Science & Technology

Answer : In quantum statistics, Bose–Einstein Statistics (or more colloquially B–E Statistics) is one of two possible ways in which a collection of non-interacting indistinguishable particles may occupy a set of available discrete energy states, at thermodynamic equilibrium. The aggregation of particles in the same state, which is a characteristic of particles obeying Bose–Einstein statistics, accounts for the cohesive streaming of laser light and the frictionless creeping of super fluid helium. The theory of this behaviour was developed (1924–25) by Satyendra Nath Bose, who recognized that a collection of identical and indistinguishable particles can be distributed in this way. The idea was later adopted and extended by Albert Einstein in collaboration with Bose.

The Bose–Einstein statistics apply only to those particles not limited to single occupancy of the same state—that is, particles that do not obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle restrictions. Such particles have integer values of spin and are named bosons, after the statistics that correctly describe their behaviour. There must also be no significant interaction between the particles.

It revolutionized the field of physics in the following way:

• Higgs Boson: The Higgs Boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics, produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory.
• Superconductivity: It is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic flux fields occurring in certain materials, called superconductors, when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature. Atomic Clocks work on this principle.

Bose-Einstein Statistics still under research and helping to explore various new fields and prove various theories.

Answer : Biotechnology is a broad discipline in which biological processes, organisms, cells or cellular components are exploited to develop new technologies. New tools and products developed by biotechnologists are useful in research, agriculture, industry and the clinic.

Growing at a faster pace, in comparison with the previous years, the Indian biotech industry witnessed year on year growth of 57.14 per cent in financial year 2016; the total industry size stood at US$ 11 billion by financial year 2016.

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) established under the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1986 was the major instrument of action for developing biotechnology sector.

Biotechnology utilization is almost in every field such as:

• Agriculture and allied sectors: High yield variety of crops, genetically modified crops, bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides, etc.
• Health sector: Stem cells, gene therapy, etc. can be used to treat a variety of illnesses like cancer.
• Environment: Bio-fuels, biodegradable plastics, green remediation techniques for wastewater, etc. can enhance the goals of sustainable development.
• New fields such as nano-biotechnology and bioinformatics can give edge to India.

Biotechnology actively benefitted biopharma industry by providing opportunity to discover new medicines and technology which suits India and other developing countries’ demand. This help in development of indigenous industry of India.

For further development, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in collaboration with World Bank, for accelerating discovery research to early development of Biopharmaceuticals, has started the program named - Innovate in India (I3) - an industry- academia collaborative mission.

Answer : India’s dependence on imported energy resources and the inconsistent reform of the energy sector are challenges to satisfying rising demand. The 2017 edition of BP’s Energy Outlook projected India’s energy consumption rising by 129% between 2015 and 2035. It predicts that the country’s energy mix will evolve very slowly to 2035, with fossil fuels accounting for 86% of demand in 2035, compared with a global average of 78% (down from 86% today).

Electricity production using nuclear energy commenced in October 1969 when the two reactors at Tarapur were put into service. India now has twenty-one reactor units in service.

India adopted pressurized heavy-water reactor (PHWR) design in 1964, since it required less natural uranium than the BWRs, needed no enrichment, and could be built with the country’s engineering capacity at that time – pressure tubes rather than a heavy pressure vessel being involved. Its power reactors to the mid-1990s had some of the world’s lowest capacity factors, reflecting the technical difficulties of the country’s isolation, but rose impressively from 60% in 1995 to 85% in 2001-02. Then in 2008-10 the load factors dropped due to shortage of uranium fuel.

Nuclear Energy: Benefits for India

• Emit low greenhouse gases compared to other non-renewable source of energy such as coal, petrol, etc.
• Indigenously developed nuclear power hence low cost of production.
• Availability of large reserve of Thorium and natural Uranium.
• It requires small compared to other non-renewable based source of energy.
• The Indo-USA nuclear deal (123 Agreement) and India’s waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group will help to import world class nuclear reactor and unhindered nuclear fuel.
• India has established small fast breeder reactor which will help to effectively utilize the available fuels in the country.

Issues and Fears related to Nuclear Power

• Most of the region comes under the seismic zone-4 and 5 hence danger of severe earthquake.
• Release of hot water in nearby seas impacting livelihood of fishermen in coastal areas such as Kalpakkam nuclear power plant.
• Psychological fear among the citizens about ill effect of nuclear power plant.
• Management of nuclear waste will be difficult if produced in large scale.

For further securing and reducing gap in demand-supply of energy, government is constructing Twenty-one nuclear reactors with a total installed capacity of 15,700 MW which will be completed 2024-25.

Answer : India is much advanced in health research and advanced treatment on which Medical tourism industry of India is flourishing in the world. India has advanced in stem cell therapy also which has many advantages over other treatments.

Stem cell therapy is the use of undifferentiated stem cells to treat or to prevent any disease or condition. Stem cells can also be used as a renewable source of replacement cells and tissue for damaged or diseased one. Bone marrow is widely used in stem cell therapy and in some therapies stem cells are also derived from umbilical cord and blood.

New research is also available to make induced stem cells from normal or differentiated cells e.g. iPS cells or Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell. Now, research is going on to produce organs from the stem cells with some success.

Various advantages of stem cell therapy over other treatments:

• First, it may treat many of the untreatable and difficult to treat diseases.
• It can treat many types of cancers like Leukaemia with efficiency which is not there in normal treatment which suffers from metastasis and recurrence. Further, it does not have side-effects that are usually associated with radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
• In normal treatments of a cancer, many healthy cells are also destroyed. But that is not the case with Stem Cell Therapy.
• It can give an efficient cure to genetic diseases like thalassemia which, at present; is not cured but only managed with regular blood transfusion.
• As the stem cell can be derived from the patient herself so there is no immunological rejection from the patient’s body and no lifelong suffering from immunosuppressant therapy.
• Stem cell therapy in future has potential to completely do away with organ donation and no donor will be required.
• Stem cells banks are coming up which can take care of patients during emergency and accidents.
• It can cure damaged cornea and severe burns with better efficiency and lesser side-effects.

Answer : To critically examine huge success of unmanned space mission but lesser achievements by India in manned space mission, one aspect must be kept in our mind. That aspect is: Indian space mission is driven by motive of large socio-economic benefits rather than elite scientific achievements only. So, the obstacles to manned space mission should not be looked as inability.

Various obstacles to India’s manned space mission

First of all, the manned space mission has very limited socio-economic benefits for poor Indians. The obstacles should be seen in this scenario. Otherwise, if India can send Mars Mission in her maiden attempt, which was not achieved by any other country in their 1st attempt, then why can’t India develop manned mission, which was achieved by other, many decades ago? So, it is not our inability but our priorities which are causing obstacles which are:

• Undeveloped re-entry technology which is essential for manned space mission to return safely.
• Crew escape system is not developed causing technological obstacle.
• Environmental control and life support system is not developed.
• More powerful rockets beyond GSLV MK-II are required.
• Various training facility is lacking causing obstacles like zero gravity simulator, human centrifuge machines and training facility for astronauts.

Although manned space mission is not priority for India, it has some achievements to its credit. These include ISRO’s success of CARE (Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment), RLVTD (Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator). DRDO’s Aerobic Vehicle for Transatmospheric Hypersonic Aerospace TrAnspotation (AVTAR) is also at conceptual stage. Although AVTAR is not for manned mission but it has potential to contribute to re-entry technology which is essential for manned space mission.

Successful tests of various versions of GSLV and cryogenic engine is also a great leap towards manned mission.

The critical examination reveals that India is not much behind in manned space mission, it has not ventured into it only because it has different priorities.

Answer : Indian government understood the importance of nuclear science and technology very early. Despite being a poor country, India pursued this field due to its diverse benefits in medicine, Particle science, archaeology, nuclear power, agriculture, industry, etc.

Growth and development of nuclear science and technology in India:

• Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha was the pioneer for India’s Nuclear development. In 1954, Department of Atomic Energy was set up by him. BARC was also set up in 1954.
• Development of nuclear science and technology was very fast. Cobalt 60 and Iodine 131 isotopes were started to be used in medicine. India developed proficiency in radiation oncology to treat cancer. Soon, the nuclear science started attracting private sector’s interest also. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and many other also contributed to it. Now nuclear medicine is taught as a stream of medicine in colleges.
• The nuclear science was also developed to benefit agriculture. The irradiation is used to develop quality seeds and also to increase shelf life of fruits and vegetables. BARC also contributes in this direction. Radiocarbon dating is used in archaeology. Birabal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany has developed in this field significantly.
• Apart from above, India started to develop nuclear reaction for civilian use. Tarapur was the initiation now which has reached Kudankulam and and many more. Thereby India has become important country for civil nuclear power. India developed her own 3 stated nuclear technology in which thorium based reactor technology is a very revolutionary concept.
• Indian nuclear science and technology was not limited to above but it ensured security perspective also. India showed technological achievement in 1974.
• But, Indian nuclear programme is peaceful and India excelled in other advanced application also like Plasma technology through ADITYA Tokamak. India is not behind in particle nuclear physics also. India is an associate member of CERN, which is preparing for neutrino research. So, Indian Nuclear science and technology is excelling in the newer dimensions of Nuclear research also.

Advantage of fast breeder reactor programme in India

A prototype fast breeder reactor is taking shape at Kalpakkam in India. It has several advantages:

1. It generates more fuel than it consumes.
2. It runs on closed fuel cycle, hence there it does not need large quantity of fuel material for the annual extern feed and thus generates very less waste. So, there is no need of large capacity storage for nuclear waste.
3. It uses fuel many times till spent fuel contain only short-lived fission products hence it is energy-efficient.
4. In future, it can be developed to use thorium which is abundant in Indian Monazite sand.

This is one of the most advanced nuclear reactor of world.

Answer : With an overall installed capacity of 330 GW, India has the fifth largest power generation port folio in the world. In that, renewable energy sources account for 57GW (17.27%) of the total energy basket.

• Among the renewable energy sources, wind energy accounts for 56.2%, solar energy 21.75%, small hydro power 7.6%, biomass power 14.23% and waste to power 0.19%.
• India aims to achieve 175GW of renewable power by 2022 of which 100GW will be solar power, 60GW from wind, 10GW from biomass power and 5GW from small hydro power.
• National Programme on Light Emitting Diodes (Prakash Path) was launched by Government of India in January 2015 with the aim of replacing 77 crore conventional bulbs and 3.5 crore conventional streetlights with LEDs.

LED has the following advantages:

• Energy efficient
• Lower carbon footprint
• Cost effective
• Longer life
• Superior colour rendering
• Less lumen depreciation
• Contains no chemicals like mercury or lead

Significances of the programme are:

• Higher cost of LED is collected from consumers in 8-12 installments of RS. 10 each thus remove the cost inhibition.
• Will help India stick to it’s INDC commitments and thus help mitigate climate change.
• Help improve financial health of urban local bodies and Discoms.
• Protect health of people and environment by eliminating exposure to chemicals like mercury and lead.
• Can help in controlling peak power demand in the country.
• Mass procurements will lead to lowering cost of LED.
• Will help boost job creation.

Thus National Programme on Light Emitting Diodes has the potential to create huge impact both for environment and the economy.

Answer : Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in its 48 years of existence has been true to its vision statement ‘harness space technology for national development while pursuing space science research and planetary exploration’. The wide array of achievements of ISRO can be broadly classified into:

1.Launch Vehicles

Launch Vehicle Programme initiated in 1960’s and 1970’s resulted in the development of sounding rockets and by 1980’s satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV) and Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV). But it is Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) which boosted the space programme exponentially. PSLV Since 1994 has emerged as the most reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle of India with 39 consecutive successful missions as of June 2017. In this span PSLV has launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 foreign satellites. In addition, two space crafts were launched using it Chandrayan-1 and Mass Orbiter Spacecraft.

• GSLV Mark II: ISRO developed the Cryogenic Upper stage for this launch vehicle which was long denied to India by other nations.
• GSLV Mark III: Three stage heavy lift launch vehicle that can carry 4 ton class of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer orbit or upto 10 ton to Low Earth Orbit. Success of it’s first launch in June 2017 has the capacity to boost ISRO’s role in commercial launches.
• RLV-TD: Reusable launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator is a combination of launch vehicle and aircraft. Success of this winged launch vehicle in March 2016 is first step towards India’s reusable two stage orbital launch vehicle.
• Scramjet: Successful experiment of the Air Breathing Propulsion system was conducted in August 2016 which will take launch vehicle speeds to supersonic levels at much lower costs.

2.Satellites

• Communication Satellites: Indian National Satellite (INSAT) system is one of the largest domestic communication satellite systems in Asia-pacific region. Starting with INSAT-1B in 1983 it initiated a major revolution in India’s communications sector.
• Earth Observation Satellites: India has one of the largest constellations of remote sensing satellites in operations. Initiated with IRS-1A in 1988, today the fleet consist of RESOURCE SAT-1, 2, 2A, CARTOSAT-1, 2, 2A, 2B, RISAT-1, 2, OCEANSAT-2, Megha Tropiques, SAARC and SCATSAT in the sun synchronous orbit and INSAT-3D, Kalpana and INSAT-3A, INSAT 3DR, in geostationary orbits.
• Navigation Satellites: A satellite based system with commercial and strategic applications.

1. GAGAN: GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation is a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) implemented jointly with Airport Authority of India. With the objective of providing satellite based Navigation services with accuracy and integrity for civil aviation applications and provide better Air Traffic Management over Indian Airspace. As it is interoperable with other international SBAS systems, it provides seamless navigation.
2. Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (NAVIC)

An independent Indian Satellite Based positioning system with objective to provide Reliable position, navigation and timing services over India and it’s neighbourhood.

3. Space Science Exploration Programme

ISRO conducts research in areas like astronomy, astrophysics, planetary and earth sciences, atmospheric sciences and theoretical physics.

• Astrosat: First dedicated Indian astronomy Mission aimed at studying celestial sources in x-ray, optical and UV spectral bands simultaneously. It enables simultaneous multi-wavelength observations of various astronomical objects with a single satellite.
• Mars Orbiter Mission: ISRO’s first inter-planetary mission to planet Mars also made India first country to succeed in first attempt to enter Mars orbit. This challenging technological Mission included performing Earth Bound Manoeuvre (EBM), Martian Transfer Trajectory (MTT) and Mars orbit insertion (MOI) phases, related deep space Mission planning and communication Management at a distance of nearly 400 Million km along with autonomous fault detection and recovery.
• Chandrayaan 1: India’s first Mission to moon, performed successfully in 2008. It conducted chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon. Mission led to the first remote detection of water in Moon.
• Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE): A platform for testing the re-entry technologies envisaged for crew module was successfully conducted in December 2014.

Socio-economic Development

• Indian Space Programme has been consistently driven by a vision and objectives to develop and use space technology in diverse areas where space systems become relevant for socio-economic developments such as telecommunications and broadcasting, meteorology, disaster management support, remote sensing of natural and manmade phenomena and positioning and navigation services.

Earth Observation

• Indian Remote Sensing Satellites driven by user needs have encompassed various sectors such as agriculture, land and water resources, forestry, environment, natural disaster, urban planning and infrastructure development, rural development and forecasting of potential fishing zones.
• For the effective utilisation of this space capabilities, institutional mechanism ofNational Natural Resource Management System (NNRMS) with participation of different agencies dealing with natural resources management.

Satellite Communications

Large constellation of INSAT and GSAT satellite series have revolutionised the technological and economic growth of the nation. It provides services in areas of telecommunications, business and personal communication, broadcasting, weather forecasting and meteorological services. Initiatives like Tele-education, Telemedicine, Village Resource Centre, Disaster Management Support have brought space technology to the doorstep of common man. Applications for e-governance and developmental communications hold huge potentials.

• Satellite Navigation: Has commercial and strategic applications and will help India in maintaining strategic autonomy.
• Climate and Environment: Indigenous systems in place for ground based observations of weather parameters like Automatic weather station, AGROMET, Flux Tower, Doppler weather Radar etc.

Thus Indian Space program has made remarkable progress towards building the space infrastructure as Community resource to accelerate various developmental process and harness the benefits of space applications for socio-economic development.

Answer : Nanotechnology is the fabrication of matter on an atomic, molecular and supra molecular scale to create large scale materials, where unique phenomena enables novel applications. This engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale is considered as one of the key technologies of 21st century as it has the potential to tap the progress in chemistry, physics, material science and biotechnology.

