DAY – 24 ( INSTA REVISION TEST – 24)INSTA REVISION PLAN 3.0, 2021

Solution: D

Features of Parliamentary Government

Majority Party Rule: The political party which secures majority seats in the Lok Sabha forms the government. The leader of that party is appointed as the Prime Minister by the President.

Dissolution of the Lower House: The lower house of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) can be dissolved by the President on recommendation of the Prime Minister. In other words, the prime minister can advise the President to dissolve the Lok Sabha before the expiry of its term and hold fresh elections.

Political Homogeneity: Usually members of the council of ministers belong to the same political party, and hence they share the same political ideology. In case of coalition government, the minister is bound by consensus.

Solution: D

Strong Centre

The division of powers is in favour of the Centre and highly inequitable from the federal angle.

Firstly, the Union List contains more subjects than the State List. Secondly, the more important subjects have been included in the Union List. Thirdly, the Centre has overriding authority over the Concurrent List. Finally, the residuary powers have also been left with the Centre, while in the US, they are vested in the states. Thus, the Constitution has made the Centre very strong.

States Not Indestructible

Unlike in other federations, the states in India have no right to territorial integrity. The Parliament can by unilateral action change the area, boundaries or name of any state. Moreover, it requires only a simple majority and not a special majority. Hence, the Indian Federation is “an indestructible Union of destructible states”. The American Federation, on the other hand, is described as “an indestructible Union of indestructible states”.

No Equality of State Representation

The states are given representation in the Rajya Sabha on the basis of population. Hence, the membership varies from 1 to 31. In US, on the other hand, the principle of equality of representation of states in the Upper House is fully recognized. Thus, the American Senate has 100 members, two
from each state. This principle is regarded as a safeguard for smaller states.

Solution: A

The Parliament can make laws for the whole or any part of the territory of India. The territory of India includes the states, the union territories, and any other area for the time being included in the territory of India.

A state legislature can make laws for the whole or any part of the state. The laws made by a state legislature are not applicable outside the state, except when there is a sufficient nexus between the state and the object.

The governor is empowered to direct that an act of Parliament does not apply to a scheduled area in the state or apply with specified modifications and exceptions.

Solution: C

Besides the Parliament’s power to legislate directly on the state subjects under the exceptional situations, the Constitution empowers the Centre to exercise control over the state’s legislative matters in the following ways:

(i) The governor can reserve certain types of bills passed by the state legislature for the consideration of the President. The president enjoys absolute veto over them.
(ii) Bills on certain matters enumerated in the State List can be introduced in the state legislature only with the previous sanction of the president. (For example, the bills imposing restrictions on the freedom of trade and commerce).
(iii) The President can direct the states to reserve money bills and other financial bills passed by the state legislature for his consideration during a financial emergency.

Solution: B

In case of a conflict between the central law and the state law on a subject enumerated in the Concurrent List, the Central law prevails over the State law.

The Parliament can make laws on any matter in the state list for implementing the international treaties, agreements or conventions.

This provision enables the Central government to fulfil its international obligations and commitments.
Some examples of laws enacted under the above provision are United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947; Geneva Convention Act, 1960; Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982 and legislations relating to environment and TRIPS.

Solution: A

Centre’s Directions to the States

In addition to the above two cases, the Centre is empowered to give directions to the states with regard to the exercise of their executive power in the following matters:

(i) the construction and maintenance of means of communication (declared to be of national or military importance) by the state;

(ii) the measures to be taken for the protection of the railways within the state;

(iii) the provision of adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups in the state; and

(iv) the drawing up and execution of the specified schemes for the welfare of the Scheduled Tribes in the state.

Solution: A

The state legislature has exclusive power to levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the State List. Both the Parliament and the state legislature can levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the Concurrent List.

The residuary power of taxation (that is, the power to impose taxes not enumerated in any of the three lists) is vested in the Parliament. Under this provision, the Parliament has imposed gift tax, wealth tax and expenditure tax.

