General Comprehension (UPSC) (Part-VI)

In Part III of the Constitution, which assures people certain fundamental rights, Article 25 proclaims that "all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion".

What people fail to notice is that this proclamation is prefixed with the words "subject to public order, morality, health and to the other provisions of this Part", which set conditions precedent for the legal protection of religious practices of any community.

The closing words of this prefatory rider in Article 25 virtually constitute a subordination clause placing other fundamental rights mentioned in Part III over and above the right to religious freedom. Among those other fundamental rights is the right to equality before law and equal protection of laws-assured at the outset and elaborated in later articles to mean, inter alia, that the State shall not deny equal protection of laws to any person or group of persons on the basis of religion alone.

Spanish ships in the late 16th century first brought the potato tuber from South America to Europe whereby in the early 19th century, it had become a reliable backup to cereal crops, particularly in the cold, rain-soaked soils of Ireland. The Irish were soon almost wholly dependent on the potato as their staple food.

And they were planting primarily one prodigious variety, the 'Lumper' potato, whose genetic frailty would be cruelly exposed by the fungus 'Phytophthora infestans'. In 1845, spores of the deadly fungus began spreading across the country, destroying nearly all the Lumpers in its path. The resulting famine killed or displaced millions.

1. India's Public Distribution System should be monitored by the Union Government.

2. Girls should be encouraged to delay marriage and first pregnancy.

3. Mothers should be encouraged to breast feed their children immediately after birth.

4. The supply of safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities to all should be ensured.

5. Authorities should ensure the vaccination as prescribed.

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India is at once among the fastest growing global economies and home to the largest number of malnourished children in the world. There are regions where malnutrition is not the exception but the norm. And across the country, malnutrition is the cause of death for roughly half the 1.3 million children who die before their fifth birthday each year.

Even those children who survive suffer permanently from the damage that has already been done to their bodies and minds from not getting enough of the right foods and nutrients. Around 44 million children under 5 are stunted. That makes it harder for them to learn in school and subsequently earn a living as adults. Their lifetime earnings potential is almost a quarter less than that of their healthy peers.

1. Farmers' income will be higher with pulse cultivation than with paddy cultivation.

2. Pulse cultivation causes less pollution as compared to paddy cultivation.

3. Pulse straw can be used to improve soil quality.

4. In the context of northern Indian agriculture, paddy straw has no usefulness.

5. Mechanized agriculture is the main cause for stubble burning.

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The pulse variety 'Pusa Arhar 16' has the potential to be grown in the paddy-growing regions of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and eventually in all of India. Its yield (about 2000 kg/hectare) will be significantly greater than those of the existing varieties and because its size will be uniform, it will be amenable to mechanical harvesting, an attractive feature for farmers in northern.

India who currently use this technology for paddy. Most important, Arhar straw, unlike paddy straw, is green and can be ploughed back into the soil. In paddy straw, the problem is the high silica content, which does not allow for easy decomposition.

In the case of Arhar, the farmer, even after combine harvesting, just needs to run a rotovator to cut the leftover straw into pieces, which can be ploughed back and will decompose very fast. All this is difficult with leftover paddy stalks that cannot be easily salvaged or ploughed back. Farmers, therefore, choose the easiest option of simply burning it.

In India, authorities always look to store the maximum amount of water in reservoirs during the monsoon season, which is then used for irrigation and generation of electricity during the summer months. It is an internationally accepted practice that the water level of a reservoir should be kept below a certain level before the onset of monsoon season.

This is so that when monsoon rains come, there is space to store the excess rain water and also so that water can be released in a regulated manner. But the authorities store the maximum amount of water in reservoirs even before the close of the monsoon, only to ensure greater electricity generation and irrigation

1. It is essential to rethink and redefine the economic role of the State in the quest for development.

2. India has not made effective implementation of its policies in social sectors nor made sufficient investments in them.

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Economic liberalization in India was shaped largely by the economic problems of the government than by the economic priorities of the people or by the long-term development objectives. Thus, there were limitations in conception and design which have been subsequently validated by experience. Jobless growth, persistent poverty and rising inequality have mounted as problems since economic liberalization began.

And all these years later, four quiet crises confront the economy; agriculture, infrastructure, industrialization and education as constraints on the country's future prospects. These problems must be resolved if economic growth has to be sustained and transformed into meaningful development.

1. India's economy needs to be greatly integrated with global economy so as to create large number of jobs and to sustain its growth momentum.

2. Economic liberalization would cause large economic growth which would reduce poverty and create sufficient employment in the long run.

Which of the above assumptions is/are valid?

Economic liberalization in India was shaped largely by the economic problems of the government than by the economic priorities of the people or by the long-term development objectives. Thus, there were limitations in conception and design which have been subsequently validated by experience. Jobless growth, persistent poverty and rising inequality have mounted as problems since economic liberalization began.

And all these years later, four quiet crises confront the economy; agriculture, infrastructure, industrialization and education as constraints on the country's future prospects. These problems must be resolved if economic growth has to be sustained and transformed into meaningful development.

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if everyone is left to be a judge of his own religion, there is no such thing as religion that is wrong; but if they are to be a judge of each other's religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right, and therefore all the world is right or all the world is wrong in the matter of religion.

It is certain, that seditions, wars, and contempt or breach of the laws are not so much to be imputed to the wickedness of the subjects, as to the bad state of a dominion. For men are not born fit for citizenship, but must be made so.

Besides, men's natural passions are everywhere the same; and if wickedness more prevails, and more offences are committed in one commonwealth than in another, it is certain that the former has neither enough pursued the end of unity, nor framed its laws with sufficient forethought; and that, therefore, it has failed in making quite good its right as a commonwealth.

1. Equality is a prerequisite for people to participate in the multiple transactions of society from a position of confidence.

2. Occurrence of inequality is detrimental to the survival of democracy.

3. Equal standing of all citizens is an idea that cannot actually be realised even in a democracy.

4. Right to equality should be incorporated into our values and day-to-day political vocabulary.

Which of the above assumptions are valid?

Inequality violates a basic democratic norm: the equal standing of citizens. Equality is a relation that obtains between persons in respect of some fundamental characteristic that they share in common. Equality is, morally speaking, a default principle. Therefore, persons should not be discriminated on grounds such as race, caste, gender, ethnicity, disability, or class.

These features of human condition are morally irrelevant. The idea that one should treat persons with respect not only because some of these persons possess some special features or talent, for example skilled cricketers, gifted musicians, or literary giants, but because persons are human beings, is by now part of commonsense morality.