UPSC CSE Prelims Paper 1 Practice Test - 17 - UPSC MCQ

• A quasi-satellite is an object that orbits the Sun with an orbital period similar to that of the Earth. From Earth’s perspective, the object appears to orbit the Earth instead even though it does not.

• Earth has over 20 quasi-satellites that are in permanent or temporary orbits. Even though these pieces of rock are physically close to our planet, they are very hard to observe due to their small and faint size — fainter than even the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky.

• One of Earth’s quasi-satellites, discovered in 2016 and known as Kamoʻoalewa, is likely a piece of the Moon that once broke away from an impact, a new study said.

• According to the study, the Kamoʻoalewa asteroid is a fast rotator, spinning around fully every 28 minutes, and orbits the Sun every 366 days. It is at an orbit that is inclined to that of the Earth.

• It is just about 41 meters across, and in its closest approach to Earth, comes to 13 times the distance of the Moon from us — roughly 50,00,000 km away.

• In the Bengal region, the style of architecture came to be known as the Pala School of Architecture. It developed in the period between the 8th and 12th century A.D. under the patronage of the Pala dynasty. The Palas were primarily Buddhist rulers following Mahayana tradition, but were very tolerant and patronized other religions also. Pala Kings built lots of Viharas, Chaityas, and Stupas.

• Monuments under Pala rulers are: Universities of Jagaddala, Odantapuri, and Vikramshila were developed under Pala rulers. Somapura Mahavihara is a magnificent monastery in Bangladesh developed by them.

• Note: Pala rulers were great patrons of Buddhist learning and religion. The construction of Nalanda university began in the 5th century AD and flourished under the Gupta rulers. The Nalanda University was revived by Dharmapala and 200 villages were set apart for meeting its expenses. It came to an end in the 12th century when it was destroyed by the invading Turkish army led by its commander Bakhtiar Khilji. UNESCO has declared Nalanda Mahavihara as a World Heritage Site.

Hence option (c) is the correct answer.

• A Collective Investment Scheme (CIS), as its name suggests, is an investment scheme wherein several individuals come together to pool their money for investing in a particular asset(s) and for sharing the returns arising from that investment as per the agreement reached between them prior to pooling in the money.

• In India, the definition of CIS excludes mutual funds or unit trust schemes etc and is given a strict definition in Section 11AA of the SEBI Act, 1992. Hence, statement 1 is not correct.

• According to Section 11AA of the SEBI Act, CIS is any scheme or arrangement, which satisfies the following conditions:

  • the contributions, or payments made by the investors, by whatever name called, are pooled and utilized solely for the purposes of the scheme or arrangement;

  • the contributions or payments are made to such scheme or arrangement by the investors with a view to receive profits, income, produce or property, whether movable or immovable, from such scheme or arrangement;

  • the property, contribution or investment forming part of scheme or arrangement, whether identifiable or not, is managed on behalf of the investors;

  • the investors do not have day to day control over the management and operation of the scheme or arrangement.

• CISs are regulated by the securities market regulator – SEBI - under SEBI (Collective Investment Scheme) Regulations, 1999. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.

• On 28 December 1885, 72 social reformers, journalists and lawyers congregated for the first session of the Indian National Union at Gokuldas Tejpal Sanskrit College, Bombay; the conference was renamed as the Indian National Congress. Allan Octavian Hume was instrumental in the formation of Indian National Congress along with Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha.

• Lord Dufferin was the Viceroy of British India when Indian National Congress was formed.

  • He was the Viceroy of British India from 13 December 1884 – 10 December 1888. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• W.C. Bonnerjee was the first president of the Indian National Congress.

• The last session of Congress before independence in 1946 was held at Meerut with J.B. Kripalani as the President. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.

• Zonal Council are the statutory (not Constitutional) bodies established by the Parliament through States Reorganisation Act, 1956.

• The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1956 when during the course of debate on the report of the States Re-organisation Commission, he suggested that the States proposed to be reorganised may be grouped into four or five zones having an Advisory Council 'to develop the habit of cooperative working” among these States. Hence statement 1 is not correct.

