UPSC Current Affairs Quiz : 2 April 2026

Solution: B

• Statement 1 is correct: BirdLife International has designated Kaziranga as an Important Bird Area (IBA) due to its high avian diversity, including both resident and migratory birds.
• Statement 2 is incorrect: Kaziranga lies in Assam, specifically in Golaghat and Nagaon districts, not Arunachal Pradesh.
• Statement 3 is correct: Kaziranga has diverse habitats, including tall grasslands, marshes, and tropical moist forests, supporting wide-ranging fauna.
• Statement 4 is correct: Geographically, Kaziranga lies at the intersection of the Eastern Himalayas and the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, making it ecologically strategic.

Solution: D

• Type 5 Diabetes, also referred to as Malnutrition-Related Diabetes Mellitus (MRDM), is primarily observed in young, underweight individuals from low- and middle-income countries, especially in Asia and Africa.
• Unlike Type 1 (autoimmune) or Type 2 (obesity-driven) diabetes, Type 5 results from severe protein-energy malnutrition, often during early developmental years.
• The pancreas produces insulin, but due to poor metabolic adaptation and nutrient reserves, standard insulin therapy can induce hypoglycemia.
• Treatment requires small insulin doses, oral drugs, and nutritional rehabilitation, especially protein and micronutrient supplementation.

Solution: C

• GPS spoofing is a cybersecurity threat in which false signals are transmitted to GPS receivers, causing them to miscalculate their location or time.
• Statement 1 is correct because aircraft, particularly during autopilot operations, heavily depend on GPS data for navigation. A spoofed signal could redirect them to erroneous coordinates, risking safety.
• Statement 2 is also correct since banking networks use GPS-based time synchronization for precise timestamping in financial transactions; spoofing can introduce subtle time drifts, leading to delays or mismatches.
• Statement 3 is valid as well; maritime vessels use GPS to navigate international waters, and a spoofed position can lead them to unknowingly violate territorial boundaries, potentially triggering diplomatic or military tensions.
• Statement 4 is incorrect — GPS spoofing deceives the end-user receiver, not the satellite infrastructure. Attackers cannot gain control over GPS satellites, as they are managed by secure ground control systems with no direct access via signal spoofing.

Solution: C

• Statement 1 is wrong — WHO was established on 7 April 1948 and not as a direct successor to the League of Nations Health Organization, although it inherited many of its health goals.
• Statement 2 is incorrect — the Director-General is elected by the World Health Assembly, not by the UNGA.
• Statement 3 is false — WHO is not an enforcement agency; it coordinates and advises but does not override national sovereignty, even during health emergencies. It cannot command health ministries.

About the World Health Organization (WHO):

• Established in: 1948, as a specialized agency of the United Nations focusing on international public health.
• Headquarters: Based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Core Objectives:

• Promote universal health coverage.
• Combat disease outbreaks, ensure health security, and advance public well-being.
• Support countries in policy development, emergency preparedness, and health system strengthening.

Governance Structure:

• World Health Assembly (WHA): Highest decision-making body; meets annually.
• Secretariat: Executes WHA’s decisions under the Director-General.
• Regional Offices: Six regional offices coordinate implementation (e.g., South-East Asia, Africa).

• Funding Mechanism:

• Assessed contributions: Mandatory membership dues.
• Voluntary contributions: Additional funding from countries, UN bodies, private sector, and philanthropies.

Solution: D

• TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) are application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) designed by Google, built explicitly to accelerate tensor operations that are foundational to deep learning models.
• Unlike GPUs, which are general-purpose parallel processors optimized originally for graphics rendering and later adapted for machine learning, TPUs are architected to handle matrix multiplications efficiently, with hardware-level support for tensor operations like dot products and activation functions.
• This makes TPUs significantly faster and more energy-efficient than GPUs in training and inference of large-scale models. Their specialization allows Google to optimize performance in services like Search and YouTube.