Two main approaches are used in nanotechnology: (a)Bottom up approach where materials and devices are built from molecular components which assemble themselves chemically by principles of molecular recognition, and (b) Top down approach where nano objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic level control.

Applications of this technology are huge:

Medical and Health care Applications

• Better imaging and diagnostic tools.
• Enables faster gene sequencing by single molecule detection at low cost and high speed.
• New therapeutics where nanoparticles can deliver medication directly to the diseased cells in body.
• Can repair spinal cord injuries with graphene nanoribbons.
• Can improve vaccines, method of delivering vaccines, and develop even a universal vaccine.

Everyday Materials

• Enables washable, durable smart fabrics equipped with flexible nanoscale sensors and electronics that can monitor health, capture solar energy and energy harvest from movement, climate control etc.
• Clear nanoscale films on windows, displays of cameras computers, eyeglasses that are water and residue repellent, antireflective self-cleaning, resistant to UV (ultra violet), IR, antifog, antimicrobial, scratch resistant.
• Light weight, stiff, durable and resilient tensile rackets, bicycles, helmets, luggage etc.

Electronics & IT applications

• Equipments like transistors, switches etc have gotten smaller thus enabling higher storage capacity.
• With usage of magnetic random access memory, speed has improved.
• Ultra HD displays have improved the viewing experience.
• Flexible, bendable, foldable, rollable and stretchable electronics are gaining grounds.

Energy applications

• Improves efficiency of fuel production from raw petroleum materials.
• Higher efficiency of combustion and decreased friction.
• Lower weight of vehicles and longer lasting life.
• Solar panels are made more efficient.
• Batteries that are quick charging, light weight and efficient.
• Energy harvesting technologies that can generate energy from light, motion, heat from computers, automobiles etc.

Environment

• Can remove industrial waste using chemical solvents, convert contaminating chemicals and make it harmless.
• Thin membrane for energy efficient desalination.
• Air filter that can filter more efficiently.

Thus with the promise of developing multifuctional materials that can improve the reach of science, Nanotechnology is aptly called technology of 21st century.

Nanotechnology with it’s ability to influence a wide range of products and processes has far reaching implications for national economy and development. Recognising this government of India in May 2007 launched Mission on Nanoscience and Technology. Features of the Mission are:

• Targets scientists, institutions and industry.
• Promotes basic research, human resource development.
• Setup research infrastructure.
• Promote international collaborations.
• Orchestrate national dialogues and nano applications.
• Promote application oriented R&D.
• Mission is modeled as an umbrella capacity building programme under department of science and technology. It is steered by a Nano Mission Council chaired by an eminent scientist.

Nanotechnology has a huge scope of application in the development process of the country. This knowledge intensive technology has wide ranging applications across various industrial sectors with the potential to meet national security priorities and social development imperatives and stimulate economic growth.

• Fuel: Nanotechnology has potential to reduce fuel consumption and thus boost the economy by reducing the burden of import bill.
• Environment: Will help in reducing pollution by reduced emissions, cleaner water.
• Defence: Will help India to indigenise defence technology.
• Environmental bioremediation: Applications like oil spill cleaning, underground water cleaning could help overcome the complex challenges.
• Space: Will help reduce the cost of space technology and help it to be competitive.
• Solar Energy: India’s expanding energy needs require faster adoption of efficient technologies.

Thus development of Nanotechnology in India has huge potential to help the country address societal challenges as well as achieve economic gains.

Answer : As defined by the United States Government, the GPS Precise Positioning Service (PPS) is a positioning and timing service provided by way of authorized access to ranging signals broadcast at the GPS L1 and L2 frequencies. The L1 frequency, transmitted by all Navstar satellites, contains a coarse/acquisition (C/A) code ranging signal, with a navigation data message, that is available for peaceful civil, commercial, and scientific use; and a precision (P) code ranging signal with a navigation data message, that is reserved for authorized use. The P-code will normally be cryptographically altered to become the Y-code. The Y-code will not be available to users that do not have valid cryptographic keys.

On the other hand, the GPS Standard Positioning Service (PPS) is a positioning and timing service provided by way of ranging signals broadcast at the GPS L1 frequency. The L1 frequency, transmitted by all satellites, contains a coarse/acquisition (C/A) code ranging signal, with a navigation data message, that is available for peaceful civil, commercial, and scientific use. The Standard Positioning Service is based on the Coarse/Acquisition code (C/A(t)), which is modulated only on L1.

The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), an indigenous navigation system developed by the ISRO to be owned exclusively by the Indian government, consist of a constellation of 7 satellites, will provide accurate position in information service to regions within India as well as outside India to a region extending to 1500km from its borders, to serve Indian security, commercial and other utility interests. This service can be made available to SAARC nations as well, which would help the nation in leveraging its soft power on them. Other advantages include–

• It will eliminate the security risk of depending on foreign GNSS as we cannot validate the reliability of foreign satellites in hostile situations.
• In this era of cyber warfare, since IRNSS will be a closed system of India, it will prevent breach in to our security related aspects of strategic weapons.
• Using our indigenous system in our domestic fights and other systems would save the cost involved in leasing a foreign system. Using IRNSS, we can divert the resources spent on GAGAN for more productive purposes.
• It would reduce the cost of GPS based services in the country as well as it would facilitate innovation in this field from Indian start-ups as it is an amble opportunity for them. This would create an enabling entrepreneur ecosystem in the country.
• It will help elevate India’s stature in the global stage as a powerful and technologically superior nation and thus creating deterrence against any aggression. It would enhance an environment of peace and stability in the nation.

Answer : The areas of prohibitive labour are those areas where human laborers should not be working due to many physiological, social, ethical and scientific reasons and can be sustainably managed by robots, due to their commodity nature i.e they are just human creations. The area of work, where human life and health is at danger and human response is delayed due to safety concerns, is where robots found profound utility.

• For example, mining work in underground mines, nuclear power plants, and disaster hit areas like volcanoes, flooded areas, earth quake hit areas etc; areas that are inaccessible to humans like interiors of thin sections where inspection and maintenance work are required, the areas on and outside the planet, depths of the oceans, interiors of volcanoes find the use of robots; areas of work which is impossible for humans to do due to physical, psychological or other constraints like multi tasking of physical works in factory settings; areas of operation where human presence will result in tracking and negative outcomes like tracking, spying etc which now employs remote controlled UAVs etc.
• Though the premier research institutes in the country are doing much in terms of R&D, but lot needs to be done in terms of structural changes in the system, funding, government’s role etc so as to make the research more substantive and gainful. There is a shortage of scientists and experts to run and manage the new universities and research institutes. The government and the institutes need to establish programs to court Indians working abroad back to their home country through incentives like fellowships offering Ph.D., M.D., M.Tech, M.VSc, or equivalent degree, and even given a stipend, grants, and a housing allowance. We can increase career opportunities for hiring foreign nationals for tenured positions and offer competitive salaries.
• There is a need to grow talent early. ‘Going for great’ is a skill acquired very early on in the West, where the senior researchers spot gifted graduate students, connect them with the best scientific mentors, nurture them and ensure their visibility over decades. India needs to increase the number of top scientific publications and for that they need more good people. International alliances with universities, industries and governmental organizations can also make an impact in bolstering collaboration across borders and building strong scientific capacity across the world.
• Also, we need to invest in developing artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is the intelligence exhibited by machines or software. It is the subfield of computer science. Artificial intelligence in the last two decades has greatly improved performance of the manufacturing and service systems. Major Artificial Intelligence areas are Expert Systems, Natural Language Processing, Speech Understanding, Robotics and Sensory Systems, etc.
• Other often neglected but important science-related issues to address include establishing university curricula to improve the ability of young students to communicate in English, especially technical writing; the introduction of coordinated proactive strategies by research institutes to improve the ‘visibility’ of their scientists, incentives and financial support for entrepreneurial scientists to set up companies to commercialize ideas, and changes in labor laws to enable universities to hire qualified scientists irrespective of nationality. India needs to build ‘innovation ecosystems’, inculcating a spirit of enquiry, a scientific temper, intellectual stimulation and a drive to define the cutting edge at an international level.

Answer : Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing refers to both the applications delivered as services over the Internet and the hardware and systems software in the datacenters that provide those services.

• A typical cloud hosting offers many benefits like reliability. Rather than being hosted on one single instance of a physical server, the website is hosted on a virtual partition which draws its resources, such as disk space, from an extensive network of underlying physical servers. It also provides physical security. The underlying physical servers are still housed within data centers and so benefit from the security measures that those facilities implement to prevent people accessing or disrupting them on-site. The cloud hosting allows scalability and flexibility. Resource is available in real time on demand and not limited to the physical constraints/capacity of one server. If a client’s site demands extra resource from its hosting platform due to a spike in visitor traffic or the implementation of new functionality, the resource is accessed seamlessly. The client only pays for what they actually use. The resource is available for spikes in demand but there is no wasted capacity remaining unused when demand is lower. Load balancing is software based and therefore can be instantly scalable to respond to changing demands
• However, as the shape of the cloud computing is emerging and developing rapidly both conceptually and in reality, the legal/contractual, economic, service quality, interoperability, security and privacy issues still pose significant challenges. Cloud service users need to be vigilant in understanding the risks of data breaches in this new environment. At the heart of cloud infrastructure is the idea of multi-tenancy and decoupling between specific hardware resources and applications. One needs to trust the cloud provider that the information will not be exposed. Both government and companies need to be vigilant, for instance, about how passwords are assigned, protected and changed. The main security challenges are related to data protection and compliance, interoperability and data portability, identity and access management, auditing, adaptability and availability, encryption as well as risk management and detailed security SLA formalization.

Answer : India is the only country in the world to have set up an institutional mechanism - the TKDL - to protect its Traditional Knowledge (TK). Designed as a tool to assist patent examiners of major intellectual property (IP) offices in carrying out prior searches, the TKDL is a unique repository of India’s traditional medical wisdom. The TKDL enables prompt and almost cost-free cancellation or withdrawal of patent applications relating to India’s TK.

• TKDL provides information on traditional knowledge existing in the country, in languages and format understandable by patent examiners at International Patent Offices (IPOs), so as to prevent the grant of wrong patents. It bridges the linguistic gap between traditional knowledge expressed in languages such as Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Tamil, and those used by patent examiners of major IP offices. The preservation, protection and promotion of the TK-based innovations and practices of local communities are particularly important for developing countries. Their rich endowment of TK and biodiversity plays a critical role in their health care, food security, culture, religion, identity, environment, trade and development. Documenting and digitizing TK-related information in the form of a TKDL is proving to be an effective means of preserving TK and of preventing its misappropriation by third parties. Today, because of TKDL, India is capable of protecting some 0.226 million medicinal formulations and at zero direct cost. Without a TKDL database, the process of revoking a patent can be a costly and time-consuming affair. The TKDL is a unique, proprietary database that integrates diverse knowledge systems and languages. It is based on 148 books of prior art relating to Indian systems of medicine, available at a cost of around US$1,000. The TKDL connects patent examiners around the world with these books of knowledge. The TKDL has an integrated global biopiracy watch system that allows monitoring of patent applications related to Indian medicinal systems. It enables effective detection of attempts to misappropriate this knowledge by third parties filing applications with patent offices around the world. It means that immediate corrective action can be taken, and at zero direct cost, to prevent biopiracy.
• Since its inception, TKDL has had its fair share of supporters and critics. The critics of this approach argue that it might actually promote bio-piracy. Much of the information contained in the database was taken from ancient classical texts, which the “common man” had no access to, or did not understand (even if accessible). Now that this information is put on paper and in an easily understandable form, it is prone to misuse. Also the documentation of TK has raised debates regarding the sharing of benefits arising out of the use of such knowledge. Mere documentation only serves a defensive purpose but does not lead to sharing of benefits to the holders of the knowledge. Supporters of the approach argue that the database is not accessible to third parties and that foreign patent offices with access to the database are legally bound to not disclose the information to third parties. Public disclosure of such knowledge might lead to unauthorized use and commercial exploitation.
• To date the TKDL has enabled the cancellation or withdrawal of a large number of patent applications attempting to claim rights over the use of various medicinal plants. India’s TKDL has proved to be a unique tool that has played a critical role in protecting the country’s traditional knowledge.

Answer : Universities are knowledge based organizations whose functions are largely confined to teaching and research. They are designed to operate to discover and disseminate knowledge by possessing significant and relevant expertise in all disciplines. India has a vast structure of education and its higher education sector is now highly advanced, compared to its neighboring countries. The widespread impression among students is that unlike professional courses, a career in basic science is not lucrative.

• Universities have long abandoned the accent on research and have become mere teaching centers. Research aptitude in students is not properly developed during their course of study. Their curriculum is neither research- oriented nor updated. For many reasons majority of teachers with doctoral degrees in science are unwilling to undertake research projects or collaborative research. The academic ambience persisting in many universities do not encourage the research pursuits of faculties. Research management in universities is another very serious problem faced by many Indian universities.
• The problem with the lack of a research mindset amongst the students is deeply linked to the societal conditions present today. The post-globalization era has increased the demand for Indian technical and business professionals a lot. This, in turn, has led to these trades rising up in social stature because of the huge amount of money they are able to get in a shorter time. Thus, colleges catering to technical, medicinal and business education have started mushrooming in the recent times. The study of sciences and humanities has taken a backseat.
• Another big problem that plagues scientific research, or for the matter of fact any other area, in India is the bureaucracy and red-tapism present in the system. This, undoubtedly to say hinders the research for a scientist is required to submit all requests for further materials and equipments needed to the bureaucracy which takes a lot of time to process even the simplest of requests.

Answer : Antimicrobial resistance is one of the major public health problems especially in developing countries where relatively easy availability and higher consumption of medicines have lead to disproportionately higher incidence of inappropriate use of antibiotics and greater levels of resistance compared to developed countries. In India, the infectious disease burden is among the highest in the world and recent report showed the inappropriate and irrational use of antimicrobial agents against these diseases, which led to increase in development of antimicrobial resistance. Besides it, health sector in India suffers from gross inadequacy of public finance which will result in the conditions favorable for development of drug resistance.

• In private sector, many of the doctors are poorly trained or unlicensed. Provision of essential medicines by the public sector is one of the measures to prevent antimicrobial resistance. But, the non availability of some medicines because of irregular supply and problems related to monitoring the external and internal drug quality will further increase the problem. Inappropriate and irrational use of medicines provides favorable conditions for resistant microorganisms to emerge and spread. Administration of broad spectrum antibiotics as an empirical therapy to the outpatients is another factor that leads to emergence of resistant strains. Prescription of antibiotics by the doctors according to patient needs without any indications and involvement of pharmacists in direct sale of drugs to patients increase the problem of antimicrobial resistance. Compounding this problem, consumers and public have lack of knowledge regarding appropriate use of antibiotics. Self medication and poor compliance are the other factors responsible for antimicrobial resistance among consumers. So, behavioral pattern of the health care providers and consumers is of paramount importance in the emergence of antimicrobial resistance.
• Inadequate national commitment to a comprehensive and coordinated response and ill-defined accountability with respect to antimicrobial use and resistance is an issue to be considered. Weak surveillance and regulatory system is also an important determinant of antimicrobial resistance. Samples are generally tested only when patients fail to respond to common treatments.
• The government last year banned over-the-counter sales of 46 strong antibiotics, including Faronem and Linospan and drugs to treat tuberculosis (TB), without a prescription.
• The new policy will provide guidelines to all health officials on how best to monitor the manufacture and sale of antibiotics, keep track of prescriptions and launch public awareness programmes.

Different Strategies-

• Establish a national alliance against antimicrobial resistance with all key stakeholders as its members. There should be an integrated approach between provider and consumer sides to effectively prevent the antimicrobial resistance.
• Develop national standard treatment and infection control guidelines and ensure their application at all levels of health care and veterinary services through training, continuous educational activities, establishment of functional drugs and therapeutic committees and hospital infection control committees in health facilities with the focus on proven cost-effective interventions such as isolation, hand washing.
• To regulate and promote rational use of medicines and ensure proper patient care at all levels, there is a need to take necessary steps to stop across the counter sale of antibiotics without physicians prescription and ensure uninterrupted access to essential medicines of assured quality at hospital and community. Also, vaccination strategies should be improved to further reduce the burden of infections.

Answer : Airspace is the area or portion of the atmosphere above a country’s territory that is controlled by that country. This includes the airspace above a country’s territorial waters.

