BPSC Pre Exam 2011 General Studies Solution

BPSC Pre Exam 2011 General Studies Solution

SET- A

1. Visible range or light spans 380 to 780 nm. ...B

2. Halophytes. ...... B

3. Environment include...The natural environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth . .....D

4. Xylem tissue....D

5. Flowering stimulus receives...The stimulus is perceived by mature leaves.The substance that transfers the stimulus is believed to be a hormone called florigen which is most probably a complex of hormones like gibberellins and anthesins. ....C

6. A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance that is formed through geological processes and that has a characteristic chemical composition, a highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. .....B

7. Dovelopment of natural system....C

8. Genetics..Genetics is the area of biological study concerned with heredity and with the variations between organisms that result from it.....D

9. Mendal.......C

10. Embryo.....C

11. Loamy soil....D

12. single type atom... C

13. Soil water max....D

14. Capillaries....D

15. Photosynthesis...C

16. Continent drifted apart

17. Solar system not include....D

18. Table salt (NaCl)...B

19. Sexual Reproduction....D

20. Salinity arabian sea...During the monsoon season, the upper waters are less then 35 parts per thousand salinity while in the non-monsoon season salinity is over 36 parts per thousand. ....B

21. Pro-democracy Myanmar leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been felicitated with Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Peace and Reconciliation.2009 ..B

22. Durnad cup...The Durand Football Tournament, the third oldest football tournament in the world.....A

23. 2G spectrum....C

24. A Raja.....D

25. Rajdhani Train.....he Trivandrum Rajdhani (2431/32) is a passenger train service in India,[1] connecting the national capital New Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of state Kerala. It runs from Thiruvanathapuram Central to Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station. It is the longest running Rajdhani Express train......B

26. Minimum age for iris mapping in census 2011...B

27. New six AIIMS....Bihar(Patna), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Orissa (Bhubaneshwar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur), Chhattisgarh (Raipur) and Uttaranchal (Rishikesh)

28. National election Watch aug 2010 report.....Among the political parties, the Congress is the richest. It has an aggregate income of Rs.1,518 crore earned over a seven-year period between the assessment years 2002-2003 and 2009-2010. For the same period, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party reported incomes of Rs. 754 crore and Rs. 358 crore respectively......D

29. Bihar election....C

30. 50% Women reservation in local bodiies...states like Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. Bihar was the first state to offer 50% reservation for women in panchayats, in 2005, following which Uttarkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan has also announced 50% reservation, to be implemented in the next panchayat election in early 2010. Kerala recently announced 50% reservation for women in panchayats and other local bodies; Maharashtra and Gujarat followed.....B

31. AVAHAN...Avahan is an initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reduce the spread of HIV in India. It began in 2003...C

32. Under water meeting...D

33. City bank of river ganga....Uttarkashi is located on the banks of river Bhagirathi ....C

34. Fundamenta right.....C

35. Kahira..is situated in 30° 5' N. lat. and 31" 20' E....B

36. International court....A

37. NewsWeek 2010 report on best contries.....D

38. Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) is ..Harvard University remains the No. 1 in the world for the eighth year....C

39. Diabetes Day..World Diabetes Day is the primary global awareness campaign of the diabetes mellitus world and is held on November 14 of each year..D

40. Julia Gillard....A

41. Burqa Banned...On 14 September 2010, the French Senate overwhelmingly approved a ban on burqas in public, with the law becoming effective beginning on 11 April 2011....B

42. Arjun Munda 11 Sept 2010..Arjun Munda has submitted a list of 45 MLAs in the 81-member house, which includes – BJP (18), JMM (18), AJSU (5), JD-U (2) and Independent (2) members....B

43. P. J. Thomas, a 1973-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre.....C

44. Mini Ratna..These miniratnas granted certain autonomy like incurring capital expenditure without government approval up to Rs. 500 crore or equal to their net worth, whichever is lower.....D

45. Right of Education 2010..The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), which was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009, describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution.^[1] India became one of 135 countries to make education a fundamental right of every child when the act came into force on 1 April 2010.....A

