Explore topic-wise InterviewSolutions in Current Affairs.

The congress did not want to offend the conservative high-caste Hindus.

The organising venue of 19th summit of SAARC is Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

Correct Answer is: (b) India

The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production revealed the most oppressive face of the British rule.

(i) It was the inalienable right of the Indian people to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their hard labour and have the necessities of life so that they might have full opportunities of growth. 

(ii) The British government in India deprived the Indian people of their freedom. It exploited the masses and ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually.

(i) Physical force believes in violent ways for achieving the goal. But soul force believes in non-violence and truth. 

(ii) Indians cannot carry arms because they have made the religion of non-violence their own. 

Environment conservation related earth summit happened in Rio-de-Janeiro in 1992 CE.

Berger said that terrorists use methods which are inhuman, menacing and violent and violate international laws to fulfill this immediate objectives.

(i) (a) It kept the people of India deprived of freedom. 

(b) It ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. 

(ii) Lahore Session of the Congress motivated the demand for Purna Swaraj or complete independence.

The economic development can be achieved even without damaging the global environment by following practices: 

1. In June 1992, Earth Summit provided some conservative measures for sustainable growth without damaging environment anymore. 

2. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 covered Global Commons for mutual economic development. 

3. Kyoto protocol cut greenhouse emissions from industrialized countries to protect the environment and to develop industries also. 

4. Resource Geopolitics allocates and ‘ distribute natural resources among the nation states of the global arena for the sustainable development of nations. 

Hence, the above-mentioned practices protect the global environment and even though the states are developing we could achieve this challenge only if we follow the provisions and practices mentioned in all these conferences and summits.

(i) India’s National Auto-fuel Policj7 mandates cleaner fuels for vehicles. The Energy Conservation Act, passed in 2001, outlines initiatives to improve energy efficiency. 

(ii) The Electricity Act of2003 encourages the use of renewable energy.

UNEP stands for the United Nations Environment Programme to hold international conferences to promote coordination to an effective response to environmental problems.

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides that the parties should act to protect the climate system on the basis of equity and in accordance with the common but differentiated responsibilities.

Agenda 21 is a list of developed practices ecological responsibility to promote sustainable development.

(a) The Earth’s atmosphere, Antarctica, ocean floor and outer space are considered as a part of global commons.

Global Commons is the common governance by the international community over there as or regions which are located outside the sovereign jurisdiction of any one state or authority.

1. Rio-Summit produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry and recommended a list of development practices called Agenda 21.

2. It gave the concept of sustainable development to be a combined economic growth with ecological responsibility.

3. Rio-Summit developed various contentious issues like Commons, Global Commons in global politics of the environment.

The areas or regions located outside the jurisdiction of any one state and region, common governance by the international community are Global Commons i.e. Earth atmosphere, Antarctic Ocean floor and outer space. 

They are exploited and polluted due to:

1. Vague scientific evidence, their lack of consensus on common environmental issues. 

2. North-South inequalities and their exploitative activities and competition lack proper management area out space. 

3. Technological and Industrial development has also affected the earth’s atmosphere and ocean floor.

Correct option is (c) granting the right to command.

Common but differentiated responsibili¬ties mean that the state shall cooperate in the spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the earth’s ecosystem. As the states have common but differentiated responsibilities over various contributions of global environmental degradation. The developed countries acknowledge that the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technological and financial resources they command. 

We could implement the idea with the help of conventions and declarations: 

1. The Rio-Summit held in June 1992 produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry and recommended a list of developed practices called Agenda 21. 

2. The 1992 United Nations Framework convention on climatic change (UNFCCC) also emphasized that the parties should act to protect the climate system on the basis of common but differentiated responsibilities; 

3. An international agreement is known Kyoto Protocol set targets for industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions which support for global warming.

Common but differentiated responsibilities mean that ‘the states shall cooperate in the spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the earth’s ecosystem. As the states have common but differentiated responsibilities over the various contribution of global environmental degradation. The developed countries acknowledge that the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technological and financial resources they command. 

We could implement the idea with the help of conventions and declarations: 

1. The Rio Summit held in June 1992 produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry and recommended a list of developed practices called Agenda 21.

2. The 1992 United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climatic Change (UNFCCC) also emphasized that the parties should act to protect the climate system on the basis of common but differentiated responsibilities. 

