[Mission 2023] QUED ( Questions from Editorials ) 16 May 2023

Solution: b)

Vembanad is the longest lake in India, as well as the largest lake in the state of Kerala. Kuttanad, also known as The Rice Bowl of Kerala, has the lowest altitude in India, and is also one of the few places in world where cultivation takes place below sea level. Kuttanad lies on the southern portion of Vembanad.

Solution: a)

FCRA seeks to “regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution or foreign hospitality by certain individuals or associations or companies and to prohibit [such] acceptance and utilisation…for any activities detrimental to the national interest…”

The law was enacted during the Emergency in 1976.

The Act prohibits receipt of foreign funds by candidates for elections, journalists or newspaper and media broadcast companies, judges and government servants, members of legislature and political parties or their office-bearers, and organisations of a political nature.

FCRA registrations are granted to individuals or associations that have definite cultural, economic, educational, religious, and social programmes.

Following the application, the MHA makes inquiries through the Intelligence Bureau into the antecedents of the applicant, and accordingly processes the application. The MHA is required to approve or reject the application within 90 days — failing which it is expected to inform the NGO of the reasons for the same.

Once granted, FCRA registration is valid for five years. NGOs are expected to apply for renewal within six months of the date of expiry of registration. In case of failure to apply for renewal, the registration is deemed to have expired.

The government reserves the right to cancel the FCRA registration of any NGO if it finds it to be in violation of the Act. Registration can be cancelled for a range of reasons including, if “in the opinion of the Central Government, it is necessary in the public interest to cancel the certificate”. Once the registration of an NGO is cancelled, it is not eligible for re-registration for three years. All orders of the government can be challenged in the High Court.

Solution: b)

Although there is no universal legal definition, a sanction can be defined as a measure of coercion of an economic nature, as opposed to diplomatic or military means, taken by states, either collectively or individually. Collective sanctions can be imposed by an international organisation based on a multilateral (UN) or regional (EU) treaty. The UNSC is at the centre of the collective sanctions’ edifice with its Chapter VII, ‘Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression’.

Sanctions are not defined nor listed, as such, but the allusion is clear. Since 1966, the UNSC has established 30 regimes of sanctions which have taken a variety of shapes from trade measures to embargoes on arms; and financial tools to travel bans.

UN-supported programmes of sanctions are administered by a sanctions committee chaired by a non-permanent member of the UNSC. 

Solution: a)

Who is the Attorney General for India?

The Constitution of India places the post of the A-G on a special footing. The A-G is the Government of India’s first law officer, and has the right of audience in all courts of the country.

Article 76(2) of the Constitution says “it shall be the duty of the Attorney-General to give advice to the Government of India upon such legal matters, and to perform such other duties of a legal character, as may from time to time be referred or assigned to him by the President”.

The A-G is also supposed to “discharge the functions conferred on him by or under this Constitution or any other law for the time being in force”.

Also, the A-G for India is not, like the A-G for England and Wales and the A-G of the United States, a member of the Cabinet.

Solution: b)

The Chola kingdom stretched across present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. During the period of the Cholas’ rise and fall (around 9th to 12th century AD), other powerful dynasties of the region would also come and go, such as the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan who defeated the Cholas, and the Chalukyas of the Andhra Pradesh region whom the Cholas frequently battled.

The dynasty was founded by the king Vijaylaya.