Science and Technology News Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Dakshin Gangotri is the Unmanned Station in Antarctica.

Dakshin Gangotri was the name of India's first scientific base in Antarctica, set up during the Indian Antarctic expeditions of the early 1980s. General knowledge references describe it as an unmanned station, and it was later replaced by India's permanent research stations, Maitri and Bharati, and used as a supply base.

It is not a river valley in Andhra Pradesh or a second source of the Ganga, although the name means 'southern Gangotri', after the glacier source of the Ganga. Nor is it an island in the Indian Ocean.

Answer: C

Innovate in India (i3) belongs to the National Biopharma Mission.

The National Biopharma Mission was approved in 2017 by the Department of Biotechnology and is run by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), with co-funding from the World Bank. Its programme Innovate in India (i3) aims to make India a hub for the design and development of affordable biopharmaceuticals, including vaccines, biosimilars and medical devices, by strengthening start-ups, small firms and research institutions.

The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and the National Food Security Mission are farm sector schemes, and the Atal Innovation Mission, under NITI Aayog, runs Atal Tinkering Labs and incubators across sectors. None of them runs i3.

Answer: A

Only statement 1 is accepted, so the answer is 1 only.

The Solar Briefcase was an Uttarakhand initiative, launched by the State Government together with the Swan Cultural Center and Foundation, a charitable funding body, as statement 1 says. As its name suggests, it is a portable solar power unit, packed so that it can be carried like a briefcase into hill villages that the electricity grid does not reach.

Statement 2 is wrong. The initiative's aim is to supply electricity from solar energy to far-flung areas, not vehicle facilities, so 'Only 2' and 'Both 1 and 2' are ruled out, and 'Neither' fails because statement 1 is accepted.

Answer: D

All four statements are correct, so the answer is 1, 2, 3 and 4.

ICMR's 2019 guidelines define a gene therapy product as any biological entity carrying the required gene that can modify the genome for therapeutic benefit (1), and explain that GTPs work by repairing, replacing or deactivating dysfunctional disease-causing genes (2). Under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, a GTP falls in the category of 'new drug' and is always deemed one (3), which is why every GTP needs regulatory approval before trials.

Statement 4 is also true: thalassemia, Gaucher's disease, sickle cell anaemia and haemophilia are single-gene inherited disorders, the main targets of gene therapy. Since none of the four can be dropped, each narrower option is incomplete.

Answer: B

Statements 1 and 2 are correct, so the answer is Only 1 and 2.

With the IMO's recognition of IRNSS in 2020, India became the fourth country, after the United States (GPS), Russia (GLONASS) and China (BeiDou), to have its own navigation system accepted as part of the World Wide Radio Navigation System (1). IRNSS, also called NavIC, offers a Standard Positioning Service for all users and an encrypted Restricted Service for authorised users (2).

Statement 3 is wrong: IRNSS is a regional system covering India and about 1,500 km around it, unlike the global GPS and GLONASS. So options including statement 3 fail.

Answer: B

The incorrect statement is It has lower cetane rating for high performance of engines.

Winter diesel, introduced by Indian Oil for Ladakh and other cold regions, has a higher cetane number than ordinary diesel. The cetane number measures how readily diesel ignites under compression, and a higher number is what gives easy starting and good engine performance in severe cold.

The other statements are correct. Additives keep the fuel from waxing and thickening, so it stays usable down to about minus 30 degrees Celsius; it has low sulphur content, which means fewer deposits in the engine; and it is meant for high-altitude, low-temperature regions such as Ladakh, where ordinary diesel can gel and become unusable.

Answer: B

JIGYASA is a Student-Scientist connect programme wherein students across the country are exposed to science and technology.

Launched by CSIR with Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan in 2017, JIGYASA links school students and teachers with CSIR laboratories through visits, lectures, and student residential programmes, so that classroom learning meets real research.

The other descriptions belong to different schemes. Attracting young talent to science at an early age to build the human resource pool is the stated aim of the Department of Science and Technology's INSPIRE scheme, which also offers scholarships and mentorship for basic sciences. Research on the effects of yoga and meditation is the subject of DST's SATYAM programme.

Answer: A

Statements 1, 2 and 3 are true, so the answer is 1, 2 and 3.

Terrestrial laser scanning uses a laser scanner set up on the ground (usually on a tripod) to fire laser pulses at its surroundings and record millions of points, building a three-dimensional point cloud of the space around it with millimetre-level detail (1, 3). In forestry it gives rapid, automatic and repeatable estimates of tree height, stem diameter, volume and other inventory attributes (2).

Statement 4 is false, because the technique is ground-based, which is what 'terrestrial' means; satellite-based measurement is a different technology. So options including statement 4 are wrong.

Answer: A

Only statement 1 is correct, so the answer is Only one.

When the Union Cabinet approved Chandrayaan-4 in September 2024, it described the mission as demonstrating the technologies for landing on the Moon, collecting lunar samples, docking and undocking, and returning safely to Earth with the samples for analysis. Statement 1 matches.

The other two figures are wrong. The national target for an Indian landing on the Moon is 2040, not 2045, and the approved cost of the mission was about ₹ 2,104 crore, not ₹ 10,000 crore.

Answer: C

All three statements are correct: All three.

Nafithromycin was announced in late 2024 as India's first indigenously developed antibiotic against drug-resistant infections, a step against antimicrobial resistance. It was developed by Wockhardt with support from BIRAC, the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council of the Department of Biotechnology, and is sold under the brand name Miqnaf.

It is meant for community-acquired bacterial pneumonia, including infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. So each of the three statements matches the official description.