3. An international agreement known by its Protocol set targets for industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions which support for global warming.

Common property refers to the rights and duties of a group together over natural resources with the following norms: 

1. The group members enjoy rights and duties both over nature, levels of use and the maintenance of a given resource. 

2. In India, many village communities have defined members’ rights and responsibilities through mutual understanding. 

3. The institutional arrangement for the actual management of sacred groves on state-owned forest level appropriating fit the description of the common property.

Common property refers to the rights and duties of a group together over a natural resource with the following norms: 

1. The group members enjoy rights and duties both over nature, levels of use and the maintenance of a given resource. 

2. In India, many village communities have defined members’ rights and responsibilities through mutual understanding. 

3. The institutional arrangement for the actual management of sacred groves on state-owned forest land appropriately fit the description of a common property.

Common but differentiated responsibilities mean that ‘the states shall cooperate in the spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the earth’s ecosystem. As the states have common but differentiated responsibilities over the various contribution of global environmental degradation. The developed countries acknowledge that the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technological and financial resources they command. 

We could implement the idea with the help of conventions and declarations: 

1. The Rio Summit held in June 1992 produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry and recommended a list of developed practices called Agenda 21.

2. The 1992 United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climatic Change (UNFCCC) also emphasized that the parties should act to protect the climate system on the basis of common but differentiated responsibilities. 

3. An international agreement known by its Protocol set targets for industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions which support for global warming.

Environmental movements are the movements of a group which is environmentally conscious to challenge environmental degradation to work at both the national and international levels or local levels: 

1. These movements raise new ideas and long-term vision of what we should not do in our individual and collective lines. 

2. These environmental movements may be diverse in nature i.e. the forest movements of the south, in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, continental Africa, and India are faced with enormous pressures. 

Categories of Environmental Movements: 

1. Forest Movements 

2. A movement against mining corporation and mineral industry (water pollution) 

3. Anti Dam Movements against the construction of mega dams riot to disturb channels of rivers.

‘Resource Geopolitics’ is concerned with the allocation of distribution of natural resources among the nation states of the global arena: 

1. It is about who gets what, when, where and how. 

2. Interstate rivalry and western geopolitical thinking about resources have been dominated by the relationship between trade, war, and power.

Water is a crucial resource relevant to global politics. Regional variations and increasing scarcity of fresh water in some parts of the world point to the possibility of disagreements over shared water resources as a leading source of conflicts in the 21st century, which is known as water wars: 

1. Water wars may create violent conflict due to the disagreement of countries over sharing rivers i.e. a typical disagreement is a downstream state’s objection to pollution, excessive irrigation, or construction of dams which degrade the quality of water available to downstream states. 

2. States have used force to seize freshwater resources i.e. 1950, a struggle between Israel, Syria and Jordan and 1960s over attempts by each side to divert water from the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers. 

3. The more recent threats between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over the construction of Dams on Euphrates river.

Recently the geopolitics of resources has become a major issue in international politics. Water and oil are the most important of them. Wealth from oil can cause political turmoil. Therefore the history of oil is the history of battles and wars. The Gulf Region produces nearly 30% of world’s oil needs. 65% of the entire oil deposits is in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia is the number one producer and Iraq is the second. Naturally, the developed countries show a lot of interest in this area. That is why there is so much of trouble in the Gulf region. It is America, Europe, Japan, China and India that need the greatest amount of oil. So each country wants to ensure that there is availability of enough oil.

Lack of pure water is becoming a big issue in geopolitics. With the advent of the 21 a century, disputes started in the sharing of waters. Nations disagree on the issue of sharing river waters. Those who give water and those who take water have different needs and interests. Sometimes it is pollution, sometimes it is irrigation and sometimes it can be the construction of dams. Mankind needs water and therefore disputes for water have become dangerous issues.

1. West Asia especially the Gulf region enjoys much more potential for oil production. larger. The United States, Europe, Japan, and increasingly India and China, which consume this petroleum, are located at a considerable distance from the region. 

2. Iraqi territory is supposed to be fully explored. 

3. The global economy relied on oil for much of 20th century as a portable and indispensable fuel. The commonwealth associated with oil generates political struggles to control it.

