DAY – 55 (InstaTest-55): Insta 75 Days Revision Plan-2022: Topic – Polity, PREVIOUS YEAR UPSC PAPER 2002, October 2021 CA – INSIGHTSIAS

Solution: C

The National Human Rights Commission is a statutory but non-constitutional body. It was established in 1993 under a legislation enacted by the Parliament, namely, the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993

The functions of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) are:

1. To inquire into any violation of human rights or negligence in the prevention of such violation by a public servant, either suo motu or on a petition presented to it or on an order of a court. Hence, statement 3 is incorrect.
2. To intervene in any proceeding involving allegation of violation of human rights pending before a court.
3. To visit jails and detention places to study the living conditions of inmates and make recommendation thereon. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
4. To review the constitutional and other legal safeguards for the protection
   of human rights and recommend measures for their effective implementation.
5. To review the factors including acts of terrorism that inhibit the enjoyment of human rights and recommend remedial measures. Hence, statement 2 is correct.
6. To study treaties and other international instruments on human rights and make recommendations for their effective implementation. Hence, statement 4 is correct.

Solution: B

The chief election commissioner is provided with the security of tenure.
He cannot be removed from his office except in same manner and on the
same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court. Thus, he does not hold his
office till the pleasure of the president, though he is appointed by him.

The service conditions of the chief election commissioner cannot be
varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.

Solution: C

The NITI Aayog, like that of the Planning Commission, was also created by an executive resolution of the Government of India (i.e., Union Cabinet). Hence, it is also neither a constitutional body nor a statutory body. 

The Prime Minister of India is the chairperson of NITI Aayog.

Vice-Chairperson of NITI Aayog is appointed by the Prime Minister. He enjoys the rank of a Cabinet Minister.

Solution: C

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (SCs) is a constitutional
body in the sense that it is directly established by Article 338 of the
Constitution. 

The Commission, while investigating any matter or inquiring into any
complaint, has all the powers of a civil court trying a suit.

The commission presents an annual report to the president. It can also submit a report as and when it thinks necessary.

The President places all such reports before the Parliament, along with a
memorandum explaining the action taken on the recommendations made by
the Commission. The memorandum should also contain the reasons for the
non-acceptance of any of such recommendations.

Solution: D

The CVC is a multi-member body consisting of a Central Vigilance Commissioner (chairperson) and not more than two vigilance commissioners.
They are appointed by the president by warrant under his hand and seal on the recommendation of a three-member committee consisting of the prime minister as its head, the Union minister of home affairs and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

They hold office for a term of four years or until they attain the age of sixty five years, whichever is earlier. After their tenure, they are not eligible for further employment under the Central or a state government.

The salary, allowances and other conditions of service of the Central Vigilance Commissioner are similar to those of the Chairman of UPSC and that of the vigilance commissioner are similar to those of a member of UPSC. But they cannot be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.

Solution: A

The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is an Indian governmental commission, established by an Act of Parliament, the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act in December 2005, thus is a statutory body. 

The commission works under the aegis of Ministry of Women and Child development, GoI. The Commission began operation a year later in March 2007.

The Commission considers that its Mandate is “to ensure that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

As defined by the commission, child includes those up to the age of 18 years. Hence, statement 3 is incorrect.

Solution: A

The Constitution (Article 165) has provided for the office of the advocate
general for the states. He is the highest law officer in the state. Thus he
corresponds to the Attorney General of India. Hence, statement 1 is correct.

The advocate general is appointed by the governor. He must be a person who is qualified to be appointed a judge of a high court. Hence, statement 2 is correct.

The term of office of the advocate general is not fixed by the Constitution. Further, the Constitution does not contain the procedure and grounds for his removal. He holds office during the pleasure of the governor. This means that he may be removed by the governor at any time. Hence, statement 3 is incorrect.

Solution: C

The Constitution (Article 76) has provided for the office of the Attorney
General for India1. He is the highest law officer in the country.

