IAS Prelims GS Questions and Answers - June 17, 2016

ANSWER: 4

Explanation:

• Racketlon is a racket sport quadrathlon where players compete to become the best allround racket player.
• Though becoming increasingly popular internationally ‘Racketlon’ is still a relatively young sport in India & hence it’s not surprising that it’s quite unknown in India.
• The sport is modeled on lines of Decathlon /Triathlon and is combination sport comprising of four racket games namely Table tennis, Badminton, Squash and Lawn tennis.
• The typical match comprises 4 sets of 21 points each in each of the above individual sports played in succession one after another. Winner is the player winning maximum points.
• Cdr. Ashutosh Pednekar of Indian Navy made sports history when he became the first Indian to participate and win International tournaments in sport of Racketlon.

ANSWER: School Volunteering program

Explanation:

• Ministry for Human Resource Development dedicated ‘Vidyanjali’- a school volunteer programme to the nation.
• The programme is designed to involve volunteers from different walks of life to strengthen the co-scholastic activities in government schools.
• Vidyanjali, which is being implemented under the overall aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, will enhance the community involvement in Government run elementary schools and effectively engage children in reading, creative writing, public speaking, play acting, preparing story books etc.

ANSWER: 1, 2

Explanation:

• The volunteers can register for free by visiting the MyGov.in or though the mobile app, which has been developed by MyGov and were launched today. The programme is unique in that it gives the freedom to the volunteers to design their activities in consultation with the school.
• The programme will be open for participation by all Indian citizens including retired Professionals, retired government officials, working professionals and homemakers; and also persons from the Indian Diaspora.
• The programme will be piloted across 20 States and 1 U.T., which committed to do so in the conference of State Ministers of Education. These States are Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:

• The Wind power potential in the country is assessed by the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) at 100 meter above ground level, which is estimated to be over 302 GW.
• Most of this potential exists in 8 windy states namely Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

ANSWER: Only 2

Explanation:

• Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has launched Scheme for setting up of 1000 MW Wind Power Project connected to transmission network of Central Transmission Utility (CTU) with an objective to facilitate supply of wind power to the non-windy states at a price discovered through transparent bidding process. Ministry has designated Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) as nodal agency for implementation of the scheme.
• The present wind power installed capacity in the country is nearly 26.7 GW sharing around 9% of total installed capacity. Globally, India is at 4th position in term of wind power installed capacity after China, USA and Germany.

ANSWER: Urban Jyoti Abhiyaan

Explanation:

• The app URJA - Urban Jyoti Abhiyaan Mobile app, is developed by Power Finance Corporation on behalf of Ministry of Power for Urban Power Distribution Sector to enhance consumer connect with the Urban Power Distribution sector by providing information of IT enabled towns on important parameters which concern the consumers like outage information, timely release of connections, addressing complaints, power reliability etc.
• The app will work as manifestation of Prime Minister’s principle of good governance i.e. People focus, co-operative federalism.

ANSWER: ICRISAT

Explanation:

• The project has been co-funded by Government of India through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science & Technology and the European Union.
• The project integrates bio-treated wastewater reuse with enhanced water-use efficiency to support the Green Economy in EU and India.
• The EU Consortium includes 21 partners from 8 Countries and the India-based consortium consists of 11 research and development partners led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Other partners on the Indian side are National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Euro-India Research Centre (EIRC), among others.

ANSWER: Arunachal Pradesh

Explanation:

• The Kukis, also known as the Chin. They are one of the hill tribe Zo people.
• In the Chin State of Myanmar and as Mizo in the Indian state of Mizoram, are a number of related Tibeto-Burman tribal peoples spread throughout the north-eastern states of India, northwestern Burma, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.
• In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh.
• This dispersal across international borders is mainly attributed to former British colonial policy.