Question
With reference to the deputation of All India Services, consider the following statements;
1. Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) is the cadre controlling authority of all the All India Services.
2. The concurrence of the concerned officer is not required during deputation.
3. In case of any disagreement in deputation, the matter shall be decided by the Central Government and the State Government concerned.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
1 and 3 only
2 and 3 only
2 only
3 only
2) With reference to the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) consider the following statements:
1. SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF.
2. Private parties cannot hold Special Drawing Rights (SDR).
3. International Monetary Fund (IMF) gives equal weightage to the basket of currencies to determine SDR value.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
1 only
1 and 2 only
2 and 3 only
None
3) Consider the following States:
1. Chhattisgarh
2.Madhya Pradesh
3.Himachal Pradesh
4.Uttarakhand
With reference to the States mentioned above, in terms of percentage of forest cover to the total area of State, which one of the following is the correct ascending order?
2-3-1-4
2-1-3-4
3-2-4-1
3-2-1-4
Prelims Specific News Items
- Odisha sculptor to make India Gate Netaji statue :-
Noted sculptor Adwaita Gadanayak, who will carve the 28-feet statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in New Delhi’s India Gate. It will be made up of Black Granite.
2) Abide With Me, the Christian hymn dropped from Beating Retreat ceremony :- The government has dropped Abide With Me, a hymn that has been a fixture in the Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950. What is the significance of this hymn in India?
A day after the eternal flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti was shifted to the National War Memorial, the government has dropped Abide With Me, the sombre highpoint of the conclusion of the Republic Day celebrations.
Penned in the pre-modern world by Henry Francis Lyte, a Scottish Anglican minister and son of a naval captain, the hymn, which is known for its simplicity and sombre theme, is often sung to English composer William Henry Monk’s evocative tune Eventide, and has been a fixture in the Indian Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950.
It is always the last piece to be played by the brass bands before the troops recede up Raisina Hill to the tune of poet Allama Iqbal’s Saare jahan se achha.
3) Elephant corridors to be restored in south Bengal :- The fragmented and patchy forests of south Bengal have emerged as one of the hotspots of human elephant conflict in the country, resulting in loss of lives of both humans and pachyderms.
Project Elephant
The Project Elephant is presently being implemented in 22 States and supports 5 elephant rescue centers in the states of Haryana, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka & Kerala. There are 30 notified & 1 proposed Elephant Reserve in Khasi, Meghalaya.
Project Elephant was launched in 1992 by the Government of India Ministry of Environment and Forests to provide financial and technical support to wildlife management efforts by states for their free-ranging populations of wild Asian Elephants. The project aims to ensure the long-term survival of the population of elephants in their natural habitats by protecting them, their habitats and migration corridors.
4)Gujrat Tableaux this 26th January :- The tableau, which is 45 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 16 feet high, comprises a seven-foot statue of Motilal Tejawat, one of the heroes of the event “who was regarded as the ‘Gandhi of Koliyari’ by the tribals.
According to the details, on March 7, 1922, Bhil tribal villagers in Sabarkantha district had gathered on the banks of Her river under the leadership of Motilal Tejawat, to protest against the land revenue system imposed by the British and the feudal lords.
“Like a battlefield, the entire area was filled with corpses. Two wells — Dhekhadiya and Dudhiya — were overflowing with the bodies of about 1,200 innocent tribals. Motilal Tejawat was shot twice, and his companions carried him away on a camel to the hill by the river,” stated the release.
5)‘Statue of Equality’ gets final touches :- Work is going apace on the 216ft tall statue of the 11th century reformer and Vaishnavite saint, Sri Ramanuja, to be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the sprawling 40acre
ashram of Sri Tridandi Chinna Jeer Swamy in Muchintal on the outskirts of Hyderabad on February 5.
The ‘Statue of Equality’, as it is called, is being installed to mark the 1,000th birth anniversary of Sri Ramanuja. It was built of panchaloha, a combination of gold, silver, copper, brass and zinc, by the Aerospun Corporation in China and shipped to India.
Ramanuja or Ramanujacharya :-
Ramanuja disagreed with his guru and the non-dualistic Advaita Vedānta, and instead followed in the footsteps of Tamil Alvārs tradition, the scholars Nāthamuni and Yamunāchārya.
Ramanuja is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita subschool of Vedānta.
Ramanuja himself wrote influential texts, such as bhāsya on the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, all in Sanskrit.
His Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism) philosophy has competed with the Dvaita (theistic dualism) philosophy of Madhvāchārya, and Advaita (non-dualism) philosophy of Ādi Shankara, together the three most influential Vedantic philosophies of the 2nd millennium.
6) Renkoji temple offer :- Tokyo’s Renkoji temple gave permission to Indian authorities to conduct DNA tests on ashes said to be those of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose but Govt. of India did nottake it.
Justice M.K. Mukherjee Commission :- Justice Mukherjee Commission’s report on the disappearance of Bose as evidence that “on account of the Temple Authorities reticence… the commission could not proceed further [on the issue of DNA tests]” and concluded that the ashes were not of Netaji’s.
7) A proposal for Indian Environmental Service
The Subramanian committee was set up in August 2014 to review the country’s green laws and the procedures followed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
It suggested several amendments to align with the then Government’s economic development agenda. But a Parliamentary Standing Committee rejected the report on the grounds that it diluted key aspects of environmental legislation.
What were the Suggestions of the Report :- The report proposed an ‘Environmental Laws (Management) Act’, under which two expert bodies, the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) and State Environmental Management Authority (SEMA), will be constituted at the Central and State levels to evaluate project clearance in a time bound manner. It also proposed a National Environment Research institute and an Indian Environment Service (IES) to recruit qualified human resource in the environment sector.
The Supreme Court responding to a petition filed by lawyer Samar Vijay Singh has asked the Centre if it is planning to constitute an IES.
