Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – December 14

Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) constituted the Political Council and the Executive Council of the NCA. The Executive Council gives its opinion to the Political Council, which authorises a nuclear attack when deemed necessary. While the Executive Council is chaired by the National Security Advisor (NSA),the Political Council is chaired by the Prime Minister.

The Nuclear Command Authority (NCA) of India is the authority responsible for command, control and operational decisions regarding India’s nuclear weapons programme.

The Strategic Forces Command (SFC) which forms part of the National Command Authority (NCA) has been added to the Second Schedule of the Right to Information Act (RTI), 2005. In this regard, Union Government has issued a notification mentioning SFC has been brought under sub-section (2) of Section 24 of the RTI. The Section 24 of the RTI exempts security and intelligence establishments from its purview.

All the statements are correct. Ballistic missiles follow an arc-like trajectory and are launched from the land or sea. They usually carry a nuclear warhead and are very heavy. They rely on Earth’s gravity to fly down once launched. They have much larger range.

Cruise missiles can also be launched from air and fly within Earth’s atmosphere

They have their own engines and wings to strike the target. They can be supersonic or sub-sonic and are highly accurate. They usually carry conventional warheads although some cruise missiles can also be equipped with nuclear warheads.

Both Agni and Prithvi series missiles are ballistic missiles.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Plans have two different types of tissues transports the minerals, water and food from the roots to the leaves. These tissues are called vascular tissues namely Xylem and Phloem used for transportation. These tissues are from vascular bundles and work together as a unit.

Statement 2 and 3 are correct. The xylem and phloem tissues work efficiently to transport food, minerals, nutrients and water. However, the movement of xylem is unidirectional, which means from roots to upper parts of the plan. While, the movement of phloem is bidirectional, which is the inverse to the xylem.

Phloem is also important as the xylem tissues for vascular system of plants. The main activity of this tissue is to transport nutrients and food from leaves to other growing parts of plants.

Statement 3 is incorrect. In photosynthesis, sugar is made by using carbon dioxide and water.

Statement 1 and 2 are correct. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, some bacteria and some protistans use the energy from sunlight to produce glucose from carbon dioxide and water. This glucose can be converted into pyruvate which releases adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by cellular respiration. Oxygen is also formed. For most plants, rate of photosynthesis does not increase at higher temperatures. Fall in rate of photosynthesis takes place when temperature rises above 40 degree.

INSV Tarini is Indian Navy’s second ocean going sailboat. It on voyage of the first all-woman crew in Indian history to attempt circumnavigation. The voyage titled Navika Sagar Parikrama began from Goa in September 2017 and is to be completed in March 2018.

Learning: https://www.indiannavy.nic.in/content/insv-tarini-inducted-all-woman-crew-scheduled-sail-her-around-globe-commencing-august-2017

White shipping information refers to exchange of relevant advance information on the identity and movement of commercial non-military merchant vessels.

All the above statements are correct.

A Geo Stationary orbit( Also called geostationary earth orbit- GEO) is a geo synchronous orbit, directly above the earth’s equator (0 degree latitude), with a period equals to earths rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero. An object in a geo stationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to the ground observers. Communication satellites and weather satellites are often given geo stationary orbits , so that the satellite antenna’s that communicate with them do not need to move to track them, but can be pointed permanently at the position in the sky where they stay. Due to the constant 0 degree latitude and circularity of geostationary orbit, satellites in GEO differ in location by longitude only.