I have branches, but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?

Can you find the missing letter in the sequence?
S - T - I - L - ? - T - F - Y - C

There are four people in a house. A fireman, an athlete, an old woman, and a drunk guy. The house catches fire and before the fact is known, it is too late. All they know is that the entire house is in flames and it will collapse exactly after twelve minutes. Now they can move out of the house but for that, they will have to pass the hallway which is entirely blazing with flames. Thus to move, one must carry a fire extinguisher to keep the flames away. Seeking the burnt wooden floor, only two people can run through that hallway at one time. But for others to go, one must return back with the fire extinguisher. The fireman is trained for such tasks and can run through the hallway in a minute. The athlete can make it in a couple of minutes. The old woman can run slowly and will cover the hallway in four minutes. The drunk guy will take five minutes to run through it. If all of them can make it through the hallway in twelve minutes, all of them will be saved. When two move together, they will run at the speed of the slower ones.

How will all four of them manage to run to safety?

A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.

How can the swan successfully escape?

The doctor advised his patient to take a tablet after every fifteen minutes. He gave him five tablets in total.

How much time will he take to have all the five tablets?

Name the three-letter word that can complete the below words?

A) L O _ _ _ E
B) E D U _ _ _ E
C) _ _ _ E R
D) _ _ _ T L E

A convention is held where all the big logicians are summoned. The master places a band on everyone's forehead. Now all of them can see others bands but can't see his own. Then they are told that there are different colours of bands. All the logicians sit in circle and they are further explained that a bell will ring at regular intervals. The moment when a logician knew the colour of band on his forehead, he will leave at the next bell. If anyone leaves at the wrong bell, he will be disqualified.

The master assures the logicians that the puzzle will not be impossible for anyone of them. How will the logicians manage ?

In the attached figure, you can see a chessboard and two rooks placed on the chess board. What you have to find is the number of squares that do not contain the rooks. How many are there?

Consider all the numbers between 1 and 1 million. Among all these numbers, there is something very special about the number 8 and the number 2202. What is it?

You can take four of the five letters out of this word, but the pronunciation never changes. What is the word?