RRB NTPC CBT 1 2016 General Awareness Questions with Solutions

Explanation

The Great Stupa at Sanchi, located in Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, was originally commissioned by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. Built over the sacred relics of the Buddha, it is one of the oldest stone structures in India and served as a focal point of Buddhist worship and pilgrimage.

Explanation

The Naxalbari Rebellion occurred in May 1967 in the Naxalbari block of Darjeeling district, West Bengal, two decades after India gained independence. It was an armed peasant uprising led by radical communist leaders, including Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal, against local feudal landlords (jotedars) over land redistribution and agricultural exploitation, rather than against British colonial authorities.

Explanation

Roger Federer is a Swiss professional tennis player who represents Switzerland in international lawn tennis competitions, including the Grand Slam tournaments, the Davis Cup, and the Olympic Games. He led Switzerland to its first Davis Cup title in 2014 and won two Olympic medals representing his country: a gold in doubles in 2008 and a silver in singles in 2012.

Explanation

Common salt, or table salt, consists primarily of sodium chloride, represented by the chemical formula NaCl. It is an ionic compound composed of equal parts of sodium and chlorine ions, essential for life and commonly used as a seasoning and food preservative.

Explanation

The pancreas functions as a heterocrine or mixed gland containing both exocrine and endocrine tissues. Its exocrine portion secretes digestive enzymes such as pancreatic amylase, trypsinogen, and pancreatic lipase through the pancreatic duct into the small intestine. Its endocrine portion, composed of the islets of Langerhans, secretes hormones like insulin and glucagon directly into the bloodstream to regulate glucose metabolism.

Explanation

Dari, a variety of the Persian language, is one of the official languages of Afghanistan alongside Pashto. It serves as the primary lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication across the country and is spoken by over half of the Afghan population as a native or first language.

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Nirmala Sitharaman served as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry from 26 May 2014 to 3 September 2017 in the Union Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Explanation

Water pollution is a pervasive issue across rural India, severely impacting public health and agricultural productivity. A majority of Indian villages lack access to piped, treated drinking water, relying on open surface water bodies and shallow groundwater sources that are heavily contaminated. Biological contamination from untreated waste and chemical contamination involving high levels of fluoride, arsenic, and nitrates lead to widespread waterborne diseases such as fluorosis, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid.

Explanation

The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) was established inside India at Feroz Shah Kotla in New Delhi in September 1928 by revolutionaries including Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Shiv Verma. It was a reorganization of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), which was also founded within India at Kanpur in 1924.

Explanation

The Iron Pillar of Delhi, located in the Qutb complex, is made of wrought iron with approximately 98% to 99% purity and a high phosphorus content. Ancient Indian metallurgists achieved its extraordinary corrosion resistance through the formation of a protective passive film of iron hydrogen phosphate hydrate (misawite) on the surface, which seals the metal and prevents atmospheric oxidation and rusting.

Explanation

The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit used to measure the intensity or loudness of sound and noise relative to a standard reference level. It quantifies sound levels in a way that matches the human ear's logarithmic perception of sound pressure and volume.

Explanation

India is a sovereign country as declared in the Preamble to its Constitution, meaning it is completely independent of external control and possesses supreme authority within its own territory. Factually, the Parliament of India is located in New Delhi. However, the geographic location of the parliament is merely an administrative detail and is not the factor that defines or confers India's status as a sovereign nation.

Explanation

Landfills are man-made waste disposal sites designed to manage solid waste generated by human activity, urbanization, and industrial processes. They act as a cause of localized environmental pollution and land degradation, rather than being a direct ecological consequence resulting from the degradation of global environmental systems.

Explanation

Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. Established in 1971, Sriharikota was selected due to its favorable location near the equator, its coastal position along the Bay of Bengal providing a safe eastern seaward launch trajectory, and its vast uninhabited land area.

Explanation

Laser surgery uses a high-intensity beam of focused light to cut, vaporize, or remove tissue. As the laser cuts through tissue, its intense thermal energy instantly seals small blood vessels through a process called photocoagulation, effectively minimizing or eliminating bleeding during surgical procedures.