46. XVI Asian game 2010 india.....B

47. Shubha Tole 2010..Dr. Tole; the Associate Professor’s research at the TIFR’s ...A

48. World Statesman Award 2010......C

49. 3rd Antarctica research center.....A

50. Commonwelth game 2010 india women winner

51. Harappan port....B

52. Gupta emperor defeated hunas....C

53. Kalhana book...D

54. Rudradaman inscription...A

55. Slave dynesty 1st ruler......A

56. Devgiri ruler.......A

57. Pilgrimage tax abolished by...Akbar did abolish two obnoxious taxes on Hindus namely the pilgrimage tax in 1563 CE and Jizya....D

58. Dar-ul-shafa ...Firoz Shah Tughlaq was chosen as the Sultan of Delhi after the ... He established a charitable hospital called Dar- ul- shafa...... B

59. Permanent Settlement Concluded by the Cornwallis administration in 1793, Permanent Settlement was a grand contract between the east india company government and the Bengal landholders (zamindars and independent talukdars of all denominations)....A

60. Prarthana Samaj is founded by Dr. Atmaram Pandurang in 1867 with an aim to make people believe in one God and worship only one God...A

61. Father of indian renaissance was Raja Ram Mohan Roy...D

62. Swaraj Dal .....D

63. Theosophical SocietyThe Theosophical Society was established in New York, on November 17, 1875. Chief among its founders were Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky ...A

64. Tilak book....B

65. Mahaveer Swami born at.......A

66. Mahaparinirvan.......C

67. Dharmachakraparivartan...........B

68. capital of magadh.........C

69. Ajatsatru Dynasty........B

70. 3rd Buddhist council......D

71. Takla Makan Desert (desert, China), great desert of Central Asia and one of the largest sandy deserts in the world....D

72. Strait betwen Red sea....The Bab-el-Mandeb (variously transliterated Mandab or Mandib, and with article "el-" given also as "al-", with or without connecting dashes) meaning "Gate of Scars" in Arabic (باب المندب), is a strait located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti and Eritrea, north of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, and connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.....A

73. The Ninety East Ridge is a linear, age-progressive seamount chain in the Indian Ocean and is named for its near-parallel strike along the 90th meridian. ..B

74. Non Capital city...B

75. Highest Coal producing country..The People's Republic of China is the largest producer of coal in the world, while the United States contains the world's largest 'recoverable' coal reserves (followed by Russia, China, and India).....C

76. Folding is the result of.....C

77. Amritsar and shimla....A

78. Cool mine in Jharkhand....A

79. Oceanic salinity..D

80. state of india area wise.....A

81. Bihar census 2001...A

82. Wheat production....D

83. TISCO....TISCO and Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited, is the world's seventh largest steel company,[5] with an annual crude steel capacity of 31 million tonnes. It is the largest private sector steel company in India in terms of domestic production. Currently ranked 410th on Fortune Global 500, it is based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.....D

84. Sugarcane producer...A

85. Max no SC.....C

86. Bihar population...A

87. East central rail zone....HQ.....B

88. Industries commissioner office of bihar...A

89. North Bihar famous for...C

90. NH-2...D

91. swaraj....C

92. Provincial govt.....A

93. Indian constitution....A

94. Rajya Sabha....C

95. January26.....A

96. Public Account committee....Parliamentary Committee functioning under the control of the Speaker with a non-official Chairman appointed by the Speaker from among the Members of Lok Sabha elected to the Committee....B

97. Not correct....B

98. Non citizens....A

99. National defence committee....B

100.National emergency.....A

101.not correct...D

102.State govt....B

103.Commercial sources...A

104.Per capita energy consumption india....B

105.Oil crisis.....D

106.state electricity board......B

107.Indian economy...C

108.Speed post service.......Speed Post, the market leader in the domestic express industry, was started by Department of Posts in August 1986 for providing time-bound and express delivery of letters ’ documents and parcels across the nation and around the world. ....D

109.1st telephone.....A

110.Indian Coal industry...B

111.three tier system of Rural local govt....A

112.Ashok mehta committee...B

113.Rolling plan....B

114.Planning commission setup....The Planning Commission was set – up on March 15, 1950 ...A

115.Patna international air port...A

116.Bihar air services.....D

117.% of BPL in Bihar 1993-94...Bihar, which accounted for the highest percentage of BPL population in 1993-94 at 54.96 per cent, now recorded 42.6 per cent, a sharp drop of over 12.36 percentage points....A

118.Zamindari in Bihar.....C

119.Bihar industrial area development authorities...A or B

120.Export-oriented units bihar...?

