💥UPSC 2026, 2027, 2028 UAP Mentorship (March Batch) + Access XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Type: Prelims Only

  • Roads, Highways, Cargo, Air-Cargo and Logistics infrastructure – Bharatmala, LEEP, SetuBharatam, etc.

    Delhi-Mumbai Expressway: World’s longest

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Delhi-Mumbai Expressway

    Mains level: NA

    The Minister for Road Transport and Highways Union Minister Nitin Gadkari concluded the review of the work progress on the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway.

    Delhi-Mumbai Expressway

    • The ambitious infra project started in the year 2018 is being constructed at a cost of Rs 98,000 crore and is scheduled for completion by March 2023.
    • States: Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra
    • Once ready, the expressway will feature a spur to Noida International Airport and Jawaharlal Nehru Port to Mumbai through a spur in the financial capital.
    • It will reduce travel time between certain cities to 12-12.5 hours from 24 hours.
    • The project is expected to improve connectivity to economic hubs of India like Jaipur, Ajmer, Kishangarh, Chittorgarh, Kota, Udaipur, Ujjain, Bhopal, Indore, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, and Surat.

    Key features of the expressway

    • The expressway which is eight-lane access-controlled can be expanded to a 12-lane expressway depending on the traffic volume
    • It will boast wayside amenities such as resorts, food courts, restaurants, fuel stations, logistics parks, facilities for truckers
    • For accident victims, it will offer a helicopter ambulance service as well as a heliport, which will use drone services for business
    • Along the highway, over two million trees and shrubs are planned to be planted
    • The highway project is Asia’s first and the world’s second to include animal overpasses in order to facilitate unrestricted wildlife movement
    • Besides, it will also involve two iconic eight-lane tunnels
    • The project will result in annual savings of more than 320 million litres of fuel as well as reduce Carbon dioxide emissions by 850 million kg
    • Over 12 lakh tonnes of steel will be consumed in the project’s construction, which is equivalent to constructing 50 Howrah bridges
    • For the project, 80 lakh tonnes of cement will be consumed, which is around 2 percent of the country’s annual cement production capacity
    • The ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project has also created job opportunities for thousands of trained civil engineers apart from generating over 50 lakh man-days of work

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Tiger Conservation Efforts – Project Tiger, etc.

    Pseudo-melanism in Tigers of Simlipal

    Prelims Only | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Pigmentation of Tigers

    Mains level: Not Much

    A team of scientists has resolved the genetic mystery of Simlipal’s so-called black tigers.

    What are Black Tigers?

    • Tigers have a distinctive dark stripe pattern on a light background of white or golden.
    • A rare pattern variant, distinguished by stripes that are broadened and fused together, is also observed in both wild and captive populations.
    • This is known as pseudo-melanism, which is different from true melanism, a condition characterized by unusually high deposition of melanin, a dark pigment.
    • This pseudo-melanism is linked to a single mutation in Transmembrane Aminopeptidase Q (Taqpep), a gene responsible for similar traits in other cat species.

    Where are they mostly found?

    • While truly melanistic tigers are yet to be recorded, pseudo-melanistic ones have been camera-trapped repeatedly, and only, in Simlipal, a 2,750-km tiger reserve in Odisha, since 2007.
    • Launched in 2017, the study was the first attempt to investigate the genetic basis for this unusual phenotype (appearance).

    Why they are rare?

    • Mutants are genetic variations which may occur spontaneously, but not frequently, in nature.
    • A cub gets two copies of each gene from both parents, and a recessive gene can show up only in the absence of the dominant one.
    • So, two normal-pattern tigers carrying the recessive pseudo-melanism gene will have to breed together for a one-in-four probability of giving birth to a black cub.
    • But recessive genes are rare and it is unlikely that two unrelated tigers will carry the same one and pass it on together to a cub.

    Connection with Simlipal TR

    • In an ideal tiger world, where far-ranging individuals are never short of choices for partners, that makes succession of black tigers a rarity.
    • Under exceptional circumstances, a black tiger may succeed as part of a very small population that is forced to inbreed in isolation for generations.
    • As it turned out, that is what happened at Simlipal.
    • Pseudo-melanistic tigers are also present in three zoos in India — Nandankanan (Bhubaneswar), Arignar Anna Zoological Park (Chennai) and Bhagwan Birsa Biological Park (Ranchi) — where they were born in captivity.
    • All of them have ancestral links to one individual from Simlipal.

