[DAY 44] 60 DAY RAPID REVISION (RaRe) SERIES for UPSC Prelims 2022 – GEOGRAPHY, CURRENT AFFAIRS & CSAT; Test Series, Videos & Notes!

Solution (b)

Basic Info:

Areal differentiation is one of the perspectives of human geography in which importance is given to the uniqueness of the geographical area rather than the standard model creation. The first technical word ” Areal Differentiation” was mentioned by Hartshorne in his book ” Nature of geography”.

Spatial organization is the way a group or phenomenon is arranged on the surface of the Earth. Geographers like to split things into functional regions, or areas defined by business and economic activities around a focal point or node

The quantitative revolution (QR) was a paradigm shift that sought to develop a more rigorous and systematic methodology for the discipline of geography. It came as a response to the inadequacy of regional geography to explain general spatial dynamics.

Quantitative Revolution is the approach that is not used in Human Geography.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

Environmental Determinism: The surrounding environment is the main deciding factor in human behavior, and differences in human behavior stem from differences in its environment.

Possibilism: Geographical possibilism is a school of thought in cultural geography that says that although the natural environment places certain constraints and limitations on human life, culture is determined independently of nature by human social conditions.

Neo Determinism: The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (i.e. environmental determinism) and nor is there a condition of absolute freedom (i.e. possibilism).

Human beings can inhibit nature by obeying it, as possibilities can be created within limits which do not damage the environment.

Solution (a)

Basic Info:

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs): PVTGs are more vulnerable among the tribal groups. They have declining or stagnant population, low level of literacy, pre-agricultural level of technology and are economically backward.

They generally inhabit remote localities having poor infrastructure and administrative support.

In India, tribal population makes up for 8.6% of the total population.

In 1973, the Dhebar Commission created Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) as a separate category, who are less developed among the tribal groups. In 2006, the Government of India renamed the PTGs as PVTGs.

In this context, in 1975, the Government of India initiated to identify the most vulnerable tribal groups as a separate category called PVTGs and declared 52 such groups, while in  1993  an  additional 23 groups were added to the category, making it a total of 75 PVTGs out of 705 Scheduled Tribes.

PVTGs are categorized by Ministry of Home Affairs.

Among the 75 listed PVTG’s the highest number are found in Odisha.

Solution (a)

Basic Info:

The State of World Population report is United Nations Population Fund’s annual flagship publication. It has been published yearly since 1978.

It shines a light on emerging issues in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights, bringing them into the mainstream and exploring the challenges and opportunities they present for international development.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

Malthusian Theory of Population:
It is one of the three most popular theories of population published in 1798 by Thomas Robert Malthus. The theory explains the relationship between the growth in food supply and in population.

According to this theory, the human population increases in geometrical progression and if unchecked doubles itself every 25 years. On the other hand, the food supply increases in a slow arithmetical progression due to the operation of the law of diminishing returns based on the supposition that the supply of land is constant.  And if unchecked, the population tends to outrun food supply, thus creating an imbalance.

His doctrine advocates that food supply increases in arithmetical progression but he underestimated the technological advancements of the force of production by human through controlling nature over time.

Further, his suggested preventive measures (by human themselves) such as late marriage, celibacy, moral restraint, etc. or, the positive measures (by nature) such as  vice, misery, famine, war, disease, pestilence, floods, etc. to check the population growth are very pessimistic.

Solution (a)

Basic Info:

National Highways

According to the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways, there are 599 National Highways in India. India has 151,019 km (93,839 mi) of National Highways as of March 2021. National Highways constituted 2.7% of India’s total road network, but carried about 40% of road traffic, as of 2013.

The longest National Highway is NH44, which runs between Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir  and Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, covering a distance of 3,806 km (2,365 mi).

The shortest National Highway is NH766EE, which spans 4.27 km (2.65 mi), from  Hettikeri  to  Belekeri port in Karnataka.

The Leh–Manali Highway connecting Leh in Ladakh to Manali in Himachal Pradesh is the world’s second highest-altitude motorable highway.

All North-South highways will carry EVEN number and all East-West highways will have ODD numbers

All major Highways will be a single-digit or double-digit in a number. North-South highways will increase their numbers from East to West.

Solution (d)

Basic Info:

Urban agglomeration is a highly developed spatial form of integrated cities. Majority of metropolitan and mega cities are urban agglomerations.