The Attorney General (AG) is appointed by the president. He must be a
person who is qualified to be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court. In other words, he must be a citizen of India and he must have been a judge of some high court for five years or an advocate of some high court for ten years or an eminent jurist, in the opinion of the president.

The remuneration of the AG is not fixed by the Constitution. He receives
such remuneration as the president may determine.

Solution: C

The Right to Information Act of 2005 provides for the creation of not only
the Central Information Commission but also a State Information
Commission at the state level.

The Commission consists of a State Chief Information Commissioner and not more than ten State Information Commissioners. 

They are appointed by the Governor on the recommendation of a committee consisting of the Chief Minister as Chairperson, the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and a State Cabinet Minister nominated by the Chief Minister.

The State Chief Information Commissioner and a State Information
Commissioner hold office for a term of 5 years or until they attain the age of
65 years, whichever is earlier. They are not eligible for reappointment.

Solution: A

IEA is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.

India is not a member country of International Energy Agency.

The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia. 

The Agency’s mandate has broadened to focus on the “3Es” of effectual energy policy: energy security, economic development, and environmental protection. The latter has focused on mitigating climate change. The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources (including renewable energy), rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation.

Solution: C

All the above statements are correct.

73RD AMENDMENT ACT OF 1992

Significance of the Act

This act has added a new Part-IX to the Constitution of India. This part is entitled as ‘The Panchayats’ and consists of provisions from Articles 243 to 243 O. In addition, the act has also added a new Eleventh Schedule to the Constitution. This schedule contains 29 functional items of the panchayats. It deals with Article 243-G.

The act has given a practical shape to Article 40 of the Constitution which says that, “The State shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.”

This article forms a part of the Directive Principles of State Policy.

The act gives a constitutional status to the Panchayati raj institutions. It has brought them under the purview of the justiciable part of the Constitution.

In other words, the state governments are under constitutional obligation to adopt the new Panchayati raj system in accordance with the provisions of the act. Consequently, neither the formation of panchayats nor the holding of elections at regular intervals depend on the will of the state government any more.

Solution: A

73rd Constitutional Amendment Act (1992) or the Part IX of the Constitution:

Compulsory Provisions

1. Organisation of Gram Sabha in a village or group of villages. Hence Statement 1 is correct.
2. Establishment of panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels.
3. Direct elections to all seats in panchayats at the village, intermediate and district levels.
4. Indirect elections to the post of chairperson of panchayats at the intermediate and district levels. Hence Statement 4 is correct.
5. Voting rights of the chairperson and other members of a panchayat elected directly or indirectly.
6. 21 years to be the minimum age for contesting elections to panchayats.
7. Reservation of seats (both members and chairpersons) for SCs and STs in panchayats at all the three levels.
8. Reservation of one-third seats (both members and chairpersons) for women in panchayats at all the three levels.
9. Fixing tenure of five years for panchayats at all levels and holding fresh elections within six months in the event of supersession of any panchayat.
10. Establishment of a State Election Commission for conducting elections to the panchayats.
11. Constitution of a State Finance Commission after every five years to review the financial position of the panchayats.

Voluntary Provisions

1. Endowing the Gram Sabha with powers and functions at the village level.
2. Determining the manner of election of the chairperson of the village panchayat.
3. Granting financial powers to the panchayats, that is, authorizing them to levy, collect and appropriate taxes, duties, tolls and fees.

Hence, statement 2 and 3 are incorrect.

Solution: B

74TH AMENDMENT ACT OF 1992

The salient features of the act are:

Three Types of Municipalities

The act provides for the constitution of the following three types of municipalities in every state.

1. A nagar panchayat (by whatever name called) for a transitional area.
2. A municipal council for a smaller urban area.
3. A municipal corporation for a larger urban area.

Composition

All the members of a municipality shall be elected directly by the people of the municipal area. Hence, statement 1 is incorrect.

