IAS MODEL EXAM - CURRENT AFFAIRS - 2009 QUESTION PAPER

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IAS MODEL EXAM - CURRENT AFFAIRS - 2009 QUESTION PAPER

Q.  No. 01: Kerala Council for Historical Research has done excavations in 2008 in relation to findings of the Muziris Heritage Project. From excavations done at Pattanam near Kodungallur is the evidence of one of first globalisation attempts.
•   Mattancherry Palace was built by the Portuguese and presented to Veera Kerala Varma (1537-65), Raja of Kochi, in 1555 AD. The Dutch carried out some extensions and renovations in the palace in 1663, and thereafter it was popularly called Dutch Palace. The renovation of the palace was started in 2007 and completed in 2009 by the ASI.

Q.  No. 02: The western sea border, known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL), in North Korea has been unilaterally drawn by the U.N. Command after the 1950-1953 Korean War and has been consistently disavowed by North Korea.
•   In Feb 2009 North Korea called the NLL a "ghost border" warned it was scrapping a 1991 non-aggression agreement with South Korea.
•   The Durand Line is the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border was established after the British forced Emir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan in 1893 to come to an agreement under duress to demarcate the border between Afghanistan and what was then British India (now Pakistan's provinces North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan).

Q.  No. 04: Homage to Odissi maestro in Malaysia: One of four founder fathers of Odissi dance, Guru Debaprasad Das died nearly 25 years ago. He was instrumental in introducing Odissi to the world through his continental tour with his famed disciple late Indrani Rehman.

Q.  No. 07: Pump Priming - Government action taken to stimulate the economy, as spending money in the commercial sector, cutting taxes, or reducing interest rates.
•   Deficit financing - Borrowing by a government agency to make up for a revenue shortfall. Deficit financing stimulates the economy for a time but eventually can become a drag on the economy by pushing up interest rates.

Q.  No. 09: Bahlul Lodi – He belongs to Lodi Dynasty and ruled during 1451-1489. During his reign Afanasy Nikitin, the Russian traveller visited India.

Q.  No. 14: Marilyn Ferguson is the author of the best-selling book The Aquarian Conspiracy which has its affliation with the New Age movement by tying together its disparate threads. She died in October 2008.
•   The first known use of The New Age was in Madame Blavatsky's book, The Secret Doctrine, which was published in 1888.

Q.  No. 17: As part of Himachal Pradesh first micro-level drive, residents across the state planted 1.5 million saplings on a single day, August 3, 2008, under the Jan Jan Sanjivani programme.
•   It is for the first time that such a massive plantation campaign of medicinal and herbal plants was launched in the state with people's participation, where each and every household was motivated to plant atleast one medicinal plant in their premises.
•   In a first of its kind initiative in India, the Government of Himachal Pradesh will impose a voluntary 'green tax' on vehicle users to generate a fund for combating climatic changes.

•   Q No. 18: The RBI has redefined the types of NBFCs. Previously, The NBFCs that are registered with RBI were:
1.   Equipment Leasing Company;
2.   Hire-Purchase Company;
3.   Loan Company;
4.   Investment Company.
5.   Residuary Non-Banking Company
•   With effect from Dec 6, 2006 the above NBFCs registered with RBI have been reclassified as
6.   Asset Finance Company (AFC)
7.   Investment Company (IC)
8.   Loan Company (LC)

Q.  No. 20: General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto announced in Nov 2008 the full composition of a high-level task force set up to examine possible reform of the global financial system, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, in the wake of the current economic turmoil.
•   The committee is chaired by Joseph Stiglitz. Former governor of India's Reserve Bank, Yaga Venugopal Reddy, was appointed as one of the members of the committee.
Q No. 21: Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic theory based on the ideas of 20th-century British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle. With the sub Prime Crisis and global economic recession experts suggest the application of Keynesian economics for the revival of the economies.
Q No. 22: Elara Chola also known as Elalan, or Élaezha Chola, was a Tamil king who ruled Sri Lanka from 205 BC to 161 BC from the ancient capital of Anuradhapura. The name "ELAM" is traced to him.
Q.  No. 23: SBI Subsidiary Banks Act was passed in 1959. SBI was known as Imperial Bank of India during the British rule.
•   State Bank of Hyderabad was the first subsidiary of State Bank of India. State Bank of Saurastra was merged with SBI in 2008.

