Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – March 4, 2020

Tribes Advisory Council: Each state having scheduled areas has to establish a tribal advisory council to advice on welfare and advancement of the scheduled tribes. It is to consist of 20 members, three-fourths of whom are to be the representatives of the scheduled tribes in the state legislative assembly. A similar council can also be established in a state having scheduled tribes but not scheduled areas therein, if the president so directs.

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is the central recruiting agency in India. It is an independent constitutional body in the sense that it has been directly created by the Constitution. Articles 315 to 323 in Part XIV of the Constitution contain elaborate provisions regarding the composition, appointment and removal of members along with the independence, powers and functions of the UPSC. The UPSC consists of a chairman and other members appointed by the president of India. The Constitution, without specifying the strength of the Commission has left the matter to the discretion of the president, who determines its composition. Usually, the Commission consists of nine to eleven members including the chairman. Further, no qualifications are prescribed for the Commission’s membership except that one-half of the members of the Commission should be such persons who have held office for at least ten years either under the Government of India or under the government of a state. The Constitution also authorizes the president to determine the conditions of service of the chairman and other members of the Commission.

In 1949 itself, India declared the continuation of her full membership of the Commonwealth of the Nations and the acceptance of the British Crown as the head of the Commonwealth. But, this extra-constitutional declaration does not affect India’s sovereignty in any manner as the Commonwealth is a voluntary association of independent nations. It also does not affect India’s republican character as India neither pays final allegiance to the British Crown nor the latter has any functions to discharge in relation to India. India remained a member of the Commonwealth because of pragmatic reasons. It thought that the membership in the Commonwealth would be beneficial to her in the economic, political, cultural and other spheres. It has been playing an important role at the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meet). India hosted the 24th Commonwealth Summit at New Delhi in 1983.

The framers of the Constitution made the Directive Principles non-justifiable and legally non-enforceable because:

• The country did not possess sufficient financial resources to implement them.
• The presence of vast diversity and backwardness in the country would stand in the way of their implementation.
• The newly born independent Indian State with its many preoccupations might be crushed under the burden unless it was free to decide the order, the time, the place and the mode of fulfilling them.
• The Constitution makers, therefore, taking a pragmatic view, refrained from giving teeth to these principles. They believed more in an awakened public opinion rather than in court procedures as the ultimate sanction for the fulfillment of these principles.

Mercosur was created in 1991 when Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay signed the Treaty of Asuncion, an accord calling for the “free movement of goods, services, and factors of production between countries.” The four countries agreed to eliminate customs duties, implement a common external tariff of 35 percent on certain imports from outside the bloc, and adopt a common trade policy toward outside countries and blocs. The charter members hoped to form a common market similar to that of the European Union, and even considered introducing a common currency.