• This Act provided for five zonal councils North, South, East, West and Central. The present composition of each of these Zonal Councils is as under:

  • The Northern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh;

  • The Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh;

  • The Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and West Bengal;

  • The Western Zonal Council, comprising the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli;

  • The Southern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

• In addition to the above Zonal Councils, a North-Eastern Council was created by a separate Act of Parliament, the North-Eastern Council Act of 1971.

• The Union home minister is the common chairman of the five zonal councils. Each chief minister acts as a vice-chairman of the council by rotation, holding office for a period of one year at a time.

• As per Section 17(1) of States Re-organisation Act, each Zonal Council shall meet at such time as the Chairman of the Council may appoint in this behalf. Hence Statement 2 is not correct.

United Nations Security Council (UNSC):

About:

• It is one of the UN’s six main organs and is aimed at maintaining international peace and security.

• It held its first session on 17th January 1946 in Westminster, London.

• Headquarters: New York City.

• Membership: The Council is composed of 15 Members:

• Permanent members with veto power:

  • China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

  • More than 50 United Nations Member States have never been Members of the Security Council.

• UNSC elections:

• Each year the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of 10 in total) for a two-year term.

• The 10 non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis as follows: Hence statement 1 is incorrect.

  • Five from African and Asian States.

  • One from the Eastern European States.

  • Two from Latin American States;

  • Two from Western European and other States

  • To be elected to the Council, candidate countries need a two-thirds majority of ballots of the Member States that are present and voting in the Assembly. Hence statement 2 is correct.

  • The UNSC elections were traditionally held in the General Assembly hall with each of the 193 member states casting its vote in a secret ballot.

• Recently, the Cabinet has cleared a ₹30,600-crore guarantee programme for securities to be issued by the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) for taking over and resolving non- performing assets (NPAs).

• Statement 1 is correct: National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) is India’s first-ever “Bad Bank”. It has been incorporated as an Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC) under the Companies Act of 2013. A bad bank is an asset reconstruction company (ARC), involved in the management and recovery of bad loans or NPAs of other banks.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited has been set up to acquire and consolidate stressed assets for their subsequent resolution. Public Sector Banks (not RBI) will maintain 51% ownership in the NARCL and private lenders will hold the rest. India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL) is an operational entity of NARCL. It will manage the stressed assets acquired by NARCL and try to raise their value for final resolution.

• Statement 3 is correct: Like any other asset reconstruction company, the NARCL will buy bad assets from banks. What sets it apart is that it has a provision of a government guarantee worth Rs 30,600 crore. If NARCL-IDRCL is unable to sell the stressed assets or has to sell it at a loss, then the government guarantee will be invoked. Under this, the difference between what the commercial bank was supposed to get and what they were able to raise will be paid from the Rs 30,600 crore that has been provided by the government.

• Statement 1 is incorrect: The Finance Act 2020 amended the Finance Act 2016, introducing a new Equalisation Levy at 2% on the online sale of goods and provision of services by a non-resident e- commerce company.

• Statement 2 is correct: Equalisation levy was introduced to tax the online advertising revenue that overseas companies earn from India. An Equalisation levy of 6% was introduced in 2016 on payment exceeding Rs 1 lakh a year to a non-resident service provider for online advertisements. It is direct tax. The tax will is levied irrespective of whether the e-commerce operator owns goods/ services it is supplying to any user in India. The equalization levy will apply to both B2B as well as B2C transactions.

• The debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) shows investors whether a company has enough income to pay its debts.

• Statement 1 is correct: The debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) is a measure of the cash flow available to pay current debt obligations. DSCR is used to analyse firms, projects, or individual borrowers. The minimum DSCR that a lender demands depends on macroeconomic conditions. If the economy is growing, lenders may lend even in case the ratio is low of a firm.

• Statement 2 is correct: Debt service coverage ratio takes into consideration all expenses related to debt, including interest expense and other obligations like pension and sinking fund obligation (a sinking fund is made up of sums of money set aside at intervals, usually invested at interest, to meet a certain future obligation.) In this way, the DSCR is more indicative of a company's ability to pay its debt than just the debt ratio.