Q.  No. 25: Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) was introduced during the 1970s when there was a dollar shortage for international trade due to the Oil price rise which often referred to as the First Oil Shock.

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Q.  No. 26: The Ministry of Food Processing Industries intends to set up the National Wine Board at Pune in Maharashtra, and the National Meat and Poultry Processing Board at New Delhi, as separate not-for-profit companies under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 in 2008

Q.  No. 27: An exhibition of photographs titled "Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: Architect of Modern Education in India", conceptualised by National Book Trust-India, was inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil on National Education Day, November 11, to commemorate the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. He died in 1958.

Q.  No. 28: Poliomyelitis: Often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease which is spread from person-to-person through the fecal-oral route. Poliovirus was isolated in 1908 by Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper. Two polio vaccines are used throughout the world to combat polio namely Salk vaccine and Sabin vaccine
•   Human Papillomavirus: Papillomaviruses are a diverse group of DNA-based viruses that infect the skin and mucous membranes of humans and a variety of animals. More than 100 different human papillomavirus (HPV) types have been characterized. Gardasil is the vaccine for the cervical cancer marketed by the American pharma company Merck. 

Q.  No. 28: Recardian Equivalence: An economic theory that suggests that when a government tries to stimulate demand by increasing debt-financed government spending, demand remains unchanged. This is because the public will save its excess money in order to pay for future tax increases that will be initiated to pay off the debt.
•   This theory was developed by David Ricardo in the nineteenth century, but Harvard professor Robert Barro would implement Ricardo's ideas into more elaborate versions of the same concept.

Q.  No. 32: N.G Ranga - Nidubrolu Gogineni Ranganayukulu was an Indian freedom fighter, parliamentarian, and farmer leader. He was an exponent of the peasant philosophy, and considered the father of the Indian Peasant Movement after Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. He was one of the prominent leaders of Swatantra Party.

Q.  No. 34: His birth centenary is being celebrated in 2008. In 1946 he became the youngest minister in Jawaharlal Nehru's provisional government. He was the Deputy Prime Minister of India when Morarji Desai was the Prime Minister, from 1977 to 1979.
National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, which now has one of the world's largest Gene Banks, and the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning at Nagpur were set up when he was the President of ICAR.

Q.  No. 35: National Statistical Commission wasset up by the Government in January 2000 under the Chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan reviewed the statistical system and the entire gamut of Official Statistics in the country.
•   One of the key recommendations of this Commission was to establish a permanent National Commission on Statistics to serve as a nodal and empowered body for all core statistical activities of the country, evolve, monitor and enforce statistical priorities and standards and to ensure statistical co-ordination among the different agencies involved.
•   Prof. Suresh Tendulkar has been appointed as the chairperson of NSC. He is also the Chairman of Prime minister's Economic Advisory Council
•   The National Academy of Statistical Administration (NASA) was inaugurated by the Union Minister of External Affairs Mr. Pranab Mukherjee in 2009. The academy is situated at the institutional area of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

Q.  No. 37: IFFCO-TOKIO had introduced its first weather insurance product 'Barish Bima Yojna' for kharif crops in four states in 2004.

Q.  No. 38: National Productivity Council (NPC): is a national level organization to promote productivity culture in India.
•   Established as a registered society in 1958 by the Government of India, it is an autonomous, tri-partite, non-profit organization with equal representation   from the government, employers and workers' organizations, apart from technical and   professional    institutions   and    other interests on its governing council.
•   It is celebrating its Golden jubilee. The NPC organized a National Productivity Week in Feb 2009.

