Minds Of Aspirants (Official)

PYQ 2025 Gs 1

Nicobar project Tribes - Shompen, nicobari Role of NGT Gs 1 Gs 3

PYQ 2021 Gs 4

AI impact summit Applications Gs 4 Gs 3

Reservation of seats to women Nari shakti vandan adhiniyam Delimitation

Upsc Cse pyq 2024; 2012

Part 2 1)Is the reservation of women applicable to Rajya sabha and legislative councils? 2)Is the reservation applicable for only 15 years? 3)does the reservation for women sub categorize based on schedule case, schedule tribe and OBC? 4)Can the women’s reservation be implemented immediately or in the coming 2029 general?-is there a constitutional method for it? Second article by Achary sir is a must read also, It talks about the freedom of speech for the members of parliament because recently much of the speech by the leader of opposition was removed. Who has the power to remove such paragraphs?- speaker Is the power given under the constitution?-No it’s under the rules made by the parliament What is the rule number? Under the rule can every paragraph be removed?-No, only the part which is unparliamentary can be removed. So what is the article in question?-article 105(Parliamentary privilege) So is this privilege not subjected to restrictions?-it is subjected to restrictions-article 121 and rules!

Feb 23 Two important articles from editorial- must read First is an article by our former chief election commissioner Quraishi sir, where gives the most clear understanding on, The women’s reservation bill(106 amendment act)- how it will be implemented only after, 1)census figures are published post 2026 2)Then delimitation commission has to demarcate the process of allocation -so it might not be included in the coming 2029 general election rather it appears to extend it till 2034. 4)4 delimitation commission(2024 pyq)have earlier been appointed(4th established in 2002, it took 6 years to publish its orders) 5)the article gives why it’s not implemented now-because the present members now may not get seats and hence, 6)solutions or way forward like to increase number of seats in the lok sabha in phases where the current members do not lose seats and 180 are added! It’s an excellent article which has more details on the issue of delimitation of constituency and women’s reservation like continued-part 2

Anthropology paper 1 2020 What is Sapir wharf hypothesis? Linguistic determinism- It states that language that a person speaks determines their thoughts-> so these thoughts influences culture. Cognitive anthropology Cognitive anthropology is an emic type of approach for analysis of culture, where instead of the outside ethnological survey , we study the “mental schemas” of individuals which in turn can enable us to understand the culture of a region or a social group. How cognitive anthropology and Sapir whorf hypothesis is connected? For studying the mental schemas if we observe the linguistic patterns of a language, we can understand the mental schemas, which in turn can make us understand the culture of a religion. Significance Cultural relativity and linguistic diversity protection. We will discuss questions like this for anthropology- do put the doubts - we can analyse them accordingly! Ember and Ember - chapter on language

Upsc pyq 2025 Gs2 Part 3 We have seen how the Net tax revenue collected is distributed between the union and states as the “vertical devolution”! Now we need to know what are the various taxes which are shared under this devolution- Direct tax(2023) -Corporation tax -3% of GDP -Income tax-3.5% of GDP Indirect tax(2023) -GST-3.3% of GDP -Customs - 0.7% of GDP -Excise -0.9 % of GDP Gross tax revenue - 10 to 12% of GDP Net tax revenue = GTR - Cess - tax collection expenses- grants to the union territories Both the 15th and 16th finance commission has recommended 41% of Net Tax Revenue to be devolved to the states.

UPSC GS2 PYQ 2025 Part 2 Previously I had given what is “vertical devolution”. Now we need to understand two things, What amount of money that the union government collects that it distributes and how they are shared among the states, which is called as “Horizontal devolution”. Firstly, The union government collects money according to the powers vested in it by article 246 and schedule 7, list 1. Eg; Customs duty ; Central excise; income tax ; corporation tax; Securities transaction tax etc All this money is deposited in the consolidated fund of India according to article 266. The whole collected tax is called as GROSS TAX REVENUE(GTR) The key to note here is that centre can levy CESS(for a specific purpose)+SURCHARGE(tax on tax)- but they will not form part of the devolution to the state. So from GTR we need to subtract the cess and also the amount spent for collecting taxes which is NET TAX REVENUE of the union. From this amount, a certain percentage is shared with the states!-to be continued…

Upsc gs2 2025 How to answer this question?-Part 1 What is fiscal federalism?-it is the distribution of financial resources between the various polities of India.(narrow definition) This distribution in detail is given in part12 of the constitution -article 264 and 280-give rise to a constitutional body appointed by the president-“Finance Commission”. So that is the work of the FC? The basic work is decide the division of funds between the centre and the state- this is called as “vertical devolution” The next essential work is to work out a criteria for division of the state allocated funds among the states for overall growth and development of the country- this is called as “horizontal devolution “ So the recent budget has accepted the recommendations of the 16th FC constituted under the former Niti ayog vice chairman Professor Aravind Pangriya. So what are the criteria and what part of the money gets split between the union and state and among the states-we will see in coming articles!