For this purpose, each municipal area shall be divided into territorial constituencies to be known as wards.

The state legislature may provide the manner of election of the chairperson of a municipality. It may also provide for the representation of the following persons in a municipality.

1. Persons having special knowledge or experience in municipal administration without the right to vote in the meetings of municipality.
2. The members of the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assembly representing constituencies that comprise wholly or partly the municipal area.
3. The members of the Rajya Sabha and the state legislative council registered as electors within the municipal area.
4. The chairpersons of committees (other than wards committees).

Reservation of Seats

The act provides for the reservation of seats for the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes in every municipality in proportion of their population to the total population in the municipal area. Further, it provides for the reservation of not less than one-third of the total number of seats for women (including the number of seats reserved for woman belonging to the SCs and the STs).

The state legislature may provide for the manner of reservation of offices of chairpersons in the municipalities for SCs, STs and women. It may also make any provision for the reservation of seats in any municipality or offices of chairpersons in municipalities in favour of backward classes.

Solution: C

The various features of administration contained in the Sixth Schedule are as follows:

1. The tribal areas in the four states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram have been constituted as autonomous districts. But, they do not fall outside the executive authority of the state concerned. Hence, statement 2 is incorrect.
2. The governor is empowered to organise and re-organise the autonomous districts. Thus, he can increase or decrease their areas or change their names or define their boundaries and so on.

3. If there are different tribes in an autonomous district, the governor can divide the district into several autonomous regions.
4. Each autonomous district has a district council consisting of 30 members, of whom four are nominated by the governor and the remaining 26 are elected on the basis of adult franchise. Hence, statement 1 is incorrect.

The elected members hold office for a term of five years (unless the council is dissolved earlier) and nominated members hold office during the pleasure of the governor.  Each autonomous region also has a separate regional council.

5. The district and regional councils administer the areas under their jurisdiction. They can make laws on certain specified matters like land, forests, canal water, shifting cultivation, village administration  and inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, social customs and so on. But all such laws require the assent of the governor.

6. The district and regional councils within their territorial jurisdictions can constitute village councils or courts for trial of suits and cases between the tribes. They hear appeals from them. The jurisdiction of high court over these suits and cases is specified by the governor.

Solution: B

Composition

Article 324 of the Constitution has made the following provisions with regard to the composition of election commission:

1. The Election Commission shall consist of the chief election commissioner and such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the president may from time to time fix. Hence, statement 1 is incorrect.

2. The appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall be made by the president.
3. When any other election commissioner is so appointed, the chief election commissioner shall act as the chairman of the election commission.
4. The president may also appoint after consultation with the election commission such regional commissioners as he may consider necessary to assist the election commission.
5. The conditions of service and tenure of office of the election commissioners and the regional commissioners shall be determined by the president.

The chief election commissioner and the two other election commissioners have equal powers and receive equal salary, allowances and other perquisites, which are similar to those of a judge of the Supreme Court. In case of difference of opinion amongst the Chief Election Commissioner and/or two other election commissioners, the matter is decided by the Commission by majority.

They hold office for a term of six years or until they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. They can resign at any time or can also be removed before the expiry of their term.

Solution: C

• The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (in Russian:”dagger”, NATO reporting name Killjoy) is a Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic aero-ballistic air-to-surface missile. It has a claimed range of more than 2,000 km (1,200 mi), Mach 12 speed (4.1 km/s), and an ability to perform evasive maneuvers at every stage of its flight. It can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads and can be launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or MiG-31K interceptors. It has been deployed at air bases in Russia’s Southern Military District and Western Military District.
• Hypersonic weapons are missiles and projectiles which travel at between 5 and 25 times the speed of sound – about 1 to 5 miles per second (1.6 to 8 kilometres per second).Below such speeds, weapons would be characterized as subsonic or supersonic, while above such speeds, the molecules of the atmosphere disassociate into a plasma which makes control and communication difficult. Directed-energy weapons such as lasers may operate at higher speeds but are considered a different class of weaponry.
• India is in the process of developing its Hypersonic missiles.

