Answer: A. This Rs 75,000 crore programme is meant to modernise ports, raise their efficiency and make India a global maritime centre.
2. Which of these is a component of the Rs 70,000 crore maritime package that supplements Sagarmala 2.0?
Answer: C. The supporting package has a Maritime Development Fund of Rs 25,000 crore, plus Rs 20,000 crore each for shipbuilding assistance and shipping cluster development.
3. Fish from which river were recently found to carry high cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) levels?
Answer: E. A study detected both metals above permissible limits in a number of fish species from the Cauvery, which raises health concerns.
4. In which state does Pampadum Shola National Park lie?
Answer: A. It is the smallest national park in Kerala and sits in Idukki district close to the Tamil Nadu boundary.
5. To bring back the grasslands of Pampadum Shola, which invasive species was cleared?
Answer: C. Australian wattle, Acacia mearnsii, was taken out since it drains groundwater and crowds out native plants.
6. Exposure to which heavy metals is chiefly linked to nerve and kidney damage?
Answer: B. Build-up of Cd and Pb in the body can cause cancer as well as nervous system and kidney problems.
7. What does a growing short dollar forward book of the RBI signal?
Answer: B. With a short forward position, the RBI sells dollars for later delivery, which steadies the rupee without running down spot reserves.
8. After SEBI classed REIT units as equity, what is the most a mutual fund may put into one REIT issuer?
Answer: D. The new rule lets a fund place as much as ten percent of a scheme's corpus in any single REIT issuer.
9. NITI Aayog's roadmap titled Reimagining Agriculture mainly centres on bringing in which kinds of technology?
Answer: E. It stresses AI, IoT, digital twins, drones and bio-innovation as the means to transform farming by 2047.
10. An inquiry into crop insurance payouts of just Rs 1 concerns which scheme?
Answer: D. Farmers enrolled in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana reported tiny payouts such as Rs 1, Rs 3 and Rs 5, which triggered the probe.
11. WSSD-2 in Doha was convened by which organisation?
Answer: D. The summit is a UN-convened global forum on social development.
12. Which pair of existing northeastern Ramsar sites was compared with Rowmari-Donduwa for bird diversity?
Answer: B. Rowmari-Donduwa was reported to have higher bird diversity than Deepor Beel and Loktak Lake.
13. What is the proposed size of Sagarmala 2.0?
Answer: C. Sagarmala 2.0 is a 10-year, ₹75,000-crore programme.
14. Which two heavy metals exceeded safety thresholds in Cauvery fish, according to the study?
Answer: B. Cadmium and lead were the primary contaminants.
15. Which is the smallest national park in Kerala?
Answer: C. The notes call Pampadum Shola Kerala's smallest national park at 1,300 hectares.