UPSC Current Affairs Quiz : 18 April 2026

Solution: A

• Statement-I is correct as the 1969 Ordinance transformed the banking landscape by bringing 85-90% of the banking business under government control, effectively making bank employees public servants. This allowed the state to control the “commanding heights” of the economy, a key socialist objective of that era.
• Statement-II is also correct and provides the underlying rationale. Before 1969, private banks were often criticized for being “class-based” rather than “mass-based,” focusing credit on large industrial houses while neglecting agriculture and small-scale sectors. The concept of “Social Control” was introduced to make banks more responsive to the public interest.
• Since the private ownership structure made the implementation of social control difficult, the government opted for full nationalisation to ensure that public savings were mobilized for national development and Five-Year Plans. Thus, the need for social control and sectoral credit redirection directly explains why the state took ownership of the banks.

Solution: B

• Statement 1 is incorrect because the typical anomaly for a Marine Heatwave is 1°C to 3°C above the long-term average, not 10°C, which would be catastrophic and far exceed recorded levels.
• Statement 2 is correct; MHWs form when winds weaken, reducing evaporation and preventing the mixing of warm surface water with cooler, deeper layers. This leads to stratification, where a thin layer of surface water traps solar heat.
• Statement 3 is correct; MHWs act as fuel for storms, leading to Rapid Intensification (RI), making cyclones 60% more likely to become billion-dollar disasters.
• Statement 4 is incorrect; while some warm-water species may expand their range, cold-water species like salmon face mass die-offs, making them “losers” in the context of ocean warming. MHWs also trigger harmful algal blooms and the destruction of kelp forests, which are vital carbon sinks, leading to a broader ecosystem collapse.

Solution: D

• Zambia is a landlocked country in south-central Africa with a distinctive butterfly shape.
• To its west lies Angola. To the north, it is bordered by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (separated by the Congo Pedicle).
• To the northeast is Tanzania. To the east is Malawi, and to the southeast is Mozambique. To the south, it shares borders with Zimbabwe (separated by the Zambezi River), Botswana, and Namibia (the Caprivi Strip).
• South Africa does not share a land border with Zambia, as they are separated by Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Solution: D

• The CAFE-III norms regulate the weighted average fuel consumption of an automaker’s entire fleet rather than individual models. The Super Credit Scheme is a policy tool used by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) to “nudge” manufacturers toward greener technologies. Instead of a simple one-to-one count, sales of high-efficiency vehicles like Battery EVs (3.0 multiplier) or Plug-in Hybrids (2.5 multiplier) are weighted more heavily.

This effectively lowers the calculated average CO2 emissions for the manufacturer, making it easier to comply with the strict target of 78.9 g/km. It is a market-based mechanism that rewards innovation and the adoption of advanced technologies like hybrids and flex-fuels without requiring direct cash subsidies, thereby aligning the automobile industry’s profit motives with India’s national climate goals.

Solution: A

• Statement-I is correct; research shows that cyclones over MHWs result in 60% more billion-dollar disasters due to their increased power.
• Statement-II is correct; MHWs form when winds weaken, preventing evaporation and causing the top layer of the ocean to become thin and trapped. This layer absorbs solar radiation rapidly, creating a heat dome.
• Statement-III is also correct; because the warm water cannot mix with the deeper, colder water (stratification), the ocean surface remains unusually hot. This high-octane fuel (thermal energy) is transferred to the cyclone, allowing it to intensify rapidly, stall longer over land, and decay more slowly.

Both the formation of the heat dome (II) and the lack of vertical cooling (III) are the direct physical mechanisms that provide the energy for the rapid intensification mentioned in Statement-I.

Solution: D

• PAIMANA (Project Assessment, Infrastructure Monitoring & Analytics for Nation-building) is the underlying framework of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI)’s revamped Integrated Performance Monitoring Dashboard. It represents a shift from the older OCMS-2006 system by using dynamic analytics and automated assessments. It tracks 116 specific indicators across 11 key sectors, such as Ports, Power, and Roads.

The framework is significant because it allows the government to identify bottlenecks early, preventing cost overruns and delays. It specifically focuses on multi-dimensional metrics like quality and affordability, ensuring that infrastructure development translates into tangible benefits for the public, such as better train punctuality or increased network penetration in telecommunications.

Solution: B

• Statement 1 is incorrect because nationalisation actually increased the power of the RBI and the Finance Ministry over the day-to-day operations of the banking system.
• Statement 2 is correct; one of the explicit aims was to prevent the concentration of economic power that occurred when banks were owned by industrial houses.
• Statement 3 is correct; by directing credit to the agriculture sector, nationalisation provided farmers with the capital needed to buy fertilizers and seeds for the Green Revolution.

Statement 4 is correct; it represented a fundamental shift from “class banking” (serving the elite) to “mass banking” (serving the general public, rural areas, and the self-employed). This transition made bank credit a tool for social and economic engineering rather than just a profit-seeking venture.

Solution: B

• Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) create unusually warm habitats that are ideal for toxic algae. These Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) produce toxins such as domoic acid, which can accumulate in shellfish and move up the food chain. This poses a significant threat to marine life and human health, often forcing the closure of key commercial fisheries.
• This is a critical economic implication of MHWs, as seen in coastal economies. Beyond supercharging storms, MHWs lead to “biodiversity losers” like cold-water salmon and the collapse of kelp forests. Thus, domoic acid is a biological marker of the severe ecological stress caused by prolonged ocean warming events.

Solution: C

• In Coal Gasification, the goal is to produce syngas, but the process also yields several valuable or manageable by-products.
• Slag (Statement 1) is a glass-like solid residue left after the coal’s mineral matter is melted at high temperatures. Unlike the “fly ash” produced in traditional combustion, slag is non-leachable and is widely used in construction and road building.
• Elemental Sulfur (Statement 2) is recovered during the syngas cleaning process. Because sulfur is removed before the gas is burned, it can be captured in its pure form and sold for industrial use, such as in fertilizer production.
• Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (Statement 4) is also a by-product. However, in a gasification plant, the CO2 is produced at high pressure and in a concentrated stream, making it much easier and cheaper to capture for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) compared to traditional plants.
• Fly ash (Statement 3) is typically associated with traditional coal combustion (burning coal in air), where fine particles are carried away by flue gases. While some particulate matter is filtered in gasification, “slag” is the characteristic solid by-product of the high-temperature gasification process.

Solution: A

• The first match is correct. Nuclear fusion uses light isotopes such as deuterium and tritium as fuel, while nuclear fission involves heavy elements like uranium-235 or plutonium-239. This distinction arises from the basic principle that fusion combines light nuclei, whereas fission splits heavy nuclei.
• The second match is also correct. Fusion releases significantly higher energy per unit mass compared to fission. This is because fusion involves a greater mass defect and hence a larger energy release according to Einstein’s mass–energy equivalence. Although fission produces substantial energy, it is relatively lower than fusion when compared on a per unit mass basis.
• The third match is incorrect because it reverses the actual risks. In reality, nuclear fission reactors carry a risk of meltdown due to uncontrolled chain reactions and overheating, as seen in major nuclear accidents. Fusion, on the other hand, does not pose a meltdown risk because it requires extremely high temperature and pressure conditions to sustain the reaction. If these conditions are disturbed, the reaction stops automatically, making it inherently safer.