GS Mains IAS Previous Years Question Paper 2 – 1996

SECTION I

1. (a) What do you understand by the term ‘Rule of Law’? How does the Constitution of India seek to establish it? (About 250 words)        40

OR

(b) Why does the Constitution of India contain different forms of Oath for the President, the Ministers, the Legislators and the members of the Judiciary? Discuss their significance. (About 250 words)

2. (a) Comment on the view that economic planning can raise the rate of capital formation appreciably above the rate attainable under a system of private saving and investment. (About 250 words)    40

OR

(b) Explain the factors responsible for the decile in the value of Indian Rupee vis-a0vis U.S. Dollar during the Financial year 1995-96. Enumerate the Corrective measures undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India in this regard. (About 250 words)

3. (a) Describe how India’s space programme has helped in its socio-economic development. (About 250 words)        40

OR

(b) What are Intellectual Property Rights? Why are Indian scientists concerned about the new patent regimes? (About 250 words)

SECTION II

4. Answer any two of the following (Answer to each question should be in about 150 words)            20+20

(a) What is a Cut Motion? Discuss its significance.

(b) How are electoral constituencies delimited for Parliamentary elections in India?

(c) What is delegated legislation and which are the factors responsible for its increase?

(d) What are the Consolidated and Contingency Funds of India. How are the two operated?

5. Answer any two of the following (Answer to each question should be in about 150 words)            20+20

(a) What measures do you suggest to raise the volume of Public Savings in our country? Briefly state the importance of such saving for the contemporary economic scene.

(b) Briefly comment on the purpose and type of changes made in our tax structure in the context of liberalisation and structural reforms during the first half of the 1990s.

(c) Discuss briefly the main recommendations of the Tenth finance Commission.

(d) How is poverty-line defined in India? Briefly enumerate the measures undertaken by the Government in recent years to alleviate poverty.

6. Answer any two of the following (Answer to each question ahould be in about 150 words)        15+15

(a) Mention the advantages which India enjoys being at the head of the Indian Ocean.

(b) What is shifting cultivation? Describe its salient characteristics with reference to India?

(c) Where do mangrove forests occur in India? Describe their main characteristics.

(d) What is ozone hole? How is it formed and what effect does it have on the earth?

7. Answer any two of the following (Answer to each question should be in about 150 words)        20+20

(a) What is nuclear medicine? Describe briefly its different uses.

(b) What is virtual reality? What is it used for?

(c) What is a microwave oven? How does it cook food?

(d) What are transgenic organisms? What are they used for?

SECTION III

8. Answer four questions form Group A, three from Group B and three from Group C (Answer to each question should be in about 25 words):    30

GROUP A

(a) What is a lorentz curve?

(b) How do you distiguish between specific and ad valorem duties?

(c) What is an MOU? What does it mean?

(d) Differentiate between Trade and Balance of Payments.

(e) Where are India’s nuclear power plants located?

(f) What are Bailey’s beads?

GROUP B

(a) What is the major recommendation of Dinesh Goswami Committee?

(b) What role can the Union Government play in setting interstate water disputes?

(c) The Writ of Mandamus cannot be granted against certain persons. Who are they?

(d) What constitutional provisions make the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India independent?

(e) How do you distinguish between a Money Bill and a Finance Bill?

(f) What are the functions of the Human Rights Commission of India?

GROUP C

(a) What is centchroman?

(b) What is ultrasonography?

(c) What do the following stand for:

(i) C-DOT

(ii) CGCRI

(iii) INMAS

(d) What is HIV? What does it cause?

(e) Why does a lunar eclipse occur only on a full moon?

(f) Where are the following located?
(Give the name of the city and state)

(i) Central Drug Research Institute

(ii)Space Application Center

(iii) Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research