Calendar for Examinations - 2011

S.No.	Name of Examination	Date of Notification	Last Date to Apply	Date of Exam	Download
1.	Madhya Pradesh (MPPSC)	11.10.2010	25.11.2010	20.02.2011 (Sunday)	pdf, Admit Card
2.	Tamil Nadu (TNPSC)	29.12.2010	28.01.2011	22.05.2011 (Sunday)	pdf
3.	Uttar Pradesh (UPPSC)	01.01.2011	28.01.2011	26.06.2011 (Sunday)	pdf
4.	Maharashtra (MPSC)	13.12.2010	12.01.2011	13.02.2011 (Sunday)	Notice
5.	UPSC Preliminary 2011	19.02.2011	21.03.2011	12.06.2011 (Sunday)	Notification

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MPPSC 2011 Admit Card

Now you can download the Admit Card for the MPPSC (Preliminary) 2011 exam scheduled to be held on Sunday, 20.02.2011. Download from 25.01.2011 (12 noon) to 15.02.2011 (12 midnight).

Click here to download the MPPSC 2011 Admit Card

or copy paste the following URL in the address bar:

https://www.mponline.gov.in/Portal/Examinations/MPPSC/admitcard/Pre10AdmitLogin.aspx

All the Best for the exam!!!

UPSC Prelims 2010 - General Knowledge

History of India

1.      There are only two known examples of cave paintings of the Gupta period in ancient India. One of these is paintings of Ajanta caves. Where is the other surviving example of Gupta paintings?
(a) Bagh caves
(b) Ellora caves
(c) Lomas Rishi cave
(d) Nasik caves

Answer: (a)

Explanation:

Ajanta Caves are located just outside the village of Ajinṭhā in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra. There are 28-30 rock-cut cave monuments created during the first century BCE and 5th century AD, containing paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art. Since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Bagh Caves are a group of nine rock-cut monuments, situated among the southern slopes of the Vindhyas in Kukshi tehsil of Dhar district in Madhya Pradesh. These are renowned for mural paintings by master painters of ancient India. The Bagh Caves, like those at Ajanta, were excavated by master craftmen on perpendicular sandstone rock face of a hill on the far bank of a seasonal stream, the Baghani. Buddhist in inspiration, of the nine caves, only five have survived. All of them are 'viharas' or monasteries having quadrangular plan.  A copperplate inscription of Maharaja Subandhu, recording his donation for the repair of the vihara was found at the site of Cave 2. Though, the date of the Bagh inscription is missing, his Badwani copperplate inscription is dated in the year (Gupta era) 167 (487). So the repair of Cave 2 took place in the late 5th century.

The Lomash Rishi cave in the Barabar Caves belongs to Mauryan period. The Barabar Caves are the oldest surviving rock-cut caves in India, mostly dating from the Mauryan period (322–185 BCE), and some with Ashokan inscriptions, located in the Jehanabad District of Bihar.

The Nasik Caves belong to Satvahana period. The Nasik cave inscription of Gautami Balashri claims that her son Gautamiputra Satakarni's dominion included Anupa.

Source: Multiple sources.

   

Can Egypt and Algeria imitate Tunisia?

When you have leaders who have been in power for a very long time, one party controlling everything, marginalization of the opposition, no transfer of power, plans for succession, small groups running the business and vast corruption, then you can say that the overall environment is ripe for an explosion at any second.


This is what happened in Tunisia. Economic hardships and political repression that led to the Tunisian uprising has resonated strongly in other Arab countries as well. Two more men set themselves on Fire in Egypt on January 18 and third was stopped.


Now the question is whether these violent protests can replicate the uprising of Tunisia in other countries, particularly Egypt and Algeria?

Economic recovery - Global Imbalance is reducing?

During 2010, where emerging economies clocked 7% growth rate, developed countries grew by mere 2.8%. This glaring disparity has already had some important consequences for the global economy like dollar's status is under threat and there is a big question mark on the viability of monetary union.

Leading emerging economies are set to acquire more enhanced role in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as it is being reorganized. The G20 has replaced the G8 as the world's leading economic grouping.

One of the rationale behind the divergence in this growth rate is that developing countries will obviously grow faster than their counterparts as they start from a low base and can post greater productivity gains.

What is surprising is the wide margin by which developed countries trail the developing ones. Their decline in the downturn was so sharp that their rebound should have been much stronger. Two important developments can explain why this has not happened:

1. Both individuals and government in developing world are reeling under an extraordinarily high level of indebtedness. Consumer spending is less and governments are forced to go for austerity and to enforce some tight measures which are not very good for the overall growth.
2. Financial sector of the developed countries remains impaired and credit flows have not increased to the desired extent. 

Contrary to this, developing countries are seeing a strong domestic demand which is fostering their growth such that in 2010, they accounted for almost half of the global growth.

