UPSC Daily Quiz | 13 July 2024

Explanation:

•  The painting is located in the Leang Karampuang cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Explanation:

•  Around 2,800 protesters took to the streets of Barcelona in Spain, urging tourists to “go home” while waving placards and streaming water guns at outdoor diners.
•  The demonstration was intended to draw attention to “over-tourism” in the city. It stems from unhappiness among some citizens, who believe that, while tourism has boosted the Spanish economy, it has also had negative consequences.

Explanation:

•  Wildfires have long been a part of the Arctic’s boreal forest, snow forest, and tundra (treeless regions) ecosystems. However, in recent years, their frequency and magnitude in the regions have grown, owing mostly to global warming.
•  The Arctic is warming at around four times the rate of the rest of the planet. While the world average temperature has risen by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrial levels, the Arctic has warmed by an average of 3 degrees Celsius since 1980.

Explanation

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has expressed readiness to join hands with India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval to “properly handle” issues related to the situation on the ground in the border areas, amid the protracted border row in eastern Ladakh.
• It was the first high-level meeting between Indian and Chinese officials since Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed his 3.0 cabinet following India’s recent parliamentary elections.
• According to the Chinese military, the two sides so far agreed to disengage from four points, namely the Galwan Valley, the Pangong Lake, Hot Springs, and Jianan Daban (Gogra) in eastern Ladakh.

Explanation

• The earliest images of the Buddha in corporeal form originate from around the turn of the first millennium. Depictions first appeared in Gandhara art from the northwestern edge of the Indian subcontinent (present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan), which relied on Hellenistic influences, and later in Gupta art on the Gangetic plains.
• Mudras are most usually connected with visual portrayals of the Buddha (or Buddharupa), with various movements communicating distinct moods and meanings, representing the subtle manifestations of the Buddha’s states of realisation.
• Four mudras can be seen in the earliest portrayals of Buddharupa: the abhaya mudra, or “gesture of fearlessness”; the bhumisparsha mudra, or “Earth-touching gesture”; the dharmachakra mudra, or “gesture of the wheel of dharma”; and the dhyana mudra, or “gesture of meditation”.
• Hundreds of mudras became part of Buddhist iconography as Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) and Vajrayana (Thunderbolt Vehicle) Buddhism evolved and Buddhist artwork spread outside India.