Explanation

Potato chips are packaged in bags flushed with nitrogen gas to create an oxygen-free environment. Nitrogen is an unreactive gas that prevents the oxidation of fats and oils present in fried food. Oxidation causes rancidity, which leads to unpleasant odors and bad taste. Flushing with nitrogen maintains the freshness, crispness, and shelf life of the chips while also cushioning them against crushing during transit.

Explanation

Floppy disks, developed in the late 1960s and standard throughout the 1980s and 1990s, have become obsolete due to their extremely limited storage capacity (typically 1.44 MB) and slow read-write speeds. As software file sizes grew and digital media expanded, computer manufacturers completely phased out floppy disk drives from consumer PCs in favor of higher-capacity removable storage technologies.

Explanation

Water is essential for all known forms of life as it acts as a universal solvent, facilitates biochemical reactions, and helps transport nutrients within organisms. Chemically, a water molecule (H₂O) consists of two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom, giving a hydrogen-to-oxygen atomic ratio of 2:1 rather than 3:1.

Explanation

The Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site located in the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh, situated inside the Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary at the foothills of the Vindhyan Mountains. Discovered by V. S. Wakankar in 1957, these prehistoric caves contain rock paintings that date from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods through the historic period, offering early evidence of human life on the Indian subcontinent. The site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

Explanation

The Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the USA, in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA). In late 2015, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope successfully observed the first-ever predicted supernova explosion, known as Supernova Refsdal, which was accurately forecasted using gravitational lensing caused by an intervening massive galaxy cluster.

Explanation

Dr. L. Subramaniam (Lakshminarayana Subramaniam) is an acclaimed Indian musician, composer, and conductor who plays the Carnatic violin. Trained in both Carnatic classical music and Western classical music, he is renowned for popularizing the Indian violin globally through orchestra compositions and international musical collaborations.

Explanation

The Constitution of India is the lengthiest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world. At the time of its adoption in 1949, it contained 395 Articles divided into 22 Parts and 8 Schedules. Its comprehensive nature stems from incorporating detailed provisions regarding the administrative framework, fundamental rights, directive principles, governance structures of both the Union and the States, emergency provisions, and safeguards for various social groups to cater to India's vast geographic, cultural, and political diversity.

Explanation

The Golden Glove Award is presented by FIFA to the best goalkeeper of the World Cup tournament. Originally introduced in 1994 as the Lev Yashin Award in honor of the legendary Soviet goalkeeper, it was officially renamed the Golden Glove in 2010. The recipient is selected by the FIFA Technical Study Group based on the goalkeeper's overall performance throughout the final tournament.

Explanation

The MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars) Space Telescope is Canada's first space telescope. Launched in June 2003 by the Canadian Space Agency, it was designed specifically for asteroseismology—the study of star vibrations and minute variations in stellar brightness. Weighing approximately 53 kg, this microsatellite earned the nickname "Humble Space Telescope".

Explanation

Triveni Sangam in Allahabad (Prayagraj) is the sacred confluence of three rivers: the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati. According to Hindu mythology and tradition, the Saraswati is an invisible or subterranean river that flows underground to meet the visible Ganga and Yamuna rivers at the Sangam.

Explanation

In November 2015, the Government of India announced comprehensive reforms to its Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy across 15 sectors to boost investment and ease of doing business. Under these liberalized guidelines, the FDI limit for terrestrial broadcasting services and the uplinking of news and current affairs television channels was raised from 26% to 49% through the government approval route.

Explanation

The Sundarbans, located in the delta region formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers across India and Bangladesh, is the largest contiguous block of tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world. Halophytic plants are specialized salt-tolerant vegetation adapted to harsh coastal and estuarine conditions with fluctuating tidal levels and high water salinity, which defines the unique ecology of mangrove ecosystems.

Explanation

Nanotechnology is the field of science and engineering dedicated to materials, structures, devices, and systems operating at the nanoscale, typically defined as dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers. At this scale, matter exhibits unique quantum mechanical and physicochemical properties, allowing scientists to manipulate individual atoms and molecules to fabricate novel materials and functional devices.

Explanation

Lifting an object vertically primarily involves applying force against the gravitational pull of the Earth rather than opposing surface resistance. Friction specifically acts parallel to two contacting surfaces to oppose relative sliding motion, which is not the force being overcome during a straight vertical lift.