    What about natural selection?

    • Natural selection eliminates the weakest from a gene pool, and the traits of the more successful get passed on.
    • Niche modelling, the study said, shows higher frequency of melanistic leopards in darker tropical and subtropical forests than in drier open habitats.
    • Likewise, darker coats may confer a selective advantage in both hunting and avoiding hunters in Simlipal’s tropical moist deciduous and semi-evergreen closed-canopy forest, with a relatively darker understory.

    Try this PYQ:

    Two important rivers – one with its source in Jharkhand (and known by a different name in Odisha), and another, with its source in Odisha – merge at a place only a short distance from the coast of Bay of Bengal before flowing into the sea. This is an important site of wildlife and biodiversity and a protected area.

     

    Which one of the following could be this?
    (a) Bhitarkanika
    (b) Chandipur-on-sea
    (c) Gopalpur-on-sea
    (d) Simlipal

     

    Post your answers here.

    Back2Basics: Project Tiger

    • Project Tiger is a tiger conservation program launched in April 1973 during PM Indira Gandhi’s tenure.
    • In 1970 India had only 1800 tigers and Project Tiger was launched in Jim Corbett National Park.
    • The project is administrated by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
    • It aims at ensuring a viable population of Bengal tigers in their natural habitats, protecting them from extinction etc.
    • Under this project the govt. has set up a Tiger Protection Force to combat poachers and funded relocation of villagers to minimize human-tiger conflicts.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • New Species of Plants and Animals Discovered

    General Sherman: World’s largest tree

    Prelims Only | Trivia | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: General Sherman Tree

    Mains level: NA

    Two wildfires in California are burning through the Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada that is home to some of the largest trees in the world.

    Among these trees is the world’s largest tree popularly known as General Sherman, which firefighters are now trying to protect from the blaze.

    About General Sherman

    • The General Sherman tree is the world’s largest in terms of volume and exists in the Giant Forest sequoia grove of the national park.
    • As per recent estimates, General Sherman is about 2,200 years old.
    • It stands at a height of 275 feet (taller than the leaning tower of Pisa) and has a diameter of 36 feet at the base.
    • Even 60 feet above the base, the tree has a diameter of 17.5 feet.
    • Giant sequoia trees have existed in the national park for thousands of years and there are an estimated 2,000 such trees in the park.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Historical and Archaeological Findings in News

    Gupta Era Temple uncovered in UP

    Prelims Only | History | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Shankhlipi Script, Gupta Period

    Mains level: Zenith of arts and cultural development during Gupta Period

    Last week, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) discovered remains of an ancient temple dating back to the Gupta period (5th century) in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district.

    Findings of the excavation

    • The Bilsarh site was declared ‘protected’ in 1928.
    • Every year, the ASI undertakes scrubbing work at the protected sites.
    • This year, the team discovered two decorative pillars close to one another, with human figurines resembling an ancient temple.
    • The stairs of the temple had ‘shankhalipi’ inscriptions, which were deciphered by the archaeologists as saying, ‘Sri Mahendraditya’, the title of Kumaragupta I of the Gupta dynasty.

    You will find tons of PYQs on Gupta Period. Try this recent one:

    Q. With reference to the period of Gupta dynasty in ancient India, the towns Ghantasala, Kadura and Chaula were well known as:

    (a) ports handling foreign trade

    (b) capitals of powerful kingdoms

    (c) places of exquisite stone art and architecture

    (d) important Buddhist pilgrimage centres

     

    Post your answers here.

    Who was Kumaragupta I?

    • Kumaragupta I was an emperor of the Gupta Empire of Ancient India.
    • A son of the Gupta emperor Chandragupta II and queen Dhruvadevi, he seems to have maintained control of his inherited territory, which extended from Gujarat in the west to Bengal region in the east.
    • In the 5th century, Kumaragupta I ruled for 40 years over north-central India.
    • Skandagupta, son and successor of Kumaragupta I is generally considered to be the last of the great Gupta rulers.
    • He assumed the titles of Vikramaditya and Kramaditya.

