DAY – 5 ( INSTA REVISION TEST)INSTA REVISION PLAN 3.0, 2020

Solution: D

Wall paintings

It would be interesting and perhaps necessary to discuss the technique and process of making Indian wall paintings which has been discussed in a special chapter of the Vishnudharamotaram, a Sanskrit text of the 5th/6th century A.D. The process of these paintings appears to have been the same in all the early examples that have survived with an only exception in the Rajarajeshwara temple at Tanjore which is supposed to be done in a true fresco method over the surface of the rock.

Most of the colours were locally available. Brushes were made up from the hair of animals, such as goat, camel, mongoose, etc.

The ground was coated with an exceedingly thin layer of lime plaster over which paintings were drawn in water colours. In true fresco method the paintings are done when the surface wall is still wet so that the pigments go deep inside the wall surface. Whereas the other method of painting which was followed in most of the cases of Indian painting is known as tempora or fresco-­secco. It is a method of painting on the lime plastered surface which has been allowed to dry first and then drenched with fresh lime water. On the surface thus obtained the artist proceeded to sketch out his composition. This first sketch was drawn by an experienced hand and subsequently corrected in many places with a strong black or deep brown line when the final drawing was added. After the painter had drawn out his first scheme in red, he proceeded to apply on this a semi-transparent terraverte monochrome, through which his outline could be seen. Over this preliminary glaze the artist worked in his local colours. The principal colours in use were red ochre, vivid red (vermilion), yellow ochre, indigo blue, lapis lazuli, lamp black (Kajjal), chalk white, terraverte and green.

Solution: A

The word ‘miniature’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Minium’, which means red lead paint. This paint was used in the illuminated manuscripts during the Renaissance period. It is generally confused with the word minimum, which would mean that they were small in size.

There are several preconditions that are necessary to be fulfilled for making Miniature paintings.

• The painting should not be larger than 25 square inch.
• The subject of the painting should be painted in not more than 1/6th of the actual size.

Solution: D

Unified Payments Interface (UPI):

• Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India facilitating inter-bank transactions.
• Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
• It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.
• Each Bank provides its own UPI App for Android, Windows and iOS mobile platform(s).
• It is not necessary to have a credit/debit card to perform UPI transaction

UPI – Benefits:

• Single click Two Factor authentication
• Round the clock availability
• Single Application for accessing different bank accounts
• Tap customers not having credit/debit cards
• Use of Virtual ID is more secure, no credential sharing

Solution: B

Pala School of Art

This school was flourishing during 750-1150 AD. These paintings are generally found as a part of manuscripts and were generally executed on palm leaf or vellum paper.

These paintings are characterised by sinuous lines and subdued tones of the background imagery. There are lonely single figures in the paintings and one rarely finds group paintings. They have simple compositions and were patronized by some of those rulers who promoted Buddhism. The proponents of the Vajrayana school of Buddhism also used and patronised these paintings. The prominent painters were Dhimman and Vitapala.

Solution: A

Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) was founded in 1899. It is an intergovernmental
organization located at The Hague, the Netherlands.

It provides a forum for solution of international disputes through arbitration and other peaceful means. It provides services of arbitral tribunal to resolve disputes between member states, international organizations, or private parties arising out of international agreements.

The PCA has a Financial Assistance Fund which aims at helping developing countries meet part of the costs involved in international arbitration or other means of dispute settlement offered by the PCA.

In PCA, parties can themselves select the arbitrators. The organization is not a United
Nations agency but has observer status in the UN General Assembly. The rulings of PCA are binding but the tribunal has no powers for enforcement. India is party to it.

https://pca-cpa.org/en/home/

Solution: B

Jahangir

The Mughal paintings reached its zenith in the period of Jahangir. He was a naturalist by nature and preferred the paintings of flora and fauna, i.e. birds, animals, trees and flowers. He emphasised on bringing naturalism to portrait painting. One of the unique trends that developed in this period was of decorated margins around the paintings that were sometimes as elaborate as the paintings themselves.

Jahangir was himself considered to be a good artist and he had his own private workshop although no major work by him survives. His atelier mostly created miniature paintings and the most famous amongst them were the naturalistic paintings of the Zebra, the turkey and the cock. One of the most famous artist from his period was Ustad Mansoor who was an expert in drawing the features of the most complex faces. An animal fable called Ayar-i-Danish (Touchstone of Knowledge) was illustrated during his reign.

