Test: Class 12 Geography (India People And Economy) NCERT Based - 1 - UPSC MCQ

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for the launch of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana-lll (PMGSY-III).

• Under the PMGSY-III Scheme, it is proposed to consolidate 1,25,000 Km road length in the States.It involves consolidation of Through Routes and Major Rural Links connecting habitations to Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs), Higher Secondary Schools and Hospitals.

• The funds would be shared in the ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and State for all States except for 8 North Eastern and 3 Himalayan States (Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand) for which it is 90:10.

• PMGSY was launched in December, 2000 with an objective to provide single all-weather road connectivity to eligible unconnected habitation of designated population size (500+ in plain areas and 250+ in NorthEast, hill, tribal and desert areas as per Census, 2001) for overall socio-economic development of the areas.

• The Konkan Railway is a railway operated by the Konkan Railway Corporation, with its headquarters at CBD Belapur in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

• The first passenger train ran on Konkan railway tracks on 20 March 1993, between Udupi and Mangalore. During its initial years of operation in the mountainous Konkan region, a number of accidents prompted Konkan Railway to implement new technology.

• Anti-collision devices, the Sky Bus and roll-on/roll-off (RORO) are several of the railway's innovations. The 741-km (461-mi) line connects the states of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka. The first train on the completed track was sent off on January 26, 1998.

1. Damage to human health: If the ozone layer is depleted, it means humans will be overly exposed to strong UV light. Overexposure to strong UV light causes skin cancer, cataracts, sunburns, weakening of the immune system and quick aging.

2. Devastation to the environment: Many crops species are vulnerable to strong UV light and overexposure may well lead to minimal growth, photosynthesis and flowering. Some of the crop species vulnerable to UV light include barley, wheat, corn, oats, rice, broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower just to name a few. Forests equally bear the brunt of ozone depletion.

3. Threat to marine life: Certain marine life, especially planktons, is greatly impacted by exposure to strong ultraviolet rays. In the aquatic food chain, planktons appear high up. If planktons decrease in number due to ozone layer destruction, the marine food chain would be disrupted in many ways. Also, overexposure of sun rays could reduce the fortunes of fishers. On top of that, certain species of marine life have been greatly affected by overexposure to ultraviolet radiation at their early stage.

4. Effect on animals: In domesticated animals, too much Ultraviolet radiation could also lead to skin and eye cancer.

5. Impacts certain materials: Materials like plastics, wood, fabrics, rubber are massively degraded by too much ultraviolet radiation

• Since its institution in the latter part of the 19th century, the Mumbai Port has played an integral role in providing marine infrastructure in India. Comprising a natural harbor extending up to 400 square kilometres, the port is spread over a very vast area – 4, 63,000 square metres – in totality. With a pier length touching nearly 8,000 km, the Mumbai Port has an excellent road transportation network of over 125 km and rail connectivity with both the city’s rail networks. This makes the port exceedingly viable in terms of transportation connectivity with the whole of the city, which in-turn minimises the time spent in transit.

• Comprising three wet wharfing facilities and two dry wharfing facilities, the port is equipped with facilities for handling both dry as well as frozen cargo. Vessels can avail of re-fuelling facilities at about all berthing areas, thus further adding to the port’s functionality. In the order of their establishment, the oldest wet wharfing is the Prince’s Dock (1880) followed by Victoria Dock (1888) and the Indira Dock (1914). Of the three, the Indira Dock has the largest berthing capacity at 15, followed by Victoria at 14 and Prince at eight berths. All the berthing facilities offer poly-utility. The two dry wharfing areas used for the purposes of upkeep and furbishing of the vessels are Merewether and Hughes, located within the ambit of Prince Dock and Indira Dock respectively.

• Economic geography, which is a subfield of Geography, is the study of the location, distribution and spatial organization of economic activities across the globe. Over the past few decades, economists have approached the subject in ways more typical of a sub-discipline of economics.

• Economic geography today looks at how such forces as migration, trade costs, and the location of firms and sectors interact. Today there are several different working definitions of economic geography, because every economic geographer looks at his or her discipline in a subjective, personal and slightly diverging way.

• In Economic Geography, we study the (locational, organizational and behavioral) principles and processes associated with the spatial allocation of scarce (human, man-made and natural) resources (which are also distributed spatially) and the spatial patterns and (direct and indirect, social, environmental and economic) consequences resulting from such allocations.

• Semi-Clustered Settlements Semi-clustered or fragmented settlements may result from a tendency of clustering in a restricted area of dispersed settlement.

• More often such a pattern may also result from segregation or fragmentation of a large compact village.

• In this case, one or more sections of the village society choose or are forced to live a little away from the main cluster or village.

• In such cases, generally, the land-owning and dominant community occupies the central part of the main village, whereas people of lower strata of society and menial workers settle on the outer flanks of the village. Such settlements are widespread in the Gujarat plain and some parts of Rajasthan.

• Linear settlements are settlements where the buildings are constructed in lines, often next to a geographical feature like a lake shore, a river or following a road.

• Where linear settlements follow a road, the road often predates the settlement. Rectangular pattern: Such patterns of rural settlements are found in plain areas or wide intermontane valleys. The roads are rectangular and cut each other at right angles.

• A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in India and other parts of the world.

• Typically, there are a number of separate farmsteads scattered throughout the area. In these settlements, houses are spaced far apart and often interspersed with fields. A cultural feature such as a place of worship or a market, binds the settlement together. Such settlements are found in the western Malwa Plateau, where they occur in association with dispersed clusters.

• These are also found in areas of Western Ghats stretching from Satara towards Kerala high lands and also in some portions of Himalayan ranges in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. These isolated homesteads are also found unoccupied due to frequent floods in eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar districts.

• Thus, isolated homesteads seem to grow according to the exigencies of local circumstances. This pattern of settlement appears in the form of isolated huts or hamlets of few huts in remote jungles, or on small hills with farms or pasture on the slopes. Extreme dispersion of settlement is often caused by the extremely fragmented nature of the terrain and land resource base of habitable areas.

• Sometimes settlement is fragmented into several units physically separated from each other bearing a common name. These units are locally called panna, para, palli, nagla, dhani, etc. in various parts of the country.

• This segmentation of a large village is often motivated by social and ethnic factors. A hamlet is a small settlement, smaller than a village. Usually, all settlers in a hamlet are centered around a single economic activity.

• A hamlet may consist of a farm, a mill, a mine or a harbor. All the people living there would be workers on that farm, mill, mine or harbour.

• Hamlets, especially those with a medieval church may have resulted from a medieval village, that was abandoned for some reason. Because of the small size of the settlement, there are usually no buildings which have a central or administrative function.5-6 families may live there usually within a 2km radius area.