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Tuesday, February 19, 2019

UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination Syllabus 2020

13:56
The Preliminary Examination for Civil Services Examination of Union Public Service Commission  is also popularly called CSAT or Civil Services Aptitude Test. The CSAT is actually the second paper of General Studies that was introduced in 2011.
The preliminary examination of UPSC is for screening purpose only. The marks obtained in the UPSC prelims examination amount to a qualification to take the UPSC Main examination and will not be counted for determining a candidate's final order of merit.
Syllabus of Paper I (200 marks) Duration : 2 hours
  • Current events of national and international importance
  • History of India and Indian National Movement
  • Indian and World Geography - Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World
  • Indian Polity and Governance - Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc
  • Economic and Social Development - Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc
  • General issues on Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require subject specialisation General Science
Syllabus for Paper II-(200 marks) Duration: 2 hours
  • Comprehension
  • Interpersonal skills including communication skills;
  • Logical reasoning and analytical ability
  • Decision-making and problem solving
  • General mental ability
  • Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. - Class X level)
Note 1: The CSAT aptitude test or Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) examination will be a qualifying paper only with a minimum of 33% to be secured to sit for the Civil Services (Mains) exam.
Note 2: The questions in both Paper-I (current affairs) and Paper-II (aptitude test) will be of multiple choice, objective type for 200 marks each and the time allotted for each paper is two hours
Note 3: It is mandatory for the candidate to appear in both the papers of Civil Services (Prelim) examination for the purpose of evaluation. Therefore a candidate will be disqualified in case he or she does not appear in both the papers of the (Prelims) exam.

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UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2019 Notification

13:40
UPSC Civil Services (IAS) & IFoS Prelims 2019 Notification & Online Registration: 


Click here to Download UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination 2019 Notification





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Click here to Download UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination Syllabus 2019
The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) released the UPSC Civil Services 2019 Notification and IFoS (Indian Forest Service) Exam 2019 Notification today at its official website upsc.gov.in. The candidates willing to apply for UPSC Prelims 2019 can now complete their Online Registration at the UPSC's apply online portal, upsconline.nic.in.
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The HINDU Notes – 19th February 2019

13:33





📰 Quash Kulbhushan Jadhav verdict, says India

India also attacks the “farcical” military trial of Jadhav, who was found guilty and sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in 2017.

•The first day of oral arguments in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague concluded with India accusing Pakistan of “knowingly, wilfully and brazenly” flouting the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

•India also attacked the “farcical” military trial of Mr. Jadhav, who was found guilty and sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court in 2017.

•It requested the court to annul the verdict of the military court and direct Pakistan to set Mr. Jadhav free on the basis of the “review and reconsideration” process that would be available to him in that country.

•The hearing took place without former Pakistani Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, who was taken ill before the proceedings commenced and before he could be sworn in as an ad hoc ICJ judge.

•He is expected to take part in the proceedings on Tuesday.

•Speaking outside the court after the proceedings, Harish Salve, India’s counsel expressed his optimism that “justice will be done.” However, Pakistan’s lead counsel Khawar Qureshi QC said he had been “disappointed” by India’s arguments, insisting there was “nothing new,” in them, and that “fundamental questions” remained unanswered.

•The case stripped of “irrelevances’ put forward by Pakistan boiled down to these two main issues around the military court proceedings and consular access, Mr. Salve, told the Monday morning hearing. He said that the 2017 provisional measures introduced by the ICJ that required Pakistan to not execute Mr. Jadhav until the full proceedings could take place had saved “the imminent threat of life to an innocent Indian national” and had given “hope” to the whole country.

•He rejected Pakistan’s contentions that the circumstances of the case – and the fact that Mr. Jadhav is accused of espionage and the case relates to national security – made those consular access requirements redundant, and repeatedly accused Pakistan of using the case for domestic propaganda purposes. India also maintains that it is the 1963 Convention on consular relations rather than the 2008 bilateral agreement on consular relations that applies to the case, putting it firmly in the jurisdiction of the ICJ.

•The lack of consular access had been the prime focus of the 2017 hearing at which India had successfully sought provisional measures from the court requiring Pakistan to stay the execution of Mr. Jadhav pending the main hearings.

•On Monday, Mr. Salve also focused on the military court system in Pakistan, attacking the increased use of such courts to try civilians, in “opaque and secret” proceedings; 274 civilians – including “possibly children” had been convicted in Pakistan’s military courts over the past couple of years, he said, contrasting it with India which had “never considered amending,” the Army Act to cover civilians.