Solution: B

Udayagiri and Khandagiri Caves, Odisha

They were made under the Kalinga King Kharavela in 1st-2nd century BC near modern-day Bhubaneswar. The cave complex has both man-made and natural caves. They were possibly carved out for residence of Jain monks. There are 18 caves in Udayagiri and 15 in Khandagiri.

Udayagiri caves are famous for the Hathigumpha inscription which is carved out in Brahmi script. The inscription starts out with “Jain Namokar Mantra” and highlights various military campaigns undertaken by the King Kharavela. There are inscriptions in other caves also.

Ranigumpha cave in Udayagiri is double-storied and has some beautiful sculptures.

Solution: B

Bhashan Char Island was formed about two decades ago on the mouth of river Meghna. The uninhabited island is located around 30 kilometres east of Hatiya Island in South-East Bangladesh.

Bangladesh wanted to move 100,000 Rohingya refugees to the muddy silt island to take the pressure off the overcrowded border camps.

Bhashan char is an uninhabited island where the government of Bangladesh has made shelter houses for one lakh Rohingya refugees at an estimated cost of Tk. 2,300 crore. However, environmentalists say that the Bhashan Char falls in an ecologically fragile area prone to floods, erosion and cyclones. The issue of forced relocation and lack of mobility on the island has also been raised by organisations working among the Rohingyas.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/move-rohingya-flood-prone-island-hrw-urges-bangladesh-200709075548649.html

Solution: A

Junagadh Caves:

These are Buddhist caves located in Junagadh district of Gujarat. There are not actually caves here, but three different sites can be found. (1) Khapra Kodiya, (2) Baba Pyare, (3) Uparkot. A unique feature of the Junagadh caves is the presence of a 30-50 ft high citadel known as “Upar Kot” in front of the prayer hall.

Solution: C

Tianwen-1 (TW-1) is an interplanetary mission to Mars by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) to send a robotic spacecraft, which consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.

It aims to complete orbiting, landing and roving in a single mission

Tianwen-1 will reach the Red Planet’s orbit in February 2021. The rover will land on Mars in May.

The orbiter will use high-resolution cameras to search for a suitable landing site somewhere in the Utopia Planitia region. It weighs around 240 kg and will carry cameras, a subsurface radar, a spectrometer, a magnetometer, and atmospheric sensors.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/china-mars-mission-tianwen-1-explained-6521179/

Solution: D

Solanki School: (also known as Maru-Gurjara style)

In the north-western parts of India including Gujarat and Rajasthan, this school developed under the patronage of the Solanki rulers. The features of this school are:

• The temple walls were devoid of any carvings.
• The garbhagriha is connected with the mandapa both internally as well as externally
• The porticos have decorative arched gateways known as torans.
• A unique feature of this school is the presence of step-tank, known as surya-kund in the proximity of the temple.
• The steps of the tank are full of small temples.
• There are wooden carvings present in these temples.
• The Solankis used a variety of material to make temples including sandstone, black basalt and soft marble.

Most of the temples are east-facing and designed such that every year, during the equinoxes, the sunrays fall directly into the central shrine.

Solution: D

Temple Architecture in South India

Narasimha group:

This represented the second stage of the development of temple architecture in South India. The rock-cut temples were decorated by intricate sculptures. Under Narasimhavarman, the mandapas were now divided into separate rathas. The biggest one was called the Dharmaraja ratha while the smallest one was called the Draupadi ratha. The design of a temple in the Dravidian style of architecture is a successor of the Dharmaraja ratha.

Solution: B

Nagaland              1963

Haryana                1966

Sikkim                 1975

Arunachal Pradesh     1987

Solution: A

Lodi dynasty: Under the Lodi dynasty, architecture continued to take a back seat. Only tombs were commissioned during this period. However, one important feature of architecture during this period was the introduction of double domes. It consisted of a hollow dome inside the top dome.

The reasons for the use of double domes were:

• To give strength to the structure, and
• To lower the inner height of the dome.

The tombs built during this phase were hard and bare, without any lavish decorations. They were built in octagonal shapes, with a diameter of roughly 15 metres. They were supported by a sloping verandah.

Solution: B

E7, or “Emerging 7” are seven largest emerging economies, comprising Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey, account for over a third of global GDP on purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, and over a quarter on Market exchange rates(MER) basis.

The term was coined by the economists John Hawksworth and Gordon Cookson at PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2006

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/an-unravelling-of-the-group-of-seven/article31798577.ece

Solution: C

The Malwa School of architecture, also known as the Pathan School of architecture is also one of the finest specimens of environmental adaptation of the period because of the following features:

• The use of large windows made the buildings and rooms well-ventilated.
• The pavilions were lightly arched which made them airy and allowed the buildings to remain cool in the heat.
• Artificial reservoirs known as ‘baulis’ were constructed in the premises for storage of water.
• Locally available materials were used.
• The use of batter system introduced by the Tughlaqs made the buildings strong.

