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Thursday, February 25, 2010
Cricket – ODI Records – Celebrating Sachin’s 200 Runs
Cricket – ODI Records – Celebrating Sachin’s 200 Runs
We have observed that in many recent exams, there were questions from cricket. Most of the questions revolved around records, personal achievement of cricket players, famous milestones etc.
We would advise all of you to keep an eye on the current matches being played and note down the records created and milestones achieved by famous players.
Here is a list of some important records.
And, yes, this post has been inspired by Sachin’s Double Century in ODI. We all love Sachin! Don’t we?
Sachin Tendulkar’s Records (as on Feb 24, 2010)
Highest ODI Runs: 17598
Highest Individual Score: 200*
Highest 100s: 46
Highest 50s: 93
Highest partnership: 338 (with Rahul Dravid)
ODI Records (as on Feb 24, 2010):
1. Highest individual score
Rank Runs Player Match Venue Season
1 200* India Sachin Tendulkar India v South Africa Gwalior 2010
2 194* Zimbabwe Charles Coventry Zimbabwe v Bangladesh Bulawayo 2009
3 194 Pakistan Saeed Anwar Pakistan v India Chennai 1997
4 189* West Indies Cricket Board Vivian Richards West Indies v England Manchester 1984
2. Highest innings Totals (>400 Runs)
Rank Score Teams Venue Season
1 443-9 (50 overs) Sri Lanka v Netherlands Amstelveen 2006
2 438-9 (49.5 overs) South Africa v Australia Johannesburg 2005-06
3 434-4 (50 overs) Australia v South Africa Johannesburg 2005-06
4 418-5 (50 overs) South Africa v Zimbabwe Potchefstroom 2005
5 414-7 (50 overs) India v Sri Lanka Rajkot 2009
6 413-5 (50 overs) India v Bermuda Port of Spain 2007
7 411-8 (50 overs) Sri Lanka v India Rajkot 2009
8 402-2 (50 overs) New Zealand v Ireland Aberdeen 2008
9 401-3 (50 overs) India v South Africa Gwalior 2010
3. Lowest innings totals
Rank Score Teams Venue Season
1 35 (18 overs) Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka Zimbabwe 2004
2 36 (18.4 overs) Canada v Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 1975
3 38 (15.4 overs) Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 2001
4 43 (19.5 overs) Pakistan v West Indies Australia 1993
5 44 (24.5 overs) Zimbabwe v Bangladesh Bangladesh 2009
4.Most Centuries in ODIs
Rank Centuries Innings Player Period
1 46 431 Sachin Tendulkar from 1989 to -
2 29 340 Ricky Ponting from 1995 to -
3 28 444 Sanath Jayasuriya from 1989 to -
4 22 311 Sourav Ganguly from 1992 to 2008
5 21 246 Herschelle Gibbs from 1996 to -
5. Highest partnerships
Rank Runs Players Opposition Venue Season
1 338 (2nd wicket) Sachin Tendulkar & Rahul Dravid v New Zealand Hyderabad 1999
2 318 (2nd wicket) Rahul Dravid & Sourav Ganguly v Sri Lanka Tonton 1999
3 274 (1st wicket) James Marshall & Brendon McCullum v India Aberdeen 2008
We may not be able to keep this list up to date. You can refer to ODI Records for current records which are updated regularly.
We have observed that in many recent exams, there were questions from cricket. Most of the questions revolved around records, personal achievement of cricket players, famous milestones etc.
We would advise all of you to keep an eye on the current matches being played and note down the records created and milestones achieved by famous players.
Here is a list of some important records.
And, yes, this post has been inspired by Sachin’s Double Century in ODI. We all love Sachin! Don’t we?