An urban agglomeration may consist of any one of the following three combinations:

(i) A town and its adjoining urban outgrowths,

(ii) Two or more contiguous towns with or without their outgrowths, and

(iii) A city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths together forming a contiguous spread

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

The Inland Waterways Authority of India Act, 1985 empowers the Government to declare waterways with potential for development of shipping and navigation as National Waterways and develop such waterways for efficient shipping and navigation. 5 National waterways declared under it are as follows.

National Waterway-1:

• Allahabad-Haldia
• Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system
• 1620 km

National Waterway-2:

• Dhubri-Sadiya
• River Brahmaputra
• 891 km

National Waterway-3:

• Kottapuram-Kollam
• West Coast canal along with Udyogmandal and Champakara Canals.
• 205 km

National Waterway-4:

• Kakinada-Puducherry
• Rivers Godavari and Krishna
• 1078 km

National Waterway-5

• East Coast canal integrated with Brahmani and Mahanadi delta rivers.
• 588 km

Besides these five waterways, National Waterway Act, 2016 declared 106 additional national waterways in India.

Solution (b)

Basic Info:

Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) -2011: The Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) was conducted through a comprehensive door to door survey across India for generating data on a large number of social and economic indicators relating to households in both rural and urban areas.

SECC was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, The Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner and the State Governments.

It was the first-ever caste census post Independence in India, the results of which were released by the government in 2015.

SECC-2011 was also the first paperless census in the country conducted by handheld electronic devices in 640 districts in the country.

Dr. N C Saxena committee (for rural areas) and S.R. Hashim committee (for urban areas) was constituted to suggest the design of the new BPL census. They recommended a three-fold classification of households.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

Consequences of Migration
Migration creates both benefits and problems for the areas; people migrate from and migrate to. Consequences can be observed in economic, social, cultural, political and demographic terms.

Economic Consequences
A major benefit for the source region is the remittance sent by migrants. Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu receive very significant amount from their international migrants.

Besides this, unregulated migration to the metropolitan cities of India has caused overcrowding.

Development of slums in industrially developed states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu and Delhi is a negative consequence of unregulated migration within the country.

Demographic Consequences
Migration leads to the redistribution of the population within a country. Rural urban migration is one of the important factors contributing to the population growth of cities.

High out migration from Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Eastern Maharashtra
have brought serious imbalances in age and sex composition in these states.

Social Consequences
Migrants act as agents of social change. The new ideas related to new technologies, family planning, girl’s education, etc. get diffused from urban to rural areas through them.

Migration leads to intermixing of people from diverse cultures.

Overcrowding of people due to rural urban migration has put pressure on the existing social and physical infrastructure in the urban areas. This ultimately leads to unplanned growth of
urban settlement and formation of slums shanty colonies.

Apart from this, due to over-exploitation of natural resources, cities are facing the acute problem of depletion of ground water, air pollution, and disposal of sewage and management of solid wastes.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

UN Habitat
It is a UN agency responsible for sustainable urban development and human settlements. It is an intergovernmental body established in 1978.

Headquartered in UN Office at Nairobi, Kenya. It is also a member of United Nation Development  Programme (UNDP).

It promotes socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.

UN-Habitat works in more than 70 countries in five continents focusing on seven areas:

• Urban Legislation, Land and Governance;
• Urban Planning and Design;
• Urban Economy;
• Urban Basic Services;
• Housing and Slum Upgrading;
• Risk Reduction and Rehabilitation;
• Urban Research and Capacity Development

India has been designated as the President of the UN-Habitat in 1988, 2007 and 2017.

Solution (a)

Basic Info:

HDI is part of the Human Development Report that is published by the United Nations Development Programme. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development:

Three dimension:

• Long and healthy life
• Knowledge
• A decent standard of living

Four Indicators:

• Life expectancy at birth
• Expected years of schooling
• Mean years of schooling
• GNI per capita

The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions.

India has been positioned at 131 out of 189 countries and territories, according to the report, while Bhutan is at 129, Bangladesh at 133, Nepal at 142, and Pakistan at 154.

India’s HDI value for 2019 is 0.645 which put it in the medium human development category.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:
The basic differences between rural and urban settlements are as follows :

The rural settlements derive their life support or basic economic needs from land based primary economic activities, whereas, urban settlements, depend on processing of raw materials and manufacturing of finished goods on  the one hand and a variety of services
on the other.

Cities act as nodes of economic growth, provide goods and services not only to urban dwellers but also to the people of the rural settlements in their hinterlands in return for food and raw materials. This functional relationship between the urban and rural settlements takes place through transport and communication network.