Key Differences between TPU vs GPU vs CPU:

Solution: C

• NaBFID is supervised by the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, and is exempt from regulatory liquidity norms like Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) to enable long-term lending.
• Statement 2 is correct: NaBFID can issue taxable and tax-free bonds, especially infrastructure bonds, under Section 54EC of the Income Tax Act.
• Statement 3 is also correct—it plays a catalytic role in financing projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), which aims to invest over ₹100 lakh crore by 2025.
• However, Statement 4 is incorrect—NaBFID does not engage in construction activity; it is a financier, not an executing agency.

About NaBFID (National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development):

• What it is: A Development Finance Institution (DFI) dedicated to funding long-term infrastructure projects across India.
• Established under: NaBFID Act, 2021.
• Regulated by: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as an All-India Financial Institution (AIFI).

Objectives:

• Fill gaps in long-term non-recourse infrastructure finance.
• Support growth of India’s bond and derivatives markets.
• Accelerate sustainable economic development.
• Strengthen the ecosystem for project financing in clean energy, transport, and water.

Key Features:

• Capital base to be scaled to ₹1 trillion with institutional support.
• Focus on medium to long-term funds (1–5+ years).
• Plans joint research, workshops, and capacity building with global partners like NDB.
• NaBFID promotes public-private partnerships (PPPs) and ensures financial viability of infrastructure projects.

Solution: C

• Statement 1 is incorrect: LiDAR is an optical remote sensing technology that uses laser pulses to measure distances to Earth’s surface. It cannot penetrate below the surface to detect groundwater flow, which requires methods like Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) or seismic imaging. Laser light is scattered or absorbed in opaque mediums like soil or rock, making subsurface detection impossible for LiDAR.
• Statement 2 is incorrect: LiDAR is an active sensor, meaning it generates its own laser light source. This allows it to operate regardless of sunlight, enabling day or night use, unlike passive sensors that depend on reflected sunlight.
• Statement 3 is incorrect: LiDAR does not use radar frequencies. It operates in the near-infrared to green spectrum, whereas radar systems like SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) work in microwave bands.

Solution: C

• Statement 1 is incorrect: GES operates by converting gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy, which is independent of ambient temperature. Unlike thermal storage systems (e.g., molten salts) that require specific thermal conditions, GES functions efficiently regardless of external temperature.
• Statement 2 is correct: Gravity Energy Storage (GES) systems use mechanical methods—such as lifting and lowering massive weights—to store and release energy. Since they contain no chemical reactions or fluids, they experience minimal degradation over time. This contributes to low maintenance needs, making them cost-effective and reliable over decades-long operational lifespans, unlike batteries which degrade after thousands of charge-discharge cycles.
• Statement 3 is correct: GES systems are designed for long-duration discharge, typically ranging from hours to a full day, making them ideal for grid stabilization. They can store excess energy generated during periods of high renewable production (e.g., solar or wind) and release it during peak demand or low production periods, ensuring grid reliability.

Solution: C

• Statement 1 is incorrect: Although neutrinos have spin, they are electrically neutral and therefore not influenced by electromagnetic fields. Unlike charged particles (such as electrons or protons), neutrinos do not interact via the electromagnetic force, which is why they can pass through entire planets with minimal interaction.
• Statement 2 is correct: Supernovae are among the most prolific sources of neutrinos in the universe. In a stellar explosion, nearly 99% of the energy is released in the form of neutrinos, making them key indicators of such cataclysmic events.

Statement 3 is correct: Geoneutrinos, a specific type of neutrino emitted from radioactive decay in the Earth’s interior, offer scientists a non-invasive way to study the mantle’s heat flow, radioactive composition, and thermal history — critical for understanding Earth’s internal structure.

Solution: A

Only Statements 2 and 3 are correct.

• Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) are notified around Protected Areas like national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to act as buffer or transition zones, minimizing external pressures on core ecosystems.
• Statement 1 is incorrect because the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 deals specifically with the regulation of forest land diversion for non-forest purposes and does not cover ESZs.
• Statement 2 is correct. ESZs function as “shock absorbers”, providing a graded buffer between ecologically critical areas and zones of lesser protection. They are essential for maintaining ecological balance and ensuring sustainable development in adjoining landscapes.
• Statement 3 is also correct. Under Section 3(2)(v) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the central government is empowered to declare ESZs, laying down measures to protect the environment. These include restrictions on industrial operations, waste disposal, mining, and construction.