•In a detailed account of the events that had unfolded since March 3 2016, when Pakistan said it had arrested Mr. Jadhav in Balochistan, Mr. Salve noted not only the repeated lack of consular access, despite repeated requests from India but also the lack of information provided to it on the specifics of the trial process and charges against Mr. Jadhav.

•Instead, he accused Pakistan of engaging in repeated propaganda, and of using the case to build a narrative against India. “We have not seen the evidence against Jadhav, we have seen the doctored confession “over and over again,” he said.

•The high rate of “confessions” from those civilians who had been found guilty by military courts raised questions about the adequacy of safeguards within them, including raising the possibility of torture being used to extract confessions, and the “high risk of mistreatment,” he said.

•Rather than pushing for the court to order a review of the case in Pakistan, Mr. Salve argued that the evidence suggested that the review and relief mechanisms available to Mr. Jadhav and India were “highly inadequate.” Pakistan’s “military courts cannot command the confidence of this court and should not be sanctified,” he told the court, during the opening session that took nearly the entire three hours allocated to the proceedings.

•Mr. Jillani was taken ill ahead of the proceedings and left the court’s grounds by ambulance. He was therefore not sworn in as an ad hoc judge in the case as had been planned. It meant that the proceedings took place before the 15 ICJ judges, including former Indian Supreme Court Judge Dalveer Bhandari. However, at the start of the proceedings the President of the Court, Somalian judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf left open the possibility of him taking part in subsequent proceedings, telling the court at the start of the hearing simply that he “will not be sitting today.”

•On Tuesday, Pakistan will respond with its opening oral arguments, also set over a three-hour time period. This will be followed by two one and a half hour sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, where India and Pakistan will present their concluding arguments. There is no set time period for a judgment to be made, though typically such cases take around six months to be considered. Judgments are based on a simple majority decision, and in the case of a tie, the President has the casting vote. The decisions of the court are binding, final and non-appealable, though in exceptional circumstances certain recourses are available to parties, including requests for interpretation of the judgment.

•The ICJ is the main judicial arm of the UN, established in 1945 to deal with “contentious” cases submitted to it by member states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it, but is not a criminal court.
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RRB NTPC previous question paper pdf Download

07:53




RRB NTPC Previous year Question Papers Pdf

2016RRB NTPC Solved Paper
Indian Railways NonTechnical Exam Question Paper
Railway Recruitment Board NTPC Exam Paper
Railway RRB NTPC Exam Previous Question Paper
2012RRB NTPC Solved Question Paper
Indian Railways RRB Model Paper
Railway RRB NTPC Previous Paper
2010Indian Railways RRB Previous Papers
RRB NTPC Previous year Question Paper

RRB NTPC Junior Accounts Assistant Cum Typist Previous Papers  – General Knowledge

Click on the below links to get RRB NTPC Previous Papers for General Knowledge.
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THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 19.02.2018

07:47
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Vajiram and Ravi Monthly MCQ January 2019

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Click here to Download RRB ALP 2nd Stage CBT Answer Key and Raise Objection
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Monday, February 18, 2019

Daily Current Affairs, 18th February 2019

18:28


1) List of MOUs/Agreements Signed During State Visit Of President Of Argentina To India
•MoU between the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of India and the Ministry of Defence of the Argentine Republic on Defence Cooperation.

 •MoU between the Republic of India and the Republic of Argentina for cooperation in the field of Tourism.

 •MOU on Cooperation and Collaboration between Prasar Bharti, India and the Federal System of Media and Public Contents, Argentina.

 •MoU in pharmaceuticals between Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), GoI, and National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology, Argentina.

 •MoU on Antarctic Co-operation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship of the Argentine Republic and the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Republic of India.

 •Work Plan on Cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare of the Republic of India and the Ministry of Production and Labour of the Argentine Republic within the MoU signed in 2010.

 •Work Plan for the year 2019-21 between Indian Council of Agriculture Research Republic of India and the State Secretary of Agro-industry of the Ministry of Production and Labour of the Argentine Republic within the MoU signed in 2006.

 •Joint Declaration of Intent on Cooperation in the field of Information & Communications Technology and Electronics between the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of the Republic of India and the Government Secretary of Modernization of the Republic of Argentina.

 •MOU between Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP), India, and CNEA, the Secretariat of Energy, Argentina.

 •Agreement for the establishment of India-Argentina Centre of Excellence for Information and Technology.