Sachin Tendulkar’s Records (as on Feb 24, 2010)
Highest ODI Runs: 17598
Highest Individual Score: 200*
Highest 100s: 46
Highest 50s: 93
Highest partnership: 338 (with Rahul Dravid)
ODI Records (as on Feb 24, 2010):
1. Highest individual score
Rank Runs Player Match Venue Season
1 200* India Sachin Tendulkar India v South Africa Gwalior 2010
2 194* Zimbabwe Charles Coventry Zimbabwe v Bangladesh Bulawayo 2009
3 194 Pakistan Saeed Anwar Pakistan v India Chennai 1997
4 189* West Indies Cricket Board Vivian Richards West Indies v England Manchester 1984
2. Highest innings Totals (>400 Runs)
Rank Score Teams Venue Season
1 443-9 (50 overs) Sri Lanka v Netherlands Amstelveen 2006
2 438-9 (49.5 overs) South Africa v Australia Johannesburg 2005-06
3 434-4 (50 overs) Australia v South Africa Johannesburg 2005-06
4 418-5 (50 overs) South Africa v Zimbabwe Potchefstroom 2005
5 414-7 (50 overs) India v Sri Lanka Rajkot 2009
6 413-5 (50 overs) India v Bermuda Port of Spain 2007
7 411-8 (50 overs) Sri Lanka v India Rajkot 2009
8 402-2 (50 overs) New Zealand v Ireland Aberdeen 2008
9 401-3 (50 overs) India v South Africa Gwalior 2010
3. Lowest innings totals
Rank Score Teams Venue Season
1 35 (18 overs) Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka Zimbabwe 2004
2 36 (18.4 overs) Canada v Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 1975
3 38 (15.4 overs) Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka Sri Lanka 2001
4 43 (19.5 overs) Pakistan v West Indies Australia 1993
5 44 (24.5 overs) Zimbabwe v Bangladesh Bangladesh 2009
4.Most Centuries in ODIs
Rank Centuries Innings Player Period
1 46 431 Sachin Tendulkar from 1989 to -
2 29 340 Ricky Ponting from 1995 to -
3 28 444 Sanath Jayasuriya from 1989 to -
4 22 311 Sourav Ganguly from 1992 to 2008
5 21 246 Herschelle Gibbs from 1996 to -
5. Highest partnerships
Rank Runs Players Opposition Venue Season
1 338 (2nd wicket) Sachin Tendulkar & Rahul Dravid v New Zealand Hyderabad 1999
2 318 (2nd wicket) Rahul Dravid & Sourav Ganguly v Sri Lanka Tonton 1999
3 274 (1st wicket) James Marshall & Brendon McCullum v India Aberdeen 2008
We may not be able to keep this list up to date. You can refer to ODI Records for current records which are updated regularly.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Introduction
Economies grow and develop, they expand and advance, and they progress and prosper. There are phases when they decline too, and there are economies that experience continuous decay. If one considers long stretches of human history, one knows that economies (civilizations) disappeared altogether. We will not take into account such long stretches of time. We shall not consider too distant a past either. We will leave them to historians, may be, economic historians.
Let us take a normal view. We shall then accept decline as an occasional, temporary phenomenon. We shall, therefore, use positive terms only. Of the positive terms, which have been used to describe changes as well as to prescribe changes, two have survived. They are growth and development. Because we shall primarily look at nations and countries as economies, and use terms such as ‘economic growth’ and ‘economic development’. We shall often try to distinguish ‘economic’ from ‘noneconomic’ though there are cases where it becomes difficult to do so.
In order to accommodate decline in level, we use phrase ‘negative growth’ and to describe perverse tendencies, we may use words ‘de-development’ or ‘maldevelopment’ though, we will not have occasions to use them.
You may find that, sometimes in many scientific treatises and very often in colloquy, words ‘growth’ and ‘development’ are used in interchangeable fashion. But, normally a distinction is made between the two, particularly in economics literature. It is maintained along the following lines. You might have noticed that the word ‘growth’ is used to describe increase in stature or size. It is used to describe a uni-dimensional change, as in the case of stature of a child or a uniform expansion in all directions, as in the case of size of a balloon. Even when we refer to development of a child, we refer to various dimensions of its personality. When we do not refer to dimensional aspects we use the word ‘growth’. Even schools and institutes, colleges and universities, hotels and hospitals grow. But, we are often quick to point out certain features that are not captured by word ‘growth’. It is rare, if ever, that growth takes place without development or development takes place without growth. In most cases, they would accompany each other. There may be cases when one is dominant and the other is dormant. In such cases, people talk of growth without development or development without growth. It is, therefore, good to make an analytical distinction between the two.
Economic Growth
Comprehensive view of the economy, taking all activities together, and call its growth as economic growth.
Let us look at it from the view point of production. The total quantum of goods and services produced in an economy in a given year is referred to as Gross Domestic Product. Let us measure it at factor cost and write it in its abbreviated form GDPFC. The GDPFC in 2000-01 was around Rs 17,00,000 crore. This is a flow of goods and services produced during the year 2000-01, measured in value terms. We may be interested in knowing whether the flow this year is larger than the flow last year. If so, we should know the measure of the flow last year. In order to see that we measure the ‘real’ change in flow, we should compute the magnitude of flows in both the years in the same prices. The prices may belong to 2000-01 or 1999-2000 or to 1993-94; the point is that the prices should relate to only one common year so that we measure only the change in flow of output, not a mix of change in output and change in prices. Such GDPs are said to be measured at constant prices. Suppose you look into a recent issue of the National Accounts Statistics published by the Central Statistical Organisation and find that at 1993-94 prices, the GDPFC for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 are Rs.10,00,000 crore and Rs.10,60,000 crore respectively. The growth in flow called GDPFC in absolute terms is Rs.60,000 crore. In relative terms it is 6 per cent and it is called growth rate. If we prepare a whole series for 10, 20 or 50 years then we often add words ‘per annum’ or ‘per year’ to growth rate. The growth rate is often expressed in terms of per cent per annum. This is a positive change; there could be a negative change also.
