tracts that appear to be a “forest”, but have not been notified so by the government or in historical records.

Explanation: Afonso de Albuquerque was the second governor of the Portuguese India and is known as founder of Portuguese colonial empire in India. Krishna Deva Rai was the friend of the Portuguese Governor Albuquerque.

Explanation: Several common chemicals are known to cause severe damage to the ozone layer. Halocarbons (Chlorine, Bromine, Fluorine, and Iodine) have very high Ozone-depleting potential.

● Man-made chemicals that have played a significant role in the depletion of the Earth’s Ozone layer are Methyl Chloroform, Methyl Bromide, Carbon Tetrachloride, and families of chemicals such as Chlorofluorocarbons, Hydrochlorofluorocarbons, and Halons.

● The United Nations observes September 16 as International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

● The day originates from the Montreal Protocol that regulates the output and use of around 100 ozone-depleting chemicals substances. The protocol was adopted in 1987.

Explanation: Option A: This would help control imports and thus the depreciation of rupee.

● Option B: Masala bonds were brought in to curb slide of rupee since the borrowing is rupee-dominated and does not put pressure on our currency through borrowing dollars.

● Option C: Easing ECBs will lead to higher borrowing abroad and would temporarily bridge the deficit of forex in India preventing the slide of rupee.

Option D: An expansionary monetary policy may lead to lower interest rates and thus flight of foreign capital from India (which would get better returns abroad). Also, such a policy may fuel inflation and higher imports through higher government spending and further cause slide of rupee. So, D is the answer.

Explanation: Economic Planning in India is in the Concurrent list of Indian Constitution.

Explanation: “Capital” in an economic context means machinery or capital goods which can be employed to produce other goods.

Substitution of steel can be considered as the substitution of a lesser machine by a better machine. This encourages steel production. Hence it is a capital-augmenting technological progress

Explanation: ● The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is vested with the responsibility of conducting monetary policy. This responsibility is explicitly mandated under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.

● The primary objective of monetary policy is to maintain price stability while keeping in mind the objective of growth.

● In May 2016, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act, 1934 was amended to provide a statutory basis for the implementation of the flexible inflation targeting framework.

● The amended RBI Act also provides for the inflation target to be set by the Government of India, in consultation with the Reserve Bank, once in every five years.

● RBI primarily factors in retail inflation while making its bi-monthly monetary policy.

Explanation: Repo Rate: The interest rate at which the Reserve Bank provides overnight liquidity to banks against the collateral of government and other approved securities under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF).

● Reverse Repo Rate: The interest rate at which the Reserve Bank absorbs liquidity, on an overnight basis, from banks against the collateral of eligible government securities under the LAF.

● Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF): The LAF consists of overnight as well as term repo auctions. Progressively, the Reserve Bank has increased the proportion of liquidity injected under fine-tuning variable rate repo auctions of range of tenors. The aim of term repo is to help develop the inter-bank term money market, which in turn can set market based benchmarks for pricing of loans and deposits, and hence improve transmission of monetary policy. The Reserve Bank also conducts variable interest rate reverse repo auctions, as necessitated under the market conditions.