Tunisia: 1st Arab Revolution

For the past 58 years, Egypt celebrates “July Revolution” that overthrew King Farouk and ended the monarchy and British occupation once and for all. That was not a revolution. That was a brilliantly executed stratagem by the Army.

But, January 14, 2011 will be cherished by millions of Arabs as the day when they toppled one of their dictators, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, as he fled Tunisia. The 23 year old rule toppled in just 29 days of a popular uprising. A real revolution for a change.

Despite of such revolution and the fact that Tunisians risked their lives in thousands, some of the Arab countries simply ignored what happened.

Morocco and Algeria: No official statement

Egypt: They said they respect Tunisians but filled their state-owned media with reminders that they were not anything like Tunisia.

Muammar Gaddafi, the world’s longest serving dictator, told Tunisians that they were suffering bloodshed and lawlessness because they were too hasty in getting rid of Mr. Ben Ali.

If every Arab leader has watched Tunisia in fear, then every Arab citizen has watched in hope because it was neither Islamists no foreign troops that toppled the dictator, it was ordinary and fed up people.

Interestingly, many western observers were seen crediting Wikileaks by saying that U.S. embassy cables about corruption fuelled the revolution. Even Mr. Gaddafi railed against Wikileaks, but for different reasons, as he too wanted to blame something other than the power of the people.

Tunisia’s revolution was indeed a real revolution and not a euphemism for a coup.

India-Russia ties in the neoliberal era

If last month's official visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to India came anywhere near being marred, it was from a most unexpected quarter — onions. Indians can't make curries without onions but now 80 per cent of them can't afford this vegetable. They were contemplating how to substitute onions with finely chopped leaks when Mr. Medvedev arrived.

Yet, the visit became a page-turner and the youthful President calmed the eye on our tired, jaded political landscape. The visit was “bound to be successful, in theory,” as an experienced Russian scholar coyly predicted. Not only the annual summit was meticulously choreographed but there is also a growing “bipartisan” interest in India in the relationship. The right-wing lobbies weaned on old-fashioned “anti-communism” that mocked at Soviet-Indian friendship, the Left which nostalgically (and simplistically) views Russia as the inheritor of Soviet legacies and the government with a pronounced “pro-American” tilt — all agree that India should have a privileged bond with Russia. No mean thing in our highly fragmented polity.

Only the common people and intellectuals — who used to constitute the vanguard of Soviet-Indian friendship — are missing from the spectacle. Ironically, 2010 was also the 55th anniversary of the historic visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to India but no one remembered. To be sure, the distinctive mark of summit 2010 in Delhi is that the “market forces” have penetrated the veins and arteries and even the capillaries of the two countries' relationship. Such things are probably part and parcel of our current neo-liberal era. But is that a good thing to happen? A reverse osmosis is happening in the Sino-Indian partnership. For China, public diplomacy in India has assumed great significance. Anyway, both Russia and India seem content with the way things turned out and are settling for a durable “strategic partnership” based on “convergence of interests,” uncluttered by ideals or ideology. There is, of course, no question of infidelity in such a partnership and no scope for adulterous acts — not even flirtatious intimacies. An extraordinary calmness has come to prevail, which is truly rare in relationships.

Reform in the Countryside: The agriculture sector and rural economy should be the centerpiece of Budget 2011-12

Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will soon begin confabulations with industry leaders and sectoral experts on the formulation of Budget 2011-12. Like Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram in the past, will he deliver an historic budget? Singh as finance minister in 1992 launched the Indian economy's liberalisation by encouraging foreign investment and slashing import duties, which was to put an end to the 'Hindu' rate of economic growth. Chidambaram as finance minister in 1997 announced substantial reduction in income and corporate taxes, leading to buoyant tax collection in future years. Mukherjee in 2011 can present a path-breaking budget by focussing on the rural economy and agriculture sector, which can set India on a permanent high growth trajectory of over 10% in the foreseeable future. 

While the reforms and budgets of the last two decades have produced a vibrant urban economy, their impact on the rural economy has been minimal. Past budgets have seen farmers being pampered with sops and subsidies that have created an extreme dependence on the government among people living in rural areas. Except for the mode of production linked to the farmer, government is the biggest provider of services and buyer of goods produced in the rural economy. 

Schools, hospitals and most other essential services in rural India are mostly government-run and, with the introduction of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee scheme five years ago, the government has become the employer of the first resort. The farmer also gets from the government free electricity and subsidised credit and fertilisers for production of crops. Most commodities thus produced are procured by the government through the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism. 

The rural economy needs an impetus to get out of this rut. The upcoming budget provides Mukherjee an opportunity to lay out a vision for transitioning the rural economy and agriculture sector into the market economy.