General Knowledge (Part-2) (CDS-Solved Paper)

India won the  2017 Women's Hockey Asia Cup after beating China in the final.The tournament was held from 28th October to 5th November, 2017 in  Kakamigahara, Gifu,  Japan. The winner of this tournament qualified for the  2018 World Cup.

Nirbhay  is a long range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile  designed and developed in India by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Its operational range is 1000-1500km. The missile can be launched from multiple platforms and is capable of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.

The Astra  is an active radar homing Beyond-Visual-Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) developed by the DRDO, India. Akash is a medium-range mobile surface-to-air  missile defense system developed by the DRDO.

In exercise of powers conferred under Section 161 (2) of the Electricity Act, the Ministry of Power, Government of India, has constituted a committee to investigate the causes of the accident that occurred on 1st  November, 2017 at the Feroze Gandhi Thermal Power Plant Ltd.
(Unit VI: 500MW) in Uttar Pradesh. The committee will be headed by Shri PD Siwal.

Indian short film ‘The School Bag’ was directed by Dheeraj Jindal. It tells a story based in Pakistan and has won the Best Short Film Award at the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal (SAFFM).

India has 55 million potential workers between the ages of 15 and 35 years in rural areas. At the same time, the world is expected to face a shortage of 57 million workers by 2020.

This presents a historic opportunity for India to transform its demographic surplus into a demographic dividend.

The Ministry of Rural Development implements DDU-GKY to drive this national agenda for inclusive growth, by developing skills and productive capacity of the rural youth from poor families.

DDU-GKY bridges this gap by funding training projects benchmarked to global standards, with an emphasis on placement, retention, career progression and foreign placement. Hence, all the statement are correct except option (a).

National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC) is a Central Sector Scheme setup in the year 2015-16. The objective of the fund is to assist State and Union Territories that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting the cost of adaptation.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has been appointed as National Implementing Entity (NIE) for this fund. Hence, option (c) is not correct.

The first BRICS Summit, after the inclusion of South Africa was held at Sanya in 2011. South Africa officially became a member nation on 24th December, 2010, after being formally invited by the BRIC countries to join the group.

The group was renamed BRICS–with the ‘S’ standing for South Africa–to reflect the group’s expanded membership. In April, 2011, the President of South Africa,  Jacob Zuma, attended the 2011 BRICS Summit  in Sanya, China, as a permanent member.

Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched eBiz, India’s first Government-to-Business (G2B) portal which aims at transforming and developing a conducive business environment in the country.

The portal which has been developed by Infosys is a Public-Private-Partnership model will provide a one-stop shop for providing G2B services to investors and business communities in India.

The portal will also help in reducing the delays and complexity in obtaining information and services. Hence, option (b) is correct.

The olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world. They inhabit in warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

These turtles, along with their cousin the Kemps ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.

The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the olive-ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.

The majority of olive ridleys nest in two or three large groups near Gahirmatha in Odisha. Hence, statements (1), (2) are correct and statement (3) is incorrect.

SWIFT stands for the  Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications founded in  Brussels  in 1973.

It is a messaging network that financial institutions use to securely transmit information and instructions through a standardised system of codes.