Rural and urban settlements differ in terms of social relationship, attitude and outlook.
Rural people are less mobile and therefore, social relations among them are intimate. In urban areas, on the other hand, way of life is complex and fast, and social relations are formal.

Solution (b)

Basic Info:

Census 2011-Child Sex Ratio
As per the Census, 2011 the child sex ratio (0-6 years) has shown a decline from 927 females  per thousand males in 2001 to 919 females per thousand males in 2011.

In the census 2001, the child sex ratio of India was 927 which declined to 919 in the
census 2011.

As per the census 2011, Arunachal Pradesh has the highest child sex ratio among the Indian states i.e. 972 while Haryana has the lowest child sex ratio i.e.834 per thousand males.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

Principle of Non-refoulement:

Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law that forbids a country receiving asylum seekers from returning them to a country in which they would be in likely danger of persecution based on “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social
group or political opinion”.

Unlike political asylum, which applies to those who can prove a well-grounded fear of persecution based on certain category of persons, non-refoulement refers to the generic repatriation of people, includingrefugees into war zones and other disaster locales.

It is a principle of customary international law, as it applies even to states that are not parties to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. It is also a principle of the Trucial law of nations.

The principle of non-refoulement arises out of an international collective memory of the failure of nations during World War II to provide a safe haven to refugees fleeing certain genocide at the hands of the Nazi regime.

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

Settlement Hierarchy
Isolate dwellings: Such settlement consists of individual units. It can be termed as the initial state of development of a settlement. An isolated dwelling would only have 1 or 2 buildings or families in it.

Hamlets: When many individual units are cluster together they form hamlets. The grouping may be due to similar occupation patterns, religion, cultural factors etc. a hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) service.

Villages: When many hamlets combine they from a village. The reason for such grouping may be due to interdependencies of one hamlet on another, thus to form a self-sufficient unit.

Towns: A town is a larger entity which is more self-sufficient and has a stronger economic base.

Cities: Where large concentration of people exists, multiple economic activities exist.

Metropolis: A metropolis is a large city, with a population of at least one million living in its urban agglomeration.

Megalopolis: An extensive, metropolitan area or a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas.

Mega Cities: Cities with population of 5 million and above are known as mega cities, according to Census of India. But United Nations considers mega cities as those that have a population of 10 million and above. In India, Greater Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi are examples of mega cities

Solution (d)

Basic Info:

The Livestock Census has been conducted in the country periodically since 1919-20. The Livestock Census covers all domesticated animals and its headcounts. So far 19 such censuses have been conducted in participation with State Governments and UT Administrations. The 20th Livestock Census was conducted in participation with all States and Union Territories.

It is an initiative of the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying under Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying.

As per the Census:

The total Livestock population in India rises 4.6 per cent to nearly 536 million as compared to the previous Census.

The percentage of different domesticated animals in the total Livestock are as under: Cattle
(35.94%), Goat (27.80%), Buffaloes (20.45%), Sheep (13.87%) and Pigs (1.69%).

The population of cows in the country has risen by 18 per cent in the last seven years, while that of oxen dipped by 30 per cent.

Besides, there was a spectacular 16.8 per cent increase in the poultry population in the country to 851.81 million, mainly on account of a 46 per cent rise in backyard poultry birds, whose numbers have gone up to 317 million

Among the States, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of livestock of 67.8 million (68.7 million in 2012), followed by Rajasthan 56.8 million (57.7 million), Madhya Pradesh: 40.6 million (36.3 million) and West Bengal: 37.4 million (30.3 million).

Solution (c)

Basic Info:

The index was prepared by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

GGI is a comprehensive and implementable framework to assess the State of Governance across the States and UTs which enables ranking of States/Districts.

The objective of GGI is to create a tool that can be used uniformly across the States to assess the impact of various interventions taken up by the Central and State Governments including UTs.

Based on the GGI Framework, the Index provides a comparative picture among the States while developing a competitive spirit for improvement.

The GGI is envisaged as a biannual exercise.  It is based on ten sectors and 58 indicators.  Gujarat has topped the composite ranking, followed by Maharashtra and Goa.

Solution (d)

Basic Info:

The demographic transition in a country or region can be explained by the Demographic Transition Model (DTM).

It describes the population change from a low stable population to a high stable population as a result of a preliminary fall in the death rate from a high level to be followed later by a fall in the birth rate.

The aging of the planet‘s population will play out differently in different countries. In developed
countries, the increasing number of elderly people is generally witnessed. In developing ones, though, there could be an important impact from a growing working-age population.