Q.  No. 40: The former President, R. Venkataraman, who presided over the era of coalition politics at the Centre in the late 1980s, died in 2009. He served as a member of Planning Commission in 1967. He had never been Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission.

Q.  No. 42: Anantharaman Committee Recommendations
A SEBI-appointed committee, headed by G. Anantharaman, to report on "The future of Regional Stock Exchanges: Post-demutualization".
It has recommended that
1.   An RSE that does not want to continue as an exchange, should be given an exit option by withdrawing its recognition upon a specific request or application made by it;
2.   The committee feels that it does not serve the interests of either trade or the public, to forcibly retain recognition of an exchange that has no chance of survival, is keen on an exit option or poses a regulatory burden. So, those willing to continue should come together to form a third trading platform like the BSE model or the Inter-connected stock Exchange (ICSE) model to succeed. This would enable the SMEs to raise capital from public through market mechanism.
3.   Recognition should be withdrawn compulsorily for RSEs that are notorious for their rank indiscipline besides causing serious regulatory concerns and
4.   Recognition of RSEs which have the potential and the willingness to participate in any alternative trading platform may be continued.

Q.  No. 42: A Biomass Atlas is under preparation which is expected to more accurately assess state-wise renewable energy potential from agro-residues. It is a project of Ministry of New and Renewable Enegy, executed by the Combustion, Gasification and Propulsion Laboratory (CGPL) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore.

Q.  No. 44: The cabinet Secretariat on 2nd July, 2008, has notified creation of a new Department under Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers with the objective to give greater focus and thrust on the development of Pharmaceutical Sector in the country.
•   National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority is an office attached to this Department.
•   National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education Research is an autonomous institution under the Department.

Q.  No. 46: Indian Energy Exchange (IEX): Launched in 2008 by Financial Technologies, Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd, Power Trading Corporation of India Ltd and of key partners/investors including IDFC, Adani Enterprises, Reliance Energy, Lanco Infratech, Rural Electrification Corporation and Tata Power Company.

•   Power Exchange India Ltd:  Second power exchange was launched in Nov 2008. It was promoted as a joint venture between National Stock Exchange and National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX).

•   National Power Exchange: A Joint Venture Company of NTPC Ltd., NHPC Ltd., Power Finance Corporation Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. was incorporated in Dec 2008 to operate a Power Exchange at National level.

Q.  No. 48: The first District Generic Store in the name of "jan aushadhi" has been opened at Amritsar

Q.  No. 50: Tianlian-I is a Chinese data relay communications satellite series. It was launched by the Shenzou series of space craft.
•   Shenzou 7 mission is the third manned spacecraft and first ever Chinese Spacewalk.

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Q.  No. 51:  One of the main objectives of Chandrayan-I is to study the presence of Helium in moon and study its viability as an alternative fuel. Extra terrestrial helium will occur in plasma state (fourth state of matter).

Q.  No. 52: Community Radio Service
•   'Anna FM' is India's first campus 'community' radio, launched in Feb 2004, which is run by Education and Multimedia Research Centre and all programmes are produced by the students of Media Sciences at Anna University.
•   'Salaam Namaste' was launched in October 2008 by Institute of Management Studies in Noida.
•   'Sangham Radio', the country's first community-based radio station, licensed to an NGO was launched in October 2008, in Andhra Pradesh.
•   'Radio Bundelkhand', the second NGO-led community radio station was also launched in October 2008 in Orchha, Madhya Pradesh.
•   The first community radio station in Assam was formally launched at the Krishna Kanta Handique Open University in January 2009.

Q.  No. 53: During the years 2008, two waterways have been declared as new National Waterways namely:
•   The Kakinada-Puducherry stretch of Canals and the Kaluvelly Tank, Bhadrachalam –Rajahmundry stretch of River Godavari and Wazirabad – Vijayawada stretch of River Krishna 1095 kms) and
•   The Talcher- Dhamra stretch of river Brahmani, Geonkhali- Charbatia stretch of East Coast Canal, Charbatia- Dhamra stretch of Matai River and Mangalgadi-Paradip stretch of Mahanadi Delta Rivers (623 kms).