121.Swaraj is my birth right..C

122.Madras mahajan sabha...In May 1884, S. Ramaswami Mudaliar and P. Anandacharlu established the Madras Mahajana Sabha....D

123.ist session of INC.....C

124.1st indian governer general...A

125.National council of education estab...?

126.Non cooperation movement...B

127.Montagu-chelsford report...C

128.Sher-e-panjab....C

129.Gandhi Irwin pact....A

130.Round table conferance...C

131.Abhinav bhrat...A

132.Do or Die......D

133.2nd Bihar provincial congress session.....B

134.27th session of INC...D- bankipur

135.16th session of Bihari students...

136.Bihari newspaper... ?

137.Raj kumar shukla...(A) Murli Bharhwa

138.Nibaran Chandra Dasgupta was the Head Master of Purulia Zilla (District) School. ...B

139.Kunwar Singh....C

140.Lord Shinha.....A

141.the value of x-[y-{z –.. (D) 0

142.if the function f:I -> f(x)= log x - (A)

143.Median....B

144.inverse matrix - (c)

145.Clock.....D

146.Player.....C

147.the coordinates of midpoint - (D)

148......?

149.Triangle PQR.....C

150........?

All the best !!

Sinha, Sachchidananda (1871-1950)

 

Sinha, Sachchidananda (1871-1950)

Born in a respectable middle-class Kayastha family at Arrah, the headquarters of the Shahabad district in Bihar, on 10 November 1871, Sachchidananda was the youngest child (and the only son in the family) of Bakshi Ramyad Sinha (1831-97), the Chief Pleader of the Maharaja of Dumraon. His grandfather, Bakshi Shiva Prasad (1790-1870), had been the Diwan of the Dumraon Estate.

Their ancestral home was somewhere near Lucknow and during the disturbed conditions under the later Mughals they migrated to the village of Murar near Buxar in Shahabad, and their locality in Murar is still known as Lakhnaua Tola. Some of their forefathers must have served in the Military Accounts Department of the Mughals and they were given the honorific appellation of Bakshi, but Sachchidananda never used it.
Sachchidananda's parents were Vedantists with liberal views and toleration for others, and they chose for their only son a name which represents the three sublimes attributes of the Divinity according to Hindu philosophy. From his parents Sachchidananda inherited a sprit of rationalism which gave him the strength to rebel openly in later life against unjust social restrictions and meaningless religious rituals and superstitions. He was the first well-known Bihari Hindu to have undertaken a sea-voyage to England and to have married (1894) outside his sub-caste.
Sachchidananda's wife Radhika Devi (1880-1919) was the only child of Seva Ram, a Barrister of Lahore, and the granddaughter of Rai Bahadur Kanhaiya Lal, a distinguished engineer of his time. It is generally held that Sachchidananda married a widow, but this is not the case. The most probable reason for Radhika Devi's being regarded as a widow must be that the remarriage of her paternal aunt Hardevi with Roshan Lal, a Barrister of Allahabad, a year before her own marriage, created quite a stir in northern India, and public memory being proverbially short, what was actually applicable to Hardevi was transferred to the niece, Radhika Devi.
Sachchidananda, learnt the Hindi alphabet first at home at his mother's feet. She used to hold in her house in the afternoon discourses on the Ramayana for the benefit of the local women-folk. Sachchidananda learnt the lessons of life as given in the epic in these midday gatherings and he used to say that the Ramayana had been a source of inspiration to him throughout his life, as it likewise inspired his countrymen-the petty or the mighty-for generations.
His father had a fairly big library in his house and he used to hold special evening lessons for the son. Sachchidananda was generally asked to read out to his father important chapters from different books on religion, history and politics and from the newspapers and magazines, to a large number of which his father used to subscribe. This aspect of the daily routine inculcated in the son a love of books and a devotion to duty and it also created in him a love for journalism which, as a hobby and useful pastime, he cultivated throughout his life.
Sachchidananda was educated at the Arrah Zilla School, T. K. Ghosh Academy at Patna, Patna College and City College, Calcutta. While he was a first-year Arts student of the Patna College, in 1888, he was deeply impressed by what he heard of and read about the genius and activities of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. He attended the Allahabad session of the Congress in that year with the sole object of being personally acquainted with Malaviyaji.

