Ans: b
Exp: 

Context: India’s retail inflation shot back to a nine-month high of 5.5% in September. Food prices surged to a two-year high of 9.5% from August’s 10-month low of 3.3%, marking the sharpest surge in 14 months.

Statement 1 is incorrect: The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) measures wholesale price changes. The Wholesale goods or services sold by businesses to smaller businesses for selling further. 

• The WPI does not include services. The weightage for food is lower in WPI whereas the weightage of food in the CPI is close to 50%. 

Statement 2 is correct: WPI indicates the wholesale price, whereas CPI shows the retail price i.e., the price at which people make purchases from the retail market. WPI does not show the impact of inflation on the people. Any policy should consider the impact on the people. WPI does not account for the price of services. It is an international best practice – most of the countries have shifted to CPI. 

Statement 3 is incorrect: The Reserve bank of India adopted the new Consumer Price Index (CPI) (combined) as the key measure of inflation in 2014. The Consumer Price Index measures retail-level price changes. It includes services as well.

Ans: D

Exp:

Context: The labour strike at Samsung’s plant in Sriperumbudur, just outside Chennai, has stretched into its second month, with over a thousand workers demanding the recognition of their union and improvements in working conditions.

Statement 1 is correct: Supreme Court in B.R. Singh versus Union of India in 1989 upheld the right to form associations or unions as a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(c) of the Constitution.

Statement 2 is correct: Though the right to strike is not a Fundamental Right. It is recognised as a legal right with certain restrictions under the Industrial Disputes Act 1947. Recently Industrial Dispute Act, 1947 is subsumed under the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

Statement 3 is correct: The Trade Union Act, 1926 recognised trade unions as legal associations. It also +laid down conditions for registration and regulation of trade union activities and secured civil and criminal immunity for trade unions from prosecution for legitimate activities, but also put some restrictions on their political activities.

Ans: C

Exp: 

Russian artists perform at a concert organised by the Kozhikode Corporation and the Russian House in Kozhikode to celebrate 555 years of the visit of Russian traveller Afanasi Nikitin to India.

Afanasi Nikitin, the Russian explorer who landed in India before Vasco da Gama.

Statement 1 is not correct: Nikitin first arrived in India in 1469, making this year the 555th anniversary of his arrival. He reached the west coast of India in 1469 and landed at the port of Cambay (Khambhat) in present-day Gujarat

Statement 2 is correct: He visited the court of Bahamani sultan, Muhammad Shah III.

Statement 3 is correct: His book “Voyage Beyond Three Seas” sheds light on 15th-century India.

Ans: B

Exp:

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) announced that Agni and Vaayu, two South African cheetahs in Kuno National Park, are set to be released in Madhya Pradesh’s Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary, though not into free-ranging conditions.

Statement 1 is correct: The cheetah was declared extinct from India in 1952. Cheetah is the only large carnivore to have become extinct in Independent India.

Statement 2 is not correct: The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List. However, the African Cheetah is listed as vulnerable in IUCN red listed species.

About Project Cheetah: 

• The Government of India launched it (in September 2022) to bring back Cheetahs to India. 
• Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952.
• Implementing Body: National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),  a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment.
• Objective: The Indian government hopes to bring 50 cheetahs from African countries to various national parks over the next five years.
• Currently, a total of 20 radio collared Cheetahs were brought from Namibia and South Africa to Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh, in a first ever transcontinental wild to wild translocation i.e  Africa to Asia.

Ans: B

Exp: 

Context: A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024.

• Europa Clipper is a NASA mission to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The mission will place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of Europa. Hence, pair 1 is not correctly matched.
• Messenger, a spacecraft by NASA was sent to map and investigate Mercury. It was launched in 2004 and entered Mercury’s orbit in 2011. The mission ended in 2015. Hence, pair 2 is correctly matched.
• Voyager 1 and 2 were launched by NASA in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. Both the spacecraft are still operational. Hence, pair 3 is correctly matched.
• NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft was the first spacecraft to explore Pluto up close, flying by the dwarf planet and its moons on July 14, 2015. Hence Pair 4 is not correctly matched.
• The mission to study other objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system that extends from about 30 AU, near the orbit of Neptune, to about 50 AU from the Sun.
• It was the first mission in NASA’s New Frontiers program, a medium-class, competitively selected, and principal investigator-led series of missions. (The program also includes Juno and OSIRIS-REx.)
  • The European Space Agency’s the evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (ELISA) mission aims to conduct the first-ever space-based study of the gravitational universe.