Q.  No. 54: Indians & Oscars
•   Bhanu Athaiya - Best Costume Design for Richard Attenborough's "Gandhi" in 1982
•   Satyajit Ray - Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992
•   A.R. Rahman - Two Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song "Jai ho" for "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2009
•   Gulzar - Best Original Song "Jai ho" for "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2009 with Rahman
•   Resul Pookutty - Best Sound Mixing for "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2009
•   Popularly known as the Oscar Awards, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Q.  No. 56: Along with the Lok Sabha the election to the Legislative assemblies of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Sikkim are also conducted.
•   In 2008, the Elections to the Legislative Assemblies of the States of Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

Q.  No. 59: Plastic is the general common term for a wide range of synthetic or semisynthetic organic amorphous solid materials suitable for the manufacture of industrial products.
•   Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular weight, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce costs.
•   The first plastic based on a synthetic polymer was made from phenol and formaldehyde, with the first viable and cheap synthesis methods invented in 1909 by Leo Hendrik Baekeland, a Belgian-born American living in New York State.

Q.  No. 62: John Dalton was an English chemist, meteorologist and physicist. He is best known for his pioneering work in the development of modern atomic theory, and his research into colour blindness (sometimes referred to as Daltonism, in his honour).
Five main points of Dalton's Atomic Theory
•   Elements are made of tiny particles called atoms.
•   All atoms of a given element are identical.
•   The atoms of a given element are different from those of any other element; the atoms of different elements can be distinguished from one another by their respective relative weights.
•   Atoms of one element can combine with atoms of other elements to form chemical compounds; a given compound always has the same relative numbers of types of atoms.
•   Atoms cannot be created, divided into smaller particles, nor destroyed in the chemical process; a chemical reaction simply changes the way atoms are grouped together.

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Q.  No. 83: The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) is a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture and marks the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei and the publication of Johannes Kepler's "Astronomia nova" in 1609.  Galileo published the final work "Two New Sciences".

Q.  No. 84: Euro is the official currency of 16 of the 27 member states of the European Union, collectively called as Eurozone. The name euro was officially adopted on 16 December 1995, after the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.
•   Only 16 members use Euro currency: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Slovakia.
•   Slovenia adopted the Euro on the 1 January 2007, Cyprus & Malta on the 1 January 2008. Slovakia switched its currency from the koruna to the euro on 1 January 2009.
•   Non-members using Euro: Andorra, Kosovo, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino and Vatican City.
•   12 Members of EU are not using Euro: UK, Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.

Q.  No. 85: Indian-origin International Criminal Court Judge Navanethem Pillay has been appointed as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in July 2008.
•   She is serving as a judge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague since 2003. She had earlier served both as judge and president on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which she had joined in 1995.

•   Mary Robinson first woman to be appointed as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Q.  No. 86: Port Odessa: Ukraine. Refer in the map the countries surrounding Caspian Sea and the Black sea ports.

Q.  No. 87: Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien, USA was awarded with 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.

Q.  No. 88: The Government of India has established six new IITs in 2008 namely, at Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Patna, Rupnagar (Punjab) and Rajasthan (Jaipur).
•   The Government of India has announced plans to add three more IITs, to be established at Indore (MP), Mandi (HP) and Varanasi (via conversion of the Institute of Technology or IT-BHU is the engineering school of Banaras Hindu University - IT BHU).
•   The seven fully established IITs are located in Kharagpur (1950; as IIT 1951), Mumbai (1958), Chennai (1959), Kanpur (1959), Delhi (1961; as IIT 1963), Guwahati (1994), Roorkee (1847; as IIT 2001).
•   The first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur was established by J.C.Ghosh, who was the Director of IISc
•   The committee headed by Nalini Ranjan Sarkar in 1946, recommended the establishment of these institutions in various parts of India, with affiliated secondary institutions.

