17th June 2025

Explanation - UNESCO Creative Cities Network - It was created in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. It was launched to promote UNESCO's goals of cultural diversity and strengthen resilience to threats such as climate change, rising inequality, and rapid urbanisation. Aim of UCCN — The network is aimed at leveraging the creative, social, and economic potential of cultural industries. It encourages a culture of creativity in urban planning and solutions to urban problems. Objective of the UCCN — It allows member cities to recognise creativity as an essential component of urban development, notably through partnerships involving the public and private sectors and civil society. It envisages to develop hubs of creativity and innovation and broaden opportunities for creators and professionals in the cultural sector. These cities have to achieve the UN agenda of sustainable development. Indian cities in the UCCN - Ten Indian cities are a part of the network. Kozhikode (Literature) and Gwalior (Music) feature in this list. Earlier, Jaipur (Crafts and Folk Arts), Varanasi (Music), Chennai (Music), Mumbai (Film), Hyderabad (Gastronomy), and Srinagar (Crafts and Folk Arts) have also held the spot. 

Explanation - Global Education Monitoring report - It is an annual publication produced by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). It is an authoritative and evidence-based assessment of progress, challenges, and trends in education worldwide. The GEM Report was launched in 2002 as the Education for All Global Monitoring Report and transitioned to its current name in 2016. Its primary purpose is to monitor and analyse global education trends and provide policy recommendations to governments and stakeholders to improve education systems and outcomes. Highlights of the Report - It has pointed out that by 2025, countries will be off-track by 75 million relative to their national targets. The out-of-school model estimates assume stable patterns of school-age population progression through the education system. The model used multiple data sources (administrative, survey and census) to generate internally consistent trends of regional and global averages. 

Explanation - SCORES, or the SEBI Complaints Redress System, is an online platform launched in 2011 that enables investors to file and track complaints against listed entities and SEBI registered market intermediaries. As per the upgraded SCORES 2.0 framework, complaints are automatically directed to the concerned entities, which are mandated to respond with an Action Taken Report (ATR) within 21 days. If the investor is dissatisfied with the response, they may seek a First Level Review within 15 days. During this review period, complaints remain classified as pending, even if an ATR has already been submitted. In cases where the grievance remains unresolved following the First Level Review, investors have the option to escalate the matter to SEBI for a Second Level Review. The complaints may be closed if the investor opts for resolution through the Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) mechanism. Thus, the SCORES Portal enables market intermediaries and listed companies to receive complaints online from investors, redress such complaints, and report redressal online. An investor who is not familiar with SCORES or does not have access to SCORES can lodge complaints in physical form at any of the offices of SEBI. Such complaints would be scanned and also uploaded in SCORES for processing. 

Explanation - A SEZ is a designated duty free enclave to be treated as foreign territory for the purpose of trade operations and duties and tariffs. Other notable features are as follows: 

• The units must become net foreign exchange earners within 3 years. 

• A SEZ does not require a license for imports. 

• SEZ are allowed manufacturing, trading and service activities. 

• Full freedom for subcontracting. 

• The domestic sales from the SEZ are subject to full custom duties and import policy is in force, when they sell their produce to domestic markets. 

• There is no routine examination by the custom authorities. 

• Single window clearance for Central and State level approvals. 

Explanation - Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) is the hereditary material in almost all living organisms. It carries the genetic instructions used in growth, development, functioning, and reproduction. Structure — DNA is composed of two long strands forming a double helix, made up of repeating units called nucleotides. Each nucleotide contains a sugar, a phosphate group, and one of four nitrogenous bases — Adenine (A), Thymine (T), Cytosine (C), or Guanine (G). The specific sequence of these bases encodes genetic information. Location — DNA is primarily located in the nucleus of cells (nuclear DNA), while a small amount is also found in mitochondria (mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Nuclear DNA is unique to each individual (except identical twins), whereas mtDNA is inherited maternally and found in multiple copies per cell. Function — DNA controls cellular functions by coding for proteins, and it passes genetic traits from one generation to the next.