Science & Technology Mixed Quiz: Set 9

The correct answer is B, Prithvi. Dhanush is the ship-launched variant of the Prithvi short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, fired from a stabilised platform on a naval vessel, and it can be used against targets on land or at sea. Prithvi itself was the first ballistic missile India developed on its own, and its versions went to the Army, the Air Force and the Navy in turn.

Option A, Agni, is the long-range ballistic family, and its sea-going counterpart is the K series, not Dhanush. Option C, Nag, is the anti-tank guided missile carried on the NAMICA vehicle. Option D, Astra, is the beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile fired from fighter aircraft. The pairing worth memorising is Prithvi with Dhanush for the Navy, and Prithvi with Prahaar for the shorter tactical role on land.

The correct answer is A, Tarapur. The Tarapur Atomic Power Station in Maharashtra was commissioned in 1969 with American assistance and was the first nuclear power station in India as well as in Asia; its first two units are boiling water reactors, a design used nowhere else in the country. Option B is wrong because Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu is the newest of the large stations and uses Russian pressurised water reactors of the VVER type. Option C is wrong because Kaiga in Karnataka came much later and uses indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors. Option D is wrong because Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, built with Canadian collaboration, was the second station and is important for a different reason, being the first to use the pressurised heavy water reactor that India later built on its own. Remember Tarapur for the first station and Rawatbhata for the first heavy water reactor.

The correct answer is B, Homi Jehangir Bhabha. Bhabha founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945, became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, drew up the three stage plan built around India's thorium, and led the establishment at Trombay that was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre after his death in 1966. Option A is wrong because Vikram Sarabhai is the father of the Indian space programme, although he did chair the Atomic Energy Commission after Bhabha. Option C is wrong because Raja Ramanna led the team that carried out the Pokhran test of 1974, an important role but a later one. Option D is wrong because A. P. J. Abdul Kalam is associated with missile development and with the Pokhran tests of 1998. Bhabha for atomic energy and Sarabhai for space is the pair to fix.

The correct answer is B, a bacterium. The cry genes of Bt cotton come from Bacillus thuringiensis, a soil bacterium that forms crystal protein during sporulation; the protein is inactive as eaten but becomes a toxin in the alkaline gut of the bollworm, which is why the plant resists the pest. Option A is wrong because viral genes are used for other purposes, such as the coat protein approach to virus resistance, not for Bt. Option C is wrong because fungi are used as biopesticides in their own right, as Trichoderma is against soil borne disease, but the cry gene is not fungal. Option D is wrong because algae such as Anabaena serve as biofertilisers in paddy fields rather than as a source of insecticidal genes. Remember the full name Bacillus thuringiensis behind the two letters Bt.

The correct answer is B, vitamin A. Golden rice was engineered to make beta carotene, the precursor from which the body forms vitamin A, in the edible part of the grain, and the pigment gives the rice its golden colour; the aim was to reduce night blindness among populations living mainly on rice. Option A is wrong because iron deficiency is addressed by biofortified varieties of pearl millet and wheat and by fortified foods, not by golden rice. Option C is wrong because iodine deficiency is tackled by iodised salt, a public health measure that needs no engineering of the crop. Option D is wrong because vitamin D is obtained largely from sunlight and from fortified milk. Golden rice is the standard example of biofortification by genetic engineering.

The correct answer is C, August 2021. The Prime Minister announced the National Hydrogen Mission in his Independence Day speech from the Red Fort on 15 August 2021, with the aim of making India a hub for producing and exporting green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is made by splitting water through electrolysis using electricity from solar, wind or other renewable sources, so it releases no carbon dioxide, unlike the grey hydrogen made from natural gas. The Union Cabinet later approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission in January 2023 with an outlay of Rs 19,744 crore. Option A is wrong because May 2021 saw no such announcement. Option B is wrong because November 2021 is when the Prime Minister gave the Panchamrit climate pledges at the Glasgow COP26 summit. Option D is wrong because January 2021 belongs to the vaccination drive against Covid-19, not to hydrogen. Exam tip: announced 15 August 2021; the mission was approved by the Cabinet in January 2023.

The correct answer is B, Trombay. Apsara went critical at Trombay near Mumbai on 4 August 1956 and was the first nuclear research reactor not only in India but in the whole of Asia; the CIRUS reactor of 1960 and the Dhruva reactor of 1985 were built at the same site, which is today the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. Option A is wrong because Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu is the home of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research and of the fast breeder reactors, work that began much later. Option C is wrong because Rawatbhata in Rajasthan is a power station site, not a research reactor site. Option D is wrong because Tarapur is also a power station, commissioned thirteen years after Apsara. Keep research reactors at Trombay and fast breeders at Kalpakkam clearly apart.