• Under international law, a country’s airspace is considered to be 12 nautical miles out from the coastline of the nation. However, there is no international agreement on how far a country’s airspace extends vertically towards outer space. Airspace that does not fall within the territory of any particular nation, such as that above the ‘high seas’ is known as ‘international airspace’.
• Air navigation services require a global, seamless, and performance-based approach to management of airspace, rather than one based on national borders. For this to materialise, all stakeholders need a fully developed understanding of the meaning of national sovereignty consistent with present and future political, economic and social realities.
• Under the Chicago Convention, each State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory. That is an undisputable fact. National sovereignty cannot be delegated. However, the responsibility for the performance of functional responsibilities, such as the provision of air navigation services, can be delegated. In fact, delegation of service provision is an act of sovereignty.
• Within the context of globally harmonised and seamless air navigation services, sovereignty should be seen as an enabler, not a barrier, in making the required changes for a more efficient management of the global air navigation system. Used in a constructive way, sovereignty can proactively drive the necessary improvements in global and regional air traffic management (ATM) performance. This more mature understanding of sovereignty should be actively promoted by all stakeholders in the aviation industry.

Answer : It is a formulation including two or more Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) combined in single dosage form, which is manufactured and distributed in certain respective fixed doses. It was initially used in Anti Retro Viral (ARV) therapy wherein second line and third line drugs are administered along with first line drugs and which target different aspects of a disease for example, improving resistance against the disease, and improving immunity system, etc helps tackle disease effectively.

Merits of FDCs are:

• Simpler dosage schedule improves compliance and therefore improves treatment outcomes.
• Reduces inadvertent medication errors.
• Allows for synergistic combinations.
• Eliminates drug shortages by simplifying drug storage and handling, and thus lowers risk of being “out of stock”.
• Procurement, management and handling of drugs are simplified.
• Side effects are reduced by using one drug of the combination for this purpose.
• Potential for drug abuse can be minimized by using one drug of the combination for this purpose.

Demerits of FDCs are:

• FDCs are (possibly) more expensive than separate tablets.
• Potential quality problems, especially with rifampicin in FDCs for TB, requiring bio-availability testing.
• Dosing is inflexible and cannot be regulated to patients needs (each patient has unique characteristics such as weight, age, pharmacogenetics, co-morbidity, that may alter drug metabolism and effect).
• Drug interactions may lead to alteration of the therapeutic effect.

Answer : The Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) is a technology-based system used in the sport of cricket. The system was first introduced in Test cricket, for the sole purpose of reviewing controversial decisions made by the on-field umpires in the case of a batsman being dismissed or not.

There are basically three components in UDRS. They are:

• Hawk-Eye, Eagle Eye, or Virtual Eye: Ball-tracking technology that plots the trajectory of a bowling delivery that has been interrupted by the batsman, often by the pad, and can determine whether it would have hit the wicket or not.
• Hot Spot: Infra-red imaging system that illuminates where the ball has been in contact with bat or pad.
• Snickometer: which relies on directional microphones to detect small sounds made as the ball hits the bat or pad. This is no longer used as a component of UDRS.
• Silicone tape on the edge of a bat may fool the system because silicone is a very poor conductor of heat. So it acts as an insulating layer, keeping the heat in the bat. Hence, the system is unable to detect the touch/nick as the infra red imaging fails to detect the nick.

Answer : A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. It uses digit like 0, 1 to create a signature. It enjoys a type of “Asymmetry cryptography”.

Its authentication means that message has not been altered in transit and it provides a sort of “integrity”. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, such that the sender cannot deny having sent the message (authentication and non-repudiation) and that the message was not altered in transit (integrity). Digital signatures are commonly used for software distribution, financial transactions, and in other cases where it is important to detect forgery or tampering.

Various salient built in features of digital signature are:

• Encryption Technology.
• Accountability and control.
• Automatic document domain without use of paper.

Answer : Additive manufacturing or 3D printing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. 3D printing is achieved using an additive process, where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. 3D printing is also considered distinct from traditional machining techniques, which mostly rely on the removal of material by methods such as cutting or drilling.

Advantages of this technology are as follow:

1. Wide manufacturing options.
2. Rapid Prototype.
3. Reduced costs even though when initial costs of setups are high.
4. Need of inventory and warehousing are less.

Disadvantages are:

1. Only limited materials like plastic, resins and other ceramics can be used.
2. Copyright issues are expected to create hurdles.
3. Ethical dimensions too crop up, with technology being used for wide manufacturing of dangerous arms and ammunitions.
4. Environmental concerns as recycling will become a major challenge.

• FRP stands for Fiber Reinforced Polymer. FRP composite material is made of polymer matrix reinforced with fibers wherein fibers usually consists of glass, carbon or basalt and polymer consists of epoxy, phenyl formaldehyde, resins, etc.
• Manufacturing of FRP takes place through various processes like weaving, knitting, braiding and stitching.
• They find high application in aviation and automobile industries, as they are used for program that demands weight savings, precision engineering, finite tolerance and simplification of processes in both productions and operations.

Answer : The term Innovation refers to a process of evolution of new ideas that lead to development of novel hypothesis, discoveries, technology and business.

• The growth of mankind as well as society as a whole is a dialectical process of innovation. But, innovation does not happen in a vacuum, it is the result of a complex interplay of dynamics among various players such as Government, Firms, Schools/ Education and Research Institutions, Finance, Individual Innovators (Education policy at Schools), Customers/users, NGOs/ grassroots organizations, and Media. Government has a critical role to play in the innovation eco-system and must create the conditions that will stimulate individuals and enterprises to innovate and take the lead in the next generation of knowledge creation. This can be done through creating right policies to develop human capacity and talent, favourable investment climate and enabling infrastructure both physical and social. India is a developing country whose economy, society and cultural maturity depend on how fast it can fuel its engine of innovation.
• The development and exploitation of new products, processes, services and systems and the constant upgrading of those which a country already possesses is the only way in which India can enhance its levels of economic and social prosperity.
• There is a direct linkage between innovation and a country's prosperity. This can be proved by a simple example. Most Nobel Laureates come from countries which invest in research and development and have a national innovation policy in place. No doubt it is usually the western countries who pilot most innovative products, ideas and discoveries. Sadly, India's contribution in this sphere has been quite dismal. It is not that Indians lack intellectual ability but they unfortunately do not get the right amount of infrastructure and environment that fosters innovation.
• The Indian government does realize the importance of innovation and has thus started number of programs to encourage innovation. The year 2010 was declared as the National Year of Innovation by the President of India. Other programs have also been initiated such as the National Knowledge Network, National Innovation Council headed by Sam Pitroda, and enhancing infrastructure of various research institutions such as CSIR, ISRO, DRDO, etc. These policies have had a very positive effect. For example, ISRO has brought fame to the country by making India one among the leaders in space technology, DRDO has come out with innovative defence technology that has instilled a sense of security among citizens of the country. Even in the field of agriculture, it was Green Revolution which was based on innovative techniques of farming that brought food security to India.
• However, these policies are fragmented and a comprehensive policy on innovation that spans all sectors is lacking. Also it doesn't seem to be a priority area for the government as there are no fixed goals of increasing investment in this sector.
• There is an ardent need for a national policy on innovation that will pump in huge funds in driving research and development in all sectors. The Government can drive innovation through appropriate education policy and skill development; by improving governance and re-engineering public service delivery by innovating within its own structures; by creating new markets through procurement policies and legislation; by delineating a national level strategy through a roadmap for inclusive innovation; facilitating connections between universities, manufacturers, users and regulators; driving high quality R&D as well as basic research; providing a mechanism for funding business innovations at all levels, especially SMEs; promoting Innovative policies & places; facilitating exchange of innovations between public and private sector; providing infrastructure and initiating a nationwide innovation movement.
• Innovations require not just inputs and capacity but also a political economy of reform. This involves creating a constituency for innovation where Government, academia, industry and the citizenry are all participants in the innovation movement. It is about creating an innovation eco-system not only concerned about creating high-tech products, but about enhancing the quality of life for everybody by creating sustainable solutions and changing processes and mindsets. The time is right for India to blaze its own trail by creating a model of Inclusive Innovation specific to the country's needs and development goals.

Answer : Endosulfan is an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide, classified as a yellow label (highly toxic) pesticide by the Central Insecticides Board. It became a highly controversial agrichemical due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and role as an endocrine disruptor. Because of its threats to human health and the environment, a global ban on the manufacture and use of endosulfan was negotiated under the Stockholm Convention in April 2011.

• This has a special significance for India as it is one of the largest producers and the largest consumer of Endosulfan in the world. Endosulfan is widely used in most of the plantation crops in India. Health issues due to its bioaccumulation came under media attention when health issues precipitated in the Kasargod district of Kerala. Given the strong public sentiment against its use, especially in Kerala where aerial spraying of crops by the Plantation Corporation is seen as the cause for a rise in mental retardation, birth defects, infertility, and growth abnormalities. This inspired protests and the pesticide was banned in the state of Kerala. Later, on a petition filed in the Supreme Court of India, the production, storage, sale and use of the pesticide was permanently banned.
• The Government recently asked the Supreme Court to allow use of the pesticide in all States which are ready to use it for pest control. The biggest impediment as cited by the Government in banning of this agrichemical is lack of alternatives. Endosulfan plays an important role in pest control. This has even been recognized in the Stockholm Convention in the form of exceptions against 44 pests in 22 crops. Farmers across India depend on endosulfan to control several very damaging pests that affect commercial crops. Bihar hairy caterpillar and yellow mites in jute, berry borer and stem borer in coffee, bollworms, jassids, whiteflies, thrips and leafroller in cotton are some of the examples where endosulfan has proved to be indispensable due to lack of alternatives.
• In spite of there being no alternative to endosulfan, no one can argue against the fact that food must be a life giver, not a life taker. Harmful pest control measures that can incapacitate people for life must strictly be banned.
• The Stockholm Convention is a good start. However, it is imperative that it is not rendered teethless by adoption of schedules that will greatly stretch the timeframe in which we seek to phase out this pesticide. India has stopped the use of DDT in agriculture and, with sufficient will, can do the same with endosulfan.

Answer : Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR TB) is caused by an organism that is resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin, the two most potent TB drugs. In order to advocate measures for prevention of spread of MDB-TB, it is important to understand the cause of spread of the same. Resistance to anti-TB drugs can occur when these drugs are misused or mismanaged. Examples include when patients do not complete their full course of treatment; when health-care providers prescribe the wrong treatment, the wrong dose, or length of time for taking the drugs; when the supply of drugs is not always available; or when the drugs are of poor quality. I would advocate the following steps for prevention of MDR-TB:

• Encourage a person infected by MDR TB to take all of their medications exactly as prescribed by their health care provider.
• Health care providers can help prevent MDR TB by quickly diagnosing cases, following recommended treatment guidelines, monitoring patients' response to treatment, and making sure therapy is completed.

The implications of spread of MDR- TB would be much worse than normal TB. Like TB, MDR-TB also spreads from person to person through the air. MDR- TB usually affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body, such as the brain, the kidneys, or the spine. It can also lead to death if proper treatment is not ensured. While TB is treatable, MDR-TB is much harder to treat and hence is a much bigger risk.

Answer : With the pace of development and the size of population, China and India are being projected as the biggest consumers of energy in future. Energy security is thus one of the prime agendas of the government. With the current consumption pattern globally, it is being forecasted that oil would last only for the next 20 years. Coal reserves are also diminishing very quickly. Naturally the cost for these non renewable sources of energy would sky rocket.

• In such a scenario, sources of energy which are renewable such as wind, solar, hydro, tidal energy, etc. which would last forever seem like the most viable alternative. With the current status of technology development in this sector it seems that the initial cost of setting up such green technology is expensive and some require large space. But it has also been found that this initial high cost is compensated by low operating costs and long term sustainability of equipment. Micro projects such as small hydropower projects, solar cells etc can help in boosting the rural economy.
• Hence Renewable energy is the most sustainable option to ensure energy security of India in future. There is a dire need, however to invest in research and development of newer green technologies.

• The French earth observation satellite SPOT 6 launched through Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle-C21 (PSLV-C21) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 9th September, 2012 is India's 100th space mission since it launched its first - Aryabhatta in 1975.
• SPOT 6 is a French Earth Observation Satellite capable of imaging the earth with a resolution of 1.5 meter. This latest generation optical remote sensing satellite is built by Astrium SAS, a leading European space technology company.

Answer : Agricultural biotechnology and plant genomics are being proposed as the panacea to the food security challenge that the world faces due to increasing population and diminishing availability of land for agriculture.

• Genes are considered destiny, the makeup of a plant is embedded in its genes. So by modifying the genes, one can modify destiny. Some experiments have proved extremely successful in this arena. Cotton is the best example. BT cotton has replaces traditional cotton completely in America and mostly in India. The results have been mostly positive. The modification of the genes of cotton has made it pest resistant and hence increased production. Similarly gene modification in other plants can reduce the use of pesticides and insecticides which is also beneficial for the environment. Another area of genetic modification is improving the nutrition content of plants. For example, golden rice has higher protein content. India's green revolution was based on genetically modified HYV seeds that brought food security to India.
• Manipulating the natural makeup of a plant can also have detrimental effects on crops as well as ecology. Many such consequences have been pointed out by critics and have been proved as well. Hence this technology must be applied with circumspection.

Answer : As jobs became scarce due to global recession, U.S launched a slew of protectionist measures to save the jobs only for Americans and not letting them flow out to people from developing countries. India and Philippines are the largest destination of US outsourced jobs especially in the IT and BPO sector. US President Barack Obama recently proposed curbing tax breaks for outsourcing companies in the US set alarm bells ringing in the Indian IT sector.

• American companies generate 50% of their revenue outside the U.S.Protectionist measures would thus on the one hand have a negative impact of profits of the Indian BPO industry but it will also increase costs of American corporations.
• U.S also hiked visa fee for Indian professionals which is also sought to discriminate against Indian software companies. This would also have a negative impact on income of Indian professionals as it would discourage American companies from sending Indian employees on short term contracts to America.
• Software companies in India have strongly reacted to such measures calling them discriminatory. The Indian government has also started negotiating with the American Government to neutralise American protectionist policy measures.

Answer : "Assisted Reproductive Technology" means all techniques that attempt to obtain a pregnancy by handling or manipulating the sperm or the oocyte outside the human body, and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive tract. It is estimated that worldwide around 15 % of the women are infertile i.e. they cannot conceive a child. This technology is a blessing for couples who cannot conceive a child naturally. But it is fraught with few biological, legal and ethical implications.

• Biological: The medically repeated pregnancies can affect the cardiovascular health and can aggravate existing health conditions. Besides, the surrogate mother faces short term health effects which include swelling of joints, scarring, loosening of skin, vomiting, etc.health care and treatment expenses during the pregnancy apart for compensation for carrying the child is the issue to be considered.
• Ethical: Ethically Anti-surrogacy propounders were of the view surrogate arrangements depersonalize reproduction and result in separation of genetic, gestational, and social parenthood. The other ethical issues involved are - money as motivator for child birth, adverse psychological effects on the child, identity crisis that might ensue for the child.
• Legal: legal status of a child born to foreign donors though Indian surrogate, rights and duties of the donors, rights and duties of the surrogate, right of the child to information about the surrogate are the issues need to be considered.

Hence, while framing the regulation to govern surrogacy in India, the policy framers should consider these biological, legal and ethical issues to make the regulation more pragmatic.

Answer : Doping is the use of substances such as anabolic steroid or erythropoietin or techniques such as blood doping to improve the performance in sports. Commonly used doping substances are 1. Erythropiten 2. Anabolic steroids 3. Human growth hormone 4. Synthetic oxygen carriers5. Insulin. The use of these substances to improve the performanceisfraught with serious side effects like high blood pressure, abnormal functioning of liver, kidney failures, alterations in menstrual cycle, decline in sperm production, hypertension, muscle bone and joint pains, hallucinations, insomnia, etc.

• The Curiosity Rover is a car sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater as a part of NASA Mars Science Laboratory Mission (MSL). The mission is aimed at finding out whether life has ever existed on mars, existence of microbial life and geology and climate and planetary processes. Within this these broad objectives the goal of the mission is among the other things: determining Martian surface mineralogy and near surface geology, the essential building blocks of life, current state and distribution of water and carbon, etc. This mission is a stepping stone for sending a manned mission to Mars. Mars is the only planet in the solar system with similar features regarding rotational speed seasonal cycles, etc. It is the only planet considered suitable for human habitation and the Curiosity mission eventually will serve to explore the possibilities of human colonization of Mars.

