Science and Technology Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 13)

On 31 January 2015, the same day Avinash Chander’s DRDO term ended, DRDO test-fired the Agni-V missile for the third time.

Avinash Chander served as the 11th Director General of DRDO, from June 2013 to January 2015.

Avinash Chander, as Agni Programme Director, oversaw the successful Agni-IV test on 19 September 2012.

Avinash Chander is regarded as a chief architect of India’s Agni series of ballistic missiles.

Sreedharan received the Padma Shri in 2001, followed by the higher Padma Vibhushan in 2008.

Sreedharan led the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) from the mid-1990s to December 2011, completing sections on time or ahead of schedule.

The Konkan Railway, spanning about 760 km with 93 tunnels and over 150 bridges, was completed in seven years under Sreedharan’s leadership.

A cyclone damaged the Pamban Bridge, connecting Rameswaram to the mainland, in December 1964. Sreedharan restored it in 46 days.

E. Sreedharan is known as India’s ‘Metro Man,’ for successfully leading major railway and metro projects.

Sen received the Padma Shri in 2001, followed by the higher Padma Bhushan in 2013.

Sen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1998, nominated by Stephen Hawking.

Sen joined TIFR, Mumbai, in 1988, then moved to the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, in 1997.

Sen was among the first recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012, for showing that all string theories are different limits of one underlying theory.

Sen’s 1994 paper on S-duality (strong-weak coupling duality) changed the direction of string theory research.

The network operates under India’s ‘One Nation, One Time’ initiative. It targets sectors including banking, telecommunications, power systems, transportation, and digital governance.

Officials completed a live verification test sending secure IST signals between RRSL Bengaluru and NSE Chennai. This confirmed the network’s readiness for time-critical sectors like financial markets.

The network was jointly built by the Department of Consumer Affairs, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, and ISRO. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi commissioned it on 16 July 2026 at RRSL Bengaluru.

The finding clarifies how plasma and magnetic fields move through the Sun, helping explain what drives solar storms that can disrupt satellites, GPS, communications, and power grids.

The research was led by Srinjana Routh of ARIES, with collaborators from PRL, IIT Delhi, IIST, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The flow was traced roughly 3,000 km above the Sun’s visible surface, moving at 5-15 metres per second.

Researchers used 27 years of data from Japan’s Nobeyama Radioheliograph, which has observed the Sun daily at 17 GHz since 1992.

The ‘magnetic tree’ model proposes that magnetic structures high in the Sun’s upper atmosphere remain connected to deeper layers below the surface, much like a tree’s branches connect to its roots.

One of Pitroda’s earliest patents, from 1975, was for an electronic diary, an early forerunner of modern handheld digital devices.

Pitroda chaired the National Knowledge Commission from 2005 to 2009, an advisory body on education and knowledge infrastructure.

Pitroda’s six Technology Missions covered telecommunications, drinking water, literacy, immunisation, dairy development, and oilseeds — not space exploration.