• Statement 3 is correct: Debt service coverage ratio is used by the banks as a benchmark to measure the cash-producing ability of a business entity to cover its debt payments. Lenders not only wish to know the cash position and cash flow of a company but also how much debt it currently has and its available cash to pay the current and future debt.

• Both mutual funds and hedge funds are managed portfolios built from pooled funds with the goal of achieving returns through diversification.

• A mutual fund is a company that pools money from many investors and invests the money in securities such as stocks, bonds, and short-term debt. The combined holdings of the mutual fund are known as its portfolio. Investors buy shares in mutual funds.

• A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as short selling, leverage, and derivatives.

• Statement 1 is correct: Mutual fund investors can redeem their units on any given business day and receive the NAV (net asset value) of that day. Hedge funds, on the other hand, tend to be much less liquid as they typically require investors to lock up money for a period of years.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Mutual funds are offered by institutional fund managers with a variety of options for retail and institutional investors. Hedge funds target high-net-worth investors. Hedge funds require that investors meet specific accredited characteristics.

• Statement 3 is correct: Hedge Funds are believed to generate greater returns than extensively accepted benchmarks. There is an increased dangers and risk as a result of using derivatives and unorthodox methods. With respect to Mutual Funds, there is decrease danger as a result of regulation, diversification, and dependable administration.

• Option a is incorrect: Surcharge is an additional charge or tax. In simple words, a surcharge is a tax on tax. It is levied as a percentage on the income tax payable as per normal rates. In case no tax is due for a financial year, then no surcharge is levied. Unlike a cess, which is meant to raise revenue for a temporary need, surcharge is usually permanent in nature.

• Option b is correct: Parliament can impose a surcharge for ‘the purposes of the Union’. The exact import of this phrase is not clear, but it is logical that the Union can impose a surcharge only on its tax base. Unlike a cess, in the case of a surcharge, there is no need to stipulate the purpose at the time of levy and it is the discretion of the Union to utilise the proceeds of the surcharges for whichever purpose it deems fit.

• Option c is incorrect: Pursuant to Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, a surcharge cannot ordinarily be imposed over and above the Goods and Service Tax.

• Option d is incorrect: The proceeds from surcharges need not be shared with State Governments. The concept of surcharge and the language for ‘purposes of the Union’ in Article 271 was interpreted to mean that surcharge proceeds are separate from income tax proceeds for the purposes of distribution and therefore it is not the obligation of Union to share proceeds from surcharge with the states.

• Recently, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said that The Sri Lankan government would “fully implement” the 13th Amendment.

• Statement 1 is not correct: 13th Amendment is an outcome of the Indo-Lanka Accord of July 1987, signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President J.R. Jayawardene, in an attempt to resolve Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict that had aggravated into a full-fledged civil war, between the armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which led the struggle for Tamils’ selfdetermination and sought a separate state.

• It was passed in 1987.

• Statement 2 is correct: The 13th Amendment provided for setting up provincial governments across the country — there are nine provincial councils — and made Tamil, too, an official language, and English, a link language.

• It also sought to address the Tamils’ right to self-determination which, by the 1980s, had become a raging political call.

• The North American Cordillera, sometimes also called the Western Cordillera of North America, the Western Cordillera or the Pacific Cordillera, is the North American portion of the American Cordillera, the mountain chain system (cordillera) along the western coast (Pacific coast) of the Americas.

• The North American Cordillera covers an extensive area of mountain ranges, intermontane basins and plateaus in Western/Northwestern Canada, Western United States and Mexico, including much of the territory west of the Great Plains. Hence option (a) is the correct answer.

• All India States' People's Conference was a national-level body founded in 1927 with its headquarters at Bombay with the objective to coordinate political activities in different states and also to raise moderate demands for democratic rights and constitutional changes in the Princely States. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• The men chiefly responsible for its formation were Balwantrai Mehta, Manikial Kothari and G.R. Abhayankar. It was an independent organisation and not formed by Indian National Congress. In 1939, the AISPC elected Jawaharlal Nehru as its President for the Ludhiana session and remained so until 1946. Hence, statement 2 is not correct.