In countries with well-developed health infrastructure, the following is generally observed:

• low fertility rates
• low birth rate
• Low death rate

As a consequence of the above:

• Population growth remains low due to the low birth rate
• Population in lower age group remains small
• The number of people in the higher age group gradually keeps on increasing, hence their percentage of the total population.

Thus, among the given demographic trends, the country with the lowest birth rate and the lowest death rate is expected to have a relatively higher proportion of the old age population.

Solution (d)

Basic Info:

A human race is defined as a group of people with certain common inherited features that distinguish them from other groups of people. It generally differentiates a group of people on the basis of some visible physical traits, such as skin color, hair texture, facial features, and eye formation.

The Human Race can be majorly divided as:

Caucasoid:– It denotes the lighter-complexioned racial group of humankind, which includes the Aryans and peoples indigenous to Europe, N Africa, SW Asia, and the Indian subcontinent and their descendants in other parts of the world.

They are fair-skinned people with a long and narrow nose. They are further divided into different groups which include Nordic of North Europe, Alpine of Central Europe, Mediterranean people (Arabs, Jews and people of Indian Subcontinent).

Mongoloids:  Northern Mongolian, Chinese and Indo-Chinese, Japanese and Korean, Tibetan,
Malayan, Polynesian, Maori, Micronesian, Eskimo, American Indian. They are inhabitants of North eastern and southeastern Asia. They are majorly concentrated in China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia etc.

Negroid : African, Hottentots, Melanesians/Papua, Negrito, Australian Aborigine, Dravidians,
Sinhalese. They are primarily the people of Africa, south of Sahara. Their skin color ranges from black to brown or yellowish and the length of the head is longer than the breadth. They are divided into two major subgroups i.e African Negro & Oceanic Melanesian.

Australoid:  The Australoid race is a racial classification used to refer to aboriginal people of
Australia, Melanesia, as well as parts of Southeast Asia

These races can be further subdivided into as many as 30 subgroups.

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

 Context – NATO was in news due to Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

 Context – The 117th Meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) comprising of Indus Commissioners of India and Pakistan was held from March 1-3, 2022 in Islamabad, Pakistan

Solution (a)

Foreign portfolio investment (FPI) refers to the purchase of securities and other financial assets by investors from another country. Examples of foreign portfolio investments include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, American depositary receipts (ADRs), and global depositary receipts (GDRs).

Context – There was a large scale outflow of FPI from India.

Solution (b)

Statement Analysis:

 Context – Bangladesh, Nepal and India went ahead with the motor vehicle agreement.

Solution (a)

Carbofuran is a carbamate pesticide, widely used around the world to control insects on a wide variety of field crops, including potatoes, corn and soybeans.

Context – It was in news due to the death of Himalayan Griffon Vultures in Assam.

Solution (a)

The inherent pattern in the two sequences has been represented below.

Sequence I         Sequence II

12 × 0.5 = 6        7 × 0.5 = 3.5 (A)

6 × 1.5 = 9          3.5 × 1.5 = 5.25 (B)

9 × 2.5 = 22.5     5.25 × 2.5 = 13.125 (C)

22.5 × 3.5 = 78.75

78.75 × 4.5 = 236.25

Solution (c)

Given sequence: 3 1 4 9 3 5 8 1 7 2 6 3 1 5 8 6 9 1 8 3 2 2 4 1 4 9 6

The odd numbers followed by another odd number are: 3, 9, 3, 1, 3 ,1, 9

So, required number of odd numbers = 7

Solution (d)

As per the given condition in question:

30 = 29 + 1

32 = 31 + 1

38 = 37 + 1

42 = 41 + 1

44 = 43 + 1

48 = 47 + 1

Next prime number after 47 is 53.

So, 53 + 1 = 54

Solution (c)

The given sequence follows following sequence

a b a b a

b c b c b

c d c d c

d e d e d

So, the missing letters are: a, c, c, e

Solution (c)

Refer to, “With well over 80% of its oil demand being met through imports, India clearly has a lot at stake as oil prices have risen by as much as 70% in rupee terms in the last one year.”

It is clear from the above lines that India is concerned since it imports the majority of its oil shares from other countries. That is why it matters to the country that the prices in the international market are going up or down.

Among the given options, only option c is there that perfectly explains the reason of the concern shown by India regarding the prices of the oil in the international market. Other options are either out of context or they are not correct according to the information given in the passage.

This makes option c the correct choice among the given options.