Example: Raani Roopmati pavilion, Jahaz Mahal, Ashrafi Mahal etc.

The buildings had large windows, which could be as result of European influence and were decorated by a stylised use of arches and pillars.

Solution: A

Kalighat painting derives its name from its place of origin Kalighat in Kolkata. Kalighat is a bazaar near the Kali temple in Kolkota. Patua painters from rural Bengal came and settled in Kalighat to make images of gods and goddesses in the early nineteenth century.

Subjects are images of Kali, Lakshmi, Krishna, Ganesha, Shiva, and other gods and goddesses. In this process, artists developed a unique new form of expression, and effectively portray a wide range of subjects commenting on the social life of Bengal.

Solution: D

Some of the financial entities regulated by SEBI.

• Investment Banks
• Capital Markets
• Stock Brokers
• Real estate investment trusts (REITs)
• Infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs)
• Stock Exchanges
• Commodities Futures / Options
• Alternative Investment Funds

Solution: D

The Dilwara Temples are a group of Jain temples located near the Mount Abu settlement, Rajasthan’s only hill station. The earliest were built by Vimal Shah and supposedly designed or at least financed by Vastupala, Jain minister of Dholka.

These were built in pure white marble and adorned with exquisite sculpture. These were built under the patronage of Solanki rulers.

Solution: C

Antarctica has exceeded 20C for the first time, after researchers logged a temperature of 20.75C on an island off the coast of the peninsula.

This latest reading was taken at a monitoring station on Seymour Island, part of a chain of islands off the same peninsula, at the northernmost point of the continent.

Solution: A

Gol Gumbaz at Vijayapura (Earlier name Bijapur) is the mausoleum of king Muhammad Adil Shah, Adil Shah Dynasty. Construction of the tomb, located in Vijayapura, Karnataka, India, was started in 1626 and completed in 1656. The name is based on Gola gummata derived from Gol Gombadh meaning “circular dome“

Solution: C

Warli painting is a style of tribal art mostly created by the tribal people from the North Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra, India. Trees, birds, men and women collaborate to create a composite whole in a Warli painting. These paintings are made mostly by the women as part of their routine at auspicious celebrations. Subjects are predominantly religious with simple and local materials like white colour and rice paste and local vegetable glue on a plain contrasting background, made in a geometric patterns like squares, triangles, and circles.

Dots and crooked lines are the units of these composition. Flora and fauna and people’s day to day life also form a part of the painted. The paintings are expanded by adding subject after subject in a spiraling manner. Unlike other tribal art forms, Warli paintings do not employ religious iconography and is a more secular art form.

Solution: C

Law commission of India:

• It is an executive body established by an order of the Government of India.
• Originally formed in 1955, the commission is reconstituted every three years and so far, 277 reports have been submitted to the government.
• The last Law Commission, under Justice B.S. Chauhan (retd.), had submitted reports and working papers on key issues such as simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and the Assemblies and a uniform civil code.
• Prior to independence, the First Law Commission was established in 1834 by the British Government under the Chairmanship of Lord Macaulay.

Solution: C

Madhubani art is a style of Indian painting, practiced in the Mithila region of the Indian subcontinent. They are produced by village women who make three dimensional images using vegetable colour with few earthen colours and finished in black lines on cow dung treated paper.

The literal meaning of Kalamkari is a painting done by kalam (pen). This art got enriched as it came down from one generation to another. These paintings are made in Andhra Pradesh. It is hand painted as well as block printing with vegetable dyes applied on cloth. Vegetable dyes are used for colour in the Kalam Kari work. A small place Sri-Kalahasti is the best known centre of Kalamkari art. This work is also found at Masaulipatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

Similar to Kalighat Pats, one comes across another kind of Pats which are found in the state of Orissa. The Orissa patachitras, mostly painted on cloth are more detailed and more colourful and most of these depict stories of Hindu gods and goddesses.

Solution: A

Nag River:

• The Nag River is a river flowing through the city of Nagpur in Maharashtra, India.
• It is known for providing the etymology for the name Nagpur.
• Forming a part of the Kanhan-Pench river system, the Nag River originates in Lava hills near wadi.
• Why in News?

Industrialisation has reduced Nag River to a cursed lady, Bombay High Court said recently.