• For a long period, research on iron-air cells was put on hold due to intractable technological hurdles. However, in recent times, there has been a tremendous surge in study interest.

• In July 2021, American company Form Energy Inc. announced a rechargeable iron-air battery capable of delivering electricity for 100 hours at a claimed system cost-competitive with conventional power plants and at less than a tenth the cost of lithium-ion.

• The Iron-Air battery leverages the concept of ‘reversible rusting’ — it uses oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust while discharging, and while charging, the application of an electrical current transforms the rust back to iron and the battery releases oxygen back into the air. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

• The active components of the iron-air battery system are some of the safest, cheapest, and most abundant materials on the planet — low-cost iron, water, and air.

• The iron-Air battery is optimized to store electricity for up to 100 hours. Hence, statement 2 is correct.

• Each individual battery is about the size of a washing machine. Each of these modules is filled with a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, similar to the electrolyte used in AA batteries. Hence, statement 3 is not correct.

• Inflation is the rate of increase in prices over a given period of time. Inflation is typically a broad measure, such as the overall increase in prices or the increase in the cost of living in a country.

• Statement a is correct: The consumers are appealed to cut back the consumption of the items which show higher inflation (called austerity). This can reduce the demand and thus lead to lowering of prices due to low reduced demand.

• Statement b is correct: Government may tighten flow of money in the system (known as monetary measure)—central bank making money costlier (by increasing repo rate, increasing CRR, etc. in case of India). This step also has its own limitations—it is not effective if the items showing inflation are essential ones (such as wheat, rice, onion, potato, etc. because consumers don’t borrow money from banks to buy them).

• Statement c is incorrect: Inflation can be controlled by increasing the supply (decreasing the supply will further fuel inflation due to shortage of the product and increasing the demand simultaneously) of the items showing inflation, the government may go in for upscaling the production or import of the items.

• Statement d is correct: The Cost side measure to control inflation includes cutting indirect taxes which can bring in comfort and in the long-run cutting cost of production (by scaling up technology).

• The GDP deflator is a measure of inflation. It is the ratio of the value of goods and services an economy produces in a particular year at current prices to that of prices that prevailed during the base year.

• Statement 1 is correct: The GDP deflator underestimates true inflation. The reason is that the GDP deflator reflects the prices of all goods and services produced domestically in the country, whereas the CPI reflects the prices of all goods and services bought by domestic consumers. For example, suppose the price of an airplane produced by an Indian company which is sold to the Indian Air Force rises. Although the plane is a part of GDP it is not the part of the basket of goods and services purchased by an Indian consumer. Thus, the price increase shows up in the GDP deflator, but not in the CPI. Now suppose the Toyota raises the price of its cars. Since Toyota cars are made in the Japan, they are not a part of India’s GDP. But Indian consumers buy Toyotas and so the car is part of Indian consumers’ basket of goods. Hence a price increase of an imported consumer good, such as Toyota, gets reflected in the CPI, but not in the GDP deflator.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: GDP deflator is available only on a quarterly basis (not only on annual basis) along with GDP estimates, whereas CPI and WPI data are released every month.

• Statement 1 is correct: Gross Ecosystem/Environment Product’ is the total value of final ecosystem of goods and services supplied for human well-being in a region annually. Ecosystems that can be measured include natural ecosystems such as forests, grassland, wetland, desert, freshwater and ocean, and artificial systems that are based on natural processes like farmland, pastures, aquaculture farms and urban green land, etc.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Gross Ecosystem/Environment Product’ can be measured in in terms of biophysical value and monetary value. Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) aims to measure the total economic value of all ecosystem products and services.

