QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 19 November 2018

Solution: a.

Scientists have changed the way the kilogram is defined. Currently, it is defined by the weight of a platinum-based ingot called “Le Grand K”. Le Grand K has been at the forefront of the international system of measuring weights since 1889. Several close replicas were made and distributed around the globe. But the master kilogram and its copies were seen to change – ever so slightly – as they deteriorated.

In a world where accurate measurement is now critical in many areas, such as in drug development, nanotechnology and precision engineering – those responsible for maintaining the international system had no option but to move beyond Le Grand K to a more robust definition.

There is a quantity that relates weight to electrical current, called Planck’s constant – named after the German physicist Max Planck and denoted by the symbol h. But h is an incredibly small number and to measure it, the research scientist Dr Bryan Kibble built a super-accurate set of scales, known now as the Kibble balance. It enables the calculation of h to an accuracy of 0.000001%. This breakthrough has paved the way for Le Grand K to be deposed.

BBC;

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Solution: c.

ET: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced in his Independence Day address that India will attempt to send an astronaut to space by 2022 on board ‘Gaganyaan’. ISRO has hopes to achieve the feat by 2021, with the first unmanned programme of ‘Gaganyaan’ planned for December 2020. GSLV-MkIII-D2 will be the launch vehicle that will carry an Indian astronaut to space (Low Earth Orbit and not GSTO).

TH: The first successful experimental flight of the GSLV MkIII was in 2014 when it carried a dummy crew module as a payload. This proved its capacity in the atmospheric flight regime. Its first developmental flight was on June 5, 2017, when it launched GSAT19, weighing 3,136 kg. The present launch marked the second developmental flight of the MkIII. With these two successes, the launcher is declared ‘operational’ and joins the ranks of the working vehicles, the PSLV and the GSLV. The launcher can carry payloads up to 4 tonnes to the geosynchronous transfer orbit and up to 10 tonnes to a low-earth orbit.

Image Source: TH;

Solution: c.

PIB: As per the provisions of the RBI Act, out of the six Members of Monetary Policy Committee, three Members will be from the RBI and the other three Members of MPC will be appointed by the Central Government. In exercise of the powers conferred by section 45ZB of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, the Central Government accordingly constituted, through a Gazette Notification dated 29th Sept 2016, the Monetary Policy Committee of RBI.

TH (2015): The Centre and the Reserve Bank of India signed an agreement last month under which the central bank will prioritise controlling price rise above the other objectives of the monetary policy — interest rates and the foreign exchange rate.. In May 2016, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act, 1934 was amended to provide a statutory basis for the implementation of the flexible inflation targeting framework.

In the news: TH; Livemint;

Solution: d.

The Tokamak is a device used in nuclear-fusion research for magnetic confinement of plasma. It consists of a complex system of magnetic fields that confine the plasma of reactive charged particles in a hollow, doughnut-shaped container. The tokamak (an acronym from the Russian words for toroidal magnetic confinement) was developed in the mid-1960s by Soviet plasma physicists. It produces the highest plasma temperatures, densities, and confinement durations of any confinement device.

Plasma, in physics, is an electrically conducting medium in which there are roughly equal numbers of positively and negatively charged particles, produced when the atoms in a gas become ionized. It is sometimes referred to as the fourth state of matter, distinct from the solid, liquid, and gaseous states. A plasma may be produced in the laboratory by heating a gas to an extremely high temperature, which causes such vigorous collisions between its atoms and molecules that electrons are ripped free, yielding the requisite electrons and ions. A similar process occurs inside stars.

In the news: BBC

Solution: b.

Britannica: Between 1975 and 1979 the country was devastated by the reign of the Khmer Rouge, a rural communist guerrilla movement. During the Khmer Rouge’s period of power, at least 1.5 million Cambodians were killed or died, a monumental tragedy from which the country still suffers.

In the news (BBC): For the first time, two leaders of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia have been convicted of genocide.

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