Q.  No. 89: Marilyn Ferguson- Refer Question no.14.
•   Harold Pinter- Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning distinguished British playwright, died in Dec 2008. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (2005) for his work "The Home Coming".

Q.  No. 90: Commodity Future: A commodity futures contract is a tradable standardized contract, the terms of which are set in advance by the commodity exchange organizing trading in it.
•   The futures contract is for a specified variety of a commodity, known as the "basis", though quite a few other similar varieties, both inferior and superior, are allowed to be deliverable or tenderable for delivery against the specified futures contract.
•   The first De-Mutualised Electronic Multi-Commodity Exchange of India granted the National status on a permanent basis by the Government of India and operational since 26th November 2002.     
•   Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) is an independent and de-mutulised multi (Non agro) commodity exchange. It was inaugurated on November 10, 2003.
•   National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX), Mumbai the only Agro commodity exchange in the country promoted by national level institutions. NCDEX is a public limited company incorporated on April 23, 2003 under the Companies Act, 1956. It obtained its Certificate for Commencement of Business on May 9, 2003. It commenced its operations on December 15, 2003.
•   REFER Q No. 98 Also

Q.  No. 93:  Galapagos are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, 972 km west of continental Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
•   Galapagos National Park is located in these islands. It is here Charles Darwin studied various species and gave his theory of Natural Selection.
•   The Charles Darwin Foundation is based in Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador.

Q.  No. 94:  Von Willebrand disease (VWD) is an inherited bleeding disorder. It affects blood's ability to clot. If blood doesn't clot, one will have heavy, hard-to-stop bleeding after an injury. The bleeding can damage the internal organs or even be life threatening, although this is rare.
•   The Union Cabinet in Oct 2008 gave its approval for inclusion of the project for setting up of Plasma Fractionation Centre as a part of ongoing National AIDS Control Programme, (NACP III).

Q.  No. 95: Refer in the map Persian gulf and the Red Sea along with the countries.

Q.  No. 96: The Anti-Piracy Naval Campaign of the EU or Operation Atlanta 2008 is a campaign of the European Union to stop the piracy off the Somalian coast in Gulf of Aden. The joint naval patrol will include vessels from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The fleet will replace NATO vessels in the area.
•   The International Maritime Bureau was founded in 1981. It is a specialized department of the International Chamber of Commerce. The bureau is endorsed by the UN's International Maritime Organisation.
•   It publishes a weekly piracy report and maintains a 24-hour piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Q.  No. 98: National Spot Exchange for Agricultural Products is a commodity exchange in India that is a joint venture of Financial Technologies (India) Ltd., Multi Commodity Exchange and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited.
•   The first phase of the 2008 launch is planned to provide centres in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
•   REFER Q No. 90 Also

Q.  No. 99: Indian constituencies
•   Voters-wise biggest constituencies: Unnao (UP)
•   Voters-wise smallest constituencies: Lakshwadeep
•   Area-wise biggest constituencies: Ladakh (173,266 sq km), Barmer (71,601 sq km), Kutch (41,644 sq km), Arunachal West (40,572 sq km) and Arunachal East (39,749 sq km).
•   Area-wise smallest constituencies: Chandni Chowk (10 sq km), Calcutta North West (13), Mumbai South (13), Mumbai South Central (18) and Delhi Sadar (28).

Q.  No. 100: Large Hadron collider was commissioned in Geneva in September 2008. It is the world's largest particle collider. This commissioned to simulate and study the Big Bang Theory of the Origin of Universe.
•   Jules Horowitz Reactor will be Europe's newest research reactor, and site preparations are nearly complete as of July 2008. The 100 MWt reactor is being built at Cadarache in southern France. This is to be used to the test the materials to be used in constructing a nuclear reactor.

