Science & Technology Quiz: India's Polar and Ocean Research: Antarctic Stations and the Deep Ocean Mission

The correct answer is C, Dakshin Gangotri. It was built during the Indian expedition of 1983 to 1984 in Queen Maud Land and was India's first permanent base on the continent. Because it stood on a floating ice shelf, the movement of the ice and the steady accumulation of snow buried it, and it was given up as a working station in 1990, after which it has served only as a supply base and transit camp.

Option A, Maitri, is the second station, commissioned in 1989, and is the answer most candidates give because it is the station they have heard of. Option B, Bharati, is the third station, commissioned in 2012. Option D, Himadri, is not in Antarctica at all; it is India's Arctic station in Svalbard, Norway, and it is placed here precisely to catch the confusion between the two poles. The order to remember is Dakshin Gangotri, then Maitri, then Bharati.

The correct answer is B, Schirmacher Oasis in Queen Maud Land. Maitri was commissioned in 1989 on the rocky Schirmacher Oasis, a narrow ice-free strip, next to the freshwater lake named Priyadarshini. Standing on rock rather than on ice is precisely why Maitri has survived while the earlier station on the ice shelf did not.

Option A, Larsemann Hills, is the site of Bharati, India's third station, commissioned in 2012 on the east Antarctic coast, and swapping the two sites is the commonest error here. Option C, Ny-Alesund in Svalbard, is in the Arctic and is the site of Himadri, not of any Antarctic station. Option D, the Ross Ice Shelf, is a well known Antarctic feature on the other side of the continent where several other countries have bases, but India has never built there. Fix the pair: Maitri at Schirmacher, Bharati at Larsemann.

The correct answer is C, 2012. Bharati was commissioned in 2012 at the Larsemann Hills on the coast of east Antarctica, roughly three thousand kilometres from Maitri. Having two stations so far apart lets Indian scientists study two very different sectors of the continent in the same summer season, which was the main reason for building it.

Option A, 1989, is the year Maitri was commissioned. Option B, 2008, is the year Himadri, India's Arctic station in Svalbard, was opened, so it belongs to the other pole. Option D, 2016, is the year the Himansh high-altitude glaciology station was set up in the Spiti area of Himachal Pradesh. All four years belong to this topic, which is why the question works; the chain to memorise is 1983-84 Dakshin Gangotri, 1989 Maitri, 2008 Himadri, 2012 Bharati, 2014 IndARC and 2016 Himansh.

The correct answer is A, Norway. Himadri was opened in 2008 at Ny-Alesund on the Svalbard archipelago, which belongs to Norway. Svalbard is governed by a treaty that allows the nationals of its parties to carry on research and economic activity there, which is what makes an international research village at Ny-Alesund possible.

Option B, Iceland, has no Indian research station, though it is an Arctic Council member. Option C, Canada, and option D, Russia, both have large Arctic territories and their own extensive Arctic research, but India's station is not on their soil. Remember the associated facts: IndARC, India's moored underwater observatory, was deployed in the Kongsfjorden fjord off Svalbard in 2014, India has been an Observer in the Arctic Council since 2013, and India's Arctic Policy was released in 2022.

The correct answer is B, Goa. The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research is at Vasco-da-Gama in Goa and works under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. It was established in 1998 as the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research and was renamed in 2018, when its mandate had grown from Antarctica to the Arctic, the Southern Ocean and the Himalayan cryosphere.

Option C, Tamil Nadu, is where the National Institute of Ocean Technology is located, at Chennai; that institute builds Matsya-6000 and other ocean hardware, and candidates often mix the two bodies up. Option A, Kerala, and option D, Maharashtra, host other scientific institutions but not this one. A third name worth remembering in the same ministry is the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services at Hyderabad, which runs the tsunami early warning centre.

The correct answer is A, Dr. Syed Zahoor Qasim. A marine biologist, he led the first Indian scientific expedition to Antarctica in 1981, a voyage that established India's presence on the continent and paved the way for accession to the Antarctic Treaty and for Consultative Party status in 1983. Indian expeditions have gone to Antarctica every year since.

Option B, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, was the founder of the Indian space programme and died in 1971, long before this expedition. Option C, Dr. Satish Dhawan, headed the space programme in the 1970s and 1980s and is associated with the launch centre named after him, not with polar science. Option D, Dr. Harsh Gupta, is a distinguished Indian earth scientist who has worked on seismology and oceanography, but he did not lead the first expedition. Pair Qasim with 1981 and the ship that carried the team south.

