INSIGHT UPSC QUIZ

ANS. (A) 
The gravity of Earth, denoted g, refers to the acceleration that the Earth imparts to objects on or near its surface. At latitudes nearer the Equator, the inertia produced by Earth’s rotation is stronger than at polar latitudes. This counteracts the Earth’s gravity to a small degree – up to a maximum of 0.3% at the Equator –reducing the downward acceleration of falling objects. The second major reason for the difference in gravity at different latitudes is that the Earth’s equatorial bulge (itself also caused by inertia) causes objects at the Equator to be farther from the planet’s centre than objects at the poles. Because the force due to gravitational attraction between two bodies (the Earth and the object being weighed) varies inversely with the square of the distance between them, an object at the Equator experiences a weaker gravitational pull than an object at the poles.