IAS Prelims GS Questions and Answers - Feb 09, 2016

ANSWER: Medical reasons

Explanation:

• The Government has decided to provide e-Visa to foreign tourists visiting India for medical reasons.
• The scheme is part of a series of initiatives to facilitate medical and wellness tourism in the country.
• Minister of State for Tourism Mahesh Sharma also launched 24x7 toll free tourist info-line in 12 languages.
• The scheme will ensure that a single-window facility to connect various Medicare and wellness systems available in the country for medical tourists.

ANSWER: 1, 2, 3

Explanation:

• Indira Col, Karakoram pass and Point NJ9842 form the contentious triangle at Siachen.
• India occupies the entire area. Pakistan holds the lower ridges.

ANSWER: Eyes

Explanation:

• Glaucoma remains a leading cause of blindness.
• Glaucoma is a condition that causes damage to your eye's optic nerve and gets worse over time. It's often associated with a buildup of pressure inside the eye. Glaucoma tends to be inherited and may not show up until later in life.
• Doctors often check eye pressure to gauge a patient's eye health.
• The increased pressure, called intraocular pressure, can damage the optic nerve, which transmits images to the brain. If damage to the optic nerve from high eye pressure continues, glaucoma will cause permanent loss of vision. Without treatment, glaucoma can cause total permanent blindness within a few years.
• A 'smart' contact lens with a built-in sensor could help determine which glaucoma patients are at a higher risk of progression.
• Certain patterns of electrical signals emitted from the contact lenses correlate with a faster rate of glaucoma progression. Similar to how an electrocardiogram shows a heartbeat, the profile of signals from the smart lens indirectly shows eye pressure changes over time.

ANSWER: Nuclear reactor operators are responsible for any accidents happening

Explanation:

• 2010 domestic liability law that makes equipment suppliers accountable for accidents and not the plant operators, as is the global norm had kept investors away.
• Although a national law alone, in conformity with established international norms, would have been sufficient to assure international suppliers, because of the additional benefits conferred by the CSC to its members, India has chosen to adhere to this convention.
• The CSC will give India access to international funding, beyond those available through national resources, to pay for damages in the event of a nuclear accident.
• The CSC is a free standing international nuclear liability regime supplementing/complementing two other international nuclear liability regimes – the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage (Vienna Convention), and the Paris Convention on Third Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy (Paris Convention).
• After the agreement between India and the United States in 2008 on civilian nuclear cooperation, Delhi had to put in place a nuclear liability regime as per international norms. Until then, it was simply assumed that any nuclear accident in India would be compensated for by the government.
• However, India’s nuclear liability law ran afoul of international custom of making the operator solely responsible financially for any accident. A few days after the 2010 Civil Liabilities for Nuclear Damage Act (CLNDA) was passed, India signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC). This convention provided additional funds to victims in case the damage from a nuclear accident is more than the national liability cap. However, the CSC also demands that the operator be the sole entity held responsible for a nuclear mishap and is thus in contradiction to Indian law.

ANSWER: Insulation

Explanation:

• Aerogels, which are among the lightest solid materials known to man, are one of the finest insulation materials available. Traditional aerogels are mainly made of silica, which is not environment-friendly.
• In a world’s first, scientists have successfully converted paper waste into green cellulose aerogels that are non-toxic, ultra-light, flexible, extremely strong and water repellent.
• This novel material is ideal for applications such as oil spill cleaning, heat insulation as well as packaging, and it can potentially be used as coating materials for drug delivery and as smart materials for various biomedical applications.
• In addition to low thermal conductivity, these novel aerogels have several unique features, one of which is super high oil absorption capacity — it is up to four times higher than commercial sorbents available in the market.

ANSWER: 1,2

Explanation:

• Plasmodium inui is a protozoan parasite that causes malaria in Old World monkeys.
• Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum are the two parasites responsible for malaria in humans.

ANSWER: Both 1 and 2

Explanation:

• India will launch an ambitious programme that seeks to eliminate malaria by 2027. The WHO’s global target for malaria elimination is 2030.
• Malaria elimination is defined as a situation where a given area — district or state — records no indigenous transmission of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum, the two parasites responsible for the disease. Once all districts achieve that, a country is said to have eliminated malaria.
• Under the National Framework for Malaria Elimination, now in final stages of planning ahead of a formal launch soon, states have been divided into three categories based on their annual parasite incidence (API). Elimination will be undertaken in a phased manner and states with low incidence rates taken first, followed by the high-incidence ones.
• Under the programme, accredited social health activists will be equipped with special kits for quick diagnosis of malaria. Distribution of mosquito nets will be stepped up. The current standard of insecticide spray will be brought down to one.

ANSWER: Kandangi pure silk sarees

Explanation:

• The Chettinad cotton saree, which inherited the intricacies of now out-of-vogue and over a century-old‘Kandangi’ pure silk sarees, has won the ‘India Handloom’ tag for its unique designs and identity.
• Designs and colour combinations of Kandangisarees used to produce the Chettinad cotton sarees.