2) India’s First District Cooling System To Be Built In Amravati
•United Arab Emirates (UAE) based international cooling provider, National Central Cooling Company PJSC (Tabreed) entered into a 30-year concession with Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) to build India’s first district cooling system in Amaravati.

 •The agreement is for a contracted cooling capacity of 20,000 Refrigeration Tons (RTs) and will cater to the State’s Assembly, High Court, Secretariat and other Government buildings currently being constructed, for which cooling services will start in early 2021.

3) J P Morgan Became First US Bank With Cryptocurrency
•JP Morgan rolled out the first US bank cryptocurrency. The currency is designed to be decentralized so that no one has control over transactions being sent over the network. Cryptocurrencies are used successfully to move money between the bank and a client which usually runs on a blockchain technology.

 •The cryptocurrency, called “JPM Coin,” is intended for the bank’s wholesale payments business that moves $6 trillion around the world daily and not for retail customers. It will be used internally by the bank to enable instant transfers of payments between institutional accounts.

4) ‘Simplicity & Wisdom’ Authored By Mr. Dinesh Shahra Launched
•A book ‘Simplicity & Wisdom’ written by Dinesh Shahra was launched at Parmarth Ashram in Kumbh Mela. Launched by the Governor of West Bengal– Keshari Nath Tripathi and Swami Chidanand Saraswati, Head of Parmarth Ashram, this book is dedicated to Late Vedanti Swami Pragananandji. The book aims at guiding towards saintly wisdom and leading a content and happy life.





5) Government Raised Rs.10000 Crore From Bharat-22 ETF Offering
•The government of India gets Rs.10000 crore from Bharat-22 Exchange Traded Fund(ETF) by additional offering. The government has absorbed approximately Rs.46000 croreby way of disinvestment with the successful offering of Bharat-22 ETF.

 •Bharat-22 is an Exchange Traded Fund ( ETF) which will closely track the performance of Bharat-22 index. It was launched by Government of India in November 2017. ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund AMC will manage the fund.

6) Hina Jaiswal Becomes The First Indian Woman Flight Engineer
•Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal from Chandigarh, became the First Indian Woman Flight Engineer of the Indian Air Force(IAF). She was commissioned in the IAF’s engineering branch in 2015 and completed the 6-month Flight Engineer course from the 112 Helicopter Unit attached to the Air Force Station in Yelahanka, Bengaluru. The Flight Engineer branch was opened to women officers in 2018.

7) Abdul Aziz Muhamat Wins International Human Rights Prize
•Sudanese refugee, Abdul Aziz Muhamat, who spent 5 years in the Australian detention centre on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, was given the Martin Ennals Award 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland, for exposing “the very cruel asylum seeker policy of the Australian Government”.

 •It is sometimes referred to as the “Nobel Prize for human rights”. Abdul Aziz Muhamat’s podcast “The Messenger”, created from more than 4,000 WhatsApp messages Muhamat sent from the detention centre, had won best radio/audio feature at Australia’s Walkley Awards in 2017.

8) India Boosts Customs Duty To 200% On Goods Imported From Pakistan
•India with immediate effect has boosted the Customs Duty on all the goods imported from Pakistan to 200% followed by the day after India repealed Most Favoured Nation (MFN)status from Pakistan. This punitory move followed by the Pulwana Terrorist attack that led to the death of 42 CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force).

 •This step is likely to strike Pakistan’s exports to India which were $381 million in the April-Nov period and for overall FY18, it was $489 million. This 200% tariff rate is higher than the average bound rate of 113.5% for agriculture products and 34.6% for non-agriculture products. The MFN applied rates are 32.8% and 10.7%, respectively for farm and non-farm products.

9) Sunil Chhetri Given First Ever Football Ratna Award
•Sunil Chhetri, the all-time leading scorer for India in international football, has been conferred the first ever Football Ratna honour by Football Delhi, the association governing the sport in Delhi.

 •He is popularly known as Captain Fantastic. He has scored the 2nd highest number of goals in international matches among active players after Cristiano Ronaldo.
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RRB ALP 2nd Stage CBT Answer Key Released (Official) | Check here

12:53





Click here to Download RRB ALP 2nd Stage CBT Answer Key and Raise Objection

Click here to Download RRB ALP 2nd Stage CBT Answer Key and Raise Objection (Alternative Link)
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The HINDU Notes – 18th February 2019

11:35

📰 How the 16th Lok Sabha fared

Important bills were passed; but going forward there must be debate on the anti-defection law

•The 16th Lok Sabha had its final sitting last Wednesday, marking an end to a disappointing five-year period. This Lok Sabha was surpassed only by the preceding one in terms of the low number of hours it worked. It met for 1,615 hours, 40% lower than all full-term Parliaments. This shows a decline in the number of sitting days over the decades as well as a significant part of the scheduled time lost to disruptions. This Lok Sabha sat for 331 days (against a 468-day average for all previous full-term Lok Sabhas), and lost 16% of its time to disruptions.