Suppose, we look at a twenty-year period and use yearly figures for flow of output of goods, which is measured in terms of GDPFC at constant prices. The growth rates calculated on yearly basis would differ from year to year. Shall we use nineteen year-to-year figures of growth rate, some of which may be negative, to describe the change? Or, should we just compare the initial figure with the final figure? If we adopt the former, how to summarise the nineteen figures? If we adopt the latter, it is possible that one of these (initial or final) figures is just ‘abnormal’ as it does not fall in line. Would it not be a good idea to speak of general tendency and ignore abnormal fluctuations around the general tendency of increase? Economic growth should, therefore, be taken as a long-term tendency reflected by increase in flow of final goods and services produced by the economy.
If there is a general tendency of growth but there are occurrences of decline, the rates of growth will be negative in certain years. Shall we then say that, while the potential of economy to produce is continuously increasing, the potential is sometimes not realised? There could be various reasons for occasional decline. In economies that depend to a large extent on external trade conditions in other countries may affect the realisation. Monsoon may widely fail in certain years and economy may get derailed for a while. Internal demand may for a variety of reasons fail to make full use of the potential. Some economists put too much emphasis on supply potential and ignore demand conditions. They define economic growth as long-term increase in production potential of the economy. Some economists feel that it is growth of per capita GDPFC, not GDPFC, that should be used to gauge the growth of an economy. But the point to be noted is that economic growth is a long-term phenomenon about the change in total economic activity of an economy.
Economic Development
Some economists hold a view that the economic development is not much different from economic growth. For them, both are processes of long-term increase in per capita income. Some other economists believe that development is distinctly different process than growth and covers other dimensions of change besides growth. Still others hold that, development is nothing but the level of per capita income achieved in a particular year. Whole human history may be thought of as a succession of developments or changes, largely in positive direction. Looking from a distance, we find that production structure of the economy has changed: from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture, from agriculture to manufacturing, from manufacturing to automatic production, from production of goods to production of services. It does not mean services were not produced, say thousand years ago; it only means that its relative importance has changed and that this might have occurred with increase in all activities in a broad sense.
However, economics takes most of its lues from the economic history of the West during the last two centuries or so. During this period, a variety of sweeping changes took place in Europe, which may broadly be categorized as technological and institutional. Early economists working in the field of development economics took notice of change in the composition of output and deployment of labour in activities. They called it structural change. Structural change meant relative increase in terms of proportion of non-agriculture/nonprimary output and concomitant changes in proportion of employment of labour in non-agricultural activities (and also in that of allocation of capital and land). However, this structural change has to take place along with increase in output of all (or majority of) goods, not with decrease. They defined economic development as economic growth with structural change in favour of nonagricultural activities. And structural change was understood in terms of composition of GDP and industrial distribution of labour. This was a reflection of changing demand for goods and services on the one hand and changing demand for labour by production technology in different sectors on the other. Most of the mainstream economists believed that all economies in the West traversed the same path and believed that other economies would also follow the same path. When they did not find it happening they pointed out that institutional changes are equally important. Institutional changes could mean emergence of new institutions in governance, as also in capital market and money market. Some pointed out necessity of attitudinal changes in people – a leap from traditional value system to modern value system. In order to accommodate this thought, economic development could be defined as economic growth plus, that is, something more than economic growth. There were attempts to emphasize technological dimension of development. It was pointed out that economic growth should be accompanied by rise in productivity. Then, we could define economic development as economic growth accompanied by rise in productivity.
Development is, however, just not concerned with description of economic history. It is to be pursued as a deliberate mechanism of deliverance of the masses from poverty and idleness in a relatively short period of time. Developments in the fifties and sixties did not perceptibly change the scene in these crucial areas. Many economists felt disillusioned and started showing their anguish. One such Western economist who had been dealing with problems of development asserted in a World Conference in Delhi: “The questions to ask about a country’s development are: What has been happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality? If all three of these have declined from high levels, then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned. If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all the three, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’ even if per capita income doubled.”
