Environment · 10 Aug 2026

Himalayan forest fire monitoring satellite

With reference to a recent Parliamentary Standing Committee report on Himalayan forest fires, consider the following statements:

  1. The Himalayan region accounts for 57 percent of India's forest fire incidents despite covering only 17 percent of its landmass.
  2. India currently relies on the foreign AQUA and Suomi-NPP satellites, which pass over the country only about eight times a day.
  3. Only
  4. 5 percent of fire alerts sent to the Uttarakhand government corresponded to verified fires.
  5. The committee recommended that India rely exclusively on private satellite operators rather than a government-launched geostationary satellite.

How many of the above statements are correct?

AOnly one
BOnly two
COnly three
DAll four
This question is based on: Three AI Labs, Three Weeks, Three Breaches: What Are AI Agent Incidents Actually Telling Us?
Take this in full test mode → Instructions for 10 Aug 2026
About this question

Why in news

The 412th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, tabled on August 7, recommended a dedicated geostationary satellite while also flagging a severe alert-verification gap in Uttarakhand's fire monitoring system.

Why for UPSC

This format tests whether aspirants can separate genuinely reported committee findings from a fabricated recommendation that sounds plausible but was never actually made - a common UPSC distractor technique for government report-based questions.

Prelims summary

The Himalayan region sees 57% of India's forest fires on just 17% of its landmass; India depends on foreign satellites with only 8 daily passes and Uttarakhand's fire alerts show a mere 12.5% verification rate, prompting a call for a dedicated geostationary satellite.

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