• Statement 3 is incorrect: Recently, Uttarakhand government (not Sikkim) may introduce a well-defined concept of ecosystem services Gross Environment Product’ (GEP) its objectives. Uttarakhand holds a distinct position historically on social awareness towards the importance of ecosystems. Therefore, Uttarakhand government has announced that it will initiate valuation of its natural resources in the form of ‘Gross Environment Product’ (GEP), along the lines of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

• Statement a is correct: Primary succession always occurs on barren terrain. In Primary succession plants and animals first essentially colonize a barren and lifeless habitat. Species that arrive first in the newly created environment are called pioneer species.

• Statement b is correct: Primary succession occurs in regions where the substrate lacks soil. Examples of Primary succession include areas where lava recently flowed, a glacier retreated, or a sand dune formed.

• Statement c is incorrect: There is presence of both plant and animal species in primary succession. The pioneers through their death any decay leave patches of organic matter in which small animals can live.

• Statement d is correct: The rate of transformation of vegetation is very slow in primary succession. It is very rapid in secondary succession.

• Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases. Larger emissions of greenhouse gases lead to higher concentrations in the atmosphere. For each greenhouse gas, a Global Warming Potential (GWP) has been calculated to reflect how long it remains in the atmosphere, on average, and how strongly it absorbs energy. Gases with a higher GWP absorb more energy, per pound, than gases with a lower GWP, and thus contribute more to warming Earth.

• Statement 1 is correct: Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO₂). The lifetime of methane in atmosphere is 12 years. Nitrous oxide is naturally present in the atmosphere as part of the Earth's nitrogen cycle, and has a variety of natural sources. Nitrous oxide molecules stay in the atmosphere for an average of 114 years before being removed by a sink or destroyed through chemical reactions.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: The global warming potential of Nitrous oxide is higher than Methane. The impact of 1 pound of N₂O on warming the atmosphere is almost 300 times that of 1 pound of carbon dioxide. The Global Warming Potential of Nitrous oxide for 100-year is 298. The comparative impact of methane is 25 times greater than CO₂ over a 100-year period. The Global Warming Potential of Methane for 100-year is 25.

• Statement 3 is correct: Globally, 50-65 percent of total CH₄ emissions come from human activities. Methane is emitted from energy, industry, agriculture, land use, and waste management activities. Globally, about 40 percent of total N₂O emissions come from human activities. Nitrous oxide is emitted from agriculture, land use, transportation, industry, and other activities. For example- Nitrous oxide can result from various agricultural soil management activities, such as application of synthetic and organic fertilizers and other cropping practices, the management of manure, or burning of agricultural residues.

• A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.

• Statement 1 is correct: Cold-water coral reefs most commonly occur in continental slope settings, on deep shelves and along the flanks of oceanic banks and seamounts. They are distributed in all seas and at all latitudes. The warm water coral reefs are found in the tropics (between 30°N and 30°S) in areas where the water is clear and over 18°C. The maximum depth for warm water corals is generally around 60 meters.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Warm water coral reef need specific environmental conditions to grow like Clear water, allowing light to reach the photosynthetic zooxanthellae; Light-absorbing adaptations enable some species to live in dim blue light. They are developed in symbiotic association with algae. But Cold- Water Coral reefs do not develop in association with symbiotic association with algae. Coldwater reefs survive by trapping plankton (small sea animals) and other tiny food particles in the water.

• Statement 3 is incorrect: Growth rate of Cold-Water Coral reefs is lower than the growth rate of Warm water coral reefs. The growth rate of Cold-water coral reefs is about 4-25mm per year and the growth rate of warm water coral reefs is 150mm per year.

• Statement 4 is correct: Warm water reefs need the light from the sun to make food and grow. They are usually found in shallow waters where the sunlight can reach the reef. The sunlight also makes the water warm, giving it the name warm water reef. The Great Barrier Reef is a warm water shallow reef. The Irish coral reefs are cold-water reefs. They don’t need the sunlight to make food so they are found much deeper in the sea. As there is no sunlight, the water is cold.

• On August 31, 1920 the Khilafat Committee started a campaign of non-cooperation and the movement was formally launched in September 1920 at a special session in Calcutta. Congress approved a non- cooperation programme till the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs were removed and Swaraj was established.