Indeed, here is a reference to conscious attempts made to develop an economy by adopting a strategy. If the strategy brings in growth in capacity to produce more and in actual output, transformation in structure of economy in terms of composition of output of goods and services or even in deployment of labour force, emergence of institutions in terms of variety of banks, and technology making use of machines and power instead of men and cattle, but makes no significant dent on basic problems of underdeveloped countries, what use are the efforts or the strategy? This implies that development has to be related to welfare of people. It was suggested much earlier that welfare of people depends on the size of the cake as well as its distribution. One is entitled to one’s wages when one is employed. One should get adequate wages, if employed or should get remunerative prices for what one produces, if self-employed. Mass poverty was one particular problem we attributed to the colonial rule and wanted to secure self-governance in order to eradicate it. If that scourge still persists on a large scale, we have a cause to worry about. In short, the suggestion is that the income should get redistributed in favour of relatively worse-off. Keeping this in view, some economists prefer to define economic development as economic growth with redistribution of resources in favour of the relatively worse off. In this concept, it is believed that reduction in inequality will reduce poverty and will lead to reduction in unemployment too.
Introduction
Economies grow and develop, they expand and advance, and they progress and prosper. There are phases when they decline too, and there are economies that experience continuous decay. If one considers long stretches of human history, one knows that economies (civilizations) disappeared altogether. We will not take into account such long stretches of time. We shall not consider too distant a past either. We will leave them to historians, may be, economic historians.
Let us take a normal view. We shall then accept decline as an occasional, temporary phenomenon. We shall, therefore, use positive terms only. Of the positive terms, which have been used to describe changes as well as to prescribe changes, two have survived. They are growth and development. Because we shall primarily look at nations and countries as economies, and use terms such as ‘economic growth’ and ‘economic development’. We shall often try to distinguish ‘economic’ from ‘noneconomic’ though there are cases where it becomes difficult to do so.
In order to accommodate decline in level, we use phrase ‘negative growth’ and to describe perverse tendencies, we may use words ‘de-development’ or ‘maldevelopment’ though, we will not have occasions to use them.
You may find that, sometimes in many scientific treatises and very often in colloquy, words ‘growth’ and ‘development’ are used in interchangeable fashion. But, normally a distinction is made between the two, particularly in economics literature. It is maintained along the following lines. You might have noticed that the word ‘growth’ is used to describe increase in stature or size. It is used to describe a uni-dimensional change, as in the case of stature of a child or a uniform expansion in all directions, as in the case of size of a balloon. Even when we refer to development of a child, we refer to various dimensions of its personality. When we do not refer to dimensional aspects we use the word ‘growth’. Even schools and institutes, colleges and universities, hotels and hospitals grow. But, we are often quick to point out certain features that are not captured by word ‘growth’. It is rare, if ever, that growth takes place without development or development takes place without growth. In most cases, they would accompany each other. There may be cases when one is dominant and the other is dormant. In such cases, people talk of growth without development or development without growth. It is, therefore, good to make an analytical distinction between the two.
Economic Growth
Comprehensive view of the economy, taking all activities together, and call its growth as economic growth.
Let us look at it from the view point of production. The total quantum of goods and services produced in an economy in a given year is referred to as Gross Domestic Product. Let us measure it at factor cost and write it in its abbreviated form GDPFC. The GDPFC in 2000-01 was around Rs 17,00,000 crore. This is a flow of goods and services produced during the year 2000-01, measured in value terms. We may be interested in knowing whether the flow this year is larger than the flow last year. If so, we should know the measure of the flow last year. In order to see that we measure the ‘real’ change in flow, we should compute the magnitude of flows in both the years in the same prices. The prices may belong to 2000-01 or 1999-2000 or to 1993-94; the point is that the prices should relate to only one common year so that we measure only the change in flow of output, not a mix of change in output and change in prices. Such GDPs are said to be measured at constant prices. Suppose you look into a recent issue of the National Accounts Statistics published by the Central Statistical Organisation and find that at 1993-94 prices, the GDPFC for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 are Rs.10,00,000 crore and Rs.10,60,000 crore respectively. The growth in flow called GDPFC in absolute terms is Rs.60,000 crore. In relative terms it is 6 per cent and it is called growth rate. If we prepare a whole series for 10, 20 or 50 years then we often add words ‘per annum’ or ‘per year’ to growth rate. The growth rate is often expressed in terms of per cent per annum. This is a positive change; there could be a negative change also.
