Science & Technology : Practice Questions and Answers

Cervical cancer in India ranks as the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age, most commonly occurring in women over 30. It is a cancer of the cervical cells and all women are at risk. According to WHO, approximately 570,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide in 2018; India's first indigenous qHPV vaccine CERVAVAC was developed by the Serum Institute of India in coordination with the Department of Biotechnology.

Airpay, India's integrated omnichannel financial services platform, surpassed 15 lakh transactions powering Rajasthan Government's e-Mitra e-governance initiative. Since joining in April 2020, Airpay connected over 100 state departments to the e-Mitra platform, which operates urban and rural kiosks providing government services without requiring citizens to visit offices. Kunal Jhunjhunwala is the Founder & MD of Airpay, and R.K. Sharma is the Technical Director of DoIT&C, e-Mitra.

EDUSAT হল একটি মানব-নির্মিত ভারতীয় উপগ্রহ যা ISRO 20 সেপ্টেম্বর 2004-এ GSLV দিয়ে উৎক্ষেপণ করেছিল। এটি ছিল ভারতের প্রথম শিক্ষামূলক উপগ্রহ যা Ku-ব্যান্ড ট্রান্সপন্ডারের মাধ্যমে টেলি-শিক্ষা, ভার্চুয়াল ক্লাসরুম, টেলিমেডিসিন এবং ভিলেজ রিসোর্স সেন্টার পরিচালনা করত।

India launched its first indigenous vaccine for cervical cancer — CERVAVAC, a quadrivalent HPV (qHPV) vaccine — on September 1, 2022, developed by the Serum Institute of India (Pune) in coordination with the Department of Biotechnology. Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally and ranks second among Indian women aged 15–44. WHO estimated 570,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide in 2018.

Both A and R are true, and R correctly explains A. PSLV-C59, launched in October 2024, deployed ESA's Proba-3 satellites — a pair designed for precise formation-flying experiments including solar coronagraphy — marking ISRO's first dedicated launch for this ESA experiment and exemplifying India-Europe space cooperation.

HLVM3 stands for Human LVM3, the modified version of India's heaviest rocket LVM3 (also known as GSLV Mk-III) adapted by ISRO for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission. It integrates advanced safety systems including an abort system, life-support, crew module, and service module to safely carry three astronauts to LEO for up to seven days.

NISAR's 12-day revisit cycle is designed to achieve the temporal resolution needed for global coverage and land deformation monitoring. This consistent revisiting enables tracking of dynamic phenomena such as earthquakes, landslides, and glacier movements critical for disaster preparedness. NISAR's dual-frequency SAR (L-band and S-band) also supports agriculture, forestry, hydrology, and urban planning applications.

India's NGLV, being developed by ISRO, is designed with a modular architecture capable of carrying up to 30 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This high-capacity vehicle will support satellite launches, human spaceflight, and interplanetary missions, succeeding the PSLV and GSLV families with greater payload capacity and reliability. LEO refers to orbits between 160 km and 2,000 km altitude, commonly used for Earth observation and communication satellites.

ISRO's RLV-LEX3 mission on June 23, 2024, successfully demonstrated autonomous high-speed landing under challenging cross-range and wind conditions, a critical milestone in reusable launch vehicle technology. The mission validated precision navigation, guidance, and control systems essential for spacecraft autonomous landing. This advances ISRO's goal of developing cost-effective, reusable space technology to reduce satellite launch costs.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), designed by Ian Goodfellow in 2014, are used to generate deepfake videos. GANs consist of a generator that creates fake data and a discriminator that distinguishes real from fake; through this adversarial process the generator learns to produce highly realistic content including deepfakes. CNNs are used for recognition, not generation; blockchain handles secure record-keeping; and quantum computing is unrelated to deepfake creation.

ASPEX (Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment) onboard Aditya-L1 monitors solar wind at Lagrange point 1 (L1), studying the composition and energy distribution of protons, alpha particles, and heavy ions. It helps predict geomagnetic storms and their effects on satellites, power grids, and communication systems. SUIT images the Sun in UV, while SoLEXS and HEL1OS study low- and high-energy X-ray emissions respectively.

Aditya-L1, India's first solar mission by ISRO, primarily studies the Sun's corona — the outermost layer of its atmosphere — which can reach temperatures of millions of degrees Celsius. It carries instruments like the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) to study solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their impact on space weather. Regolith and craters are surface features of solid bodies, while Aditya-L1 focuses on the corona rather than the magnetosphere.

Gaganyaan is planned to orbit at approximately 400 km above Earth's surface in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). At this altitude, the spacecraft will perform microgravity experiments, carry a crew of three astronauts for up to seven days, and face reduced radiation exposure compared to higher orbits. This milestone would make India the fourth nation to send humans into space, after the USA, Russia, and China.