• The programme was to include:

  • Boycott of government schools and colleges

  • Boycott of law courts and dispensation of justice through Panchayats instead

  • Boycott of Legislative Councils; (there were some differences over this as some leaders like C.R. Das were not willing to include a boycott of councils, but bowed to Congress discipline; these leaders boycotted elections held in November 1920 and the majority of the voters too stayed away).

  • Boycott of foreign cloth and use of khadi instead; also practice of hand-spinning to be done

  • Renunciation of government honours and titles; the second phase could include mass civil disobedience including resignation from government service, and non-payment of taxes.

• When Mahatma Gandhi announced his decision to withdraw the movement after the Chauri Chaura incident, most of the nationalist leaders including C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Subhash Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, expressed their bewilderment at and disappointment. But despite this Non-Cooperation Movement achieved a lot.

  • Peasant and working-class participation was impressive.

  • Except in Madras, the Council election boycott was more or less successful as the polling averages were around 5-8 percent.

  • The economic boycott was intense and successful as the imports of foreign cloth dropped from 1020 million rupees in 1920-21 to 570 million rupees in 1921-22. Import of British cotton goods also declined.

  • The tremendous participation of Muslims in the movement and the maintenance of communal unity was in itself no mean achievement.

• However, middle-class participation was not spectacular and also large industrialists were anti-Non-Cooperation and pro-government.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

• In international politics, de-hyphenation means dealing with two countries, having an adversarial relationship between them, in an independent manner.

• Recently, diplomatic relations between India and Isreal have just completed 30 years.

  • India’s relationship with Israel stands on its own merits, independent and separate from India’s relationship with the Palestinians. It would no longer be India’s relationship with Israel-Palestine, but India’s relationship with Israel, and India’s relationship with the Palestinians.

Hence option (a) is the correct answer.

• pH is a quantitative measure of the acidity or basicity of aqueous or other liquid solutions. The term, widely used in chemistry, biology, and agronomy, translates the values of the concentration of the hydrogen ion—which ordinarily ranges between 0 and 14 on a pH scale.

• The strength of acids and bases depends on the number of H+ ions and OH– ions produced, respectively. If we take hydrochloric acid and acetic acid of the same concentration, say one molar, then these produce different amounts of hydrogen ions. Acids that give rise to more H+ ions are said to be strong acids, and acids that give less H+ ions are said to be weak acids.

• Approximate pH values of some common acids and bases are:

  • Lemon juice - 2.2

  • Milk of Magnesia (Magnesium hydroxide) -10

  • Caustic Soda (Sodium Hydroxide) -14

• Water has a pH of around 7.4.

• Our body works within the pH range of 7.0 to 7.8. Living organisms can survive only in a narrow range of pH changes. When the pH of rainwater is less than 5.6, it is called acid rain.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

• Some of the prominent Early Political Associations played very important role in arousing general will and laying down a path towards modern Nationalism. These include:

  • British Indian Association was created after amalgamating the “Landholders Society” and “British India Society” on 31 October 1851. This was the first political organization that brought the Indians Debendranath Tagore was its secretary. The newspaper of this society was “Hindu patriot” which adopted a strongly critical political tone.

  • The earliest political organisation, the Madras Native Association was started in July 1852. Lakshminarasu Chetty and Srinivasa Pillai were the founders of this organization. The Madras Native Association was sharply critical of the policies of the East India Company’s rule. Subsequently in 1884, the Madras Mahajana Sabha was established by M. Veeraraghavachariar, G. Subramania Iyer and P. Anandacharlu. The Madras Native Association was ultimately merged with this organization.

  • The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government. Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867.

  • Poona Sarvajanik Sabha was a sociopolitical organisation in British India that started with the aim of working as a mediating body between the government and people of India and to popularise the peasants' legal rights. It started as an elected body of 95 members elected by 6000 persons on April 2, 1870. The organisation was a precursor to the Indian National Congress which started with its first session from Maharashtra itself. In 1875 the Sabha sent a petition to the House of Commons demanding India’s direct representation in the British Parliament.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

• The U.S. designated Russia’s Wagner group as a “transnational criminal organization,” piling pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine.

