QUES: The Taliban regrouped in western Pakistan and began to unleash an insurgent-style offensive against Coalition forces in late 2002. Throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan, firefights broke out between the surging Taliban and Coalition forces. Coalition forces responded with a series of military offensives and an increase in the amount of troops in Afghanistan. In February 2010, Coalition forces launched Operation Moshtarak in southern Afghanistan along with other military offensives in the hopes that they would destroy the Taliban insurgency once and for all. Peace talks are also underway between Taliban affiliated fighters and Coalition forces. In September 2014, Afghanistan and the United States signed a security agreement, which permits United States and NATO forces to remain in Afghanistan until at least 2024. The United States and other NATO and non-NATO forces are planning to withdraw; with the Taliban claiming it has defeated the United States and NATO, and the Obama Administration viewing it as a victory. In December 2014, ISAF encasing its colors, and Resolute Support began as the NATO operation in Afghanistan. Continued United States operations within Afghanistan will continue under the name "Operation Freedom's Sentinel".
When do NATO forces have to leave Afghanistan by?

ANS: unanswerable

QUES: Ogives are alternating wave crests and valleys that appear as dark and light bands of ice on glacier surfaces. They are linked to seasonal motion of glaciers; the width of one dark and one light band generally equals the annual movement of the glacier. Ogives are formed when ice from an icefall is severely broken up, increasing ablation surface area during summer. This creates a swale and space for snow accumulation in the winter, which in turn creates a ridge. Sometimes ogives consist only of undulations or color bands and are described as wave ogives or band ogives.
How are ogives formed?

ANS: when ice from an icefall is severely broken up, increasing ablation surface area during summer

QUES: Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632, after the demise of Muhammad a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.
Which caliph ordered the Quran manuscript copied and standardized?

ANS: Uthman ibn Affan

QUES: From his bed he participated in Sunday Mass at 18:00. After communion, the pope suffered a massive heart attack, after which he continued to live for three hours. On 6 August 1978 at 21:41 Paul VI died in Castel Gandolfo. According to his will, he was buried in the grottos of the Vatican not in an ornate tomb, but in a grave in the ground. He is buried beneath the floor of Saint Peter's Basilica with other popes. In his will, he requested to be buried in the "true earth" and therefore, he does not have an ornate sarcophagus but an in-ground grave.
On what day did Paul VI die?

ANS:
6 August