Daily Quiz 9 December 2024

Answer: C
Explanation:
• Statement 1 iscorrect:NCDC is a statutory corporation under the Union Ministry of Cooperation. It was established in 1963 by an Act of Parliament. Its functions are Planning, promoting and financing programs for the production, processing, marketing, storage, export, and import of agricultural produce, food stuffs and other commodities, Financing projects in the rural industrial cooperative sectors and Providing financial assistance to cooperatives, societies and federations.
• Statement 2 is correct:NandiniSahkarYojana was launched by NCDC to provide financial assistance to women cooperatives for business model-based activities. Its features are:
o There is no minimum or maximum limit on financial aid for projects.
o It assists women cooperatives in project formulation, ensuring their business plans are well-structured.
o It brings together critical inputs such as credit, subsidies, and interest subvention from other schemes to support women’s enterprise.

Answer: B

Explanation:

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Natural Farming is a chemical-free farming system rooted in Indian tradition enriched with modern understanding of ecology, resource recycling and on-farm resource optimization. Although, both organic and natural farming systems are non-chemical systems of farming, but with following differences. Organic systemsin addition to above are open to use of off-farm purchased organic and biological inputs and need based soil correction through natural mined minerals. Natural farming systems are based on biomass mulching, round the year green cover, indigenous cow-based dung and urine formulations in exclusion of all purchased inputs organic, biological or otherwise.

Statement 2 is correct:The Government of India has launched the National Mission on Natural Farming (NMNF) to promote natural farming in mission mode across the country as a standalone Centrally Sponsored Scheme under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare. NMNF aims at promoting NF practices for providing safe & nutritious food for all. The Mission is designed to support farmers to reduce input cost of cultivation and dependency to externally purchased inputs. Natural farming will build & maintain healthy soil ecosystems, promote biodiversity and encourage diverse cropping systems to enhance resilience as suitable to the local agroecology are the benefits of natural farming.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• Statement 1 is correct: ONOS is a Central Sector Scheme to provide country-wide access to international high-impact scholarly research articles and journal publications to students, faculty and researchers. The scheme will provide access to 13,000 e-journals from 30 major international journal publishers. The initiative is expected to help students in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, ensuring that geographical location does not limit access to high-quality academic content.

Statements 2 and 3 are correct:All government-managed higher education institutions (HEIs) and central government Research & Development institutions will benefit from the scheme. The ONOS platform will be operational starting January 1, 2025. Access to journals will be fully digital and coordinated by the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET), an autonomous inter-university centre under the University Grants Commission (UGC).

Answer: D

Explanation:

Option (d)is correct:Monotremes are egg-laying mammals native to Australia and New Guinea. Presently there are 5 living species of monotremes: Platypus, Short-beaked echidna, Long-beaked echidna & 2 species of Zaglossus. Unlike most mammals, monotremes lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young. Monotremes like the platypus and echidnas use electroreception to locate prey, particularly in aquatic or subterranean environments. In monotremes, milk is secreted through specialized skin patches or mammary glands. Tardigrades are microscopic creatures known for being able to withstand some of the most extreme conditions on Earth. Dinoflagellates can cause the sea to appear red, green, or yellow when they multiply rapidly and become numerous.

Answer: D

Explanation:

• Pair 1 isincorrectly matched:Proba-3 is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) first mission related to precision formation flying. Goals of the PROBA-3 mission:
• Formation Flying Demonstration: To validate technologies required for maintaining precise formation flying between two spacecraft, simulating a large rigid structure in space.
• Scientific Research: To study the Sun’s corona by creating an artificial eclipse, allowing scientists to observe solar phenomena such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) without interference from the Sun’s bright light.
• Pair 2 is incorrectly matched:Hera is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission, which launched on 7 October 2024, to visit the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos as part of the NASA/ESA Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration. The initial misson of the collaboration, the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will have visited the asteroids earlier and impacted Dimorphos with sufficient momentum to effect a measurable change in its orbit.

Pair 3 is incorrectly matched: The Europa Clipper mission is designed to go into an orbit around Jupiter that will allow multiple close flybys of its moon Europa. The goal of the mission is to gather data on Europa at each flyby to determine its habitability. The primary science objectives are: 1) characterize the ice shell and any subsurface water, including their heterogeneity, ocean properties, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean interchange; 2) understand the habitability of Europa’s ocean through composition and chemistry; and 3) understand the formation of surface features, including sites of recent or current activity, and characterize high science interest localities.