Later, in the summer of 1889, Malaviyaji visited Arrah on Congress organisational work and was Sachchidananda's guest at Patna. Sachchidananda wanted to be a lawyer, editor and public man like Malaviyaji, and with this end in view he prepared to sail to England to prosecute studies at the English Bar. But when his parents came to know about this, they made him discontinue his studies at Patna and took him home. After a few weeks he persuaded his parents to allow him to go to Calcutta and study there.

Once in Calcutta he again started preparations for a voyage to England and on 25 December 1889 secretly boarded a ship bound for London. But he was short of funds and on reaching Aden he wired his parents about his difficulties when they had no option but to be reconciled to the plan of their son.
In London Sachchidananda used to live with the Imam brothers, Ali and hasan. Along with them he took an active part in the deliberations of the Anjuman-i-Islamia, of which Mazharul Haq, Lala Har Kishan Lal, Shah Din Shafi, Abdur Rahim, M. A. Jinnah and Gandhiji were some of the prominent members. He was also an active member of the Northbrook Indian Club and was its Librarian for quite a long time. He was its Librarian for quite a long time. He was a voracious reader and soon he collected in his house a library of about one thousand books which formed the nucleus of the famous Sinha Library at Patna.

While in England he assisted the Congress Delegation of 1890 led by George yule and worked as a volunteer for the election of Dadabhai Naoroji from the Central Finsbury consistency in 1892. The training in practical politics, he thus received, stood him in good stead when he himself entered Indian politics as a Congressman in 1894.
Sachchidananda was called to the Bar from the Middle Temple on 26 January 1893 and returned to India in March. On his return he was asked by his relations to perform prayaschitta which he firmly refused to do. On this he was given a hero's welcome at Allahabad where the main speaker on the occasion was Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya.
During his stay in England and on his way back home Sachchidananda observed that the name of Bihar was unknown everywhere-even to educated Indians from other parts of the country. He also found that Bihar was politically and educationally very backward, and felt that it was so because it had no distinct political identity and individuality and because, as an unimportant part of the Bengal Presidency, it received inadequate official attention and care.

To agitate for the creation of a separate Province of Bihar he started a journal, the Behar Times, at Patna in 1894 with Mahesh Narayan as its Editor. The movement gained momentum by 1896 and more particularly after the partition of Bengal in 1905. In 1906 he reconstituted the management of the Behar Times and changed its name to the Beharee to serve the local interests best.
Sachchidananda organised the Bihari Student's Conference (1906), the Bihar Provincial Conference (1908) and the Bihar Provincial Congress Committee (1908) to popularise the demand for the creation of a Bihar Province and to mobilize all-India support for it. The Calcutta Press opposed him tooth and nail and very selfish motives were attributed to him. But he remained steadfast.

In 1910 he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council and managed to get his friend, Ali Imam, appointed as the Law Member in the Viceroy's Executive Council. After this, with the help of Ali Imam, it became comparatively easy for him to secure Provincial status for Bihar when the Government decided to revoke the Curzonian partition and redemarcate the territorial boundaries in eastern India in 1911. Mainly as a result of Sachchidananda's leadership and efforts the new Province of Bihar

and Orissa came into being on 1April 1912.
After this Sachchidananda became the recognised spokesman of the Bihari people and was chosen Secretary of the Reception Committee of the Congress session at Bankipore (Patna) in 1912. He was the President of the Bihar Provincial Congress Committee during 1916-20, but resigned when the majority of its members decided to follow Gandhiji's non-cooperation scheme at a meeting on 5 October 1920. He was a constitutionals and belonged to the Gokhale school of philosophy. But he never severed his connection with the Congress, and his house was a popular rendezvous of all nationalists of every denomination.
Earlier, in 1895, on medical advice Sachchidananda lived in Allahabad for a few years. There he came in intimate contact with Ramananda Chatterjee, Motilal Nehru and Tej Bahadur Sapru. He was the Secretary of the Kayastha Pathsala for some years and when Ramananda Chatterjee left permanently for Calcutta he became the Editor of the Kayastha Samachar. He founded the Hindustan Review in 1901, which he edited till his death except during the years 1921-26 when he was an Executive Councillor of Bihar and Orissa in charge of Jails, Judiciary and Finance. He was the first Indian to hold the Finance portfolio in a Province.