Solution: A

A state cannot raise any loan without the consent of the Centre, if there is still out-standing any part of a loan made to the state by the Centre or in respect of which a guarantee has been given by the Centre.

The Central government can make loans to any state or give guarantees in respect of loans raised by any state. Any sums required for the purpose of making such loans are to be charged on the Consolidated Fund of India.

Solution: B

The Zonal Councils are the statutory (and not the constitutional) bodies. They are established by an Act of the Parliament, that is, States Re-organisation Act of 1956. The act divided the country into five zones (Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern) and provided a zonal council for each zone.

The home minister of Central government is the common chairman of the five zonal councils. Each chief minister acts as a vice-chairman of the council by rotation, holding office for a period of one year at a time.

The zonal councils aim at promoting cooperation and coordination between states, union territories and the Centre. They discuss and make recommendations regarding matters like economic and social planning, linguistic minorities, border disputes, inter-state transport, and so on. They are only deliberative and advisory bodies.

Solution: A

During an Emergency, the Central government becomes all powerful and the states go into the total control of the Centre. It converts the federal structure into a unitary one without a formal amendment of the Constitution.

An emergency due to war, external aggression or armed rebellion (Article 352). This is popularly known as ‘National Emergency’. However, the Constitution employs the expression ‘proclamation of emergency’ to denote an emergency of this type. The word National Emergency is not mentioned in constitution

Solution: B

Article 358 is confined to Fundamental Rights under Article 19 only whereas Article 359 extends to all those Fundamental Rights whose enforcement is suspended by the Presidential Order.

Article 358 extends to the entire country whereas Article 359 may extend to the entire country or a part of it. Article 358 suspends Article 19 completely while Article 359 does not empower the suspension of the enforcement of Articles 20 and 21.

Solution: D

A person to be eligible for election as President should fulfil the following qualifications:

1. He should be a citizen of India.
   2. He should have completed 35 years of age.
   3. He should be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha.
   4. He should not hold any office of profit under the Union government or any state government or any local authority or any other public authority.

A sitting President or Vice-President of the Union, the Governor of any state and a minister of the Union or any state is not deemed to hold any office of profit and hence qualified as a presidential candidate.

Solution: B

President can appoint any member of the Lok Sabha to preside over its proceedings when the offices of both the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker fall vacant.  Similarly, he can also appoint any member of the Rajya Sabha to preside over its proceedings when the offices of both the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman fall vacant.

He appoints the prime minister and the other ministers. They hold office during his pleasure.

Solution: B

The Constitution does not contain any specific procedure for the selection and appointment of the Prime Minister. Article 75 says only that the Prime Minister shall be appointed by the president.

There is also one more situation when the president may have to exercise his individual judgement in the selection and appointment of the Prime Minister, that is, when the Prime Minister in office dies suddenly and there is no obvious successor. However, this does not imply that the president is free to appoint any one as the Prime Minister.

Solution: D

The Prime Minister enjoys the following powers as head of the Union council of ministers:

1. He recommends persons who can be appointed as ministers by the president. The President can appoint only those persons as ministers who are recommended by the Prime Minister.
   2. He allocates and reshuffles various portfolios among the ministers.
   3. He can ask a minister to resign or advise the President to dismiss him in case of difference of
   opinion.
   4. He presides over the meeting of council of ministers and influences its decisions.
   5. He guides, directs, controls, and coordinates the activities of all the ministers.
   6. He can bring about the collapse of the council of ministers by resigning from office.

Solution: B

The Vice-President, like the president, is elected not directly by the people but by the method of indirect election. He is elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of the members of both Houses of Parliament.

His Electoral College is different from the Electoral College for the election of the President in the following two respects: It consists of both elected and nominated members of the Parliament (in the case of president, only elected members).

It does not include the members of the state legislative assemblies (in the case of President, the elected members of the state legislative assemblies are included).

Solution: D

The total number of ministers, including the Prime Minister, in the Council of Ministers shall not exceed 15% of the total strength of the Lok Sabha. The provision was added by the 91^st Amendment Act of 2003.

The ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the President. The council of ministers shall be collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha.

Solution: C

The Parliament consists of the President, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

So, the President forms an integral part of the Parliament, since no bill can become an act without her consent.

But, the President is not required to attend the sessions of Parliament at all. He only presents welcome address which is passed as motion of thanks every time a new house is constituted.

Solution: A

The Rajya Sabha is the Upper House (Second Chamber or House of Elders) and the Lok Sabha is the Lower House (First Chamber or Popular House). The former represents the states and union territories of the Indian Union, while the latter represents the people of India as a whole.

The representatives of states in the Rajya Sabha are elected by the
elected members of state legislative assemblies. The election is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.

Solution: A

The Constitution has empowered the Parliament to prescribe the manner of choosing the representatives of the union territories in the Lok Sabha.
Accordingly, the Parliament has enacted the Union Territories (Direct Election to the House of the People) Act, 1965, by which the members of Lok Sabha from the union territories are also chosen by direct election

Unlike the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha is not a continuing chamber. Its normal term is five years from the date of its first meeting after the general elections, after which it automatically dissolves.

However, the President is authorised to dissolve the Lok Sabha at any time even before the completion of five years and this cannot be challenged in a court of law.

The Constitution has not fixed the term of office of members of the Rajya Sabha and left it to the Parliament. Accordingly, the Parliament in the Representation of the People Act (1951) provided that the term of office of a member of the Rajya Sabha shall be six years.

Solution: D

Quantum technology:

• Quantum technology is a class of technology that works by using the principles of quantum mechanics (the physics of sub-atomic particles), including quantum entanglement and quantum superposition.
• Quantum mechanics developed in the early 20th century. However, even after a century of its development, it still remains mysterious.
• A second revolution is underway in the quantum field by harnessing the power of quantum properties of matter. One of the most striking of these is the tremendous computing power of quantum computers, whose actual experimental realisation is one of the great challenges of our times.
• Quantum technologies are expected to be one of the major technology disruptions that will change the entire paradigm of computation, communication and encryption.
• Quantum technology is based on principles of quantum theory, which explains the nature of energy and matter on atomic and sub atomic level.
• Quantum computers store and process information using quantum two level systems (quantum bits or qubits) which unlike classical bits, can be prepared in superposition states.
• Conventional computers process information in ‘bits’ or 1s and 0s, following classical physics under which our computers can process a ‘1’ or a ‘0’ at a time.
• Quantum computers compute in ‘qubits’ (or quantum bits). They exploit the properties of quantum mechanics, the science that governs how matter behaves on the atomic scale.

Potential applications of quantum technology:

• Industrial revolution 4.0: Quantum computing is an integral part of Industrial revolution 4.0. Success in it will help in Strategic initiatives aimed at leveraging other Industrial revolution 4.0 technologies like the Internet-of-Things, machine learning, robotics, and artificial intelligence across sectors will further help in laying the foundation of the Knowledge economy.
• Financial Portfolio Optimisation: Finding the optimum mix for a basketful of investments based upon projected returns, risk assessments, and other factors is a daily task within the finance industry. By utilizing quantum technology to perform these calculations, one could achieve improvements in both the quality of the solutions as well as the time to develop them.
• Logistics and Scheduling: Many common optimisations used in industry can be classified under logistics and scheduling. Quantum computing can make logistics more efficient. For example, airlines can figure out how to stage their airplanes for the best service at the lowest cost.
• Pharmaceutical: Quantum computing could reduce the time frame of the discovery of new molecules and related processes to a few days. For instance, tracking protein behaviour or even modelling new proteins with the help of quantum computers could be made easier and faster.
• Cyber Security: Various techniques to combat cyber security threats can be developed using some of the quantum machine learning approaches mentioned above to recognize the threats earlier and mitigate the damage that they may do.
• Research: It can help in solving some of the fundamental questions in physics related to gravity, blackhole etc. Similarly, the quantum initiative could give a big boost to the Genome India project, a collaborative effort of 20 institutions to enable new efficiencies in life sciences, agriculture and medicine.
• Disaster Management: Tsunamis, drought, earthquakes and floods may become more predictable with quantum applications. The collection of data regarding climate change can be streamlined in a better way through quantum technology.