• Sequoia, world's fastest super-computer, is IBM's third generation Blue Gene Family of Supercomputers. It is based on Linux operating system, operating at the speed of 16.32 peta flops. Its working is based more on architecture and parallelism not on Moore's law to achieve speed.
• Sequoia is primarily water cooled and energy efficient. It consists of 96 racks; 98,304 compute nodes; 1.6 million cores; and 1.6 petabytes of memory. It uses 1.6 million IBM Power processors.
• Sequoia is primarily intended to provide a more complete understanding of US' weapons performance, notably hydrodynamics and properties of materials at extreme pressure sand temperatures. Sequoia will help the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to keep the nuclear stockpile stable without resorting to nuclear testing, or put simply, more computational power, fewer explosions.
• Apart from this, Sequoia is specially designed to help solve large-scale problems associated with the sciences like astronomy, energy, human genome and climate change.

• Vaccination for Human Papilloma Virus is ideally suited for women between 9 to 26 years and men between 13 to 21 i.e. at pre-sexually active stage of life. Vaccination for the HPV prevents the occurrence of cervical cancer and some other less common cancers like cancers of anus, penis, vagina, valve and oropharynx and genital warts/lumps.

• It is developed for small scale application to convert municipal organic solid waste such as kitchen waste, paper, grass, gobar and dry leaves to biogas. It offers Zero garbage and Zero effluent and provides high quality manure and methane gas.

• When a person faints, position him on his back
• Check to see if airways are clear
• Restore blood flow by Loosening clothing/belts/collars
• Elevate feet above head level
• If fainting is due to low blood sugar, give the person something sweet to eat or drink.

• The indigenous fighter jet engine 'Kaveri' will be used for powering the home-grown fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). It is proposed to develop production version Kaveri (K10) engine on co-design and co-development basis with Snecma of France.

• Molecular breast imaging (MBI) is a new nuclear medicine technique that utilizes small semiconductor-based cameras in a mammographic configuration to provide high-resolution functional images of the breast. Key studies have confirmed that MBI has a high sensitivity for the detection of small breast lesions.

Answer : Advantages

• Cost efficient – lower costs of distributing cash than commodity based alternatives.
• Choice – cash allows recipients to decide what they should spend the money on.
• Multiplier effects – distributing cash can stimulate production and trade in e.g. agriculture.
• Avoids disincentive effects – unlike commodities (food, shelter) cash is unlikely to discourage local trade or production.
• Fewer costs for recipients – cash costs less than food to transport from the distribution site to recipients’ homes.

Disadvantages

• Inflationary risks – if an injection of cash causes prices for key goods to rise, then recipients will get less for their money and non-recipients will be worse off.
• Anti-social use – cash can be used to buy anything, including e.g. alcohol.
• Security risks – moving cash around may be risky for implementing staff and for the recipients.
• More difficult to target – even the wealthy will want to be included, whereas they may not in food transfers.
• More prone to diversion – cash may be more easily diverted where corruption is high and prone to seizure by armed groups in conflicts.
• Disadvantages women – women may be less able to keep control of cash than food.
• Less available from donors – who may be more willing to provide commodities than cash.
• Consumption / nutrition – if a transfer has particular food consumption or nutrition objectives then food may be more effective.

Answer : A plasma TV has a sheet of individual plasma cells, which get activated when electricity is passed to the TV. It works on the principle of release of UV photon when the excited mercury electron comes back to the normal state. An LCD TV, on the other hand, has liquid crystal between the display panels of the TV, which gets activated when an electric current is supplied to it. As LCD panels produce no light of their own, they require an external lighting mechanism like a cathode fluorescent lamp. The LED TV works on the same liquid crystal platform, but light-emitting diodes (LED) are used as the back-light for this TV.

• Plasma TVs generally have better contrast ratios than LCD and LED TVs. This is because plasma TVs have individual plasma cells, which automatically turn themselves off on the darker parts of the screen. LCD TVs on the other hand have a single liquid crystal and when the TV has to show the dark pictures, the CCFL back-light only dims itself and hence the blacks aren’t very convincing. On the other hand, LED TVs have a slight edge as the individual LEDs twist themselves into ‘off’ position in the dark parts of the screen thus giving a more convincing black than the LCD TVs.
• The image of the plasma TV remains good for viewers at almost any angle. In LCD TVs, there is often a loss of color and detail, when the TV is viewed from an odd angle. The LED TV minimizes this problem due to its decentralized back-lights and hence has a much wider viewing angle.
• On the parameter of motion, the technology of the plasma has an edge as the plasma screen has individual cells that can refresh at a much faster rate. LCDs and LEDs were not quite good in this respect earlier but due to the new higher ‘Hz’ count of the LCD TV and LED TV, the difference has been minimized. A higher ‘Hz’ indicates better performance of the TV when it comes to fast motion sequences.
• The lifespan of the LCD and the LED TV depends largely on the lifespan of its back-light, but on an average the lifespan of these TVs is supposed to be more than that of the plasma TV. Another point to consider for TV lifespan is screen burn-in. Here again, the plasma TV has a higher rate of screen burn-in. LCD and LED TVs rarely have a problem of screen-burn in. On the price front, Plasma is the least expensive and LED is the costliest.

Answer : Cloud Computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications. This technology allows for much more efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth.

A cloud service has three distinct characteristics: it is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic - a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (the consumer needs nothing but a personal computer and Internet access).

Advantages: Cloud computing comes into focus only when we think about ways to increase capacity without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.

1. Reduced Cost: Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money.
2. Increased Storage: Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems.
3. Highly Automated: IT personnel need not worry about keeping software up to date.
4. Flexibility: Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods.
5. More Mobility: Employees can access information wherever they are.
6. Allows IT to Shift Focus: No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, government organizations will be free to concentrate on innovations.

Limitation: There are also some disadvantages or limitation the company would have when they opt to use cloud computing.

1. The biggest of them all is security. Since cloud computing uses the power of online connectivity to handle processing requests, the data could be available for everyone and could be used for malicious purposes.
2. There is also the challenge of the end-user connectivity. Cloud computing will only be possible if there is a strong internet connection. Cloud computing might not work in areas where internet connection is weak.
3. Infrastructure is also a challenge for cloud computing particularly when the company opts to have its own server.

But even with these challenges, cloud computing is seen as one of the futures of the internet. It is changing the way businesses complete their transactions and it will certainly make some changes the way people look at the internet.

Answer : Nanotechnology could revolutionize all the three key areas of healthcare: Diagnosis, Prevention and Treatment giving rise to an emerging discipline called “nanomedicine”. Nanotechnology will help medical professionals in medical issues such as repairing of damaged organs, diagnosis and treatment of cancer cells, removal of obstructions in the brain, creation of new and better drugs, creation of artificial tissues, etc.

• Nanotechnology can successfully be used to monitor a patient’s health. Many applications allow to quantify different health markers such as blood pressure, levels of blood sugar, hormones, and antibodies, body temperature, heart functioning- all at one point in time and without the need for the patient to go to a lab or to leave blood samples. Additionally, by using nanotechnological systems it is possible to measure hundreds of complicated factors simultaneously, avoiding the risk of losing samples waiting days for lab results, and lab mess-ups. Nanofilters are able to remove the smallest of the known viruses. Such nano filters are already used today in the fight against diseases such as SARS and to prevent medical staff from getting infected in hospitals and clinics.
• Antimicrobial coating, built nano-technologically, is another promising area for preventing diseases. These can significantly reduce the ability of bacteria and viruses to stick to surfaces that may be in contact with body fluids during surgical procedures.
• Nanotechnology can help design certain drugs that are difficult to make because of structural constraints by using a controlled manufacturing system at the atomic and molecular level. In addition, the drug can be designed such as to eliminate the toxic part of it and leave the “effective” one. Currently, new Asthma, HIV and Cancer killing drugs are being designed using nanotechnological systems.
• Nanotechnology can help solve many of the problems associated with treating diseases. As the future becomes the present we are going to witness a revolution in healthcare. Many of these revolutionary steps will be guided by developments in the nanotechnology science.

Answer : (a) Craig Venter: DR. J. CRAIG VENTER is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century for his invaluable contributions in genomic research, most notably for the first sequencing and analysis of the human genome published in 2001 and the most recent and most complete sequencing of his diploid human genome in 2007. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics Inc; as well as Founder and President of the J. Craig Venter Institute. He also founded Human Genome Sciences, Diversa Corporation and Celera Genomics. He was listed in the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2007 and 2008 and by New Statesman in 2010.

(b) Shahram Amiri: Shahram Amiri is an Iranian nuclear scientist and a researcher at Malek Ashtar University of defence technology, which was listed for sanctions by the European Union in 2008. He disappeared during an apparent pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia in June 2009. He later surfaced in USA and then returned to Teheran.

(c) Wolfram Alpha: Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine for the web built by Wolfram Research. The product contains data in various fields including physical sciences, technology, geography, weather, cooking, business, music, etc. in order to provide answers to questions that users put. Its language interface accommodates variations in how users frame their questions, such as the use of abbreviations. Wolfram Alpha’s vision is to create a system which can do for formal knowledge (heuristics, algorithms, rules, methods, theorems, etc.) what search engines like Google have done for informal knowledge, such as text and documents.

(d) ‘Dreamliner’ aircraft: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is Boeing’s most fuel-efficient plane, and the world’s first major airliner to use composite materials for most of its construction. The Dreamliner is a long range, mid-sized, twin-engine aircraft. The longest range variant can fly between 8,000 and 8,500 nautical miles (14,800 to 15,700 km) with a cruising airspeed of Mach 0.85. It seats 210 to 330 passengers and consumes 20% less fuel than the same-sized Boeing 767. For extra efficiency the new electrical architecture of the Dreamliner replaces traditional bleed air and hydraulic power sources, and completely eliminates pneumatics and hydraulics from some subsystems. An active gust alleviation system will improve ride quality during turbulence. The 787 Dreamliner will be approximately 80% composite by volume. Each 787 contains approximately 35 short tons of carbon fiber reinforced plastic, which has a higher strength to weight ratio than traditional aircraft materials. Composites are used on the fuselage, wings, tail, doors and interior of the Dreamliner.

(e) Blue gene project: Blue Gene is an IBM Research project dedicated to exploring the frontiers in supercomputing: in computer architecture, in the software required to program and control massively parallel systems, and in the use of computation to advance our understanding of important biological processes such as protein folding. The Blue Gene/P system is designed for petascale system, that is, a system capable of delivering more than a quadrillion (1015) floating-point operations per second. There are four Blue Gene projects in development: Blue Gene/L, Blue Gene/C, Blue Gene/P and Blue Gene/Q. The project was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by U.S. President Barack Obama.

(f)’Predator’ drones: Predator drone is a long-endurance, medium-altitude unmanned Aerial Vehicle system to provide constant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to US strategic and tactical forces. Surveillance imagery from synthetic aperture radar, video cameras and a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) can be distributed in real-time both to the front line soldier and to the operational commander, or worldwide in real-time via satellite communication links. The Predator system is composed of three parts: the air vehicle with its associated sensors and communications equipment, the ground control station, and the product or data dissemination system. One Predator system has four air vehicles with sensors and data links, one Ground Control Station, and one Trojan Spirit II SATCOM system. Predator Drones have been in news for their application by US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(g) ‘Deepwater Horizon’ incident: On April 20, 2010 while working on an exploratory well approximately 50 miles offshore Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico, the semi-submersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon experienced an explosion and fire. This incident is called Deepwater Horizon incident. It caused the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. After the initial blowout occurred, the leaking wellhead continued to feed the fire until the rig ultimately collapsed beneath the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Answer : (a). Chandrayaan 2, India’s second mission to the Moon, is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission. It consists of an Orbiter, Lander and Rover configuration. It is planned to be launched as a composite stack into the Earth Parking Orbit (EPO) of 170 X 18,500 km by GSLV-Mk II. The Orbiter carries the combined stack up to moon till the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI). The combined stack is then inserted into a lunar orbit of 100 km x 100 km. The Lander is separated from the Orbiter in this orbit. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) have signed an Agreement on joint lunar research and exploration.

(b). Agni-V, currently under development, is a three -stage solid fueled intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads, including nuclear warheads, up to a range of 6000 km. It will also have countermeasures against Anti-ballistic missile systems.

(c). Aerostat Balloon: An aerostat balloon is a lightweight skin structure that remains aloft primarily through the use of buoyant lighter than air gases. The most recent deployment of helium aerostat balloon was seen at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, held at Delhi.

• Recently India celebrated the golden anniversary of the Doordarshan (2009). India as no other media faculty has changed the Indian society more than Television. Launched in the year 1959 as AN experimental model with the assistance of USA, Television grew slowly in India for the next two decades and the telecast were mostly in black and whites. With the advent of the Asiad games in 1982 Indian Television became colourful. Nothing captivated the Indian society like the daily soap-opera "Humlog" that showed a middle income family fighting to keep its ethics intact with a comical undercurrent. This serial also showed the promotion of Maggi as a brand when the Indian society was satisfied with their makke-ki-roti. After this in the late eighties there was scene of curfew like situation when "Ramayan" and after that "Mahabharat" were telecast on the Television.In the nineties the liberalization of TV Telecast became visible. Now India's skies have more than 500 channels ready to be catched and viewed. There are also channels like DD Gyandarshan promoted by IGNOU. The turn of the century saw radical changes in the ways that these channels can be viewed. Starting with the MSO it has transformed into CAS, IPTV and presently to internet Television thus making Customers; the real King.

• INS Arihant is the country's first indigenously built nuclear submarine that has put India into the elite club of US, Russia, China, France and the UK with similar capabilities. It is powered by an 85 megawatt capacity nuclear reactor and can acquire surface speeds of 22 to 28 kmph (12-15 knots) and submerged speed up to 44 kmph (24 knots). It can carry torpedoes and missiles including 12 ballistic missiles. The launch of the submarine has enhanced reputation of India in the market of defence equipments and showcased her technology muscle at the global level.

Answer : The 'Hubble Space Telescope' (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble. The Hubble is one of the largest, most versatile and well-known space telescope for vital research in astronomy. The HST is the collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

• The Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. There have been five servicing missions, the last occurring in May 2009. Servicing Mission 1 took place in December 1993 when Hubble's imaging flaw was corrected. Servicing missions 2, 3A, and 3B repaired various sub-systems and replaced many of the observing instruments with more modern and capable versions. The fifth servicing mission STS-125 installed two new instruments and made numerous repairs.

• DNA Fingerprinting is a technique, by which an individual can be identified at molecular level. The technique was developed in 1984 by the British geneticist Alec Jeffreys. Jeffreys determined that each organism has a unique pattern of 'mini satellites' in their chromosomes and the only exception being identical twins.
• The technique has made it possible to identify the source of biological samples found at scenes of crime, resolve disputes of maternity /paternity, identification of mutilated remains, identification of rape/murder and missing child, exchange of babies in hospital wards, forensic wildlife etc. This remarkable technology provides exclusion as well as positive identification with virtually 100% precision.

• Nanotechnology, shortened to 'nanotech', is the study of the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scales of the size 100 nanometers or smaller and involves developing materials or devices within that size. The materials used are microprocessors, Giant magnetoresistance-based hard drives, nanoelectro mechanical systems or NEMS and Atomic force microscope tips.
• Nanotechnology has the potential to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics and energy production, chemistry and environment, Information and Communication, Heavy Industries and Consumer goods. These seek to create smaller devices by using larger ones to direct their assembly.

Answer : Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The name comes from Graphite + -ene. The carbon-carbon bond length in graphene is about 0.142 nm. Graphene is the basic structural element of some carbon allotropes including graphite, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes.

Three of its applications are:

1. Integrated circuits.
2. Transparent conducting electrodes: Graphene's high electrical conductivity and high optical transparency make it a candidate for transparent conducting electrodes, required for such applications as touchscreens, liquid crystal displays, organic photovoltaic cells, and Organic light-emitting diodes.
3. Graphene biodevices: antibody-functionalized-graphene-sheets for mammalian and microbial detection and diagnosis.