Suppose, we look at a twenty-year period and use yearly figures for flow of output of goods, which is measured in terms of GDPFC at constant prices. The growth rates calculated on yearly basis would differ from year to year. Shall we use nineteen year-to-year figures of growth rate, some of which may be negative, to describe the change? Or, should we just compare the initial figure with the final figure? If we adopt the former, how to summarise the nineteen figures? If we adopt the latter, it is possible that one of these (initial or final) figures is just ‘abnormal’ as it does not fall in line. Would it not be a good idea to speak of general tendency and ignore abnormal fluctuations around the general tendency of increase? Economic growth should, therefore, be taken as a long-term tendency reflected by increase in flow of final goods and services produced by the economy.
If there is a general tendency of growth but there are occurrences of decline, the rates of growth will be negative in certain years. Shall we then say that, while the potential of economy to produce is continuously increasing, the potential is sometimes not realised? There could be various reasons for occasional decline. In economies that depend to a large extent on external trade conditions in other countries may affect the realisation. Monsoon may widely fail in certain years and economy may get derailed for a while. Internal demand may for a variety of reasons fail to make full use of the potential. Some economists put too much emphasis on supply potential and ignore demand conditions. They define economic growth as long-term increase in production potential of the economy. Some economists feel that it is growth of per capita GDPFC, not GDPFC, that should be used to gauge the growth of an economy. But the point to be noted is that economic growth is a long-term phenomenon about the change in total economic activity of an economy.
Economic Development
Some economists hold a view that the economic development is not much different from economic growth. For them, both are processes of long-term increase in per capita income. Some other economists believe that development is distinctly different process than growth and covers other dimensions of change besides growth. Still others hold that, development is nothing but the level of per capita income achieved in a particular year. Whole human history may be thought of as a succession of developments or changes, largely in positive direction. Looking from a distance, we find that production structure of the economy has changed: from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture, from agriculture to manufacturing, from manufacturing to automatic production, from production of goods to production of services. It does not mean services were not produced, say thousand years ago; it only means that its relative importance has changed and that this might have occurred with increase in all activities in a broad sense.
However, economics takes most of its lues from the economic history of the West during the last two centuries or so. During this period, a variety of sweeping changes took place in Europe, which may broadly be categorized as technological and institutional. Early economists working in the field of development economics took notice of change in the composition of output and deployment of labour in activities. They called it structural change. Structural change meant relative increase in terms of proportion of non-agriculture/nonprimary output and concomitant changes in proportion of employment of labour in non-agricultural activities (and also in that of allocation of capital and land). However, this structural change has to take place along with increase in output of all (or majority of) goods, not with decrease. They defined economic development as economic growth with structural change in favour of nonagricultural activities. And structural change was understood in terms of composition of GDP and industrial distribution of labour. This was a reflection of changing demand for goods and services on the one hand and changing demand for labour by production technology in different sectors on the other. Most of the mainstream economists believed that all economies in the West traversed the same path and believed that other economies would also follow the same path. When they did not find it happening they pointed out that institutional changes are equally important. Institutional changes could mean emergence of new institutions in governance, as also in capital market and money market. Some pointed out necessity of attitudinal changes in people – a leap from traditional value system to modern value system. In order to accommodate this thought, economic development could be defined as economic growth plus, that is, something more than economic growth. There were attempts to emphasize technological dimension of development. It was pointed out that economic growth should be accompanied by rise in productivity. Then, we could define economic development as economic growth accompanied by rise in productivity.
Development is, however, just not concerned with description of economic history. It is to be pursued as a deliberate mechanism of deliverance of the masses from poverty and idleness in a relatively short period of time. Developments in the fifties and sixties did not perceptibly change the scene in these crucial areas. Many economists felt disillusioned and started showing their anguish. One such Western economist who had been dealing with problems of development asserted in a World Conference in Delhi: “The questions to ask about a country’s development are: What has been happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality? If all three of these have declined from high levels, then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country concerned. If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all the three, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’ even if per capita income doubled.”
Indeed, here is a reference to conscious attempts made to develop an economy by adopting a strategy. If the strategy brings in growth in capacity to produce more and in actual output, transformation in structure of economy in terms of composition of output of goods and services or even in deployment of labour force, emergence of institutions in terms of variety of banks, and technology making use of machines and power instead of men and cattle, but makes no significant dent on basic problems of underdeveloped countries, what use are the efforts or the strategy? This implies that development has to be related to welfare of people. It was suggested much earlier that welfare of people depends on the size of the cake as well as its distribution. One is entitled to one’s wages when one is employed. One should get adequate wages, if employed or should get remunerative prices for what one produces, if self-employed. Mass poverty was one particular problem we attributed to the colonial rule and wanted to secure self-governance in order to eradicate it. If that scourge still persists on a large scale, we have a cause to worry about. In short, the suggestion is that the income should get redistributed in favour of relatively worse-off. Keeping this in view, some economists prefer to define economic development as economic growth with redistribution of resources in favour of the relatively worse off. In this concept, it is believed that reduction in inequality will reduce poverty and will lead to reduction in unemployment too.