    What is the Shankhalipi script?

    • Shankhalipi or “shell-script” is a term used by scholars to describe ornate spiral characters assumed to be Brahmi derivatives that look like conch shells or shankhas.
    • They are found in inscriptions across north-central India and date to between the 4th and 8th centuries.
    • Both Shankhalipi and Brahmi are stylised scripts used primarily for names and signatures.
    • The inscriptions consist of a small number of characters, suggesting that the shell inscriptions are names or auspicious symbols or a combination of the two.

    Chronology and meaning

    • The script was discovered in 1836 on a brass trident in Uttarakhand’s Barahat by English scholar James Prinsep, who was the founding editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
    • A year later, he came across two more similar scripts at Nagarjuna group of caves in the Barabar Hills near Gaya.
    • Prominent sites with shell inscriptions include the Mundeshwari Temple in Bihar, the Udayagiri Caves in Madhya Pradesh, Mansar in Maharashtra and some of the cave sites of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
    • In fact, shell inscriptions are also reported in Indonesia’s Java and Borneo.
    • Scholars have tried to decipher shell script but have not been successful.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Back2Basics: Gupta Empire

    • The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE.
    • This period is considered as the Golden Age of India by historians.
    • The ruling dynasty of the empire was founded by the king Sri Gupta; the most notable rulers of the dynasty were Chandragupta I, Samudragupta, and Chandragupta II alias Vikramaditya.
    • The 5th-century CE Sanskrit poet Kalidasa credits the Guptas with having conquered about twenty-one kingdoms, both in and outside India, including the kingdoms of Parasikas, the Hunas, the Kambojas, tribes located in the west and east Oxus valleys, the Kinnaras, Kiratas, and others.
    • Many of the literary sources, such as Mahabharata and Ramayana, were canonized during this period.
    • The Gupta period produced scholars such as Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, and Vatsyayana who made great advancements in many academic fields.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Coastal Zones Management and Regulations

    Tarballs on Mumbai Coast

    Prelims Only | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Tarballs

    Mains level: Oil spills and the threats posed

    A beach in South Mumbai, saw black oil-emanating balls lying on the shore.

    What are Tarballs?

    • Tarballs are dark-coloured, sticky balls of oil that form when crude oil floats on the ocean surface.
    • Tarballs are formed by weathering of crude oil in marine environments.
    • They are transported from the open sea to the shores by sea currents and waves.
    • Tarballs are usually coin-sized and are found strewn on the beaches. Some of the balls are as big as a basketball while others are smaller globules.
    • However, over the years, they have become as big as basketballs and can weigh as much as 6-7 kgs.

    How are tarballs formed?

    • Wind and waves tear the oil slick into smaller patches that are scattered over a much wider area.
    • Various physical, chemical and biological processes (weathering) change the appearance of the oil.

    Why are tarballs found on the beaches during the monsoon?

    • It is suspected that the oil comes from the large cargo ships in the deep sea and gets pushed to the shore as tarballs during monsoon due to wind speed and direction.
    • All the oil spilt in the Arabian sea eventually gets deposited on the western coast in the form of tarballs in the monsoon season when wind speed and circulation pattern favour transportation of these tarballs.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Historical and Archaeological Findings in News

    [pib] Hybodont Shark fossils found in Jaisalmer

    Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 1: Distribution Of Key Natural Resources Across The World

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Hybodont Shark

    Mains level: Not Much

    In a rare discovery, teeth of new species of Hybodont shark of Jurassic age have been reported for the first time from Jaisalmer by a team of officers from the Geological Survey of India (GSI).

    Hybodont Shark

    • Hybodonts, an extinct group of sharks, was a dominant group of fishes in both marine and fluvial environments during the Triassic and early Jurassic time.
    • However, hybodont sharks started to decline in marine environments from the Middle Jurassic onwards until they formed a relatively minor component of open-marine shark assemblages.
    • They finally became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous time 65 million years ago.