The correct answer is B, 1959. The Antarctic Treaty was signed on 1 December 1959 by twelve nations that had been active in the continent during the International Geophysical Year, and it came into force in 1961. It devotes Antarctica to peaceful purposes, forbids military activity, nuclear explosions and the dumping of radioactive waste, guarantees freedom of scientific research and sets aside existing territorial claims for the life of the treaty.

Option A, 1949, predates the treaty negotiations. Option C, 1982, is the year the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted, which governs the oceans and the deep seabed rather than Antarctica, and it is the main distractor. Option D, 1991, is the year of the Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection, which declares Antarctica a natural reserve devoted to peace and science and bans mineral resource activity other than research. India acceded to the treaty in 1983 and passed the Indian Antarctic Act in 2022.

The correct answer is A, Ministry of Earth Sciences. The Cabinet approved the Deep Ocean Mission in June 2021 with this ministry as the implementing agency and an estimated cost of about 4,077 crore rupees spread over five years in phases. The ministry also controls the three institutes that carry out the work: the polar and ocean research centre in Goa, the ocean technology institute at Chennai and the ocean information services centre at Hyderabad.

Option B, the Ministry of Science and Technology, runs the departments of science and technology and of biotechnology, which have their own programmes but not this mission. Option C, the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, deals with shipping and port infrastructure, which is part of the blue economy but not of this mission. Option D, the environment ministry, handles forests, wildlife and climate negotiations. The mission's six components are worth listing separately, since matching questions are set on them.

The correct answer is B, three people to 6,000 metres. Matsya-6000 takes its name from the design depth of six thousand metres and is built to carry a crew of three inside a titanium personnel sphere. It is planned for about twelve hours of normal operation on a dive, with an endurance of roughly ninety-six hours in an emergency so that the crew can survive until rescue.

Option A understates both figures. Option C changes the crew to four, which the sphere is not sized for. Option D takes the depth to eleven thousand metres, which is close to the deepest point of the ocean in the Mariana Trench; only a handful of specialised vehicles in the world are built for that depth and Matsya-6000 is not one of them. The project under which the submersible is being built is called Samudrayaan, and it is the crewed component of the Deep Ocean Mission.

The correct answer is B, the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai. This autonomous institute of the Ministry of Earth Sciences designs and builds India's ocean engineering hardware, from desalination plants and moored buoys to deep-sea mining systems, and it is developing Matsya-6000 along with the systems that will support the dives.

Option A, the space agency, contributes expertise on welding and testing of the titanium sphere and on launch-grade materials, which is why it is a plausible wrong answer, but the submersible is not its project. Option C, the polar and ocean research centre in Goa, runs the polar expeditions and the Southern Ocean programme rather than vehicle development. Option D, the ocean information services centre in Hyderabad, issues ocean advisories and runs the tsunami early warning centre. All four bodies appear in this topic, so attach each to its own function.

The correct answer is A, the Central Indian Ocean Basin. India was the first country to be granted Pioneer Investor status by the International Seabed Authority, in 1987, and holds an exploration area of seventy-five thousand square kilometres in the Central Indian Ocean Basin for polymetallic nodules, which are lumps on the deep seabed rich in manganese, nickel, cobalt and copper.

Option B, the Bay of Bengal shelf, and option C, the Arabian Sea shelf, lie within India's own maritime zone and are shallow continental shelves where nodules of this kind do not form; they are fishing and hydrocarbon areas instead. Option D, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific, is the world's richest nodule province and is contracted to several other countries, which makes it the best distractor. India also holds a contract for polymetallic sulphides along the Central and Southwest Indian Ridges.

The correct answer is B, Himachal Pradesh. Himansh was established in 2016 in the Spiti area of Himachal Pradesh, in the upper reaches of the Chandra basin, so that scientists can measure the mass balance, melt and movement of Himalayan glaciers through the year instead of only on short visits. The Himalayan cryosphere is often called the third pole, which is why this station sits in the same programme as the polar stations.

Option A, Uttarakhand, has many studied glaciers, including Gangotri, but not this station. Option C, Sikkim, and option D, Ladakh, also have glaciers under observation but no station of this name. Do not confuse Himansh in the Himalaya with Himadri in the Arctic; the names differ by two letters and the two stations are at opposite ends of this topic, one in Svalbard since 2008 and the other in Spiti since 2016.