The correct answer is D, 1.6 W/kg. The Specific Absorption Rate measures how much radio energy from a handset the body takes in, in watts per kilogram of tissue. From 1 September 2012 the Department of Telecommunications made 1.6 W/kg, averaged over one gram of human tissue, the limit for every new mobile handset design sold in India. Before that India followed the older figure of 2.0 W/kg averaged over ten grams. The rules also require the SAR value to be printed on the handset and its box, and a buyer can check it by dialling a code given by the maker. India's limit matches the standard used in the United States. Option A is wrong because 1.8 W/kg is not a prescribed limit anywhere. Option B is wrong because 2.1 W/kg is not a SAR standard. Option C is wrong because 2.2 W/kg is only a distractor. Exam tip: India's SAR limit is 1.6 W/kg over 1 gram of tissue, in force from 1 September 2012.

The correct answer is B, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee. Working under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, it is the apex committee under the rules of 1989 framed under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and no genetically engineered organism may be released into the environment or used on a large scale without its clearance. Option A is wrong because the Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation, under the Department of Biotechnology, monitors research and small scale trials rather than commercial release. Option C is wrong because the National Biodiversity Authority, at Chennai, deals with access to biological resources and benefit sharing under the Act of 2002. Option D is wrong because ICAR conducts agricultural research and coordinates trials but grants no biosafety approval. Learn the pair as RCGM for research and GEAC for release.

The correct answer is D, Ability. Bias in an artificial intelligence system is traced to three sources, the data it learns from, the algorithm that learns, and the people who build and use it; ability is not one of them, because the skill of a model is a measure of how well it performs, not a place where unfairness enters. Data bias appears when the training set leaves out or under-represents a group, as with a face recognition system trained mostly on one kind of face. Algorithmic bias comes from the choices made in designing a model, such as the features it is allowed to use. Human bias enters through labelling, sampling and the assumptions of the team. Options A, B and C are therefore wrong answers to this question because each one is a genuine source of bias. Exam tip: remember data, algorithm and people as the three sources of AI bias.

The correct answer is B, fast breeder reactors. The second stage uses the plutonium 239 recovered from the spent fuel of the first stage as the fuel of a fast breeder reactor, with a blanket of thorium around the core that is converted into uranium 233; a breeder produces more fissile material than it burns, which is how the programme builds up a stock of fuel for the third stage. Option A is wrong because pressurised heavy water reactors burning natural uranium make up the first stage. Option C is wrong because boiling water reactors were imported for Tarapur and were never part of the staged plan. Option D is wrong because gas cooled reactors have no place in the Indian programme at all. Learn the chain in order: natural uranium, then plutonium with a thorium blanket, then uranium 233 from thorium.

The correct answer is A, Nag. Nag is a third generation anti-tank guided missile of the fire and forget kind, which means that once the seeker has locked on to the target the operator need not keep guiding it, and the crew can move away at once. It is carried on a tracked launcher called NAMICA, and the helicopter launched version is named HELINA.

Option B, Trishul, was the short range surface to air missile of the same programme, meant to defend ships and forward posts against low flying aircraft. Option C, Prithvi, is a short range surface to surface missile, with the first version for the Army and the second for the Air Force. Option D, Akash, is the medium range surface to air missile that works with the Rajendra phased array radar. Only Nag is built to kill armour.

The correct answer is B, plant breeding. Plant breeding is the deliberate improvement of crops by choosing parents with desirable characters, crossing them, selecting among the progeny and multiplying the best lines; the high yielding wheat and rice varieties of the Green Revolution came from it, and modern breeding is often combined with tissue culture and marker assisted selection. Option A is wrong because plant embryology studies the development of the embryo and seed, which is descriptive rather than an improvement programme. Option C is wrong because plant biochemistry studies the chemical reactions inside the plant, such as photosynthesis and secondary metabolites. Option D is wrong because plant anatomy studies internal structure and tissues under the microscope. Breeding works with genes already present in related plants, while genetic engineering can bring a gene from any organism.

The correct answer is B, Sindhu Netra Satellite. Sindhu Netra was developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and was placed in orbit in February 2021 by the PSLV-C51 flight, the same flight whose main payload was the Amazonia-1 satellite of Brazil. The satellite is meant to watch shipping in the Indian Ocean Region and to help identify warships and merchant vessels moving through those waters, which supports maritime awareness for the armed forces.