• An 'optical frequency comb' is a very precise tool for measuring different colours-or frequencies-of light. The technology, made possible by recent advances in ultrafast lasers, can accurately measure much higher frequencies than any other tool. Frequency combs are already widely used in metrology laboratories and physics research, and they are starting to become commercially available.
• They also are making it possible to build optical atomic clocks, detection of toxic biochemical agents, studies of ultrafast dynamics and quantum computing. As scientists continue to improve frequency comb technology, it may be applied in medical tests, synchronization of advanced telecommunications systems, and remote detection and range measurements for manufacturing or defense applications.

Answer : Telemedicine is an upcoming field in health science arising out of the effective fusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with Medical Science having enormous potential in meeting the challenges of healthcare delivery to rural and remote areas besides several other applications in education, training and management in health sector. Besides this other advantages of telemedicine are:

• Eliminate distance barriers and improve access to quality health services
• In emergency and critical care situations
• Facilitate patients and rural practitioners' access to specialist health services and support
• Lessen the inconvenience and cost of patient transfers
• Reduce unnecessary travel time for health professionals
• Reduce isolation of rural practice by upgrading their knowledge through tele-education or tele-CME

Answer : (a) Artificial Sun: Artificial Sun refers to a process whereby the ongoing nuclear fusion process inside the Sun's surface in replicated in the earth to develop nuclear energy. Inside the Sun in the presence of very high temperature, hydrogen molecules combine to form Helium and during that process huge amount energy is released. Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars. Artificial fusion in human enterprises can be possible in the few tokamak-type reactors. For that huge amount of heat energy is needed to heat up plasma in that proto-type tokamak. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is such ambitious project.

(b) 'Vegetable Gold': Saffron (Crocus sativus) is known as 'vegetable gold'. It is a spice derived from the pistil of Saffron's flower.It is particularly used to color and flavor foods and also used as a stimulant in medicine. Saffron, for decades the world's most expensive spice by weight is native to Southwest Asia. Jammu & Kashmir is very famous for Saffron production.

(c) PFCs and 'liquid breathing': Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are fluorocarbons, compounds derived from hydrocarbons by replacement of hydrogen atoms by fluorine atoms. PFCs are made up of carbon and fluorine atoms only. A perflourocarbon can be arranged in a linear, cyclic, or polycyclic shape. Perfluorocarbons dissolve relatively high concentrations of gases for example; 100 ml of perfluorodecalin at 25°C will dissolve 49 ml of oxygen at standard condition of temperature and pressure. This led Leland C. Clark in 1966 to experiment with liquid breathing. In recent years there has been new interest in liquid breathing for various procedures from lung lavage to treatment of congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

(d) The 'P- 8 A Poseidon': The Boeing P-8 A Poseidon (formerly the Multimission Maritime Aircraft or MMA) is a military aircraft currently being developed for the United States Navy. It is intended to conduct anti-submarine warfare, shipping interdiction, and to engage in an electronic intelligence (ELINT) role. This will involve carrying torpedoes, depth charges, Harpoon anti-shipping missiles, and other weapons. It will also be able to drop and monitor sonobuoys. It is designed to operate in conjunction with the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle. The P-8 A is to be developed by Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems division from the 737-800.

(e) Biometric ATMs: Biometrics refers to methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits like identification via face, voice, retina, iris or fingerprint. Thus in Biometric ATMs biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control.

(f) Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA): Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) is any activity that an astronaut performs outside the spacecraft, whether it be in microgravity (sometimes known as spacewalking) or on an extraterrestrial surface such as the Moon or Mars. On many microgravity missions such as those on the Space Shuttle or ISS, EVA is the sole means to accomplish certain critical mission objectives; on the Moon or Mars it will be by far the most important means by which future astronauts explore their surroundings.

Answer : The potential of biotechnology has begun to emerge from the 20th century. After the full knowledge of human genomes is available, biotechnology is going to play a major role in shaping the future drug discovery, drug delivery, diagnostic methodology, clinical trials.

• Bioengineering is the application of engineering principles to address challenges in the field of biology and medicine, as a study, it encompasses biomedical engineering and it is related to biotechnology.
• Bioengineering applies engineering principles to the full spectrum of living systems. This is achieved by utilizing existing methodologies in such field as molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology, cytology, immunology, and neuroscience and apples them to the design of medical devices, diagnostic equipment, bio-compatible materials and other important medical needs.
• Bioengineering is not only limited to the medical field. Bioengineers have the ability to export new opportunities and solve problems within the domain of complex systems. Bioengineers can apply their experts to other applications of engineering and biotechnology, including genetic modifications of plants and microorganisms, bio-process engineering and bio-catalysis.
• This ‘Medical Biotechnology’ and ‘Bioengineering’ makes India scientifically developed. Bioengineering helps is the agriculture and industry. By applying bioengineering agriculture productively can be increased. In industry efficiency of the products can be increased.
• As of now, India has become a medical tourism destination. This is because of improved medical facility in the country. Medical tourism also contribute to the GDP of the country.
• The objective of the medical biotechnology is to enhance the efficacy, productivity and cost effectiveness of molecular medicines. The two areas identified DBT for special emphases are genomics and Bioinformatics wherein the country has natural advantages.
• The DBT is negotiating with leading Indian pharmaceutical and biotech companies for collaborative ventures in secondary genomic research. The focus of these dates will be in areas like proteomics, functional genomics and also on dataminings, curation and annotation of the available genome data.

Answer : The Indian National Satellite Systems (INSAT) is one of the largest domestic communication satellite systems in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1980’s, it initiated a major revolution in India’s communications sector and sustained the same later.

• The satellites of INSAT system, which are in service today, are INSAT-2E, INSAT-3A, INSAT-3B, INSAT-3C, INSAT-3E, KALPANA-1, GSAT-2, EDUSAT, and INSAT-4A. The system provides a total of about 175 transponders in the C, Extended C and Ku-bands. Being a multipurpose satellite system, INSAT provides services to telecommunications, television broadcasting, weather forecasting, disaster warning and search and Rescue fields.
• The INSAT system serves many important sectors of the Indian economy. INSAT is providing Mobile satellite service besides providing VSAT service. Today, more than 25,000 very small aperture Terminals are in operations.
• Television broadcasting and redistribution are also have been benefited by INSAT. Social development through exclusive channels for training and developmental education has become possible through INSAT. Telemedicine network in taking medical services to the remote and rural population. The launch of EDUSAT, the India’s flat thematic satellite dedicated exclusively for educational services, has provided further fillip to the educational services offered by the INSAT.
• INSAT system is also providing meteorological services through Very High Resolution Radiometer and CCD cameras on some of its spacecraft. This apart, cyclone monitoring through meteorological imaging and issue of warnings on impending cyclones through disaster warning receivers have been opertionalised.
• The INSAT system uniquety provides geostationary platform for simultaneous domestic communications and earth observation functions. The first four generation INSAT series (INSAT-1A, -1B, -1C and 1D) were all US-built and launched by either US or European space launch vehicles. The INSAT-class satellites are joint ventures of India’s Department of Space (DOS), Department of Telecommunications (DET), India Meteorological Department (IMD), All India Radio and Doordarshan. Overall co-ordination and management rests with the inter-ministerial INSAT Coordination Committee (ISS).
• The satellites are handled from the INSAT Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.
• With the aid of the first generation INSAT series, telecommunications expanded considerably by providing inter-city networks and trunk routes. The meteorological service was integrated into the INSAT series. So it is a novel three-in-one concept that provides satellite television broadcasting communication and meteorological services from a single platform.
• By the end of the first generation INSAT systems, ISRO had developed its own capability to build the second generation. The second generation has improved capabilities in newer frequencies and an improved radio meter for weather observation.

Answer : Internet Protocol Television is a system where a digital television service is delivered using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure.

Advantages

• It has the ability to integrate television with other IP-based services like high speed internet access and VoIP.
• It allows for the delivery of significantly more content and functionality.
• In a Typical TV or Satellite network using broadcast Video technology, all the content constantly flows downstream to each customer and the customer switches the content at the set-top box.
• It is more interactive and personalized.
• The Supplier may include an interactive program guide that for content by title or actor’s name or a picture-in-picture functionality.

Answer : Spintronics a neologism meaning “spin transport electronics”, also known as “magnetoelectronics, is an emerging technology which exploits the intrinsic spin of electronics and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-state devices.

• The storage density of hard drives is rapidly increasing along an exponential growth curve, in part because spintronics-enabled devices like GMR (giant magnetoresistance) device and TMR (Tunnel magnetoresistance) sensors have increased the sensitivity of the read head which measures the magnetic state of small magnetic domains (bits) on the spinning platter. The doubling period for the areal density of information storage is twelve months, much shorter that Moore’s law, which observes that the number of transistors that can cheaply be incorporated in an integrated circuit doubles every two years.
• MRAM, or magnetic random access memory, uses arrays of TMR or Spin torque transfer devices. MRAM is nonvolatile (unlike charge based DRAM in today’s’ computers) so information is stored even when power is turned off, potentially providing instant on computing. This MRAM has a read/write cycle of under 50 nanoseconds.
• Advantages of semiconductor-based spintronies applications are potentially lower power use and a smaller footprint than electrical devices used for information processing. Also, application such as semiconductor lasers using spin-polarized electrical injection have shown threshold current reduction and controllable circularly polarized coherent light output. Future applications may include a spin-based transistor having advantages over MOSFET devices such as steeper sub-threshold slope.

Answer : Wi-Fi is the trade name for the popular wireless technology used in home networks, mobile phones, video games and other electronic devices that require some form of wireless networking capability.

• Wi-Fi technologies are supported by nearly every modern personal computer operating system, most advanced game consoles and laptops, and many printers and other peripherals.
• The purpose of Wi-Fi is to provide wireless access to digital content. This content may include applications, audio and visual media, internet connectivity, or other data. Wi-Fi generally makes access to information easier, as it can eliminate some of the physical restraints of wiring.
• In addition to restricted use in homes and offices, Wi-Fi can make access publicly available at Wi-Fi hotspots provided either free of charge or to subscribers to various providers. Organizations and businesses such as airports, hotels and restaurants often provide free hotspot to attract or assist clients.
• Wi-Fi also allows connectivity in peer-to-peer (wireless ad-hoc network) mode, which enables devices to connect directly with each other. This connectivity mode can prove useful in consumer electronics and gaming applications.
• Wi-Fi allows local area networks (LAN) to be deployed without cabling for client devices, typically reducing the costs of network deployment and expansion. Spaces where cables cannot be run, such as outdoor areas and historical buildings, can host wireless LANs areas. As of now, Wi-Fi technology had spread widely within business and industrial sites.

Answer : The structure of a robot is usually mostly mechanical and is called a kinematic chain (it’s functionally similar to the skeleton of human body). The chain is formed of links (its bones), actuators (its muscles) and joints which can allow one or more degrees of freedom.

Some robots use open serial chains in which each link connects the one before to the one after it. Robots used as manipulators have an end effectors mounted on the last link. This end effectors can be anything from welding devices to a mechanical hand used to manipulate the environment.

• Actuation: Actuation is the “muscles” of a robot, the parts which convert stored energy into movement. The most popular actuators are electric motors.
• Motors: The vast majority of robots use electric motors, including bushed and brush dc motors.
• Stepper motors: Stepper motors do not spin freely like DC motors; they rotate in discrete steps, under the command of a controller. This makes them easier to control.
• Piezo Motors: A recent alternative to DC Motors are piezo motors or ultrasonic motors. Tiny piezoceramic elements, vibrating many thousands of times per second, cause linear or rotary motion.
• Air Muscles: The air muscles in a simple yet powerful device for providing a pulling force. It behaves in a very similar way to a biological muscles, it can be used to construct robots with a similar muscle/skeleton system to an animal.
• Electroactive polymers: are classes of plastics which change shape in response to electric stimulation.
• Elastic Nanotubes: The absence of defects in nanotubes enables these filaments to deform elastically by several percent.
• Manipulation: Robots work in the real world requires some way to manipulate objects; pick up, modify, destroy or otherwise have an effect. Thus, the hands, of a robot are often referred to as end effectors. Most robots arms are replaceable effectors, each allowing them to perform some small range of tasks. Some have a fixed manipulator which cannot be replaced, while a few have one very general purpose manipulator.

Answer : (a) Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) is an autonomous organization under the Department of Science and Technology, established in February 1988.

• TIFAC aims to keep a technology watch on global trends and formulating preferred technology options for India.

(b) Gene doping is defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency as “the non-therapeutic use of cells, genes, genetic elements, or of the modulation of gene-expression, having the capacity to improve athletic performance.”

(c) Sappan Wood or East Indian real wood is a multipurpose tree. It is a small thorny spreading tree that up to 10m in height and the wood reaches 15-30 cm in diameter.

• In India, it is cultivated in gardens and nurseries as a live fence plants in parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

• Stealth technology is a technology which can be used in making fighter planes, water vehicles and missiles etc. In stealth technology the vehicles or missiles are focused in such a way that their location or the outer signal cannot be traced by the radar or IRST etc. and the stealth technology produces wrong information also regarding the location of the vehicle or missile. If the stealth technology is used in the right way then it becomes difficult to trace the location of the vehicle. In this way it becomes easy to attack enemy hiding and for the attack the army gets sufficient time to prepare and to take precaution. Countries like America and Russia are using the stealth technology. Other countries have also been trying to develop the stealth technology. As a result of this technology there will be lots of changes regarding the possibilities of future war and the policy of war.

Answer : The American government started a project called the human genome project in 1988. The main objective of this project was to find the full structure of human genes. After that the human genome project kept the target in front of it to know about the protein made by human genes. As a result it would be possible to find out the presence, decreasing number and faults of genes and likewise it would be possible to develop the process of treatment of the diseases like cancer, diabetes, AIDS etc. Along with this, the progress in the treatment technique is also an objective of this project.

• The greatest achievement of this project is that scientists can find out the structure of human genes and successfully trace the structure of genes. It has been possible to develop the technique regarding the treatment of defective genes only because of the human genome project. The treatment of the hereditary diseases has been easier because of this project. DNA interference is a recently developed technique regarding treatment by which it would be possible to treat many incurable diseases. Along with this, the developments of human, physical and mental structure etc. are the main achievements of human genome project.

Answer : For defence purposes, India started missile development programme in 1983 and the responsibility to implement this was given to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). India has been achieving in missile development, and through this India has achieved both technical and strategic development mentioned in missile development programme. Today, India has long-distance and medium-distance missiles namely Agni and Prithvi respectively. Agni has three versions, viz. Agni I, Agni II and Agni III which can face the attack ranging from 700-5000 km. Prithvi is short distance ballistic missile.Regarding targeting, capacity and use of technology it stands among the main missiles in the world. Besides these in India a lot of developed missiles have been made and tested successfully. Among these Trishul and Akash are short and long-distance missiles moving from ground to air respectively. Nag (anti-tank), Dhanush (Navel Missile) and Ashtra (air to air targeting) etc. are the main missiles of India. India and Russia together have made Supersonic Cruise Missile, Brahmos, which is based on the modern technology. India is developing an inter-continental ballistic missile "Surya". In this way India has achieved success regarding missile technology and undoubtedly today India is considered as one of the important nations of the world.

Answer : This software is made to harm any computer system. Computer users are unknown to the term malware and many a times they misunderstand it with virus.

Answer : Nanotechnology is a ubiquitous technology with a potential to impact on every aspect of science, technology and education. Nanotechnology is producing many revolutionary, applications such as: quantum computing, surface and materials modification, novel separations and sensing technologies, and human biomedical replacements. Interfacing materials with biology is widely believed to be the exciting new frontier for nanotechnology. The importance of nanotechnology is evident from the interest shown by governments around the world.

• Many major studies have been undertaken on the impact of nanotechnology on the world's economy. There is a growing sense in the scientific and technical community that due to nanotechnology modern technology is about to enter a golden new era. The world is about to be able to build things that work on the smallest possible length scales, atom by atom with the ultimate level of finesse.
• One of the most significant impacts of nanotechnology will be at the bio-materials interface. Whether a prosthetic implant is accepted or rejected, whether a drug is effective or whether living tissue will regenerate are all questions directed to the nanometer scale. Interfacing materials with biology is widely believed to be the exciting new frontier for nanotechnology.
• The world investment in nanotechnology has been dominated by the United States and Japan. This is expected to continue. However, increasing investment is expected by European countries such as the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland and Asian countries such as China, Taiwan and Korea.

