The 2020 Codex
Questions 31 to 40 (Set A)
With reference to the cultural history of India, which one of the following is the correct description of the term 'paramitas'?
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (c) Perfections whose attainment led to the Bodhisattva path
In Mahayana Buddhism, the Paramitas (translating to "perfections" or "transcendent virtues") are the noble virtues or practices that a practitioner must perfect in order to achieve the exalted state of a Bodhisattva (and ultimately Buddhahood). The standard six Paramitas are Dana (generosity), Sila (morality), Ksanti (patience), Virya (vigor/effort), Dhyana (meditation), and Prajna (wisdom).
Note: Option (b) refers to Heterodox (Nastika) schools like Charvaka, Jainism, Buddhism. Option (d) refers to guilds like Manigramam or Ayyavole.
Route: [REALM 16: Jainism & Buddhism]The Path to Nirvana
The Defiant Bride
In the context of Indian history, the Rakhmabai case of 1884 revolved around
1. women's right to gain education
2. age of consent
3. restitution of conjugal rights
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (b) 2 and 3 only
Rakhmabai was married at the tender age of 11. She refused to live with her husband, Dadaji Bhikaji. In 1884, he filed a landmark lawsuit for the "restitution of conjugal rights" (forcing her by court order to live with him and consummate the marriage).
Her defiant legal battle against this sparked a massive public debate across the British Empire regarding child marriage and the age of consent, leading directly to the passing of the Age of Consent Act, 1891.
Note: While Rakhmabai later went to London and became one of India's first practicing female doctors, the 1884 legal case itself did not revolve around the "right to education."
Route: [REALM 21: Major Reform Movements] & [REALM 61: Women in the Movement]Indigo cultivation in India declined by the beginning of the 20th century because of
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (b) its unprofitability in the world market because of new inventions
While peasant resistance (like the Indigo Revolt of 1859 or Champaran in 1917) was significant politically, the global economic decline of Indian indigo at the start of the 20th century was driven purely by science. German chemists successfully invented a cheap, industrially scalable synthetic aniline dye (synthetic indigo) in the late 1890s. This flooded the European markets, making the labor-intensive, plant-based Indian indigo completely unprofitable overnight.
Route: [REALM 48: Peasant Movements] & [REALM 13: Economic Transformation]The Synthetic Death
The Imperial Classroom
Wellesley established the Fort William College at Calcutta because
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (d) he wanted to train British civilians for administrative purpose in India
Governor-General Lord Richard Wellesley recognized that young British officials arriving in India were completely ignorant of the local culture, laws, and languages. To fix this, he established Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800. Its sole primary purpose was to train these newly recruited British civil servants in Indian vernacular languages (like Hindustani and Bengali) and local customs so they could administer the expanding empire more effectively.
Route: [REALM 60: Press & Education]With reference to the history of India, "Ulgulan" or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following events?
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (d) Birsa Munda's Revolt of 1899-1900
"Ulgulan" literally translates to the "Great Tumult" or "Great Commotion." It refers to the massive tribal uprising in the Chotanagpur region led by the charismatic Birsa Munda in 1899-1900. The Mundas rose up against the British colonial authorities, the aggressive Christian missionaries, and the oppressive dikus (outsider landlords and moneylenders) who were destroying their traditional Khuntkatti (joint landholding) system.
Route: [REALM 49: Tribal Movements]The Great Tumult
The Era of Navaratnas
With reference to the scholars/litterateurs of ancient India, consider the following statements:
1. Panini is associated with Pushyamitra Shunga.
2. Amarasimha is associated with Harshavardhana.
3. Kalidasa is associated with Chandra Gupta-II.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (c) 3 only
This is a classic timeline tracking question.
Statement 1 is False: Panini, the legendary Sanskrit grammarian who wrote the Ashtadhyayi, lived around the 5th to 4th century BCE. Pushyamitra Shunga established his dynasty much later, in 185 BCE (Patanjali was his contemporary, not Panini).
Statement 2 is False: Amarasimha (author of the Amarakosha) was one of the legendary Navaratnas (Nine Jewels) in the court of Chandra Gupta-II (Vikramaditya) of the Gupta Empire (approx. 400 CE), not Harshavardhana (7th Century CE).
