With reference to the International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS – 2024), which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. This conference was held on 25th May, 2024.
2. India has recent

Question

With reference to the International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS – 2024), which of the following statements is/are correct ?
1. This conference was held on 25th May, 2024.
2. India has recently reconstituted an inter-ministerial Counter Nuclear Smuggling Team (CNST) to strengthen the nuclear security.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Only 2. Statement 1 is off by dates: the International Conference on Nuclear Security, ICONS 2024, ran from 20 to 24 May 2024 at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, not on 25 May 2024. It was the fourth in this series of ministerial-level conferences, held under the theme 'Shaping the Future', and it drew more than two thousand participants from some 142 countries — a week-long conference, in other words, not a one-day event, which is the structural giveaway that a single date is suspicious. Statement 2 stands. India has reconstituted its inter-ministerial Counter Nuclear Smuggling Team, the CNST, which brings the agencies concerned with prevention, detection, forensic investigation and prosecution of nuclear smuggling under one coordinating roof; India announced this in its national statement to ICONS 2024, delivered on 21 May 2024 by Ambassador Shambhu S. Kumaran. One statement true, one false, and the true one is the second — so the key marks (a). Note how the item is built, because UPPSC builds many of them this way: the substantive claim about India is accurate and the trap is planted in the ceremonial detail beside it.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Throws out the statement that is correct. India's reconstitution of the inter-ministerial Counter Nuclear Smuggling Team is real and was placed on record in India's own national statement to ICONS 2024 in May 2024.  (c) Keeps the false half. ICONS 2024 was held from 20 to 24 May 2024 at IAEA headquarters in Vienna; 25 May is not the conference date, and in any case a quadrennial ministerial conference of this size runs across a week rather than a single day.  (d) Accepts both, but the date in statement 1 does not survive checking. Statement 2 alone is correct, which is why the key is 'Only 2' and not 'Both 1 and 2'.

Concept: Three ideas that sound alike are examined separately and should be kept apart. Nuclear safety is about preventing accidents at a facility. Nuclear security is about protecting nuclear and other radioactive material from theft, sabotage, illegal transfer and trafficking — the criminal and terrorist threat rather than the technical one. Safeguards are the IAEA's verification activity, the inspections and accounting that confirm declared material is not diverted to weapons. ICONS is the IAEA's flagship conference on the middle one, nuclear security, convened roughly every four years since 2013 at ministerial level in Vienna, and it is where states report what they have done to secure material and to police trafficking.

State PCS 2024 Q85 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q85 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer