20th December 2025

Explanation - It is a highly contagious viral infection that affects crustaceans such as prawns, yabbies and crabs. Causative Agent — It is caused by a virus called as White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) (not fungal, so statement 1 is incorrect). Host range — All decapod crustaceans (order Decapoda), including prawns, lobsters and crabs from marine, brackish or freshwater environments, are considered susceptible to the infection. Transmission — It can be transmitted both horizontally as well as vertically. Vertical transmission: It occurs from infected brood stock to postlarvae. Horizontal transmission: It is through carrier animals or through cannibalism of infected organisms. It has been officially reported from Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Explanation - It is a flagship scheme of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) launched in 2022. It aims to fund research and development (R&D) in rural-specific communication technology applications. It encourages collaboration among academia, startups, research institutes, and industry stakeholders to drive innovation (not exclusively to private telecom operators, so statement 2 is incorrect). It provides milestone-based financial assistance to eligible entities, ensuring ease of compliance and adequate funding. It supports the development of state-of-the-art telecom solutions in key sectors such as education, agriculture, health and water management. Funding under the scheme is provided through the Digital Bharat Nidhi (formerly known as the Universal Service Obligation Fund). 

Explanation - It is an autonomous society under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. NCSM, with its headquarters in Kolkata (not New Delhi, so statement 2 is incorrect), has its own network of science museums/centres spread across the country and a Central Research & Training Laboratory (CRTL) in Kolkata. CRTL is the Council's central hub for professional training, research, and development. NCSM has also developed several centres and galleries for different Government organisations such as ONGC, BEL, ICAR, etc. It has also collaborated internationally for the development of Museum/Science Centres or for galleries such as the Rajiv Gandhi Science Centre, Mauritius; 'India' gallery on Buddhism at the 'International Buddhist Museum', Kandy, Sri Lanka. Today, NCSM forms the largest network of science centres and museums in the world under a single administrative umbrella. 

Explanation - It is an AI-enabled voice-to-text meeting summarisation tool. It is launched by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (not MeitY, so statement 4 is incorrect). It has been made available to all States/UTs, and Gram Panchayats are progressively adopting it for routine Gram Sabha and Panchayat meetings. The AI model used in SabhaSaar operates on AI and cloud infrastructure provisioned through the India AI Compute Portal under the India AI Mission. Features of SabhaSaar Initiative — It leverages the power of AI to generate structured minutes of meetings from gram sabha videos and audio recordings. It is built on Bhashini, an AI-powered language translation platform launched by the government to bridge literacy, language, and digital divides. The tool generates transcription from a video or audio, translates it into a chosen output language and prepares a summary. It enables transcription in all major Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Gujarati, in addition to English (not all 22 scheduled languages explicitly stated, so statement 3 is incorrect). Thus, statements 1 and 2 are correct. 

Explanation - The Bill replaces three major legislations - the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act (SCRA), 1956; the SEBI Act, 1992; and the Depositories Act, 1996. SEBI Act, 1992: It established SEBI as an independent statutory body and endowed it with regulatory and enforcement authority. SCRA, 1956: It provides the legal framework for the regulation of stock exchanges and contracts in securities, aiming to prevent undesirable speculation. Depositories Act, 1996: It legalises the electronic (dematerialised) holding and transfer of securities, reducing the risks associated with physical certificates. The objective is to eliminate overlap, duplication, and obsolete provisions and create a uniform securities law framework. Decriminalisation and rationalisation of offences — Minor, procedural and technical violations shifted to civil penalties. Criminal punishment restricted to serious offences such as insider trading and trading on material non-public information (statement 2 is incorrect as not all violations are decriminalised). Delegation and regulatory coordination — SEBI is empowered to delegate registration-related functions to Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) and Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs). Investor protection measures — Mandatory investor charter by SEBI. Establishment of investor grievance redressal mechanism. Direction to market intermediaries and issuers to adopt similar mechanisms.