Daily Current Affairs Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
- Commissioning of India's first women fighter pilots into the fighter stream.
- Supreme Court interim order opening the National Defence Academy to women.
- First commissioning of women into the IAF under the Short Service Commission.
- Babita Puniya judgment granting Permanent Commission to women in the Army.
The correct sequence is SSC entry in 1991–92 (3) → first women fighter pilots in 2016 (1) → Babita Puniya judgment in 2020 (4) → NDA opened via the Kush Kalra interim order in 2021 (2). The common error is flipping 2 and 4: candidates assume the NDA was opened before the Permanent Commission ruling, but Babita Puniya (2020) precedes the Kush Kalra interim order (2021).
- Operation Sankalp, launched in 2019, involved the Indian Navy and Coast Guard escorting merchant ships in the Gulf of Oman / Persian Gulf region.
- The United States has ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982), whereas Iran has not.
- The Strait of Hormuz is a chokepoint connecting the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman.
- The Directorate General of Shipping's jurisdiction extends primarily over Indian-flagged vessels.
Statement 2 is the trap — the US has not ratified UNCLOS and Iran signed but did not ratify it, so the statement inverts the US position. Statement 1 (Operation Sankalp, 2019) is correct, and statement 3 is correct as the Strait of Hormuz links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and carries about a fifth of global oil trade. Statement 4 correctly captures India's limited legal leverage, since DG Shipping's writ runs mainly over Indian-flagged ships while the struck tankers flew flags of convenience.
Option (b) is correct. Option (a) is doubly wrong — Xuanzang studied at Nalanda and travelled during Harshavardhana's reign in the 7th century CE, not Vikramashila or Chandragupta II. Option (c) misfiles the programme, since a documentary or textual work belongs to the Memory of the World programme rather than World Heritage (which covers sites), and option (d) reverses the roles, as the nomination is China-led and India-supported.
- It is a twin-engine turboprop tactical transport of Soviet/Ukrainian origin, inducted by the IAF in 1984.
- The 2009 upgrade contract was signed with Russia's Antonov and stalled after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
- The AN-32 played a key role during the Kargil War (1999) and Operation Parakram (2001–02).
- The C-295 is being inducted to replace the IAF's legacy Avro (HS-748) fleet.
Statements 1, 3 and 4 are correct. Statement 2 carries a nationality error — the $400-million upgrade contract was with Ukraine's Antonov, not Russia's, and it was Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea that disrupted the Ukrainian supply chain and stalled the programme, after which India and Ukraine agreed to resume with Ukrainian-developed alternatives.
List-I
A. Chocolate-chip sea star
B. Grey foam-nest tree frog
C. Florida carpenter ant
D. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
List-II
1. Limb amputation on injured nestmates
2. Optic-fibre-like light focusing
3. Underground carbon-storing symbiotic network
4. Cooperative foam-nest building with split paternity
The sea star's calcite cone array acts like optic fibres (A-2); the foam-nest frog builds cooperative nests with DNA-confirmed split paternity (B-4); the Florida carpenter ant performs bite-amputation "surgery" on injured limbs (C-1); and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi form a vast underground carbon-sequestering symbiosis (D-3). The distractors swap A and B (the two physics-like optics versus the behavioural pair) or swap C and D (animal behaviour versus fungal ecology).