    Significance of the fossil

    • The newly discovered crushing teeth from Jaisalmer represents a new species named by the research team as Strophodusjaisalmerensis.
    • These sharks have been reported for the first time from the Jurassic rocks (approximately, between 160 and 168 million years old) of the Jaisalmer region of Rajasthan.
    • The genus Strophodus has been identified for the first time from the Indian subcontinent and is only the third such record from Asia, the other two being from Japan and Thailand.
    • It opens a new window for further research in the domain of vertebrate fossils.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Back2Basics: Geological time-scale

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • North-East India – Security and Developmental Issues

    50th anniversary of Meghalaya’s Statehood

    Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Federalism

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: States reorganization

    Mains level: Not Much

    The Meghalaya Assembly has given an indigenous touch to the National Anthem ahead of the 50th anniversary of Meghalaya’s Statehood in 2022.

    About Meghalaya

    • Meghalaya meaning “abode of clouds” was formed by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: the United Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills on 21 January 1972.
    • It was previously part of Assam, but on 21 January 1972, the districts of Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills became the new state of Meghalaya.
    • It is the wettest region of India, with the wettest areas in the southern Khasi Hills recording an average of 12,000 mm (470 in) of rain a year.
    • About 70 percent of the state is forested.
    • The Meghalaya subtropical forests ecoregion encompasses the state; its mountain forests are distinct from the lowland tropical forests to the north and south.

    Note the chronology of reorganization states in India

    State Formation Year Status prior to the formation
    Andhra 1953 Part of the state of Madras
    Gujarat 1960 Part of the state of Bombay
    Maharashtra 1960 Part of the state of Bombay
    Kerala 1956 State of Travancore and Cochin
    Nagaland 1963 Union territory
    Haryana 1966 Part of Punjab
    Karnataka 1956 State of Mysore was formed in 1953, enlarged Mysore in 1956 which was renamed in 1973.
    Himachal Pradesh 1971 Union Territory
    Manipur, Tripura 1972 Union Territories
    Meghalaya 1972 Autonomous state within state of Assam
    Sikkim 1975 Associate state since 1974 and a protectorate of India before that.
    Mizoram 1987 District of Assam till 1972 and Union Territory from 1972 to 1987.
    Arunachal Pradesh 1987 Union Territory
    Goa 1987 Union Territory
    Uttarakhand 2000 Part of Uttar Pradesh
    Chhattisgarh 2000 Part of Madhya Pradesh
    Jharkhand 2000 Part of Bihar
    Telangana 2014 Part of Andhra Pradesh

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Capital Markets: Challenges and Developments

    National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA)

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Effects Of Liberalization On The Economy, Changes In Industrial Policy and their effects on Industrial Growth

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: NFRA

    Mains level: Not Much

    Audit regulator National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) wants to be positioned as a regulator for the entire gamut of financial reporting, covering all processes and participants in the financial reporting chain.

    What is NFRA?

    • NFRA is an independent regulator to oversee the auditing profession and accounting standards in India under Companies Act 2013.
    • It came into existence in October 2018.
    • After the Satyam scandal took place in 2009, the Standing Committee on Finance proposed the concept of the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) for the first time in its 21st report.
    • Companies Act, 2013 then gave the regulatory framework for its composition and constitution.

    Functions

    • NFRA works to improve the transparency and reliability of financial statements and information presented by listed companies and large unlisted companies in India.

    Powers & duties

    • NFRA is responsible for recommending accounting and auditing policies and standards in the country.
    • It may undertake investigations, and impose sanctions against defaulting auditors and audit firms in the form of monetary penalties and debarment from practice for up to 10 years.
    • Since 2018, the powers of the NFRA were extended to include the governing of auditors of companies listed in any stock exchange, in India or outside of India, unlisted public companies above certain thresholds.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    [pib] Who was Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh?

    Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Social reformers in Colonial India

    Mains level: Not Much

    The PM has laid the foundation stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.

    UPSC is exploring deeper for social reformers involved in the freedom struggle. This is very much visible from the questions based on Rakhmabai, Gopal Baba Walangkar, Sakharam Deuskar etc. in CS Prelims 2020.

    Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh (1886-1979)

    • Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was an Indian freedom fighter, journalist, writer and a revolutionary.
    • He was President in the Provisional Government of India, which served as the Indian Government in exile during World War I from Kaabul in 1915.
    • He also formed the Executive Board of India in Japan in 1940 during the Second World War.
    • He also took part in the Balkan War in the year 1911 along with his fellow students of Muhammedan Anglo College.
    • In recognition of his services, the government of India issued postage stamps in his honor. He is popularly known as “Aryan Peshwa”.
    • He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1932.

    Involvement in Swadeshi Movement

    • He met several leaders involved in the Swadeshi movement, deciding to promote small industries with indigenous goods and local artisans.
    • He was influenced by the speeches of Dadabhai Naoroji, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Maharaja of Baroda, and Bipin Chandra Pal, helping to make him a patriot who turned Swadeshi.

    Formation of provisional govt in exile

    • On 1 December 1915 during World War I Pratap established the first Provisional Government of India at Kabul in Afghanistan as a government-in-exile of Free Hindustan, with himself as President, Maulavi Barkatullah as Prime Minister, and Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi as Home Minister, declaring jihad on the British.
    • Due to his revolutionary ideas Pratap had a good relationship with Lenin, who invited him to Russia after its liberation and welcomed him.
    • By this time, the British had noticed his activities, and the British Government of India put a bounty on his head, attached/confiscated his entire estate, and declared him a fugitive, causing him to flee to Japan in 1925.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    124 years of the Battle of Saragarhi

    Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Battle of Saragarhi

    Mains level: Anglo-Afghan Wars

    This September 12 marks the 124th anniversary of the Battle of Saragarhi that has inspired a host of armies, books and films, both at home and abroad.

    What is the Battle of Saragarhi?

    • The Battle of Saragarhi is considered one of the finest last stands in the military history of the world.
    • Twenty-one soldiers were pitted against over 8,000 Afridi and Orakzai tribals but they managed to hold the fort for seven hours.
    • Though heavily outnumbered, the soldiers of 36th Sikhs (now 4 Sikhs), led by Havildar Ishar Singh, fought till their last breath, killing 200 tribals and injuring 600.

    What was Saragarhi, and why was it important?

    • Saragarhi was the communication tower between Fort Lockhart and Fort Gulistan.
    • The two forts in the rugged North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), now in Pakistan. were built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh but renamed by the British.
    • Though Saragarhi was usually manned by a platoon of 40 soldiers, on that fateful day, it was being held by only 21 soldiers from 36th Sikh (now 4 Sikh) and a non-combatant called Daad, a Pashtun who did odd jobs for the troops.
    • Saragarhi helped to link up the two important forts which housed a large number of British troops in the rugged terrain of NWFP.
    • Fort Lockhart was also home to families of British officers.

    What transpired on that day?

    • Around 9 am that day, the sentry at Saragarhi saw a thick haze of dust and soon realized that it was caused by a large army of tribals marching towards the fort.
    • The 8,000 and 15,000 tribals wanted to isolate the two forts by cutting off the lines of communication between them.
    • Unfortunately, the Pathans had cut the supply route between Fort Lockhart and Saragarhi.

    Who was Havildar Ishar Singh who led the troops?

    • Havildar Ishar Singh was born in a village near Jagraon.
    • He joined the Punjab Frontier Force in his late teens after which he spent most of his time on various battlefields.
    • Soon after it was raised in 1887, Ishar was drafted into the 36th Sikhs.
    • He was in his early 40s when he was given independent command of the Saragarhi post.
    • Ishar Singh was quite a maverick who dared to disobey his superiors but he was loved by his men for whom he was always ready to go out on a limb.

    How was the news of the battle received in Britain?

    • Making a departure from the tradition of not giving gallantry medals posthumously, Queen Victoria awarded the 21 dead soldiers — leaving out the non-combatant/
    • They were awarded the Indian Order of Merit (comparable with the Victoria Cross) along with two ‘marabas’ (50 acres) and Rs 500 each.

    How are the slain soldiers remembered?

    • In 2017, the Punjab government decided to observe Saragarhi Day on September 12 as a holiday.
    • Even today the Khyber Scouts regiment of the Pakistani army mounts a guard and salutes the Saragarhi memorial close to Fort Lockhart.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor