[Mission 2024] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 13 December 2023

Solution: b)

Statement 2 is incorrect.

What is the aim of the FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act)?

FEMA came in 1999 as a successor to the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act or FERA of 1973, with changing economic conditions in a post-liberalisation India. 

So what changed with the FEMA?

Reflecting the major change in mindset was the decision to make offences or violations under this law a civil offence rather than criminal one, and making transactions that are part of the current account, such as travelling abroad for tourism, education, etc., a matter of right while putting in place restrictions on the capital account.

Solution: b)

Option 1, 2 and 5 is correct.

Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary situated on the northern boundary of Mandsaur and Nimach districts in Madhya Pradesh.

Parambikulam Tiger Reserve is a protected area lying in Palakkad district and Thrissur district of Kerala.

The Mukundra Tiger Reserve (TR) is located near Kota, Rajasthan.

Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is located in Pilibhit district of Uttar Pradesh and was notified as a tiger reserve in 2014.

Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary is located on the foothills of the Himalayas, between the Teesta and Mahananda rivers. It is situated in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal.

Solution: a)

Only Statement 3 is correct.

The typical impacts of El Niño include: increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the southern United States, the Horn of Africa and central Asia. It can also cause severe droughts over Australia, Indonesia, and parts of southern Asia. During summer in the northern hemisphere, El Niño’s warm water can fuel hurricanes in the central/eastern Pacific Ocean and it can hinder hurricane formation in the Atlantic Basin.

El Niño might bring respite from the drought in the Horn of Africa and other La Niña-related impacts but could also trigger more extreme weather and climate events.

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 amended Section 5 of the erstwhile Act to allow 26 weeks of paid leave after childbirth, although only to biological mothers.

The amendment also inserted Section 5(4) which said that adoptive or surrogate mothers legally adopting a child below three months will be entitled to a maternity benefit period of 12 weeks from the date the child is handed over to the mother.

The Act is applicable to all establishments employing 10 or more than 10 persons in Factories, Mines, Plantation, Shops & Establishments and other entities. Establishments employing 50 or more employees are also required to provide crèche facilities, either separately or along with common facilities within a prescribed distance.

Solution: c)

Conventional computers store and process information in bits. A bit is the smallest unit of data that computers can handle. It can take just two values — 0 or 1 — but only one of these at a time. A zero would result in a certain set of instructions to be carried out, while a one would lead to a different set of instructions. All data in computers, including text, pictures and videos, are broken down into a sequence of zeros and ones for purposes of storage and processing, and can be reconstructed from these.

A two-bit system in a conventional computer can have four states — (0,0), (0,1), (1,0) and (1,1) — but again only one at a time. To go through each of these four states, the computer has to take four steps. A more powerful computer can speed up the process, but it would still have to go through the four steps.

This is where the quantum computer starts to do things differently. Superposition makes it possible for the quantum bit, or a qubit as it is called, to exist in both 0 and 1 state simultaneously. Counter-intuitive as it may appear, it can be 60 per cent 0 and 40 per cent 1 at the same time, or any other combination. Similarly, the two-qubit system can be in all four states at the same time — some part (0,0), some part (0,1), some part (1,0) and remaining (1,1). What it means is that a quantum computer can go through these four states in one step, unlike the conventional computer that requires four steps.

As more qubits are added, the processing capability of the quantum computer increases exponentially. With just a few qubits, say 50, quantum computers can outpace traditional computers that perform a couple of billion operations per second.

Apart from the challenges in building a quantum computer — requirements of very cold temperatures and extreme isolation — there is a significant risk of errors. The parallel processing happening in superposition states all lead to different results, only one of which is correct or desirable. In other situations, when the superposition breaks down, the final outcome is randomly selected from the range of possibilities.