Solution:B

• Those naked hydrogen atoms then fuse together into helium atoms, and that reaction releases enough energy to counter the intense pressure of gravity collapsing the cloud of gas. The battle between gravity and the energy from fusion reactions fuels our sun and billions of other stars in our galaxy and beyond.
• But in about 5 billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen. Our star is currently in the most stable phase of its life cycle and has been since the formation of our solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. Once all the hydrogen gets used up, the sun will grow out of this stable phase.

Solution: D

• Chandra is one of the Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1991–2000), and the Spitzer Space Telescope (2003–2020).
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar(19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995)[3] was an Indian-American astrophysicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for “…theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars”. His mathematical treatment of stellar evolution yielded many of the current theoretical models of the later evolutionary stages of massive stars and black holes. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him.

Solution: B

• Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. It is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic,visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) and Lambda Scorpii.
• On May 12, 2022, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, for the first time, released an image of Sagittarius A*, based on radio interferometer data taken in 2017, which confirms that the object contains a black hole.

Solution: C

FSSAI has launched a mass media campaign “Heart Attack Rewind”- a 30-second Public Service Announcement (PSA) with the aim to create awareness about the harmful effects of trans fat by,

• Reducing acceptability of industrially produced (IP) trans fat in food
•  Building public support for government action to eliminate IP trans fat and
•  Leading consumers to the FSSAI website to seek more information about trans fat.

Solution: A

It can accept demand deposits only i.e. savings and current accounts, not time deposits.The Payment Banks cannot set up subsidiaries to undertake non-banking financial services activities.Payment banks  can take deposits of ₹2 lakh per account and it can issue debit but not credit cards.

Solution: B

MDR is the fees that a merchant have pay to his (acquirer) bank for every credit / debit card transaction made at his store.  

MDR fees is shared among 3 parties 1) customer‘s card issuing bank 2) merchant‘s acquiring bank 3) payment gateway provider.

Solution: A

Solution: Stardust 1.0 is a LAUNCH VEHICLE suited for student and budget payloads

Solution: A

Solution : When the moons of exoplanets break away from their own orbits & act like a planet, are called as “Ploonet.” There are none of these planets in our solar system

Solution: C

Solution: Anthurium is domestic flowering plant known for purifying surrounding air Anthrium is known to remove chemicals like formaldehyde, ammonia, toluene, xylene and allergens.

Solution : d

Let the amount be Rs. x.

In first condition, Q’s part = 5x/(5+3) = 5x/8

In second condition, Q’s part = 3x/(2+3) = 3x/5

By given condition, 5x/8 – 3x/5 = 10

x/40 = 10

x = Rs. 400

Solution : c

x ∝ ym ……(i)

y ∝ zn ……(ii)

x ∝ zp ……(iii)

On putting the values of x and y from Eqs. (ii) and (iii) in Eq. (i),

we get zp (zn)m

z p zmn

p = mn

Solution : c

Let the ages of A and B be 2x and 5x yr respectively.
By given condition, (2x + 8)/(5x + 8) = 4x + 16 = 5x + 8 x => 8
Hence, Difference between their present ages = 5x – 2x = 3x
= 3 × 8 = 24 yr.

Solution : b

Let quantities of milk and water be 5x and x L respectively.

By given condition,

5x/(x + 5) = 5/2

10x = 5x + 25

5x = 25

X = 5

Hence, the quantity of milk in the original mixture = 5 × 5 = 25 L.

Solution : d

Let initial salary = Rs. 22x

and final salary = Rs. 25x

Let initial number of employees = 3y

and final number of employees = 2y

Hence, Present bill = Final salary × Final number of employees

5000 = 25x × 2y

5000/50 = xy

xy = 100.

Hence, Original bill = Initial salary × Initial number of employees

22x × 3y = 66xy

66 × 100 = Rs. 6600