Answer : An optical computer is a computer that uses bound electrons in isolating crystals instead of free electrons in transistors for computation. Its digital signals are modulated onto a carrier wave in the visible region. No modulator or demodulator exists, because the base band offers only 10 GHz bandwidth whereas the visible band offers to THz. It is similar to performing digital computation by a radio.

• A more practical limit is the crystal. Current crystals need light with 1 GW/cm2 intensity. And as a typical die (in microelectronics) is about 1 cm2, and some absorption takes place, this means kilowatts of power consumption, which only allows pulsed operation, but nanotubes may reduce this in the future.
• The speed of computers has now become a pressing problem as electronic circuits reach their miniaturization limit. The rapid growth of the Internet, expanding at almost 15% per month, demands faster speeds and larger bandwidths than electronic circuits can provide. Electronic switching limits network speeds to about 50 Gigabits per second (1 Gigabit (Gb) is 109, or 1 billion bits).
• Optical data processing can perform several operations simultaneously (in parallel) much faster and easier than electronics. This "parallelism" when associated with fast switching speeds would result in staggering computational power. For example, a calculation that might take a conventional electronic computer more than eleven years to complete could be performed by an optical computer in a single hour.

Answer : Reverse osmosis is the process of pushing a solution through filler that traps the solute on one side and allows the pure solvent to be obtained from the other side. More formally, it is the process of forcing a solvent from a region of high solute concentration through a membrane to a region of low solute concentration by applying a pressure in excess of the osmotic pressure.

• This is the reverse of the normal osmosis process, which is the natural movement of solvent from an area of low solute concentration, through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration when no external pressure is applied. The membrane here is semi permeable, meaning it allows the passage of solvent but not of solute.
• The membranes used for reverse osmosis have no pores; rather, the separation takes place in a dense polymer layer of only microscopic thickness. In most cases the membrane is designed to allow only water to pass through. The water goes into solution in the polymer of which the membrane is manufactured, and crosses if by diffusion.
• This process requires that a high pressure be exerted on the high concentration side of the membrane, usually 2-14 bar (30-200 pounds per square inch) for fresh and brackish water, and 40-70 bar [(600-1000 psig)] for seawater, which has around 24 Bar (350 psi) natural osmotic pressure which must be overcome.
• It is observed that the lowering of water table has reduced the availability of ground water and deteriorated its quality. In some areas it is simply not available. Because of such and other reasons today industries are actively considering a recycle of wastewater.
• There are already some effluent recycle installations in India and abroad working in various industries. There is enough data on operation and maintenance of such system. This paper is intended to share the practical technical aspect of Effluent Recycle System.
• The Effluent Recycle usually makes an in-house, reliable, good quality additional water source available for the industry. Hence, even if today it is not required, the Effluent Recycle plant can be planned for future. It is obvious that with time all the industries will be asked to go for. "Zero Liquid Discharge".
• With present practices of Effluent Recycle, the cost of Recycle water is higher than the fresh water available. (It ranges from Rs. 20-30 per M3). But the recycled water quality is usually much better for common applications like boiler feed, cooling lower make up, some parts of process.
• Reject disposal is one of the most important deterrents in the Feasibility study of recycle system with Reverse Osmosis.

Answer : Internet search engines (e.g. Google, AltaVista) help users find web pages on a given subject. The search engines maintain databases of web sites and use programs (often referred to as "spiders" or "robots") to collect information, which is then indexed by the search engine.

• Similar services are provided by "directories", which maintain ordered lists of websites, e.g. Yahoo!

• Thin film memory is a high-speed variation of core memory developed by Sperry Rand in a government-funded research project. Instead of threading individual ferrite cores on wires, a thin film (4 millionths of an inch thick) of iron-nickel alloy (called permalloy) was deposited as small dots (using a mask) on small glass plates by vacuum evaporation techniques.

• A branch of computer science that studies how to endow computers with capabilities of human intelligence. For example, speech recognition is a problem being worked on by Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientists.

• A hacker is someone who creates and modifies computer software including computer programming, administration, and security-related items.
• The term usually bears strong connotations, but may be either favorable or denigrating depending on cultural context.

Answer : The use of Robotic arms is the result of IT. In this technical expertise robots perform the work of operation in operation theatres and are guided and directed by the doctor sitting at the centre. This phenomenal achievement has spared time and made available the facilities at different centres by a single doctor.

• The IT has also brought into vogue the Telemedicine which has been extensively used in Tamil Nadu.
• It is the outcome of the coming of IT that video conferencing related to medical field has become feasible. By virtue of it Indian doctors are availed of expertise of doctors of foreign countries through this video conferencing.

Answer : Digital convergence is the bridging up of the digital divide by the diffusion of technology to the different regions and stratum of the country so as to bring the benefits of information technology and communication for every common man with the rapid rise of IT in India and its allied components like satellite TU, mobile phones, etc. there has been seen a greater need to bring the common man to reap the benefits of modern technology. The spin-off of IT like Tele education (EDUSAT), Tele medicine (Satellites linking local hospitals gain treatment with the help of super-speciality hospitals linked through video-conferencing); computerisation of land records; interconnecting Panchayats of a district and different district administration with the state headquarters (e-governance); all these and others will have a gainful impact on diffusion of modern technologies for the welfare and development of the masses.

Connectivity is the key to modern development for it helps to diffuse developmental fruits. Digital convergence has other aspects as well -

1. farmers inquiring about weather forecasts and market prices though the internet, fishermen receiving warnings as well as rain forecast in coastal areas especially about incoming tropical cyclones.
2. Use of digital technology has also changed the face of media, fashion, education with-internet making technologies available for which earlier generations have to speed a fortune.
3. It also helps in transparency as information and communication is digitised thereby increasing efficiency and accountability.

• When human cloning is used for not creating babies but to develop medicine-it is called therapeutic cloning. In South Korea, researches have claimed to successfully cloned a human embryo and then culled from it master cells. It could be used for customised cure for diabetes, parkinson's disease and other diseases. Therapeutic cloning, in principle works when the women provides the egg and the DNA comes from a different person. Researchers believe stem cells can provide us with a ready supply of replacement tissue. Initially, individually cells would be implanted into our bodies to repair the damage caused by degenerative illnesses like heart disease. Ultimately, however, it may be possible to persuade stem cells to grow into complete organs.
• This approach could end, for example, a leukemia patients' need for right bone marrow donor. With these genetic cloning, doctors would create perfectly matched bone marrow using perhaps patients' own cells.

Answer : Latest technological innovations expanding the uses of hydrogen has made it the fuel of the future. Its use in nuclear energy, space technology and spin-off in defence and health is coming handy.

• Hydrogen is the energy carrier for the future. It is a clear fuel that can be used in places where it is hard to use electricity. Sending electricity long way, costs four times as much as shipping hydrogen by pipeline. Hydrogen can be produced at large central facilities or at small plants for local use. Every region of the world has some resource that can be used to make hydrogen. Its flexibility is one of its main advantages.
• Hydrogen is used widely for space programme. Hydrogen fuel lifts the space shuttle into orbit. Hydrogen batteries called fuel cells-power the shuttle's electrical system.
• Hydrogen fuel cells make electricity. They are very efficient, but expensive to build. Small fuel cells can power electric cars and emit no pollution. Hydrogen could provide clean, endless, renewable energy for the future.

Answer : The electrical resistance of a metal or alloy is a function of temperature, decreasing as the temperature falls & tending to a constant low value at ‘absolute zero’ or 0°K or –273°C. It is found that for certain metal and alloys (e.g. lead, vanadium, tin) the electrical resistivity drops suddenly to zero, in the neighbourhood of a few degrees above absolute zero. This phenomenon is known as superconductivity.

Application

1. Large Scale Applications: Transmission of Power: One can have cable made with these materials which can be cooled by liquid N2 to carry large powers to distant areas thus saving 20–30% power which is lost in convertiaval system of transmission.

• Storage of Energy: Superconductor can be wound into a large solenoid with zero resistance, the current flowing in this solenoid would not dissipate, it would continue to flow endlessly, so we can generate power & put it in such a reservoir of superconducting magnet of large size so that when required it can be tapped of from this magnet and used.
• Large superconducting magnets are used for nuclear fusion experiments, for making high power accelerators & in NMR technology especially for medical diagnosis.
• Superconductor would make it possible to have trains running at a very high speed (on magnetic cushions).

2. Small Scale Application: They include magnetic shielding devices, medical imaging systems, superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS), infra red sensors, analog signal processing devices, and microwave devices.

Answer : The controlled use of biological agents, such as, micro organisms or cellular components for beneficial use is known as Biotechnology.

Applications of Biotechnology are as follows:

Agriculture: (a) Genetic Engineering leading to transformation followed by regeneration of plant to give ‘transgenic plants’ carrying desirable traits like disease resistance etc. (b) Use of Biofertilizers such as Rhizobium & Blue-Green algae instead of chemical fertilizers prevents loss to environment.

• Animal Husbandry: Including production of physiological systems, embryo transfer technology & improving health & well being of animals.
• Food: Efficient grain storage by eliminating pest & rodents, increased nutritive value of foods, enhancement of flavour, fermented foods through enzyme engineering, mushrooms cultivation food algae etc.
• Health: Biotechnology has enabled the production of human insulin through microbes, human growth hormone etc. Attempts are going on the use of biotechnology to cure some form of cancer and viral infections. Drug for treatment of diseases can be manufactured using biotechnology. Vaccine production by DNA technology against viral diseases is making good progress. Another area in the medical field influenced by biotechnology is diagnostic kits to diagnose viral infections hepatitis-B etc.
• Environment: Biotechnological methods have been devised for some environmental problems like: (i) pollution control; (ii) depletion of natural resource for non-renewable energy; (iii) restoration of degraded lands and (iv) Biodiversity conservation eg. microbes are being developed to be used as bio-pesticides, bio-fertiliser etc. Biomass is being produced and used as renewable, source of energy, by capturing solar energy.

Answer : Laser is a device that produces an intense, coherent and highly directional beam of a single frequency light. It can be transmitted over great distances without being spread.

Application

Defence

• Lasers are used to find the target, and to measure the range of targets accurately thus enabling first hit capability.
• Used for illuminating targets for missiles equipped with electro optic sensors.

Information Technology

• Information is transferred from the source to the destination by means of optical fiber cables. Advance communication takes place very fast at the speed of light, a large amount of information can be transmitted through a single fibre at a time and the losses are much less than in metallic use.
• Application of laser in data storage has enabled high density of storage in a compact dist. Laser light is used to read instead of a needle, so, the grooves can be made very small.’

Science

• In spectroscopy lasers have made possible the measurement of weak absorption lines in absorption sector.
• Excellent tool for diagnosing and inducing chemical and photo-chemical reactions.
• Used in separation of isotopes of an element.

Industry

• Laser welding is used where precise welding of very thin wires or films is required.
• Laser can easily drill through hardest of substances like diamond.
• Used in aligning structures like bridges, large buildings, tunnels, pipe lines etc.
• Laser scanners are used to read barcodes on consumer goods, to check precision equipment in workshop.
• Used in computer printers as they enable fast and quality printing.

Medicine

• Excellent tool for surgery. Main advantages include (i) prevents bleeding, (ii) reduces the possibility of infection and (iii) does less damage to nearby cells.
• lUsed for welding detached retina, treatment of cataract, glaucoma, cancer, gall bladder and kidney stones.
• The other important application of laser is holographic (3-D) imaging.

Answer : (a) Anthrax: Anthrax is primarily an infectious bacterial disease of animals which grows at a very fast rate in environment and affects human beings i.e. mainly respiratory system.

(b) Radiation and its effects: Radiation of invisible rays from radioactive elements is called radiation. Radiation finds use in agriculture to develop new mutants, for improved yields and better pest resistance and also in medicine and industry. It also causes skin disease as well as cancer.

(c) Genome: In each DNA, there are several genes which are functional unit of human genome. The collection of such a large number of genes is called Genome.

Answer : Sympathetic Haptics uses a data glove to sense the pressure being applied by a user to every part of that user’s hand and fingers. The system can then broadcast those feelings over the Internet to another user wearing the same type of glove.

Answer : Features of Linux are:

1. Full multitasking and 32-bit support
2. (GNU software support
3. TCP/IP networking support
4. Virtual memory and shared libraries.

• The operating system is the first program loaded into the computer as it boots, and it remains in memory at all times thereafter. This is responsible for allocating system resources, including memory, processor time, disk space and peripheral devices such as printers, modems and the monitor.

Answer : An Internet worm is type of malicious software (malware) that self-replicates and distributes copies of itself to its network. These independent virtual viruses spread through the Internet, break into computers, and replicate without intervention from and unbeknownst to computer users. Internet worms can be included in any type of virus, script or program. These worms typically infect systems by exploiting bugs or vulnerabilities that can often be found in legitimate software. Unlike Trojans or other viruses that require user intervention to spread, Internet worms can spread on their own. This makes them extremely dangerous. Internet worms use various techniques to multiply over the Internet. Initial worms just scanned local network hard drives and folders, and then inserted themselves into programs.

• DDOS is short for Distributed Denial of Service. DDOS is a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems -- which are usually infected with a Trojan -- are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. Victims of a DDoS attack consist of both the end targeted system and all systems maliciously used and controlled by the hacker in the distributed attack.

Answer : Biotechnology is one of the emerging technologies which have immense potential for a developing country like India. Biotechnology is the industrial use of Micro-organism and living plants and animal cells to produce substances or effects beneficial to people. Biotechnology encompasses the manufacture of antibiotics, vitamins, vaccines, plastics. Toxic waste disposed using bacteria, pollution control, production of new fuels are all possible through biotechnology. Gene technology, tissue culture, hybrid seed production, microbial firmentation, production of hybridoma antibodies or inmunochemicals is widespread biotechnology used in India. India being a country with large geographical expansion and human population. Biotechnology in Agriculture sector has turnout to be boom with HYV and other gene and tissue culture technology. Biofertiliser and Biopesticides are also helpful in a big way.

• In Industrial sector and energy sector also by producing industrial chemicals, waste management it is useful. For bio-diversity and environmental conservation it is greatly helpful. Biosensors, for detection of organo-phosphate pesticide resides in water, reclamation of degraded ecosystem at Bhatti mines (Delhi) and in Nagpur are in practice.
• For Human health, several vaccines, medicine in neuroscience, biotechnology have done wonders for our country. BIBCOL is engaged in making OPV for polio eradication. Thus Biotechnology can do wonders in all the important sectors in India with minimum of investment.

Answer : The Department of Telecom (DoT) has issued guidelines on 21st March, 2002 for Internet Service providers to process and carry voice signals.As per the guidelines, only ISPs licensees are permitted within their service area to offer such services.

• Internet telephony has been defined as an application service which the customers of ISPs can avail from their personal computer capable of processing voice signals. The scope of service includes—PC to PC, PC to phone and IP based H-323/SIP terminals both in India and abroad.
• The addressing scheme for such communication involving transmission of voice in packetised data format through public internet will confirm to the IP addressing scheme of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) alone and not the National Numbering Scheme applicable to subscribers of basic/cellular telephone service as defined by DOT. The internet telephone service offered by ISPs is different in nature, scope and kind from the scale time voice offered as telecommunication service by operator such as basic, cellular, NCD etc.
• It is likley to improve the efficiency and make the communication easier and connectivity the highest.

Answer : Cloning is the process of deriving an organism or a group of cells from another organism or from a single cell asexually. Members of a clone are identical in their inherited characteristics.

Human cloning can be done in similar fashion.

It has three steps:

1. The targeted gene in the cell will first have to be isolated. In the human being there are 100000 different genes in a cell.
2. The isolated gene which is chemically the fragment of a DNA can be introduced into a different living organism.
3. There are ways to ensure that the recipient accepts the donor gene and inherits its property.

Whether the cloning of human beings can be ethically justified is now firmly on national moral agenda. It is inherently evil, a morally unjustifiable intrusion into human life. It will augment bad consequences for the individual and society both. Even otherwise its success would serve no purpose even scientifically. Loss of races and human diversity, ethnic, social psychological and emotional problem will come up.

• Pinaka is a multibarrel rocket launcher. It is a mobile system with 12 solid propellant rockets capable of delivering saturation fire range of 39 km.

Answer : GSLV-III or Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, is a launch vehicle fully self reliant in launching heavier communication satellites, which weigh 4500 to 5000 kg. It would also enhance the capability of the country to be a competitive player in the multimillion dollar commercial launch market. The vehicle envisages multi-mission launch capability for Geostationary Transfer Orbit, Low Earth Orbit, Polar and intermediate circular orbits.