Scientific Instruments
Scientific Instruments
Altimeter—An instrument used for measuring altitudes in aircraft.
Ammeter—An instrument for measuring electrical currents in amperes.
Anemometer—An instrument for measuring the force and velocity of wind.
Audiometer—An instrument for measuring the intensity of sound.
Audiophone—An instrument for improving imperfect sense of hearing.
Barometer—An apparatus used for measuring the atmospheric pres-sure. It is of 2 types—Aneroid and Fortin’s Barometer.
Calorimeter—An instrument used for measuring quantities of heat.
Carburettor—An apparatus used in an internal combustion engine for charging air with petrol vapour.
Cardiograph—A medical instrument for tracing heart movements.
Chronometer—An instrument kept on board ships for measuring accurate time.
Cinematography—It contains a series of lenses arranged to throw on screen an enlarged image of photographs.
Crescograph—It was invented by J.C. Bose. It is used for measuring growth in plants.
Dip Circle—An instrument for determining the angle between the direction of the resultant intensity of earth’s field and the horizontal component at a plane. This particular angle is known as the dip of that place.
Drinker’s Apparatus—An instrument used to help breathing in infantile paralysis.
Dynamo—The origin of electricity in a dynamo is the transformation of mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Electrometer—It is an instrument for measuring electricity.
Eudiometer—A glass tube for measuring volume changes in chemical reactions between gases.
Evaporimeter—Cumulative Pan Evaporimeter used to measure water evaporation through sunlights.
Galvanometer—An instrument for measuring electric currents of small magnitude.
Hygroscope—An instrument used to illustrate dynamics of rotating bodies; a type of spinning wheel fixed to the axle.
Hydrometer—An instrument used for measuring the specific gravity of liquids.
Hydrophone—An instrument for recording sound under water.
Hygrometer—An instrument for measuring humidity in air.
Lactometer—It is used for testing the purity of milk.
Manometer—An instrument for determining the pressure of a gas.
Mariner’s compass—An apparatus used by sailors to tell them the direction. The needle always points north south.
Microphone—An instrument for converting sound waves into electrical vibrations and thus to magnify the sound.
Microscope—An instrument used for mangifying minute objects by a lens system.
Odometer—An instrument by which the distance covered by wheeled vehicles is measured.
Phonograph—An instrument for reproducing sound.
Photometer—It is an instrument for measuring the intensity of light; a device for comparing the luminous intensity of sources of light.
Polarimeter—An instrument used for measuring optical activity.
Potentiometer—It is used for comapring electromotive force (e.m.f.) of cells measurement of the thermal e.m.f. large potential differences and currents.
Pyrometer—An instrument for recording high temperatures from a great distance.
Radar—It is an abbreviated form of Radio, Angle, Direction and Range. It is used for detecting the direction and range of an approaching plane by means of radio microwaves.
Rain Gauge—An apparatus for recording rainfall at a particular place.
Radiometer—An instrument for measuring the emission of radiant energy.
Refractometer—An instrument to measure refractive indexes.
Saccharimeter—An instrument for determining the amount of sugar in a solution. It is used in breweries.
Seismometer or Seismograph—An instrument for recording earth-quake shocks.
Sextant—An instrument invented by John Hadley used for measuring the altitude of the sun and other heavenly bodies.
Spectrometer—An instrument for measuring the energy distribution of a particular type of radiation.
Speedometer—An instrument which indicates the speed at which a vehicle is moving.
Spherometer—An instrument for measuring curvature of surfaces.
Stethoscope—An instrument used by physicians to hear and analyse movements of heart and lungs.
Stroboscope—An instrument for viewing objects moving rapidly with a periodic motion and to see them as if they were at rest.
Sunshine Recorder—It is used to record sunshine duration (hrs/day) for growth of crops/plants.
Tachometer—An instrument for determining speeds of aeroplanes and motor-boats.
Teleprinter—An instrument which prints automatically messages sent from one place to another on telegraph lines.
Telstar—It is a space communication satellite developed by Bell for overseas communications. It was launched on July 10, 1962 from Cape Canaveral (U.S.A.). Besides telephone calls, Telstar enables television microwave transmission to be made from and to any country with a transmitting and receiving station.
