19th March 2018 The Hindu and PIB Daily News Analysis

Daily Prelims Practice Question :-

1) Balfour declaration was issued exactly a hundred years ago on November 2, 1917. Which of the following statements is/are correct about Balfour declaration?

1. It is related to end of World War I.
2. It is related to Zionism.

(a) Only 1
(b) Only 2
(c) Both
(d) Neither

2) Which (one) of the following features of our Constitution is/are borrowed from the USSR (now Russia) Constitution?

1. Directive Principles of State Policy
2. Fundamental Duties
3. Ideals of justice in the Preamble

Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 only
(b) 1 and 3 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3

3) NITI Aayog’s ‘Darpan’ portal will

(a) Promote competitive federalism
(b) Foster healthy partnerships between the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations
(c) Enable civil society to keep track of the country’s progress in achieving targets listed under UN Sustainable Development Goals
(d) Serve as a compendium on good practices in governance thereby promoting cooperative federalism


1)Cataract :- A cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye which leads to a decrease in vision.

Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes.

Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry vision, halos around light, trouble with bright lights, and trouble seeing at night.

Cataracts are most commonly due to aging but may also occur due to trauma or radiation exposure.

Prevention includes wearing sunglasses and not smoking.

2)A two-day informal World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting will be held in India.

11th Ministerial Conference (MC 11)  took place in December last year in Buenos Aires.

3)Anthropological Survey of India was in News : Anthropological Research in India was founded 1945 in Varanasi and shifted to the Indian Museum at Calcutta in 1948.

Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) is the apex Indian organisation involved in anthropological studies and field data research for human and cultural aspects, working primarily in the fields of physical anthropology and cultural anthropology.

What was the News :- Researchers from the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) have discovered a number of Acheulian artefacts (dated to about 1, 500,000–1,50,000 years ago) along with contemporary Soanian ones from an unexplored site at Ghumarwin in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh.

The oldest dated Acheulian sites in India are those at Attirampakkam in Tamil Nadu.

What is Soanian : The Soanian is an archaeological culture of the Lower Paleolithic in the Siwalik region of the Indian subcontinent.

4)A Rhino Census was Conducted at the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary in Morigaon district of Assam.

5)Irani Cup: Ranji Champions Vidarbha Clinch Maiden title.

6)Measure of Manufacturing in India :- There are two key parameters that the government and private sector analysts use to gauge the level of activity in the manufacturing sector — the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).

What is manufacturing PMI? :- There are two main points of difference between the PMI and the IIP.

The first is that the PMI is a private sector survey while the IIP is gauged by the government.

The second difference is in what is being measured. While the IIP is a measure of output, PMI, as the name suggests, measures activity at the purchasing or input stage.