• Statement 1 is not correct but statement 2 is correct: According to reports in The Washington Post, it is a network of contractors that supply soldiers for hire.

• The Wagner Group first surfaced in 2014, during Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

• It has been involved in conflicts in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

• It is ostensibly private, but according to CSIS, “its management and operations are deeply intertwined with the Russian military and intelligence community” under Vladimir Putin.

• Peatland stores the carbon the plants absorbed from the atmosphere within peat soils, providing a net- cooling effect and helping to mitigate the climate crisis.

• Statement 1 is correct: Peatlands are a type of wetland. The term ‘peatland’ refers to the peat soil and the wetland habitats growing on the surface. In peatlands, year-round water-logged conditions slow plant decomposition to such an extent that dead plants accumulate to form peat.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: Peatland landscapes are varied: from temperate blanket mires with open, treeless vegetation such as the Flow Country of Scotland to swamp forests in Southeast Asia. The majority of the world’s peatlands occur in boreal and temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, especially, Europe, North America and Russia where they have formed under high precipitation-low temperature climatic regimes. In the humid tropics, regional environmental and topographic conditions enable peat to form under conditions of high precipitation and high temperature in Southeast Asia, mainland East Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Africa, parts of Australasia and a few Pacific Islands. Tropical peatlands may also form under mangrove forests.

• Statement 3 is correct: Peatlands are a type of wetland which is critical for preventing and mitigating the effects of climate change. Peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial carbon store. They store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined.

• Knowledge Base: New areas are still being discovered. The world’s largest tropical peatland was identified beneath the forests of the Congo Basin in 2017. The new study found that the Cuvette Centrale peatlands in the central Congo Basin, which were unknown to exist five years ago, cover 145,500 square kilometres – an area larger than England.

  • In many parts of the world, peatlands supply food, fibre and other local products that sustain economies. They also preserve important ecological and archaeological information such as pollen records and human artifacts. Damage to peatlands causes biodiversity loss. For example, the decline of the Bornean orangutan population by 60% within 60 years is largely attributed to the loss of peat swamp habitat.

• Stockholm Convention is an international environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and effective from 2004.

• Statement 1 is incorrect: The Rotterdam Convention is a multilateral treaty to promote shared responsibilities in relation to importation of hazardous chemicals. Stockholm Convention aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). These are chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods, become widely distributed geographically, accumulate in the fatty tissue of living organisms, and are toxic to humans and wildlife.

• Statement 2 is correct: The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is the designated financial mechanism for the Stockholm Convention.

• Statement 3 is incorrect: India signed this Stockholm Convention in 2002. Later, India ratified it in 2006. The Union Cabinet has approved the Ratification of seven chemicals listed under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The seven POPs prohibited from manufacturing, trading using, importing and exporting are:

1) Chlordecone

2) Hexabromobiphenyl

3) Hexabromodiphenyl ether and Hepta Bromodiphenyl Ether

4) Tetrabromodiphenyl ether and Pentabromodiphenyl ether

5) Pentachlorobenzene

6) Hexabromocyclododecane and

7) Hexachlorobutadiene.

• The ratification process would enable India to access the Global Environment Facility (GEF) financial resources.

• Knowledge Base:

• Initially, twelve POPs have been recognized as causing adverse effects on humans and the ecosystem and these can be placed in 3 categories:

1) Pesticides: aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex, toxaphene;

2) Industrial chemicals: hexachlorobenzene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); and

3) By-products: hexachlorobenzene; polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF), and PCBs.

• Stockholm Convention calls for international action on three categories of POPs: pesticides, industrial chemicals and unintentionally produced POPs.

1) POPs under Annex A of the Convention are to be eliminated.

2) POPs under Annex B of the Convention are to be restricted.

3) Unintentionally produced POPs under Annex C of the Convention are to be restricted or eliminated.

• India is a biodiversity rich country which is also one of the mega hotspots of biodiversity. However increasing economic and developmental activities have posed a risk to many key animals in this list, which is often reflected in their distribution.