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Q.  No. 101: Luna 1 also known as Mechta (Dream) was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna programme of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon. It was launched in Jan 1959.
•   Luna 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched in Aug 1959 in the direction of the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon.

Q.  No. 103: Grand Slam Titles
Men singles
•   2008 French Open      :  Rafael Nadal
•   2009 Australian Open   : Rafael Nadal
Women singles
•   2008 French Open      : Ana Ivanović
•   2008 US Open      : Serena Williams
•   2008 Wimbledon      : Venus Williams
•   2008 Australian Open   : Maria Sharapova
•   2009 Australian Open   : Serena Williams

Q.  No. 104: Nobel Peace Prize 2008 was awarded to Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland, for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.

Q.  No. 107: American Presidents
Abraham Lincoln      : First Republican President
Theodore Roosevelt      : First President to be elected in the 20th century
Woodrow Wilson      : President during the First World War
Franklin D. Roosevelt      : President during Second World War
Harry S. Truman      : President during Independence of India
Dwight Eisenhower       : First American President to visit India
•   Presidents visit to India
Dwight Eisenhower (1959), Richard Nixon (1969), Jimmy Carter (1978), Bill Clinton (2000) and George Bush (2006)
•   Abraham Lincoln: (1809 – 1865)
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War (1861-65), preserving the Union and ending slavery. He became the first American president to be assassinated. He was an Illinois state legislator, a member of the United States House of Representatives, and twice an unsuccessful candidate for election to the U.S. Senate.
During the war, Lincoln successfully rallied public opinion through his rhetoric and speeches; his Gettysburg Address is but one example of this. The Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862 and put into effect on January 1, 1863, freed slaves in territories not already under Union control.

Q.  No. 109: Eight New Tiger Reserves approved in 2008
•   Anamalai -Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuaries      : Tamil Nadu & Kerala
•   Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary             : Tamil Nadu
•   Udanti and Sita Nadi Wildlife Sanctuaries        : Chattisgarh
•   Achanakmar Wildlife Sanctuary              : Chattisgarh
•   Satkosia Wildlife Sanctuary              : Orissa
•   Kaziranga National Park                 : Assam
•   Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary & Anshi National Park     : Karnataka
•   Sanjay National Park & Sanjay Dubri Wildlife Sanctuary     : Madhya Pradesh

Q.  No. 110: The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands and recognizing the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value.
The convention was developed and adopted by participating nations at a meeting in Ramsar, Iran in 1971 and came into force in 1975. The headquarters is located in Gland, Switzerland shared with the IUCN.

Q.  No. 112: Indo-Nepal Projects
•   Sapta Koshi project   : R. Kosi
•   Pancheswor      : Mahakali-Sharda River
•   Arun-III project      : R. Arun
•   Trisuli Project      : R. Trisuli

Q.  No. 113: Dharamsala
It is a city and the district headquarters of the Kangra district in the northern regions of Himachal Pradesh.
The town of McLeodganj in Upper Dharamsala is known worldwide for the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama that take place here every year. It is also his residence and the headquarters of the Tibetan Government in exile, led by the Prime Minister, Samdhong Rimpoche. McLeodganj is also referred to as Upper Dharamsala.

Q.  No. 115: The year 2008 has been declared the International Year of the Potato by the United Nations, noting that the potato is a staple food in the diet of the world's population, and affirming the need to focus world attention on the role that the potato can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty.
•   2008 has also been designated the National Year of the Potato in Peru.
•   International Potato Center (known by its Spanish acronym, CIP) in Peru
•   Indian Potato Association, Shimla along with Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla and Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Govt. of India, New Delhi celebrated the "International Year of the Potato" by organizing the Global Potato Conference in New Delhi in December 2008.
•   In 2007, the top potato producers and consumers are China, Russia, India and USA.

