Science and Technology Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 20)

Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian-born woman in space, launching on STS-87 in November 1997.

Sharma joined the Indian Air Force in 1970, and flew 21 combat missions in a MiG-21 during the 1971 Bangladesh war.

India became the 14th nation to send a person into space, with Rakesh Sharma’s 1984 Soyuz T-11 mission.

Sharma replied ‘Saare Jahan Se Achha’ (‘better than the whole world’), quoting a line from Allama Iqbal’s famous poem.

Sharma flew as part of the joint ISRO-Soviet Intercosmos programme, launching aboard Soyuz T-11 to the Salyut 7 space station.

Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space, launching aboard Soyuz T-11 on 3 April 1984.

AI data centres in India are projected to add 26.3 GW of new electricity demand by 2031-32. More than half of India’s data centres already sit in water-stressed regions, raising real resource concerns.

Google’s Visakhapatnam hub, its largest AI hub outside the United States, is being built with AdaniConneX and Airtel.

Microsoft committed $17.5 billion, its largest investment anywhere in Asia. AWS committed $12.7 billion through 2030, with $8.3 billion of that in Maharashtra.

Cumulative private investment commitments for AI data centres in India now exceed $126 billion, spread across Microsoft, AWS, Adani, Google, Tata, and others.

A hyperscale data centre is built at massive scale, usually to serve cloud or AI workloads for many customers at once.

NCPOR was established in 1998 as NCAOR, and it functions as an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

The Antarctic Act requires an environmental impact assessment before any permit is granted, along with a waste management plan.

The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), in Goa, runs India’s Antarctic Programme.

India launched its First Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica in 1981, reaching the continent in January 1982.

Bt cotton avoided much of Bt brinjal’s controversy partly because cotton isn’t a food crop, so food-safety objections carried far less weight.

Bt cotton remains India’s only approved commercial transgenic crop, carrying a bacterial gene for built-in insect resistance.

GEAC clearance is mandatory before any GM crop’s environmental release, and it functions under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Make in India cast a broad net across all manufacturing; PLI and iDEX then targeted specific strategic sectors within it.

The answer is the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO). iDEX began in April 2018 to link startups with the armed forces. DIO runs it. By March 2026 it had engaged 676 startups and signed 551 contracts. Memory hook: iDEX innovates, DIO delivers.

PLI ties incentives directly to actual production output across 14 sectors, not just investment promises, with a total outlay of about ₹1.97 lakh crore.

Atmanirbhar Bharat was launched during the COVID-19 crisis, pushing indigenous production as a strategic priority.

Make in India launched in 2014, aiming to make India a global manufacturing and innovation hub across 25 key sectors.

The UN General Assembly adopted the CTBT on 10 September 1996, after India had blocked its adoption by consensus at the Conference on Disarmament earlier that year.

India argues the CTBT bans testing without committing the recognised nuclear states to a time-bound disarmament path — the same core objection India raises against the NPT.