Science and Technology Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 19)

The answer is the first satellite-based landing system approach on a commercial jet. News reports say it was an IndiGo A320 at Udaipur on 27 June 2026. PIB confirms the June 2026 first.

GAGAN is India’s indigenous Satellite-Based Augmentation System (SBAS), improving GPS accuracy and providing integrity information.

He served as Director-General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, from 1982 to 1988.

The Commission recommended MSP be set at least 50% above the weighted average cost of production (the ‘C2+50%’ formula).

Swaminathan worked with Norman Borlaug, adapting high-yield wheat varieties for Indian soil, climate, and pest conditions.

M.S. Swaminathan is known as the Father of India’s Green Revolution, for adapting high-yield wheat varieties to Indian conditions.

The Fiske-Subbarow method (1925) measured phosphorus in tissues and body fluids, laying groundwork for their later ATP discovery.

Harvard’s chemistry department, which had never granted tenure to a foreign-born scientist, denied him tenure after 17 years there.

Subbarow, with Cyrus Fiske at Harvard, co-discovered ATP’s role as the cell’s energy-carrying molecule, in 1929.

In 1975, she also became the first woman elected General President of the Indian Science Congress.

She became the first woman to win the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, India’s top science prize, in 1961.

She earned her doctorate under Prafulla Chandra Ray, at the University of Calcutta, in 1944.

In 1944, Chatterjee became the first Indian woman to earn a Doctorate of Science, from the University of Calcutta.

The correct answer is Jawaharlal Nehru. In 1951 he personally invited her to return and restructure the Botanical Survey of India. The ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri’ option is wrong because he was not Prime Minister in 1951. The ‘Indira Gandhi’ option is wrong because she is linked to the 1983 Silent Valley decision, not this invitation. The ‘Rajendra Prasad’ option is wrong because he was President, not Prime Minister. Memory hook: 1951, Nehru, Botanical Survey.

The correct answer is C.D. Darlington. He was then Director of the John Innes institution, and they published the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants in 1945. The ‘C.V. Raman’ option is wrong because Raman founded the Indian Academy of Sciences, not this atlas. The ‘Homi Bhabha’ option is wrong because he worked in physics. The ‘Meghnad Saha’ option is wrong because he also worked in physics. Memory hook: Atlas, 1945, Darlington.

The correct answer is the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore. She joined the Sugarcane Breeding Station there in 1934 and worked on cane that would thrive in India. The ‘Central Rice Research Institute’ option is wrong because her cane work was not at a rice institute. The ‘National Botanical Research Institute’ option is wrong because the sources place the cane work at Coimbatore. The ‘Indian Agricultural Research Institute’ option is wrong for the same reason. Memory hook: sweet cane, Coimbatore.

Janaki Ammal earned a PhD in botany from the University of Michigan in 1931, the first Indian woman to do so.

Mani set up stations to monitor solar radiation across India, work that later proved directly useful for assessing India’s solar energy potential.

The university cited her lack of a separate MSc qualification, despite her substantial published research record.

She researched under C.V. Raman at IISc between 1942 and 1945, publishing five solo papers, though Madras University later denied her a PhD on a technicality.

Mani joined the India Meteorological Department (IMD) in 1948, working in its Instruments Division, and retired as Deputy Director General in 1976.

Anna Mani is known as the ‘Weather Woman of India’, for standardising roughly 100 weather instruments during her career at IMD.

Chawla was born in Karnal, and earned her aeronautical engineering degree from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

Chawla died when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on mission STS-107, on 1 February 2003.