• Statement 1 is correct: The Dugong is found on both the eastern as well as the western coasts of India. On the eastern coast it is found in Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay and around Andaman & Nicobar islands. On the western coast, the Dugongs are found in the Gulf of Kutch.

• Statement 2 is incorrect: The Indian Star Tortoise is found in only 6 states in India in the northwestern and southern region of India (and an occasional pocket in Central India). It is found distributed in Gujarat and Punjab in the Northwest; in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Southern India, and in some patches in Odisha in Central India.

• Statement 3 is correct: The Great Indian Bustard was initially found all over India, but in recent years its distribution has become limited to two areas in India - one of them being the semi-arid and sub-humid grasslands of Deccan (in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana). The other region, where the majority of present day population is present is the northwestern part of India (in states like Gujarat and Rajasthan).

• Statement 4 is incorrect: This statement is incorrect as the Red Panda is found distributed in not one but multiple states in North East India. It is distributed in Sikkim, Darjeeling (in West Bengal), western Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Meghalaya.

• Knowledge Base:

• DUGONG:

• IUCN STATUS: Vulnerable

  • Protected under - Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 Schedule I; CITES Appendix I Distributed along 30 countries in tropical Indo-Pacific waters.

  • State animal of Andaman & Nicobar islands Flagship species. It is a mammal. Also called sea cow; herbivorous; feeds on seagrass

  • Reasons for loss: The loss of seagrass habitats, water pollution and degradation of the coastal ecosystem due to developmental activities, accidental entanglement in fishing nets and collision with boats, trawlers.

• STAR TORTOISE:

• IUCN STATUS: Vulnerable

  • Protected under: Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 Schedule IV, CITES Appendix I Found in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

• India has largest wild population of star tortoises Dangers: Poaching for meat, pet keeping., Habitat destruction

• GREAT INDIAN BUSTARD:

• IUCN Status: Critically Endangered

  • Protected Under: Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972; Appendix I of CITES, CMS convention

  • Flightless birds; One of the heaviest birds, that cannot fly,

  • Prefer open short grassland as habitat Dangers: Poaching for meat and eggs, collisions with high tension electric wires, fast moving vehicles and free-ranging dogs in villages, habitat loss

• RED PANDA:

• IUCN Status: Endangered

  • Protected under: Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

  • Distributed globally in India, Nepal, Bhutan, southern China and Myanmar

  • Preferes mixed deciduous and conifer forests with dense understories of bamboo at altitudes between 2200-4800 m as its habitat India has both subtypes of Red Panda - Himalayan and Chinese (east of River Siang in Arunachal Pradesh).

• Lichens are composite organisms that are formed as a result of the association of fungi and algae. They are also found in nearly all the ecosystems.

• Statement 1 is correct: Lichens are excellent indicator of the air quality. Because lichens have no roots or protective surface, they cannot filter what they absorb, so whatever is in the air is taken straight inside. If there are pollutants, it can accumulate in the lichen and can become toxic very quickly.

• Statement 2 is correct: Lichens plays an important role in the formation of soil and as primary succession pioneers. They are often the first line of biological invasion on bare rock and recent lava flows. In addition to forming soil, lichens act as intersystem nutrient sinks, contributing to the enrichment of a landscape with minerals and nutrients.

• Statement 3 is correct: Lichen plays an important role in fixing nitrogen. They are capable of converting nitrogen from the air into nitrate. This conversion of nitrogen impacts the ecosystem because when it rains, nitrates are leached from lichens and is used by soil-based plants. E.g. Cyanobacteria in cyanolichens can fix nitrogen for their nutrition.

• Statement 4 is correct: Humans uses some lichens for food. E.g. Parmelia. Its species are used as curry powder in India. But some can be poisonous.

• Knowledge Base:

• Other benefits of Lichens:

  • Litmus which is a dye used as an indicator of acid and base, is obtained from lichens Roccella tinctoria and Lasallia pustulata.

  • They are used as a source of medicines. For example, usnic acid which is obtained from Usnea, is an antibiotic used in the treatment of various infections.

  • Some lichens are used in the production of perfume and essential oils.