Telescope—It is an apparatus used for observing distant objects.
Theodollite–An instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical angles.
Thermocouple—An instrument based on thermoelectricity used for measuring temperatures.
Thermometer—An apparatus used for measuring temperature (maxi. and mini.)
Thermometer (Dry and Wet Bulb)—It is used to measure atmospheric humidity.
Thermostat—An instrument used to regulate temperature to a particular degree.
Viscometer—An instrument to measure viscosity.
Wind Vane—An instrument for measuring wind direction, indicated with N,S E,W directions.
Altimeter—An instrument used for measuring altitudes in aircraft.
Ammeter—An instrument for measuring electrical currents in amperes.
Anemometer—An instrument for measuring the force and velocity of wind.
Audiometer—An instrument for measuring the intensity of sound.
Audiophone—An instrument for improving imperfect sense of hearing.
Barometer—An apparatus used for measuring the atmospheric pres-sure. It is of 2 types—Aneroid and Fortin’s Barometer.
Calorimeter—An instrument used for measuring quantities of heat.
Carburettor—An apparatus used in an internal combustion engine for charging air with petrol vapour.
Cardiograph—A medical instrument for tracing heart movements.
Chronometer—An instrument kept on board ships for measuring accurate time.
Cinematography—It contains a series of lenses arranged to throw on screen an enlarged image of photographs.
Crescograph—It was invented by J.C. Bose. It is used for measuring growth in plants.
Dip Circle—An instrument for determining the angle between the direction of the resultant intensity of earth’s field and the horizontal component at a plane. This particular angle is known as the dip of that place.
Drinker’s Apparatus—An instrument used to help breathing in infantile paralysis.
Dynamo—The origin of electricity in a dynamo is the transformation of mechanical energy into electrical energy.
Electrometer—It is an instrument for measuring electricity.
Eudiometer—A glass tube for measuring volume changes in chemical reactions between gases.
Evaporimeter—Cumulative Pan Evaporimeter used to measure water evaporation through sunlights.
Galvanometer—An instrument for measuring electric currents of small magnitude.
Hygroscope—An instrument used to illustrate dynamics of rotating bodies; a type of spinning wheel fixed to the axle.
Hydrometer—An instrument used for measuring the specific gravity of liquids.
Hydrophone—An instrument for recording sound under water.
Hygrometer—An instrument for measuring humidity in air.
Lactometer—It is used for testing the purity of milk.
Manometer—An instrument for determining the pressure of a gas.
Mariner’s compass—An apparatus used by sailors to tell them the direction. The needle always points north south.
Microphone—An instrument for converting sound waves into electrical vibrations and thus to magnify the sound.
Microscope—An instrument used for mangifying minute objects by a lens system.
Odometer—An instrument by which the distance covered by wheeled vehicles is measured.
Phonograph—An instrument for reproducing sound.
Photometer—It is an instrument for measuring the intensity of light; a device for comparing the luminous intensity of sources of light.
Polarimeter—An instrument used for measuring optical activity.
Potentiometer—It is used for comapring electromotive force (e.m.f.) of cells measurement of the thermal e.m.f. large potential differences and currents.
Pyrometer—An instrument for recording high temperatures from a great distance.
Radar—It is an abbreviated form of Radio, Angle, Direction and Range. It is used for detecting the direction and range of an approaching plane by means of radio microwaves.
Rain Gauge—An apparatus for recording rainfall at a particular place.
Radiometer—An instrument for measuring the emission of radiant energy.
Refractometer—An instrument to measure refractive indexes.
Saccharimeter—An instrument for determining the amount of sugar in a solution. It is used in breweries.
Seismometer or Seismograph—An instrument for recording earth-quake shocks.
Sextant—An instrument invented by John Hadley used for measuring the altitude of the sun and other heavenly bodies.
Spectrometer—An instrument for measuring the energy distribution of a particular type of radiation.
Speedometer—An instrument which indicates the speed at which a vehicle is moving.
Spherometer—An instrument for measuring curvature of surfaces.
Stethoscope—An instrument used by physicians to hear and analyse movements of heart and lungs.
Stroboscope—An instrument for viewing objects moving rapidly with a periodic motion and to see them as if they were at rest.
Sunshine Recorder—It is used to record sunshine duration (hrs/day) for growth of crops/plants.
Tachometer—An instrument for determining speeds of aeroplanes and motor-boats.
Teleprinter—An instrument which prints automatically messages sent from one place to another on telegraph lines.