In 1909, along with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Motilal Nehru, he organised The Leader and brought C. Y. Chintamani from Vizianagram to Allahabad as Joint Editor; the Editor, being Negendranath Gupta, the former Editor of the Tribune, of Lahore. In fact, C. Y. Chintamani was Sachchidananda's find and gift to the people of the U. P.
In April 1913 Sachchidananda presided at the Agra and Oudh Provincial Conference held at Kanpur and acted as a member of the Patna University Committee (Nathan Committee). Next year he visited Europe as a member of the Congress Delegation. With the help of P. R. Das (younger brother of C. R. Das), Hasan Imam, Dr. P. K. Sen, and Rajendra Prasad, he started on 15 August 1918. The Searchlight at Patna, which is still one of Bihar's leading journals with progressive views. He was also the Managing Director of the Indian Nation (Patna) during 1931-32.
Sachchidananda's wife Radhika Devi died on 30 July 1919. As she was without any issue, she and her husband adopted a few weeks before her death the second son of Bhubaneshwar Prasad (alias Bachcha Babu of Patna) and gave him the name of Radhakrishna Sinha (1918-69). On her husband's advice she made a will to dispose of her properties by which a Chair of Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the Punjab University and a Chair of Economics at the Kayastha Pathsala (College), Allahabad, and a fund of about Rs. 1,50,000/- to house the Radhika Sinha Institute and Sachchidananda Sinha Library at Patna, were created.
In September 1919 Sachchidananda was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council and was its first elected Deputy President. In 1921 at the request of Lord Sinha, Governor of Bihar and Orissa, he became an Executive Councillor (1921-26) and also acted as President of the Bihar and Orissa Legislative Council from July 1921 to November 1922.
In 1927 Sachchidananda toured extensively in Europe and represented India at the International Press Conference at Geneva. He also addressed the East India Association London on the working of the Dyarchy in Indian Provinces.
Sachchidananda presided over the 35th session of the All India Kayastha Conference at Delhi in 1929. Next year he was elected unopposed from his home constituency of Shahabad to the Bihar and Orissa Legislative Council and became the leader of the opposition until 1937.
In 1933 he again toured extensively in Europe and was a prominent witness deposing before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Indian Reforms. In 1936 Sachchidananda was appointed the first non-official Vice-Chancellor of the Patna University and held that office until December 1944. During his Vice-Chancellorship postgraduate reaching and research received great encouragement. Twice (in 1937 and 1946) he was elected to represent the Patna University Constituency in the Bihar Legislative Council.
He delivered the Convocation address of the Lucknow University in 1935, the Nagpur University in 1937 and the Utkal University at its first Convocation in 1944. He was the Chairman of the Benares State Reforms Commission in 1939.
In 1946 he was elected by the Bihar Legislative Council to the Constituent. Assembly of India and he presided over its inaugural session.
Because of his valuable services to the nation honours began to pur profusely on him. The degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) was conferred on him by the Allahabad University in 1937, by the Patna University in 1947 and by the Benares Hindu University in 1948. Earlier, in 1944, the Governor of Bihar, Sir Thomas Rutherford, proposed his name for Knighthood, but he declined to accept it because he considered democratic ideals and acceptance of official titles incompatible.
Almost the last act of Sachchidananda was his signing on 14 February 1950, at a special function arranged by President Rajendra Prasad, of the India Constitution after it had been finally adopted by the Constituent Assembly. He was then lying seriously ill. He passed away peacefully in the early hours of 6 March 1950, after living a fairly long, active and full life.
Sachchidananda combined in himself rare qualities of leadership. As a journalist and orator he ranked high among the literary men of his time in India. His criticism of Iqbal and his works revealed his deep knowledge of Persian thought and Urdu literature. He also wrote an excellent travel-guide on Kashmir, which ran into three editions in course of only five years, from 1942 to 1947.