Option A, the Satish Dhawan Satellite, was also aboard the same PSLV-C51 flight, but it was a small satellite built by a private Indian team and is not a surveillance satellite. Options C and D, Sindhu Durga and Sri Shakti, are invented names that sound plausible beside the correct one. Remember the pairing of PSLV-C51 with Amazonia-1 as its main payload and Sindhu Netra among the rideshare satellites.

The correct answer is B, Smiling Buddha. The test was carried out in the desert at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974 and was described by India as a peaceful nuclear explosion; Raja Ramanna led the team. Option A is wrong because Operation Shakti is the name of the second round of tests, the five devices fired on 11 and 13 May 1998 at the same range, after which India declared itself a nuclear weapon state. Option C is wrong because Operation Vijay is the name given to the military operation in Kargil in 1999, which has nothing to do with the nuclear tests. Option D is wrong because Dhruva is a research reactor at Trombay that began working in 1985, not a test. Note also that National Technology Day on 11 May marks the 1998 tests, not the 1974 one.

The correct answer is B, the crew escape system. TV-D1, the first test vehicle abort mission, was launched from Sriharikota on 21 October 2023. A single stage test vehicle carried the crew module and the crew escape system to about transonic speed, the abort was commanded, the escape motors pulled the crew module clear, and the module came down under parachutes and was recovered from the sea.

Option A is wrong because the cryogenic stage was not part of the test vehicle at all. Option C is wrong because docking is being proved separately, notably through the SpaDeX experiment, and is not part of the first Gaganyaan flight plan. Option D is wrong because a lunar lander belongs to the Chandrayaan programme and has nothing to do with this test. An earlier pad abort test in 2018 had already shown the same escape system working from a stationary rocket on the pad.

The correct answer is A, totipotency. A single plant cell retains the capacity to divide and differentiate into every tissue and so to regenerate a whole plant, which is why an explant grown on a sterile nutrient medium can form callus and then complete plantlets. Option B is wrong because osmosis is the movement of water across a membrane and explains water uptake, not regeneration. Option C is wrong because transpiration is the loss of water vapour through stomata and has nothing to do with culture. Option D is wrong because photoperiodism is the response of flowering to day length. Tissue culture built on totipotency gives micropropagation for banana, sugarcane and orchids, virus free plants through meristem culture, and haploids through anther culture, all of which are asked as applications.

The correct answer is B, the Pokhran nuclear tests of 1998. On 11 May 1998 India tested three nuclear devices at Pokhran under Operation Shakti, followed by two more on 13 May, and the day was declared National Technology Day to mark that achievement along with the test flight of the Trishul missile and the first flight of the Hansa aircraft on the same day. Option A is wrong because Aryabhata, India's first satellite, was launched on 19 April 1975. Option C is wrong because the Apsara research reactor became critical on 4 August 1956 and has no day named after it. Option D is wrong because the Atomic Energy Commission was set up in 1948, again with no commemorative day. The trap here is 1974, which candidates often pick because it is the better remembered test.

The correct answer is B, a biofertiliser. Rhizobium lives in symbiosis in the root nodules of pulses and fixes atmospheric nitrogen into a form the plant can use, which enriches the soil and reduces the need for nitrogen fertiliser. Option A is wrong because biopesticides kill or control pests, and the examples are Bacillus thuringiensis against caterpillars, Trichoderma against soil borne fungi and the nuclear polyhedrosis virus against insect larvae. Option C is wrong because a herbicide kills weeds, and Rhizobium has no such action. Option D is wrong because growth hormones of plants are auxins, gibberellins and cytokinins, which are chemical substances and not bacteria. The other biofertilisers to remember are Azotobacter and Azospirillum, free living nitrogen fixers, Anabaena in Azolla for paddy and mycorrhizal fungi for phosphorus uptake.

The correct answer is A, Jharkhand. The Jaduguda mine lies in the Singhbhum belt of Jharkhand and has been worked by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, a public sector company set up in 1967, since the late nineteen sixties; it was the first uranium mine in the country. Option B is wrong because Andhra Pradesh does hold large uranium deposits, notably at Tummalapalle in the Kadapa basin, but that mine is far more recent. Option C is wrong because Meghalaya has known deposits in the Domiasiat area that have not been mined. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan is associated with the Rawatbhata power station and the Pokhran test range, not with uranium mining. Remember that India is poor in uranium but rich in thorium, which comes from the monazite sands of the Kerala and Odisha coasts.