Oil is the resource which generates immense wealth, hence it creates political struggles involving industrialized countries to adopt various methods to ensure steady flows of oil: 

1. These include deployment of military process near exploitation sites and along sea lanes of communications. 

2. The stockpiling of strategic resources. 

3. They support multinational companies by making favorable international agreements. 

4. The global economy relied on oil as a portable and indispensable fuel, hence, the history of petroleum is the history of war and struggle. 

5. It created conflict between Iraq and Saudi Arabia as Iraq’s known reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia and since substantial portions of Iraqi territory are yet to be fully explored, there is a fair chance that actual reserves might be far larger.

1. It has launched a number of programmes i.e. Auto Fuel Policy, Energy Conservation Act 2001, Electricity Act 2003 to protect the environment. 

2. The Energy Conservation Act was passed in 2001 to outline initiatives to improve energy efficiency and Electricity Act, passed in 2003 to encourage the use of renewable energy by the Indian government as a conservation programme. 

3. The Indian government is keen to launch a National Mission on Biodiesel using about 11 million hectares of land to produce biodiesel by 2011-12.

Correct answer is  a) 1 June 1993

A fact that shocked demographers, policymakers, social workers and even ordinary citizens is the drastic reduction in the gender ratio of children. It was from 1961 that gender ratio related to age was calculated. The ratio of children aged up to 6 is called child gender ratio. This used to be higher in the past, but unfortunately, it has been seriously decreasing. In the 1991-2001 period, the female-male ratio was 933:1000, which was the highest. It had increased by 6 points from the previous 927:1000. At the same time, child gender ratio went down to 927 from 945, showing a decrease of 18 points. Thus for the first time, the child gender ratio became lower than the common gender ratio.

The decrease in the child gender ratio in some States is cause for greater concern. In 6 States and in the Centrally Administered Regions, the child gender ratio is even lower than 90Q girls to 1000 boys. Punjab is the worst in this case. There it is 798:1000. It is the only state that is below 800 females for 1000 males. Just behind Punjab, there are Haryana, Chhatisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

In Uttaranchal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the ratio is less than 925. In Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Jammu-Kashmir, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Orissa, the ratio is above the national average of 914, but it is below 950.

The best ratio is in Kerala. But even here things are not so ne, as the ratio is just 964. Mizoram has the highest ratio in India. There it is 971:1000. Demographers and social scientist point out many reasons for the decrease in the gender ratio, with less women and more men. The most important of them are reasons of health and the attitude of the society towards females.

In the last 6 decades, India has made many gains in the field of population control. 

They can be summarised thus:

• Crude birth rate reduced to 24.1 in 2004 from 40.8 in 1951. 
• Child mortality rate was reduced to 58 per thousand in 2004, from 146 in 1951. 
• Welfare of partners increased 4 times from 10.4% in 1971 to 44% in 1998. 
• Longevity increased from 37 years of age to 62. 
• Awareness was created for the need and methods of family planning. 
• Fertility rate became half, from 6.0 in 1951 to 3.0 in 2004.

Population policy is a very important matter in a country. It is related to the health, prosperity and development of the nation. Population and development are mutually related. For the development of a country, an energetic population is necessary. At the same time, overpopulation can do a lot of harm to development. This problem of overpopulation is felt by the developing nations. The problem of overpopulation was recognized by India at an early stage. In 1952 itself, India declared a population policy.

The population policy of the Indian Government stressed family planning. For this, a Family Planning Board and a Family Planning Department were established. Five Year Plans also gave due importance to family planning. The population policy of India was based on the National Family Planning Programme. 

The aims of this Programme were:

• Control the rate of growth of the population in a way desirable to the society. 
• Encourage various birth control methods and thus reduce the growth rate. 
• Improve public health. 
• Create awareness in people about the problems of overpopulation and matters related to health.

• Influence of the media, especially television. 
• Love for consumerist culture. 
• Finding better life with good amenities and luxuries. 
• Opportunity to look for jobs. 
• The unfamiliarity in the cities. Since people don’t know you much, you can do any job and get money. But in villages, one does not like to do jobs which are considered below one’s status.

Movement of rural people into urban centres quickened the destruction of common properties like ponds, forests and grasslands. These were the sources of the means of livelihood of poor villagers. Those who did not have much land managed to exist by shipping, collecting things from forests and grazing their cattle. With the mass movement of people to urban centres, there was a change everywhere. 

