Daily Current Affairs (MCQ's) | 26-05-2023

Q1. Which of the following statements are correctly matched?

1. Lord Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India

2. C. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India

3. The ritual of handing over the Lion capital of Sarnath symbolized and sanctified the “transfer of power” from the British to India

Select the correct answer from codes given below

a. 1 and 2 only

b. 1 and 3 only

c. 3 only

d. 2 and 3 only

Answer (a)

Explanation:

Evidence thin on govt.’s claims about the sceptre

• A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah addressed a press conference in Delhi explaining the importance of the sceptre (sengol) to be installed in the new Parliament building, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed presspersons in Chennai on Thursday, explaining how it is a matter of pride for Tamil Nadu.

• She reiterated that it was the ritual of handing over of this sceptre, made by the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam (math head) in Tamil Nadu, to India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of Independence that actually symbolised and sanctified the “transfer of power” from the British to India.

• The government’s assertion is that Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, asked the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru if there was any procedure to signify transfer of power. Nehru in turn consulted C. Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, who in turn had the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam prepare the sceptre, and flew the delegation in a special plane to Delhi.

Q2. Consider the following statements

1. He ruled Ghazni from 971 to 1030 AD.

2. He attacked India 17 times.

3. He made his 16th attack on the Somnath temple in 1025 just to plunder the gold.

Which of the following foreign invaders is being discussed in the above discussion?

a. Muhammad of Ghor

b. Nader Shah Afshar

c. Ahmad Shah Durrani

d. Mahmud Ghazni

Answer (a)

Explanation:

Mahmud Ghazni commonly known as Mahmud of Ghazni , who ruled Ghazni from 971 to 1030 AD. So to plunder the wealth of India he made the very first attack in 1001. He attacked India 17 times. He made his 16th attack on the Somnath temple in 1025 just to plunder the gold.

Q3. Which of the following is not considered an edible oilseed?

a. Linseed

b. Soybean

c. Rapeseed

d. Mustard

Answer (a)

Explanation:

Food Grains, oilseed harvests will break records, says Centre

• The Centre is estimating a record production of paddy, wheat, maize, soybean, rapeseed, mustard and sugar cane, according to the “third advance estimates of production of major crops” released by the Union Agriculture Ministry.

• Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar, releasing the estimates, said the country will achieve foodgrain production of 3,305.34 lakh tonnes (lt) in the current agricultural year. He credited farmers, ability of researchers and farmer friendly policies of the Centre for the growth. The assessment of production of different crops is done based on the feedback from States.

• “The production of soybean and rapeseed and mustard is estimated at

149.76 lt and 124.94 lt, respectively, which is higher by 19.89 lt and

5.31 lt, respectively, than the production in 2021-22. Total oil seeds production in the country during 2022-23 is estimated at a record

409.96 lt which is higher by 30.33 lt than the previous year’s oilseeds production,” the Union Agriculture Ministry said in a release.

• The diverse agro-ecological conditions in the country are favourable for growing 9 annual oilseed crops, which include 7 edible oilseeds (groundnut, rapeseed & mustard, soybean, sunflower, sesame, safflower and niger) and two non-edible oilseeds (castor and linseed).

Q4. FLOPs or Floating-Point Operations per Second is linked to

a. Calculations related to quantum physics

b. Metric used for space observations by James Webb Space Telescope

c. High-performance computing (HPC)

d. Click chemistry

Answer (c)

Explanation:

India will unveil 18 new petaFLOP supercomputers for weather forecasting in 2023: What are FLOPs in computing?

FLOPs or Floating-Point Operations per Second, is a commonly used metric to measure the computational performance – processing power and efficiency – especially in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

For instance, in 1961, the IBM 7030 Stretch, costing a whopping $ 7.8 million at the time, performed one floating-point multiplication every 2.4 microseconds, roughly performing 417,000 FLOPs. A PlayStation 5 today is listed to have a peak performance of 10.28 TFLOP, i.e. 10.28 trillion FLOPs.

What is a petaFLOP?

Due to the immense computing power of today’s computers, the FLOPs metric is most often represented in terms of billions (giga), trillions (tera), or even quadrillions (peta) of operations per second (GFLOPs, TFLOPs, PFLOPs, respectively).

Q5. Consider the following statements with respect to FLOPs or Floating-Point Operations per Second?

1. FLOPs is the only metric to judge a computer’s performance

2. FLOPs provide a valuable baseline for comparing the computational capabilities of different systems

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

a. 1 only

b. 2 only

c. Both 1 and 2

d. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer (b)

Explanation:

India will unveil 18 new petaFLOP supercomputers for weather forecasting in 2023: What are FLOPs in computing?

FLOPs or Floating-Point Operations per Second, is a commonly used metric to measure the computational performance – processing power and efficiency – especially in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI).

For instance, in 1961, the IBM 7030 Stretch, costing a whopping $ 7.8 million at the time, performed one floating-point multiplication every 2.4 microseconds, roughly performing 417,000 FLOPs. A PlayStation 5 today is listed to have a peak performance of 10.28 TFLOP, i.e. 10.28 trillion FLOPs.

What is a petaFLOP?

Due to the immense computing power of today’s computers, the FLOPs metric is most often represented in terms of billions (giga), trillions (tera), or even quadrillions (peta) of operations per second (GFLOPs, TFLOPs, PFLOPs, respectively).

A petaflop is thus equal to a thousand TFLOPs or 1015 FLOPs.

2008 was the first year when a supercomputer was able to break what was then called “the petaFLOPS barrier,” when the IBM Roadrunner shocked the world with an astounding peak performance of 1.105 petaFLOPS. Currently, the world’s fastest computer in terms of PFLOPs is the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Frontier, or OLCF-5 with the capability to touch a peak performance of 1,685.65.

Are FLOPs the only metric to judge a computer’s performance?

No. FLOPs is not the only factor determining the performance of a computing system. Memory bandwidth, latency, and other architectural features also play significant roles. Nonetheless, FLOPs provide a valuable baseline for comparing the computational capabilities of different systems, especially in tasks where floating-point calculations dominate.

Is India already using petaFLOPs computers for weather forecasting?

The NCMRWF houses ‘Mihir’, a 2.8 petaflop supercomputer, while the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, is home to ‘Pratyush’, a 4.0 petaflop supercomputer, as per PTI. These were launched in 2018 and will be decommissioned once the new supercomputer is unveiled, a senior NCMRWF official told the news agency.

According to the arrangement arrived at by the ministry, NCMRWF will be allocated eight PFLOPs computing power with the remaining 10 PFLOPs going to IITM. The Pune-based institute requires higher power as it deals with seasonal weather forecasts while the NCMRWF deals with medium-range forecasts for a period extending three to seven days in advance.