Q.  No. 116: Delimitation comes to effect
Delimitation is the process of fixing the boundaries of constituencies. The boundaries are redefined from time to time by the Delimitation Commission to reflect new population patterns.
President Pratibha Patil signed the notification for implementing the recommendations of the Delimitation Commission, redefining parliamentary and Assembly constituencies in different parts of the country.
The notification, coming into effect immediately, will apply to all States and Union Territories except Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Jharkhand.

Q.  No. 118: They are newly elected heads of the Country

Q.  No. 120: Bid on Gandhi articles
Draft of one of the last articles penned by Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled at a special function. It was written in January 1948 for his magazine Harijan, the write-up deals with the dwindling circulation of the Urdu edition of the magazine.  It is handed over to Navajivan Trust managing trustee.
Navajivan Trust is a publishing house founded by Mahatma Gandhi. It accounts for publications of more than 800 titles in English, Gujarati, Hindi and other languages so far.
The Trust holds the copyright for all written works of the Mahatma. It is located on the west side of the river Sabarmati, Ahmedabad.

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Q.  No. 121: Rose Atoll or Motu O Manu by people of the nearby Manu'a Islands, is an oceanic atoll within the U.S. territory of American Samoa. It is an uninhabited wildlife refuge. It is the southernmost point in the United States.


Q.  No. 122: Gulf Cooperation Council
Created on May 25, 1981, the Council comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Yemen is currently (as of 2006) in negotiations for GCC membership, and hopes to join by 2016. The Council celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006.
The GCC members and Yemen are also members of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) formed in 2008.
•   OPEC
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a permanent, intergovernmental Organization, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 10–14, 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
The five Founding Members were later joined by nine other Members: Qatar (1961); Indonesia (1962); Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (1962); United Arab Emirates (1967); Algeria (1969); Nigeria (1971); Ecuador (1973) – suspended its membership from December 1992-December 2007; Angola (2007) and Gabon (1975–1994).
OPEC had its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in the first five years of its existence. This was moved to Vienna, Austria, on September 1, 1965.

Q.  No. 130: Breakaway Provinces
•   Disintegration of Yugoslavia
1.   Socialist republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the capital in Sarajevo, 
2.   Socialist republic of Croatia, with the capital in Zagreb,
3.   Socialist republic of Macedonia, with the capital in Skopje,
4.   Socialist republic of Montenegro, with the capital in Titograd (now known as Podgorica),
5.   Socialist republic of Serbia, with the capital in Belgrade, which also contained:
5a. Socialist autonomous district of Kosovo and Metohija, with the capital in Priština
5b. Socialist autonomous province of Vojvodina, with the capital in Novi Sad
6.   Socialist republic of Slovenia, with the capital in Ljubljana.
•   Other provinces
1.   South Ossetia is a de-facto independent republic within the internationally recognized borders of Georgia.
2.   Trans-Dniester is the separatist region of - a narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border also known as Transnistria.
3.   Abkhazia is a de facto independent republic within the de jure borders of Georgia, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, bordering the Russian Federation to the north.

Q.  No. 132: Fog
It is a cloud bank that is in contact with the ground. A cloud may be considered partly fog; for example, the part of a cloud that is suspended in the air above the ground is not considered fog, whereas the part of the cloud that comes in contact with higher ground is considered fog. Fog is distinguished from mist only by its density, as expressed in the resulting decrease in visibility: Fog reduces visibility to less than 1 km, whereas mist reduces visibility to no less than 2 km.

Q.  No. 140:
•   National Minorities Commission: Constitution (103rd Amendment) Bill, 2004 for constitutional status for the body.
•   Constitution (89th Amendment) Act, 2003 bifurcated NCSC and NCST
•   National Commission for Nomadic, Semi nomadic & Denotified Tribes set up in 2005
•   Ms. Shanta Sinha : Chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

Q.  No. 141: Recognized National Parties in India
•   Bahujan Samaj Party
•   Bharatiya Janata Party
•   Communist Party of India 
•   Communist Party of India (Marxist)
•   Indian National Congress 
•   Nationalist Congress Party
•   Rashtriya Janata Dal