State, Politics and Development Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The slogan was used by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

'Minimum government, maximum governance' was a central slogan of the BJP's campaign in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, led by Narendra Modi, promising a leaner state and more efficient delivery.

The Indian National Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal did not use it. The slogan expressed the promise of a smaller, more efficient government focused on delivery rather than on expanding the state.

Answer: B

The correct code is Only (1) and (3).

The World Bank's influential account of governance (1992) identified its key components as public sector management, accountability, a legal framework for development, and transparency and information. Of the items listed, public sector management (1) and transparency and right to information (3) are among them.

Capacity building of the community and the management of micro-economic policies are not among these core components, so the codes including (2) or (4) are wrong.

Answer: B

The correct code is (4) (2) (3) (1).

Livelihood is matched with MGNREGA, the rural employment guarantee (a-4). Health goes with Ayushman Bharat, the health insurance and wellness programme (b-2). Poverty eradication goes with Kudumbashree, Kerala's poverty eradication mission built on women's self-help groups (c-3). Education goes with Udaan, the scheme to help girl students into technical education (d-1).

The first code wrongly puts Kudumbashree under health and Udaan under poverty eradication.

Answer: C

The answer is Rational policy-making.

The rational model asks policymakers to identify all alternatives, predict their consequences and choose the one that maximises net benefits. That requires explicit, hard choices among competing alternatives.

The systems model describes policy as the output of a political system responding to inputs, and the institutional approach focuses on government structures. Neither centres on choosing among alternatives, and 'critical approach' is not a standard model of this kind.

Answer: A

The key's answer is Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the reason of (A).

The political culture approach (Almond and Verba) studies the attitudes and orientations of a population as a whole, not of particular leaders, so A is true. R is also true: political culture is the pattern of how people view the political system and is seen as underlying political activity.

The key treats R as a description of what political culture is rather than the reason the approach leaves out individual leaders, so it marks R as true but not the reason of A.

Answer: C

The village is Mendha-lekha.

Mendha-Lekha, a Gond tribal village in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, adopted the slogan 'Mava Nate Mava Raj' and 'our government in Delhi and Mumbai, but in our village we are the government', practising decisions by consensus in its gram sabha. It was later among the first villages to obtain community forest rights.

Hiware Bazar and Ralegan Siddhi are known for watershed development and village renewal, but this slogan belongs to Mendha-Lekha.

Answer: C

The Vishakha guidelines relate to Sexual Harassment at workplace.

In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997), the Supreme Court laid down guidelines to prevent and redress sexual harassment of women at work, binding until legislation was passed. They were replaced by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013.

The guidelines are a part of women's rights in general, but their specific subject is workplace harassment, not domestic violence or political empowerment.

Answer: B

The definition is Gabriel Almond's.

Gabriel Almond, who developed the concept with Sidney Verba in The Civic Culture, wrote that every political system is embedded in a particular pattern of orientations to political action, which he called the political culture.

Daniel Lerner wrote on modernisation, and Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto on elites and the iron law of oligarchy. Almond and Verba distinguished parochial, subject and participant political cultures in their five-nation study.

Answer: C

The keyed answer is R. Bendix, who argued, in the context of the study of the growth of bureaucracy, that bureaucracy contributes to nation building, as a rational administrative machine that can carry out the aims of development.

A.R. Desai, G.S. Ghurye and S.C. Dube wrote on nationalism, caste and village life, and did not argue for the role of bureaucracy in this way, so options A, B and D are wrong.

Bendix wrote 'Nation-Building and Citizenship', and Max Weber's work on bureaucracy was a basis of his analysis of the rational administration of the modern state.

Answer: D

The element that is not part of the secularism described is the use of primordial loyalties as a part of social engineering. Secularism, as stated, curbs the divisiveness that springs from religious differences and clears the way for development, and so it integrates sub-groups, rejects prejudice and parochialism, and shows the gains of interdependence.

Primordial loyalties (religion, caste, region) are what secularism seeks to reduce, so option D is the one that is not an element. Options A, B and C are elements of it.