Statement 3 is True: The great poet and dramatist Kalidasa was the shining star among the Navaratnas in the court of Chandra Gupta-II.
Route: [REALM 24: Gupta Empire & Classical Age]In the context of recent advances in human reproductive technology, "Pronuclear Transfer" is used for
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (d) prevention of mitochondrial diseases in offspring
This technique is famously known as the "Three-Parent Baby" procedure (Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy). Mitochondria have their own DNA, which is inherited strictly from the mother via the egg's cytoplasm. If a mother carries a deadly mitochondrial disease, "Pronuclear Transfer" is used.
Both the mother's egg and a healthy donor's egg are fertilized with the father's sperm. The pronucleus (containing the core DNA of the parents) is extracted from the mother's egg and swapped into the donor's egg (which had its nucleus removed but retains healthy mitochondria). The child is born completely free of the mitochondrial disease.
Route: [REALM 220: Assisted Repro Tech (ART)]The Three Parents
The AI Bounds (2020)
With the present state of development, Artificial Intelligence can effectively do which of the following?
1. Bring down electricity consumption in industrial units
2. Create meaningful short stories and songs
3. Disease diagnosis
4. Text-to-Speech Conversion
5. Wireless transmission of electrical energy
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (b) 1, 3 and 4 only
This question is fascinating because it captures a snapshot of the tech world exactly in 2020, just before the explosion of LLMs like ChatGPT.
Statements 1, 3, and 4 are True: AI was already heavily used by Google/DeepMind to optimize cooling and reduce industrial electricity consumption. It was excelling at image recognition for disease diagnosis (MRI/X-ray analysis) and text-to-speech.
Statements 2 and 5 are False: At that time, UPSC (and general consensus) held that while AI could generate text, it could not create truly "meaningful" short stories and songs (requiring human-level creative intent). Most obviously, wireless transmission of electrical energy (like Tesla coils or microwave beaming) is entirely a physics/hardware technology, not a function of Artificial Intelligence software algorithms.
Route: [REALM 544: AI Applications & Governance]With reference to Visible Light Communication (VLC) technology, which of the following statements are correct?
1. VLC uses electromagnetic spectrum wavelengths 375 to 780 nm.
2. VLC is known as long-range optical wireless communication.
3. VLC can transmit large amounts of data faster than Bluetooth.
4. VLC has no electromagnetic interference.
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (c) 1, 3 and 4 only
Visible Light Communication (often popularized as Li-Fi) uses rapid pulses of light from LED bulbs to transmit data.
Statement 1 is True: It uses the visible light spectrum, which falls exactly between ~380 nm to 780 nm.
Statement 2 is False: Light cannot pass through walls or opaque objects. Therefore, VLC is strictly a short-range optical wireless communication technology, confined to a single room or line-of-sight.
Statement 3 is True: The visible light spectrum is massive compared to radio waves. Li-Fi can transmit data at Gbps speeds, vastly faster than standard Bluetooth.
Statement 4 is True: Because it uses light waves instead of radio waves, it produces absolutely no electromagnetic interference (making it perfect for hospitals and airplane cabins).
Route: [REALM 496: IoT, Big Data & Mobile Gens] & [REALM 86: Radio, Micro, IR & Visible]The Li-Fi Beam
The Unpermissioned Ledger
With reference to "Blockchain Technology", consider the following statements:
1. It is a public ledger that everyone can inspect, but which no single user controls.
2. The structure and design of blockchain is such that all the data in it are about cryptocurrency only.
3. Applications that depend on basic features of blockchain can be developed without anybody's permission.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The Secret Whisper
Official Key: (d) 1 and 3 only
Statement 1 is True: The fundamental definition of a blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and public digital ledger. Copies exist across thousands of computers, so no single entity controls it, and anyone can inspect the transaction history.
Statement 2 is False: While blockchain is famous for Bitcoin, its structure can store any kind of digital data. It is widely used for smart contracts, supply chain tracking, land registries, and voting systems—not only cryptocurrency.
Statement 3 is True: Foundational blockchains (like Ethereum or Bitcoin) are open-source and permissionless. Any developer anywhere in the world can write code and deploy decentralized applications (DApps) on them without needing approval from a central authority or CEO.
Route: [REALM 15: Crypto Assets]