Solution: D

State Energy Efficiency Index: 

• It tracks the progress of Energy Efficiency (EE) initiatives in 36 states and union territories based on 97 significant indicators.
• For a rational comparison, the States or Union Territories are grouped into four groups based on the aggregated Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) required to meet the state’s actual energy demand (electricity, coal, oil, gas, among others) across sectors.
• The Index categorises states as ‘Front Runner’, ‘Achiever’, ‘Contender’ and ‘Aspirant’ based on their efforts and achievements towards energy efficiency implementation.
• There isn’t any ‘front runner’ state this year.
• The index has developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in association with the Alliance for an Energy Efficient Economy (AEEE).

Solution: C

Various festivals being celebrated across the Nations:

• Makar Sankranti: The festival of Makar Sankranti is being celebrated today when the Sun enters the Makar zodiac and the days begin to lengthen compared to nights.
• Pongal: In South India and particularly in Tamil Nadu, it’s the festival of Pongal which is being celebrated over 4 days at harvest time.
• Magha Bihu: In Assam and many parts of the North East, the festival of Magha Bihu is celebrated. It sees the first harvest of the season being offered to the gods along with prayers for peace and prosperity.
• Uttarayan: Gujarat celebrates it in the form of the convivial kite festival of Uttarayan.
• Maghi: In Punjab, Makar Sankranti is celebrated as Maghi. Bathing in a river in the early hours on Maghi is important.
• Saaji: In Shimla District of Himachal Pradesh, Makara Sankranti is known as Magha Saaji. Saaji is the Pahari word for Sankranti, start of the new month. Hence this day marks the start of the month of Magha.
• Kicheri: The festival is known as Kicheri in Uttar Pradesh and involves ritual bathing.

Solution: A

International Court of Justice (ICJ):

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial body of the UN. Established in 1946 to replace the Permanent Court of International Justice, the ICJ mainly operates under the statute of its predecessor, which is included in the UN Charter.
• It has two primary functions: to settle legal disputes submitted by States in accordance with established international laws, and to act as an advisory board on issues submitted to it by authorized international organizations.
• The International Court of Justice is composed of 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.
• All members of the UN are parties to the statute of the ICJ, and non-members may also become parties.

Answer: A

According to the passage:

1. Dignity of all should be protected
2. Rule of law has a role to play in ensuring SJ

Therefore A is correct.

B is wrong because there is no mention of political justice.

C is relevant but not as comprehensive as A

D is absurd in the context of the passage which sees economic justice as a means to social justice.

Answer: C

Human welfare is founded on social justice as per the passage. Hence 1 is correct.

The passagè clearly talks about role of legislation in this context, hence 2 can be assumed undoubtedly

Both 1 and 2 are correct.

C is the answer.

Answer: D

As per the passage targeting is the most crucial problem of Indian welfare schemes

1. A is wrong since passage does not confine itself to migrants
2. B is also wrong for the same reason
3. UBI is no where hinted by the pasaage it is utmost an assumption not inference.
4. Thus D is the answer. It is necessary to plug the loophole in the system so that targeting becomes efficient.

D is the answer.

Answer: B

The passage is about role of 4^th IR in human development.

1. It is completely in positive tone about 4^th IR and so we can easily conclude that A is irrelevant
2. It is about merging of three worlds but it nowhere tells that is for the first time
3. D is relevant but not most crucial
4. Therefore B is the correct and most significant inference.

Thus B is the answer.

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

L.C.M. of 6, 5, 7, 10 and 12 is 420.

So, the bells will toll together after every 420 seconds i.e., 7 minutes.

Now, 7 × 8 = 56 and 7 × 9 = 63.

Thus, in 1-hour (or 60 minutes), the bells will toll

together 8 times, excluding the one at the start.