•Though there were no extreme incidents — an MP used pepper spray in the 15th Lok Sabha — MPs often broke the rules. The House was often disrupted by MPs carrying placards, entering the well, and even on occasion, blocking their colleagues from speaking. A big casualty was Question Hour — the Lok Sabha lost a third of this time and the Rajya Sabha 60%; consequently, just 18% of the starred questions in each House got an oral reply.

•Another notable event was the Speaker blaming unruly behaviour for her inability to count the required number of MPs demanding a no-confidence motion but allowing the Union Budget to be passed in the interim. There was a similar episode at the end of the 15th Lok Sabha when the Speaker was unable to conduct a no-confidence motion but let the House pass the Act to bifurcate the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Key legislation

•However, Parliament made some important laws. The Goods and Services Tax was implemented and the bankruptcy code was enacted. The IIM Act gave premier management educational institutions a level of autonomy not available to other public educational institutions. The Juvenile Justice Act allowed children (between 16 and 18 years) accused of committing heinous crimes to be prosecuted as adults. New Acts were passed: for treatment of mental health patients, and those with HIV/AIDS. Another Act was passed to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities.

•There was some effort to address the issues of corruption, black money and leakages. The Prevention of Corruption Act was amended to make bribe-giving an offence. Laws were made requiring a declaration of assets held outside India, and to declare as fugitives those economic offenders who had fled the country. The Aadhaar Act was passed to create a biometric-based identity system.

Bill passing

•This brings us to the manner in which some Bills were passed. The Aadhaar Act was passed as a Money Bill — and upheld (incorrectly in my opinion) by the Supreme Court. The Constitution defines a Bill as a Money Bill if it contains provisions that exclusively relate to taxes or government spending. Importantly, such Bills need majority support only in the Lok Sabha, with the Rajya Sabha having just a recommendatory role. Arguing that Aadhaar was primarily a subsidy delivery mechanism, and not an identity system seems like a stretch, but that was the majority decision of the Supreme Court. However, there has not been much conversation on the various Finance Bills that have been passed as Money Bills.

•The Finance Bill is traditionally introduced with the Budget, and contains all the legislative changes to tax laws. Therefore, it is usually a Money Bill. However, Finance Bills, in the last few years, have included items which have no relation to taxes or to expenditure of the government. The Finance Bill, 2015 included provisions to merge the regulator of commodity exchanges with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The Finance Bill, 2016 included amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act which relate to donations to non-profits. The Finance Bill, 2017 went further and changed the compositions of 19 quasi-judicial bodies such as the Securities Appellate Tribunal, the National Green Tribunal and the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), and repealed seven other bodies including the Competition Appellate Tribunal.

•About half the clauses of the 2018 Bill were on issues unrelated to taxes. Even the Finance Bill, 2019 presented with the interim Budget amended the provisions related to attaching property under the money laundering law. It is difficult to see how these Bills would fall within the narrow definition of Money Bill, as defined in Article 110 of the Constitution.

•A few other Bills, such as the Triple Talaq Bill and the Citizenship Bill, were passed by the Lok Sabha but will lapse as they were not passed by the Rajya Sabha. It is evident that the government was able to have its way on every issue in the Lok Sabha and was held in check only due to a lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha; even this check was bypassed occasionally using the Money Bill route. The government could do this as a result of the anti-defection provision which gives complete control of all party votes to the party leadership. This law has converted MPs from being representatives of the people to delegates of the party. If the party in government has a majority of its own, it can have any provision passed; even coalition governments have to convince just a handful of leaders of their alliance partners.

Review the anti-defection law

•Parliament plays the central role in our democracy by holding the government to account and scrutinising proposed laws and financial priorities. With the end of the 16th Lok Sabha, it is time to ponder on how to make this institution more effective. An important step will be by reviewing the anti-defection law that has hollowed out the institution.

📰 The challenge in the Pulwama attack
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Value added materials for prelims 2019 by GS SCORE

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Click Here to Download Value added materials for prelims 2019 by GS SCORE
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