Explanation

India's first jute mill was established in 1855 by George Acland at Rishra along the Hooghly River near Calcutta in Bengal. Bengal possessed ideal geographical and climatic conditions for raw jute cultivation and processing, such as a warm humid climate, well-drained alluvial soil, abundant fresh water from the river system, and cheap labor, making it the chief center of the Indian jute industry.

Explanation

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. A .css file is used to describe the presentation, formatting, and visual layout of web pages written in HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and XML-based markup languages. Because HTML relies on hypertext to link and structure web content, CSS files are categorized as hypertext-related files that define the appearance and styling of these documents across the web.

Explanation

Fossils of Homo naledi were discovered in the Rising Star Cave system near Johannesburg, South Africa, in late 2013 and officially described in September 2015. Representing a remarkable blend of primitive Australopithecus-like traits and modern Homo-like features, this species added a critical new evolutionary branch to the human family tree shortly before 2016.

Explanation

An aquarium contains living organisms such as fish and aquatic plants alongside non-living physical elements like water, gravel, dissolved oxygen, and light. Because these biotic and abiotic components interact as a functional system, it forms an ecosystem. Since it is constructed, controlled, and maintained by human effort rather than forming through natural geological or ecological processes, it is classified as a human-made or artificial ecosystem.

Explanation

Genetic engineering, also known as recombinant DNA technology, involves the direct manipulation of an organism's genes using biotechnology. It encompasses techniques used to isolate, alter, and recombine DNA molecules from different sources and introduce them into a host organism to produce desired traits or proteins.

Explanation

Mouma Das and Soumyajit Ghosh are prominent Indian table tennis players who have represented the country in international competitions, including the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. Mouma Das is an Arjuna Awardee and multiple-time national champion who competed at the 2004 Athens and 2016 Rio Olympics. Soumyajit Ghosh became the youngest Indian paddler to qualify for the Olympics when he represented India at the 2012 London Games, and he subsequently qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics as well.

Explanation

HIV cannot be transmitted through mosquito bites because the virus is digested inside the mosquito's gut along with the blood meal, preventing it from surviving or replicating. Furthermore, mosquitoes inject saliva when biting through a separate salivary channel, not blood from a previously bitten person.

Explanation

Galvanization is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to iron or steel to prevent rusting. The zinc layer acts as a physical barrier against moisture and oxygen, and also serves as a sacrificial anode, corroding in preference to the underlying iron even if the coating is scratched or damaged.

Explanation

Archimedes' principle states that any body completely or partially submerged in a fluid experiences an upward buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by it. This principle forms the fundamental basis of naval architecture in designing, constructing, and operating ships. A ship floats and moves safely because its hull is designed to displace a volume of water whose weight equals the total weight of the ship, creating the buoyancy needed to keep it afloat.

Explanation

Long before the East India Company established its political hegemony, India was a global hub for textile manufacturing and trade. Indian artisans produced exceptionally fine varieties of both cotton fabrics, such as muslin and calico, and rich silk textiles, which were in high demand across West Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Major textile centers in Bengal, Gujarat, and the Coromandel Coast exported vast quantities of these cotton and silk goods, forming the backbone of pre-colonial India's flourishing international commerce.

Explanation

Right to Privacy is not explicitly listed as a standalone Fundamental Right in Part III of the Indian Constitution. Unlike enumerated constitutional guarantees, privacy was not originally included as an explicit fundamental right granted to citizens under the constitutional framework.

Explanation

Crickets are solitary insects that live independently throughout their lifecycle, coming together only briefly for mating. They lack the defining features of social insects, such as living in organized colonies, cooperative brood care, overlapping adult generations, and a division of labor between reproductive and non-reproductive individuals.

Explanation

Both statements are individually true facts. Nuclear fission is defined as the process in which a heavy atomic nucleus splits into two smaller daughter nuclei. The phenomenon generates immense energy due to mass defect, where the total mass of the fission products is slightly less than the mass of the original nucleus, converting the lost mass into energy according to Einstein's mass-energy relation E = Δmc². Because the definition of nuclear fission alone does not explain the mass-energy conversion responsible for the release of energy, the reason is not the correct explanation of the assertion.