With respect to Desher Katha question, I think the answer should be A. Reasoning: Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar was originally a Marathi. He also wrote some biography of Shivaji. He was the first to use the term Swaraj for India. The reference to Desh for just the Bengal region seems wrong. Although the book had a major influence in Bengal, but it was published before Swadeshi started, i.e. in 1904. The book mainly talked about economic exploitation of whole British India, not just of Bengal. The timing of the release of book made it specially popular in Bengal.
https://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-03%20The%20Ashram/Inspiring%20Connections/Sakharam%20Ganesh%20Deuskar.htm
@sarat_bose True. The coachings will argue that minimum number of days are not prescribed in the Constitution but it is the gap between two sessions that is mentioned. But I think that both have same implication. Even in Lakshmikant, it is mentioned that the parliament will have to meet aleast two times in a year. In most questions, overanalysis is not required, things should be kept simple. So ans should be A.
The GS paper was moderate this time. I don't think the cutoffs will drop because of that. But the CSAT was slightly on the difficult side. Some people might not cross the qualifying marks. That may affect the cutoffs. I wasn't able to attempt the full CSAT paper despite having scored 99.96 percentile previously in CAT.
Still the cutoff should not fall below 100 because of easy polity and economics.
With the respect to the cyber insurance question, the attached pdf contains all the words used by UPSC. The answer should be B) 1, 3, 4. The damage to tangible property (computer in present case) is listed under policy exclusion whereas other three statements are included in the policy coverage.
Individual-Cyber-Safe-Policy-Wording.pdf
According to me the controversial questions are:
1. Artificial intelligence
2. Cyber Insurance
3. Desher Katha
4. Minimum number of days requirement for parliament session
5. Judicial review and basic structure
6. Age of consent
For other doubtful questions: evolved LISA is the most appropriate among the four options, although not perfect. Similarly genetic modifications wala q, D seems to be most appropriate, again not perfect.
The questions on legal services authority seems to be wrong. I just read the National legal services authority Act. The income limit prescribed for free legal aid was 9000 which was subsequently increased to 100000 for courts other than SC and 5 lakh for SC. Further, the state legal services authority are free to increase this limit subject to minimum 1 lakh. Consequently, Delhi has increased the income limit for transgenders (after they were declared as third gender by SC) and senior citizen to 2 lakhs. In other states, there is no special criteria for transgenders or senior citizen. Though some states have 2 lakh or 3 lakh limit for all persons.
The bottom line is that in the given question only statement 1 was correct from a national perspective. There was no such option as only 1.
Those who want, may give representation against this question. I am giving it too.
Most of my friends are scoring 7-12 marks more than their last year score. All of them(except one) qualified pre last year. Seeing the trend on online polls and marks of other people, there has been a general increase of 5-10 marks in the scores of people. But there is a broad opinion among the coaching institutes that the paper was slightly difficult this year compared to last two years. Still people are scoring more this year. Maybe because the guesses have worked this time.
Is anyone else observing a general increase of level of marks compared to last year in their social circles????
I would like to share what I understand from the term basic structure. Every written constitution has a basic structure comprising of certain features. The SC gave the DOCTRINE of basic structure and did not define the basic structure. It simply said that the constitution can be amended in such a way so that its basic structure is not altered.
In my opinion, the question was trying to ask what is the basic structure of the written constitution of India rather than who defines or decides it.
Anyways, final answer will be decided by UPSC. Just sharing my understanding of basic structure. Please see the text from NCERT too.
Critical tiger habitat by definition means core area of tiger reserves then why answer is not sundarban
Critical tiger habitat and core area need not be same. When a tiger reserve is notified(on the basis of state govt recommendations), it has a core area and a buffer area. That is how tiger reserves were notified before the implementation of forest rights act 2006. Then came the forest rights act 2006 which recognized the rights of communities living in national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, tiger reserves (which is generally a sub part of a national park or sanctuary) notified under the WPA 1972. So once their rights were recognized, the environmental activists felt a threat to the tiger population because of human intervention. To avoid this threat, the authorities came up with the 'critical tiger habitat' . Critical tiger habitat is an area in which human habitation is not allowed. Whether forest rights act give rights in the critical tiger habitat or not, there has been some cases filed on this in courts. But rights are recognized in the core area as well as buffer area under FRA 2006 unless these areas are notified as Critical. So basically, to avoid human animal conflict, any area can be notified as Critical whether it falls in the core or buffer or even outside. But the notification has to based on scientific calculations and after giving due regards to the rights of forest habitants(whether it is justifiable to rehabilitate them), etc.