His book, 'Some Eminent Behar Contemporaries' (Himalaya Press, Patna, 1944), is indispensable to any serious student of the history of modern Bihar. All his mature and considered opinions and ideas are contained in his `Speeches and Writings' (first published in 1935; second enlarged edition, Thacker Spink & Co. Ltd., Calcutta, 1942), which is also a remarkable piece of literature.
A spirit of rationalism and nationalism pervaded all the political and social reform activities of Sachchidananda, and he carried with him the people who came in touch with him and read or heard his speeches. Even those who differed from him on matters of principle admitted the soundness of his arguments and admired his liberal constitutional approach to various problems. He had a host of Muslim friends, such as Ali Imam and his brother Hasan Imam, Mazharul Haq and Mirza Ismail, the most important result of which was that so long as he was active communal tension could not raise its head in Bihar.
In administration-whether in the Government, in the University or in any other public organisation-he endeared himself to the people all the more by his boldness, impartiality, punctuality and hard work, and throughout his public life all sections of the public were attracted to him by his charity, hospitality and personality.

Madras Mahajana Sabha

 

Madras Mahajana Sabha was an Indian nationalist organisation based in the Madras Presidency. Along with the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Bombay Presidency Association and the Indian Association, it is considered to be a predecessor of the Indian National Congress.

The first organisation in the Madras Presidency to agitate for the rights of Indians was the Madras Native Association which was established by publicist Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty in 1849. This organisation did not survive for long and was eventually disbanded.

In May 1884, S. Ramaswami Mudaliar and P. Anandacharlu established the Madras Mahajana Sabha.^[1]The office of the Sabha functioned in the beginning at the office of The Hindu, Ellis Road Junction, Mount Road. P. Rangaiah Naidu was elected President of the Sabha with R. Balaji Rao as its Secretary. In September 1885, the Sabha in collaboration with the Bombay Presidency Association and the Indian Association, sent a delegation to England.^[2]

The Mahajana Sabha held its first conference between December 29, 1884 and January 2, 1885. The Sabha adopted a moderate policy in its early days. However, still, its aims and objectives were considered seditious. In December 1895, on his visit to Madras, the Viceroy of India, Lord Elgin refused to receive the welcome address from the Madras Mahajana Sabha.

Madras Mahajana Sabha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

India is less poor today -- BPL population dips to 26.1 pc

 

the percentage of population below the poverty line (BPL) declining to 26.1 per cent in 1999-2000 from 35.97 per cent in 1993-94.

According to the latest estimates of the Planning Commission, while the percentage of rural BPL population has dropped to 27.09 per cent from 37.27 per cent, in urban India, it fell to 23.62 per cent from 32.36 per cent during the five-year period.

In absolute terms too, the BPL population has dropped by over 19 per cent, to 26.03 crore in 1999-2000, from 32.04 crore in 1993-94. The rural poor stands at 19.32 crore (as against 24.4 crore) while the urban poor stands at 6.71 crore (7.63 crore).

At the State-level, although the percentage of BPL population in Orissa has declined to 47.15 per cent from 48.56 per cent, it has overtaken Bihar to reach the top slot with the highest incidence of poverty.

Bihar, which accounted for the highest percentage of BPL population in 1993-94 at 54.96 per cent, now recorded 42.6 per cent, a sharp drop of over 12.36 percentage points.

The other big States with high incidence of poverty were Madhya Pradesh at 37.43 per cent (as against 42.52 per cent), Assam (36.09 per cent), Uttar Pradesh 31.15 per cent (40.85 per cent) and West Bengal 27.02 per cent (35.66 per cent).

Among the big States with very low level of poverty, Jammu and Kashmir led the pack with the percentage of BPL population at 3.48 per cent (25.17 per cent). Next in line was Punjab 6.16 per cent (11.77 per cent), Himachal Pradesh 7.63 (28.44 per cent), H aryana 8.74 (25.05 per cent) and Kerala 12.72 (25.43 per cent).

Poverty levels in the remaining States were Maharashtra 25.02 per cent (36.86 per cent), Tamil Nadu 21.12 per cent (35.03 per cent), Karnataka 20.04 per cent (33.16 per cent), Andhra Pradesh 15.77 per cent (22.19 per cent), Rajasthan 15.28 per cent (27.4 1 per cent) and Gujarat 14.07 per cent (24.21 per cent).

However, the Planning Commission has cautioned that the poverty ratios over the two time periods (1993-94 and 1999-2000) are not strictly comparable.

The survey methodology has undergone changes over the two surveys in 1993-94 and 1999-2000. It is basically to do with the estimation of monthly per capita consumption expenditure on the basis of responses using different recall periods. This fact needs to be kept in mind in assessing trends.

India is less poor today -- BPL population dips to 26.1 pc