• The first stage was to be propelled by solid fuel, the second liquid-propelled (with hypergolic fuels) and the final stage was to be propelled by cryogenic fuels - liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen combination developing a thrust of 7.5 tonnes.

Answer : Cryogenic engines are needed to carry heavy payloads of up to five tonnes to geosynchronous transfer orbit - crucial for future telecommunication and space exploration – as against the 1.5 tonnes payload capacity of the PSLVs.

• While Russia did come close to transferring the technology to India, it backtracked later albeit under pressure from Washington. Given our ever-growing need for bigger and better satellites, India was left with no choice but to go for indigenous development of cryogenic engines. Scientists and engineers at ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Mahendragiri, near Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, took up the challenge and built India’s own cryogenic engine.

Answer : A fast breeder reactor (FBR) is the second stage of India's nuclear power programme. It was set up first at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu.

It uses liquid sodium as coolant. It has no moderator plutonium and uranium are used as fuel. The chain reaction is continued by the process that it uses and it can be used for other reactors.

It uses the nuclear fission reaction. It requires high temperature and needs to control the fission process.

It is operated by uranium- plutonium oxide mixture fuels and because of chain reaction; it produces more neutrons than the thermal reactors.

In comparison to thermal power reactors, the Fast Breeder Reactor used to 60 to 70 times more natural uranium. It is technically known as "Liquid Metal cooled Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR)".

In fast Reactor, enriched uranium is used. Though India has enough amount of natural uranium and plutonium but the technological process to enrich them is an hindrance. Moreover, the same enriched radio-active materials can be used in making atomic weapons and so, international pressure also work as a break in the enrichment programme.

This technology will greatly contribute in the fulfillment of India's energy requirement, industrial progress and thus economic development.

• The “Information Revolution” is at its peak with the arrival of DTH. DTH (Direct to Home) refers to distribution of multi-channel T.V. Programmes in KU band by using a satellite system. It is a popular technology in Europe, the US and South East Asian countries. Since the programmes are beamed in KU band, digitally and via satellite, it is easily accessible even in remote hilly areas. Secondly, the picture and sound quality is crystal clear. Thirdly, the viewers get more choice and programmes and also multimedia services. However, the high cost of installation is a serious drawback. For broadcasters they will have to prescribe to the programme and advertisement code.

Answer : The cryogenic engine is crucial to development of GSLV (Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle). Cryogenics refer to technology of sub zero temperatures and cryogenic engines use liquid oxygen as the oxidiser and liquid hydrogen as the fuel. Use of the liquified fuel instead of solid fuels helps the engine produce greater thrust. The engine’s capability is thus of placing a far heavier payload. The technology is complicated use of special insulation and materials that can withstand temperatures of minus 200 degree or less (the boiling point of liquid hydrogen is minus 253 degree Celsius) is necessary.

• On February 16, 2000 ISRO crossed an important milestone in the development of indigenous cryogenic upper stage for the GSLV when the first cryogenic engine was ignited at the LPSC (Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre), Mahendragiri. The engine had employed liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The test of the first cryogenic engine had several accomplishments such as fabrication, assembly and integration of complete cryogenic engine. The engine made by LPSC was expected to be used as the upper stage in the third launching of the GSLV. The upper stage of earlier launches of GSLV would be powered by engines and systems imported from Russia.
• The advantage of the cryogenic engine was that it would develop one-and-a-half times the thrust of conventional liquid rocket engines using fuel storable at room temperature. The GSLV is capable of injecting 2,500 kg class communication satellites into Geo-synchronous circular orbits at an altitude of 3,600 km. It is a high risk high technology and would help bridge the gap between the number of satellites being made by India and the vehicles needed for their launch. The gap is expected to be bridged in three to four years.
• India pays $70 million to Arian space for launch of INSAT satellites. By gaining the capability to place multipurpose satellite in orbit, this amount can be saved. Besides, India can enter the multi-billion dollar market for launching communications satellite.
• The realisation of the cryogenic technology would also help India to become a partner in space explorations and activities of other countries. On August 13, 2001 the central government has approved the ISRO’s project to send a payload to moon for which India has got capability and technology.

Answer : Stem Cells unlike any specific adult cells are undifferentiated cells, completely totipotent or in other words capable of indefinite proliferation in culture and can be potentially grown in adult organs like bone, muscle, liver, bloods cells, etc. Those embryonic stem cells are derived from in vitro fertilised embryos of 4-7 days cells. The cells in the outer layer from the placenta but those in the inner layer are undecided on what they will be when they grow up. They are infact ‘pluripotent’ able to develop into any of the 220 cell types that make the human body. These are the famous stem cells. Scientists like John Gear heart have so far found a way to turn these stem cells into 110 kinds of cells. Their property to regenerate vital organs has made them much important these days.

• A new type of therapy called the stem cell therapy may be on the anvil. By injecting these cells into various organs, the latter can be rejuvenated. Further, these cells can be used to fight various diseases. Stem Cells transformed to islet cells can cure diabetes. Similarly, those that form nerve cells can cure spinal cord injuries, ALS, Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease. The list is endless. Notwithstanding the debate on the ethical norms, one cannot ignore stem cells as a panacea for several diseases.
• Recent days have witnessed a massive uproar as to the nature of human embryonic stem cells in the political and scientific circles. The central theme of controversy lies in the idea whether the stem cells are embryonic or non embryonic in nature. The opponents of this research believe in moral and ethical grounds they treat these cells as distinct life and adhere to the idea that extracting building block cells from embryos necessitates the destruction of potential foetuses destroying life.
• Even after such a controversy Britain adheres to carrying out the research on stem cells. Even the federal government of US finally took the expected middle path and approved limited federal funding for medical research on stem cells extracted from human embryos. However, the whole matter is still under controversy and further research is needed to exactly overcome the issue.

Answer : In 1970, a breakthrough was achieved when optical fibers were developed. Fiber optics denotes a means of transmission of information in the form of light signals through a transparent medium e.g. glass or plastics. It works under the principle of total internal reflection.

Optical fiber offer many advantages to the telecommunications:

1. An extremely wide bandwidth, permitting several times larger volume of information than is possible through conventional means. It is possible to encapsulate several hundred fibers in one single cable.
2. The higher channel capacity, larger repeater distance and extremely low maintenance cost make the system very cost effective.
3. Optical fiber communications are free from radio frequency interference and are immune to electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic pulses. This results in unprecedented high fidelity.
4. Power consumption is extremely low.
5. The communications are almost error free.

• In computer language ‘handshake’ is the sequence of messages exchanged between two or more network devices to ensure transmission synchronisation.

• A baseband LAN (Local Area Network) specification invented by Xerox Corporation and developed jointly by Xerox, Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation. Ethernet networks operate at 10 Mbps using CSMA/CD to run over coaxil cable. Ethernet is similar to a series of standards produced by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers).

• In business transaction, digital signature play a function for digital documents. The increase in electronic commerce has made it a requirement. A digital signature system consists of two parts—a method of signing a document so that forgery is not possible, and a method of verifying that a signature was really generated by the person who it represents.

• WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a technique used in telecomm-unication. In this technique a telephone is attached with a screen on which one see the image of the talking partner through this technique one can also access the WAP sites.

Answer : India went on her first experience of nuclear test during Indira regime on 1984. This test was an experimental explosion for Plutonium bomb with capacity of 15 to 20 kg tonnes. It did not create any nuclear fallout. The effort was to get into the elite club of world nuclear. The Pokharan II was tested after about twenty three years on 1997 during NDA regime. During this experiment, five explosions were carried out of sub-kilo tonne and one thermonuclear explosion. The first four were to prepare nuclear bombs and another one for making Hydrogen bomb. After these experiments with emission of less than one Kilo tonne energy experiments now India will research further on its super computer.

• These experiments explosion suggest that India has progressively acquired technology to prepare hydrogen bombs after 1974 and now is one of the selected countries of the world with nuclear capacity.
• The main difference is about the technology and the significance is that the Pokharan I was a primary experiment which made the world think about India’s nuclear capacities and scientific technology, while the Pokharan II included India in the nuclear club with the surprise and shock to the world.

Answer : Information technology has put India on the centre point of the globe. This is only field or sector where India has competitive edge. India on this field has made fast and influential improvement, providing the economy a boost. This has given growing base to the service sector of the Indian economy. The application of information technology in governance, marketing, banking, insurance education, medical, industry, medical science advertising etc. is increasing day by day. In today’s scenario, Indian software few among them is Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune. Other Regions are also trying to emerge as super-power in IT sector.

• To encourage flourishing IT sector, Government should make favorable Policies to let this sector emerge as a leading sector across the world. Necessary infrastructure can be provided in this field and few bottlenecks needs to be removed.

• The Human Genome project aims at decoding the DNA sequence and order of genes. Human cells contain DNA, which is turn contains its structural units called nucleotides.
• This project will map the sequence of millions of codes in the Genes of Human beings. By this, scientists will be able to identify the genes responsible for various diseases.
• DNA structure contain chemical blocks called A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine) and T (thymine). These blocks, by combining with each other form a complex sequence. This complex sequence is being decoded by the Human Genome project. It will help preventing or curing wide range of diseases. For example; changing an adenine in place of thymine in the gene of hemoglobin causes sickle cell anemia.
• The Human Genome project will prove helpful in developing genetic condition of human being and make them more immune to disease by improvement of gene. Even genetically and hereditary disorders can be prevented and cured by such technology.
• All information about a person in respect of his physical, mind, blood, etc. can be derived through the Human Genome project.

• The development of satellite communication has highlighted the need for managing a new, previously unused, international resource – the satellite spectrum/orbit resource. Due to the growing demand for satellite capacity, this resource – particularly the geostationary-satellite orbit (GSO), which supports a large part of the world’s TV, live global broadcast and data services (VSAT and mobile networks backhaul) – is becoming increasingly crowded.
• GSO becomes increasingly crowded, with some 400 geostationary satellites currently in operation and around 40 new satellites launched each year. Thirty years ago, six degrees of spatial separation between geostationary satellites using the same frequencies over the same geographic area was considered a minimum to ensure their harmonious coexistence. Today, with technical advances and the painstaking coordination work of the stakeholders within the framework of the ITU Radio Regulations, the orbital separation between satellite systems is routinely two degrees.
• The GSO remains the most sought after because the satellites using it appear fixed in the sky, and hence can provide a permanent coverage without the need for earth stations to be equipped with expensive tracking systems. In addition, a single satellite in GSO can serve a very large area, which translates into the ability to serve millions of customers across a region.
• In recent years, an increasing number of cases of harmful interference have emerged – among both space and terrestrial systems– disturbing or preventing the reception of satellite signals. In some cases, instances of harmful interference have affected radio navigation-satellite service (RNSS) signals used by civil aviation, threatening disruption to international air traffic.

• The HIV is Human Immuno-deficiency virus. It destroys the human immunity system. This virus causes the AIDS – Acquired Immuno-Deficiency syndrome an incurable disease. This disease is caused by the viruses which prevents formation of the WBCs, white Blood cells – a constituent of blood which are responsible for our immunity. Destroying the WBC and preventing them formation, human natural immunity, that is power to fight against disease, is reduced and gradually extinct, making the body prone to various diseases. The person, who is affected by HIV, then becomes carrier, of them and infects other persons also. This communicable disease is sexually transmitted; the other way is through body third and infected syringes and blood transmission. This disease has spread so fastly in the world, especially in developing world that it has posed serious menace against the human existence. Africa, Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world has come under its cover. Today (in 2000) about 35 million people are HIV infected of which 29 million are in sub-Saharan countries.
• African and Asian countries are under highest spread of HIV, South Africa being the largest HIV infected land while in terms of number of HIV Patients; India is emerging as the Leader.
• Its spread in poor countries can be attributed to economic factors, Ignorance and illiteracy, Social and Traditional and Political factors.

Answer : (a) Transgenic Plants are genetic engineered plants or off spring of them. They usually contain material from at least one unrelated organism as from virus animal, or other plant. They are produced to include better qualities of such other organism. Combinations of qualities of different organism are seen in the transgenic plants.

• Hybrid plants are off-spring of two genetically unlike parents. They show qualities of two or more different types of plants combined by hybrisation. It may be generally by cross pollination.
• These plants will help to increase food production of good quality. They are drought resistible, immune from pest-insects and various diseases. They can tolerate high temperature, rain, humidity and other adverse weather conditions due to qualities acquired by such transgenic process.

Answer : Modern stands for modulator demodulator telephone line to facilitate data transmission at high speed between two computers. It converts analog data to digital vice-versa.

Answer : Comprehensive Natural Gas. Reduces emission of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants, green house gases etc.

Answer : Computer virus is a Software Programme which actively spreads and enters in computers to destroy or damage, data in the affected computers.

1. Centre for Cellular and MolecularBiology :Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.
2. Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research: Kakpakkam, Tamil Nadu.
3. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Answer : Identical twins are 'minor image' of each other in their genetic composition and so their habits reflect it. One becomes lefty and other right handed and soon.

Answer : The new proposed satellite in CARTOSAT.

It is proposed to because the existing IRS Satellites were notable to defect the army in Kargil recently. Due to failure, India had to rely on the figures of soldiers given by foreign satellites.

The meters of size while the newCARTOSAT will be able to detect upto 2.5 meters size objects with 3-D picture.

However, CARTOSAT is basically not a satellite for military surveillance but it is for mapping technology yet, it can be used by military for those purpose also to some extent.

Answer : Technological reforms in Indian agriculture have aimed at introduction of improved technology, so as to raise agricultural productivity i.e. output per hectare of land.

Major technological reforms in Indian agriculture took the form of introduction of New Agricultural Technology (NAT), which is also broadly identified as HYV – fertilizers – water technololgy. New variety of high yielding varieties of seeds came to be introduced during the sowing season 1966-67. HYV seeds needed the support of sufficient application of chemical fertilisers and water. The results were spectacular. Productivity of land multiplied fast; increase in agricultural output was dramatic.

Some special technology modernisation will lead to food security in India. For example, genetically modified seeds grown to get more production and better quality. Even period of crop can also reduced with increased immunity involved through genetics.

Modern technological inputs in soil development and conservation are sine qua non for food security of India in a sustainable manner. Required amount of nutrients through fertilizers should be delivered to crops for good production and soil conservation.

Proper and improved techniques of irrigation only can lead to assured production as rainfall distribution is uneven and uncertain throughout India. Therefore, proper planning for irrigation should be implemented.

Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Genetic engineering and modern techniques will lead to rise in the level of crop production but at the same time food conservation during post-harvesting stage and its maximum utilisation is also necessary. Improved and efficient pesticides at storage stage should be used.

But if we assess few decades' agricultural development, it is found that agricultural output was stagnant.

Answer : The Human Genome Project aims at decoding DNA sequence and order of genes. Human cells contain DNA, which in turn contains its structural units called nucleotides. This project will map the sequence of millions of codes in the Gene of Human being. By this, scientists will be able to identify the genes responsible for various diseases.

DNA structure contain chemical blocks called A (adenine) C( Cytosine) G (guanine) and T (thymine).

These blocks, by combining with each other form a complex sequence.This complex sequence is being decided by the Human Genome project. It will help preventing or curing wide range of disease. For example, changing an Adenine in place of Thiamine in the gene of hemoglobin causes sickle cell anemia.

The Human Genome project will prove helpful in development genetic condition of human being and make them more immune to diseases by improvement of genes. Even genetical and hereditary disorders can be prevented and cured by such technology.

Human Genome gives all the information of persons regarding his physique, different organs, blood etc.

Answer : Ozone is a blanket of protective layer existing in lower stratosphere largely, which protects biospheric ecosystem from harmful solar radiation. Hole in this ozone is called ozone hole. This is evident in Antarctica and other parts above earth surface.

This is caused by environmental pollution and chemical reaction of some of the pollutants especially chloroform carbons (CFCs) and halogen gases like bromine and chlorine. These chemicals react with molecules of O3 in complex reactions and convert ozone into other chemicals, hence destroying the layer of ozone and causing ozone holes.

Ozone layer is a protective cover over the earth which helps in many ways but ozone holes exposes the earth for many harmful effects.