Construction work destroyed the grassy plains and the ponds became dry. Forests were cleared either for cultivation or for some other kind of industrialization. Villagers were forced to buy many things which they used to get free. For example, from the public ponds, they could catch fish, from forests they could get firewood and other things, and from the grasslands, they got grass for their cattle. Now nothing was free and people were forced by buy things which were free until now. Thus villagers began to suffer more. Since cash income in hard to come by in villages, their problems got multiplied.

On the one hand the village school master comes out as a learned man with all the necessary skills of a teacher. On the other hand, he comes out as a rigid and stem teacher. The poet’s intention could be two-fold. Perhaps he wants to show that every one of us has strengths and weaknesses, and so does the school master. The poet might also want to point out that there are two types of teachers. The ones with the positive traits are admired and loved and the ones with the negative traits are feared and detested.

In the case of the school master, the sum-total of his goodness outweighs the sum-total of his negative aspects. So, even if he is not an ideal teacher, he can be considered a good teacher as he had the skills, talents and knowledge required of a teacher.

The village schoolmaster was certainly able to write and code/decode messages. He could measure the land, and even give the forecast of tides and winds. He could predict the future. These qualities and skills of the schoolmaster made the people marvel at him.

The poet regards schoolmaster with love and affection. The poet speaks about the various qualities that the schoolmaster had despite his stem and severe behavior. He remembers his kindness and love for education and learning. He remembers how the villagers had high regard for him. He fondly remembers him in the end for all the good he did by teaching at school.

The students were afraid of the schoolmaster and were sufficiently clever to assess from his face whether that day would bring any misfortune or not. The children laughed at his jokes with pretended joy. If they noticed any sign of anger on his face they would spread the news throughout the classroom.

(b) He could write poems and songs.

(c) Kind as well as severe.

The little school was situated in a small village. It was situated in a building next to the irregular fence that fringed the village path with full blossomed, beautiful but ornamental furze.

There are about 20 teachers in my school. Some of them take my classes and there are some who haven’t taught me still. Nevertheless, I know them all. I like all of my teachers. They all are very kind and loving. But my favourite teacher is Mr. Sharma. He is our Mathematics teacher. He is a middle-aged man with a very pleasant smile.

He is intelligent and a master of his subject. This is one quality that impresses all the students. He is much disciplined. He is approachable and does not evoke fear in the hearts of students. In fact, we feel at ease when he is around. He makes Mathematics so easy for all of us that we all enjoy it. We eagerly wait for his period every day and feel very sad when he is absent. He is very soft spoken, kind, gentle, helping and caring.

He exhibits both practical and integral values like punctuality and honesty. In addition to these values, he has good subject knowledge and worldly wisdom. He is always ready to listen patiently to the problems of the students. He never refuses any child who seeks help. Many a time he goes out of his way to help students.

He has special concern for slow learners. All these qualities make him a favourite of not only me but all the students. My reasons for liking him are many. But one thing I admire about him is that he is neither partial nor biased. All he demands of his students is to study sincerely and work hard. He is very dedicated towards his work and profession. He is very honest,, simple and clear-hearted.

Teachers like him are a fine example of simple living and high thinking. The country needs more devoted and dedicated teachers like him. Students work even harder when they have such inspiring examples before them.

Oliver Goldsmith says that the blossom’d furze was unprofitably gay because the lush grass spread out over there in nature, served no purpose because there was nobody to admire it.

The school was located next to the irregular fence that fringed the village path with full blossomed, beautiful but ornamental furze.

The children’s view of the teacher is that he was severe and stem. They however respected him because he was kind and was dedicated to teaching them.

The mood of the speaker could be either. On the one hand, we can say that the speaker wants to talk about the qualities of the schoolmaster in a reverential manner. Even when he says that the schoolmaster is stern, he is quick to add that he is stern to view. The phrase ‘to view’ could be a suggestion that he is not really stern, but pretends to be stem.

In other words, the phrase could be an indicator to the goodness of heart of the schoolmaster. If we take the intention of the speaker to be this, we take the poem as a serious one. However, there are a few lines which make us wonder whether the poet is poking gentle fun at the schoolmaster.

For example, he says that the children traced the day’s disasters in the school master’s morning face. The poet also says that the village schoolmaster, even though vanquished, could argue still. If these qualities of the schoolmaster are considered, then the tone can be taken as humorous. Ultimately, as readers, we can only say Goldsmith allows the readers to take the final stand.

Gazing rustics, thundering, glee, strict, kind and severe.