Ultra-violate rays can now penetrate directly to the earth, which would filtered by ozone layer and cause harmful effects to animals. They damage cells and can cause skin cancer. Also, they reduce the rate of photosynthesis in plants. They raise temperature of the earth causing global warming to increase the level of sea and at last culminate in ecology imbalances.

The dangerous effect of ozone holes have made people worried for their solutions and prevention.

Answer : Biosensors is containing a biological component of our body with electrical circuit. The biosensor is meant to detect presence or production of any biological component like vitamin, enzyme, catalyst, hormone, protein and so.

When this is connected with a electrical circuit, its production or disappearance or presence, as the case may be in setting up, gives signal through the electronic detention of it.

These biosensors are used to diagnose diseases. Police use it to defect even a small amount of drug in the body, as the case is with drug checking of sports persons, known popularly as "Dropping Test".

In industries, acids, alcohol or phenol can be checked up by their use. Minerals under the earth can be defected by geologists using them.

In India, Dr. Sneha Anand of IIT, Delhi developed a Biosensor to detect epidemics of T.B, Dengue, Malaria etc. Such Biosensors are very simple devices, possible to use in primary centres of villages also.

Answer : Remote Sensing is technique of taking images and graphs without touching the object directly. Remote sensing helps in studying the phenomena of objects characteristics and Remote sensing objects can be studied and detected from a distant location. It is used by air-crafts, helicopters or satellites.

Remote sensing satellite belonging to the IRS- Series are meant for advanced technology probing missions, especially in the area of oceanography cartography and environment monitoring.

For a Country like India with wide natural resources, the technique, especially-space born remote sensing is useful in various ways-

• For proper agricultural planning, to increase yield per hectare and to bring more land under cultivation, reliable data and information is required.
• Faulty irrigation practices and improper drainage system has led to water logging and degradation of fertility in India. By Remote Sensing a wide area map can be prepared of the topography of a particular region to plan irrigation facilities properly.
• It can reduce pest borne disease which leads to reduction in productivity.
• Oil and Natural gas resources are found out by Remote sensing.
• Management and Planning of Various resources by Government will require detailed information and it can be derived through Remote Sensing.
• Ocean resources, marine resources are also detectable by it.

Indian Remote sensing satellite (IRS-IA) was launched by India in 1988, as a major step forward in this direction.

Answer : Genetic engineering is technique used over Genes to change their qualities according to needs are development under a branch of science, called Genetic Engineering. It deals with the genes and processes upon them, artificially.

In the cell of one organism, DNA of another Organism are transplanted to grow a new derived organism having combined and desired qualities of both the parent organisms. These techniques are researched and practiced in Genetic Engineering. Genetic Engineering is getting importance because of its use in agriculture, medicine and animal husbandry.

(1)In Agriculture, new varieties of plants are being prepared in every crop to make them more nutritious and immune from pest. Varieties of rice and wheat and other crops, genetically modified are prepared to make them more productive, drought-proof, resistible to insects.

(2)Some breeds of animals are also prepared by scientists using genetic engineering technologies. That creates a new breed of animals which are more immune to diseases, capable of giving more milk, meat, wool etc.

(3)In medical field, viruses and bacteria are used with transplanted genes to create desired types of hormones such as insulin etc.

Thus Biotechnology has covered a large field with the evolution of various techniques related to manipulation and transplantation of genes through genetic engineering.

Answer : Indian Scientists at the Advanced Numerical Research and Analysis Group (ANURAG) part of the Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)are working for the Development of super computers with the use of slower Processor Working in Parallel System.They development PACE, that is Processor for Acrodynamic Computation and Evaluations, a system.

Pace Sparc was developed jointly by ANURAG and TUS GROUP. Pace plus, another super computer, was formally launched in 1995-96. Pace offers unlimited uses because its capacity can be upgraded and adopted to any new technology. This primary stage in the form of pace brings the speed of super-computing. Centre for Development Advanced computing (C-DAC) developed param, a model of super-computer. This is capable of 100000 million calculations per second. This brings India in the group of Japan with computing power of one tera flop. The latest version is Param-Padam Super Computer Development by India.

Answer : Pinka, a multi-barrel rocket launcher weapon has proved India's Capability to develop Latest, Stage weapons. This System has 12 Solid Propellant rockets to give it higher capacity. Its tange is about 40 km. It can launch variety of warheads. The Pinka developed by the Armament Research and Development Establishment, Pune.

Defence Research and Development Organisation developed it based on indigenous technology. This System has pushed India's missile programme. It can be situated near the border line to control strategic activities of neighbouring countries that may cause negative impact on Indian security concerns, by its influence on defence policy. Multi barrel system contributes to enlarged attack capacity.

India's relations, especially with boundary joined countries have not been passing through a reliable and safe phase and so, the proof of India's capacity in scientific research and development will help control situations.

Answer : Optical fibres are hollow wires which contains silvery reflective surface inner side. The light is reflected and transmitted and through it messages, images and groups can be transmitted.

Through optical fibres, which are made of silica, high energy light is entered at one end and it is transmitted within the hollow thread to the other end.

The Principle of internal reflection is used. This technology is useful in medical treatment, communication and broad casting.

It is widely applied in medical Practices to observe internal parts of human body.

In Communication, telephones can be Joined via optical fibres instead of copper or other metallic line. It converts the sound energy into the light energy and transmits it. It has large band width and high transmission potential. It is small in size i.e. diameters between 5 to 100 microns. It has less chances ofcross talks, reliability and immunity to electrical interference.

Answer : Enzymes are a special type of Protons. They acts as a class of biological catalysts. They are comprised mainly of one or more poly peptide chains of a globular Proteins.Some enzymes includes covalently bond or tightly associated metal lons, Prosthetic groups or carbohydrates. Their molecular mars may range from 10000 to several hundred thousand Da.

They are important for all biological actions in our body, synthesized in one body, some act as a Catalysts. Glucose isomerase converts glucose into fructose. Some digestive enzymes, help in digestion of food. They convert complex matters into smaller one.

Even they are used in industries for various use. In textile industry, leather industry, Pharma companies, they have been proved very important. They can be used in food production and Preservation.

Thus, use of enzymes are not limited in our body, for biological actions only but they are also useful in various industries also.

Answer : missiles. Agni is a ballistic missile indigenously developed by India. Agni was first test-fired at the Chandipur test range of Andhra Pradesh coast in May-1989. This successful test proved India's capacity and technical expertise. Although the Agni project is aimed only at testing and demonstrating ballistic missile a catalogues, it has capacity of carrying one tonne of warhead.

It is a medium range missile with of 1500 to 2000 km. This missile put India into an advanced stage of technology. It evaluated re-entry technology, accuracy of the guidance system and experimental urability of a solid-liquid mix-propulsion; it is capable of re-entering the atmosphere. It has carbon composite shield which can withstand the stock and high temperature while re-entering the atmosphere.

Agni the second Intermediate range Ballastic Missile (IRBM) was again test-fired in May, 1992 and third in January 1994.

Aim of India is always peaceful development but the changing world scenario on the defence field made it necessary for India to be well equipped and well developed in defence technology and equipments. This missile has not only put India into a safe circle of security but also increase its weight in international polities. Moreover, this project have been proved helpful in maintaining balance of power equations in the south Asian block, Its all critical components are built up indigenously and has only 5 to 6 percent import contents (by value).

One more remarkable feature of this missile is that it uses strap - down inertial navigation system.

It has explicit guidance scheme with a high speed computer onboard.

Answer : India exploded its first nuclear devorce in 1974 in Pokhran. Since then, India has achieved many milestone success in its nuclear programme. The first demonstration of India's nuclear capacity in 1974 was a surprise for the world and jealousy for some countries but India has always emphasized its use for peaceful development.

In last two and a half decade, India & nuclear programme has maturely developed on both civil and military fronts.

However India started its nuclear programme since 1950s when it established the Bhabha Atomic Research centre (BARC) Tomboy a heavy water moderated reactor virus with capacity of 40MW purchased from Canada. India purchased Heavy water from the U.S.A. starting from that firststep now has come long way by indigenous development of Duruva reactor.

Today India has operating reactors at Tarapur, Rajasthan, Kalpakkam, Narora, Kakarapar and Kaiga.

All these technologies and facilities in the nuclear field developed by India contribute to its development in both economic and defence fields. In economical fields, this technological development has held to electricity production, medical treatment, research in agriculture, preparation of nuclear medicines, food preservation etc.

In all these spheres the nuclear programme has immenselycontributed.

In defence field, India follows the policy of "no first use of nuclear weapons" and though India has not declared, but India is capable of developing nuclear weapon at any time so even in the defense. Requirements, the nuclear programme satisfies great need of India development and security concern respectively.

Answer : Cryogenic means law temperature 'cryogenic technology is used in satellite launch vehicles and rockets liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are used as the propellant. Liquid oxygen requires temperature below-183oC and liquid hydrogen requires temperature below - 253oC liquid oxygen is highly reactive. These engines give much more thrust in comparison to other propellant of same weight. They are very efficient and are used through about the world.

In 1995 a successful ground - firing of the liquid engine was achieved by ISRO. These engines can be to proved very helpful in launch of heavy vehicles in space. India is launching many Satellites and so this technology is much required for its space programme development.

When India will develop this technology It will provide not only self - reliance in space projects but also a big market of satellite launch of the world.

Answer : Madcow disease as it is popularly known is called Bovine spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in medical science technology. This disease is a projective neurological. Disorder of cattle. In 1996. It was spread among cows in V.K causing widespread dangerous alert. In the world as it can be transmitted to other species including humans. In human it is called creutzfeldt - Jacob - disease, after the two doctors who first described the symptoms of the disease.

This disease occurs in cows and therefore the term 'Bovine' is used. It causes a sponge like destruction of the brains - so used term 'enceph' means brain and 'pathy' means pathology meaning an abnormality.

Its symptoms include:

• Excitable or nervous. Temperant to external stimuli such as touch to the skin progressive unsteadiness of gait resulting eventually in the inability to stand up.
• the disease has prove virtually 100% fatal.
• In human creutzfeldt - Jakob causes memory loss, emotional instability including inappropriate outbursts, an unsteady gait progressing to marked weakness, serve rapidly progressive dementia and death after within a year of the onset of symptoms.

Answer : Fullerness are derived form of carbon with heavy atomic mass consisting 60 nuclears of carbon in its single atom. This heavy atone was first declared by Buckminster fuller and so it was given nave as "fullerene" It is a ball like structure developed by Harold croto and Richard smelly in 1985.

These are important in the fields or industries due to specific characteristics. Because of ball like strong structure, they are used a lubricants, that is due to high band-affinity among its atoms. They are with the same purpose, used in ball - bearings.

When alloyed with some other metals, they become super-conductors and so can be used in electricity transmission, without or negligible waste of electricity. They are also used in electrical of gallery. It can be substitute to accommodate many hydrogen atoms then its gets characteristics of catalyst to be used in various chemical reactions.

Answer : Interferons increases immunity of our body by producing antibodies. They are anti-viral proteins.

Answer : A contraceptive formulation developed and used in India. Though it is not approved by FDA for sale in the U.S. yet, is supposedly does not have any of the negative side effect.

Answer : (i) SAARC: South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation.

(ii) ASEAN: Association of South East Asian Nation

(iii) OIC: Organisation of Islamic Countries.

Answer : India has formally co-ordinated its various organisations related to space programme in 1972 by constituting the space commission and the Development of Space (DOS). Both of these institutes are Umbrella organisations which direct and regulate India’s space programme.

Main contributions of progress made in the field of space technology, especially in socio-economic development are:

(i)Survey of various mineral and natural resources have been made possible through remote sensing.

(ii)Management of these resources, their development conservation and formulation of various policies are affectively done with the use of information derived through remote sensing.

(iii)Various meteorological services including information about monsoon, climate flood, cyclonic activities etc are provided through the technologies.

(iv)It has developed communication technology in India.

(v)They have proved very useful in spread of education. Even in remote areas, the expertise education have been made possible through the talk back channels of INSAT-3D satellite.

(vi)They have helped in environment conservation programmes estimation of agricultural production and water resources informations.

(vii)Green revolution had been made possible through this technology.

(viii) The concept of “Gramsat” satellites have emerged to provide the basic requirements of villages.

(ix)Apart from these various uses, the space programme has helped in social cultural and scientific consolidation and harmony.

In these way, the space programme has given a push to every aspects of our national policies and programmes constributing widely towards socio-economic, development of India, besides economic and scientific progress.

Answer : Intellectual Property Rights are those right of an inventor which protects his rights over a method or process for a limited time, from being copied or used by mother persons. These are exclusive rights to use, exercise or lend his inventions. Patient Rights, Trade mark, Copy Rights etc. come under the purview of Intellectual Property Rights.

The Patent Act is a law which is concerned with the rights of an inventor. He can use his inventions and its process, exclusively, to earn profit. He can exclude others from using his method which he has got patented under the Act.

In India, Patent Act comes into existence in 1970, under which many scientific process and procedures were patented by Agriculture Scientists and researchers, individually or by organisations. Medicines were also protected under this regimes.

But in India accepts the Patent provisions of the World Trade Organisation, it will have to change provisions of its patent Act-1970. This will again made Indian producers of agriculture seeds and other products, medicines and pharmaceutical products required to patent or register their inventions or research.

They will have to face some economical, legal and technological problems to compete against foreign producers if these provisions are implemented. Therefore, Indian scientists are concerned for the agricultural and pharmaceutical patents that they have got under the Indian Patent Act-1970 and now they have to face economical strokes. Then, prices of these products will rise very high. The charged patent law will also be not in favour to Indian companies and scientists.

Answer : Nuclear medicine uses various radio isotopes for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. These nuclear medicine is given orally or injected in body of the patient. The medicine contains radio isotopes.

It is used to destroy cancerous growth in any part of body. It words more quickly than any other treatment of radiotherapy.

Nuclear medicine isotopes give functional signals so that the affected spot can be easily delected. Now, it has became mandatory to prove brain death of the patient through the medium of nuclear medicine, before replacement of any organ.

Iodine-131, chromium-51, Co-57, Co-58, and Co-60, Gallium and Mercury are used as isotopes in nuclear medicine.

In India, INMAS (the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Science) is researching in this field. It has contributed greatly in the radio iodine therapy for treating Goitre and further research in other fields are being conducted.

Answer : Virtual reality is a technique related to computer which represents virtual thought in real images. It creates 3D environment which appears highly realistic to the user and responds to the users natural motions in realistic ways. They effect on the audio-visual nerves to create real imaginations. Instead of a screen it generally uses a head-mounted display to present the virtual world to the user while, shutting out environmental directions.

In military training virtual reality is used to pioneer the user for training of crews and even individual soldiers in the field. Modern computer saves, civil engineering, genetic engineering etc. use this technique to create realistic images. Mental treatment, and pilot training are imparted through the virtual reality. For various experiences. It is a boom to handicaps. In entertainments, it is getting wider network. This technique allows surgeons to perform their operations. This helps in remote conferencing and creating more realistic and satisfactory interaction for participants. In education and training, where costly equipments are required, virtual reality is an alternative.

Answer : In the spectrum of waves, microwave requires position before infrared waves. These waves are useful as source of energy with nearly a hundred Gija hertz frequency they are hot rays and can be used to produce heat.

Waves can produced their effect without touch of any physical matter. Microwave oven is a type of food cooker device. This oven prepares food by the effect electro-magnetic rays of the microwave range.

The microwaves are produced electrically and concentrated in a pack box, in which at the centre position, food to be cooked is located. The device can cook every type of food with very high energy equal to about 2.5 Ghz frequency. This high energy quickly cooks the food. The modern techniques of microwave oven provides many other facilities like system of rotating disk base so that equal amount of energy can be given to whole food, automatic system of on-off etc. This has been very popular nowadays due to its benefit and facilities in cooking food.

Answer : Transgenic organisations are generated through scientific intervention and reproduced with artificial techniques of gene transfer, for that, a transgene is integrated into the genome of an organism. Their genome are transferred into a different type of genome by manipulative technique. In the over of the organism, DNA is entered through plasmid or DNA vectors base on virus. The foreign gene or transgene introduced in this way integrates with the original genome of the organism, converting it into a transgenic organism.

Such transgenic organisms are of great importance in genetic engineering and biotechnology. Various types of animals and plants species can be rebated through this technique. Transgenic organisms are with all or some characteristics of the parent organisms. Desired qualities of two organisms can be combined in one by this technology reproduction between them.

Many improved species of animals are produced by this technology to derive maximum benefit from this use.