Telstar—It is a space communication satellite developed by Bell for overseas communications. It was launched on July 10, 1962 from Cape Canaveral (U.S.A.). Besides telephone calls, Telstar enables television microwave transmission to be made from and to any country with a transmitting and receiving station.
Telescope—It is an apparatus used for observing distant objects.
Theodollite–An instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical angles.
Thermocouple—An instrument based on thermoelectricity used for measuring temperatures.
Thermometer—An apparatus used for measuring temperature (maxi. and mini.)
Thermometer (Dry and Wet Bulb)—It is used to measure atmospheric humidity.
Thermostat—An instrument used to regulate temperature to a particular degree.
Viscometer—An instrument to measure viscosity.
Wind Vane—An instrument for measuring wind direction, indicated with N,S E,W directions.
The Constitution of India & Indian Polity
The Constitution of India & Indian Polity
The Preamble
Articles of the Constitution
Schedules
The task of framing the Constitution of India was given to the Constituent Assembly, formed under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. The inaugural meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on December 9, 1946. Dr Sachidananda Sinha was dected provisional Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. On December 11, 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the permanent chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
The Constitution of India was enacted, signed and adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949.
On January 26, 1950, the Constitution of India came into force on which date India also became a Republic. Our constitution makes detailed provisions for the following:
Citizenship,
Fundamental Rights,
Directive Principles of State Policy,
Structure of the Government,
Parliament and State Legislatures,
Supreme Court and High Courts,
Relationship between the Union and the States,
Services,
Official Language and various other matters of basic importance
Salient Features of Constitution
It is the longest written constitution in the world.
Consisting of 22 Chapters, over 395 Articles and 12 Schedules.
It proclaims India a Sovereign Democratic Republic.
Fundamental Rights are guaranteed to all citizens of India.
Directive Principles of State Policy are incorporated.
It established the parliamentary system of government, i.e., the President of the Union is the constitutional head, the Council of Ministers or the Union Cabinet is the real executive and is responsible to the Lok Sabha.
It is federal in form (in normal times) but unitary in spirit (in emergencies).
It is neither too rigid (as some provisions can be amended by a simple majority) nor flexible (as some provisions require special majority for amendment).
It declares India a secular state.
It guarantees single citizenship to all citizens.
It introduced adult franchise, i.e., every adult above 18 years has the right to vote and the system of joint electorates.
It established an independent judiciary; the Supreme Court acts as a guardian of the Constitution in place of the Privy Council.
The Preamble
The draft of the Preamble was prepared by Jawaharlal Nehru and is based on the American model. The 42nd Amendment added the words ``Secular and Socialist'' and now the preamble reads as follows.
``We the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens :
Justice; social, economic and political;
Liberty; of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
Equality; of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all;
Fraternity; assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation;
In our Constituent Assembly, November 26, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution.
Articles of the Constitution
Part Article Deals with
Part I Articles 1-4 Territory of India,, admission,, establishment or formation of new states
Part II Articles 5-11 Citizenship
Part III Articles 12-35 Fundamental Rights
Part IV Articles 36-51 Directive Principles of State Policy
Part IV A Article 51-A Duties of a citizen of India. It was added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976
Part V Articles 52-151 Government at the Union level
Part VI Articles 152-237 Government at the State level
Part VII Article 238 Deals with states in Part B of the First Schedule. It was repealed by 7th Amendment in 1956
Part VIII Articles 239-241 Administration of Union Territories
Part IX Article 242-243 Territories in Part D of the First Schedule
and other territories. It was repealed by 7th Amendment in 1956
Part X Articles 244-244 A Scheduled and tribal areas
Part XI Articles 245-263 Relations between the Union and States
Part XII Articles 264-300 Finance,, property,, contracts and suits
Part XIII Articles 301-307 Trade,, commerce and travel within the
territory of India
Part XIV Articles 308-323 Services under the Union and States
Part XIV-A Articles 323A-323B Added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976
and deals with administrative tribunals to hear disputes and other complaints
Part XV Articles 324-329 Election and Election Commission
Part XVI Articles 330-342 Special provision to certain classes ST/SC
and Anglo Indians
Part XVII Articles 343-351 Official languages
Part XVIII Articles 352-360 Emergency provisions
Part XIX Articles 361-367 Miscellaneous provision regarding exemption of the President and governors from criminal proceedings
Part XX Article 368 Amendment of Constitution
Part XXI Articles 369-392 Temporary,, transitional and special provisions
Part XXII Articles 393-395 Short title, commencement and repeal
of the Constitution
Schedules
FIRST SCHEDULE : I. The State, II. The Union Territories.
SECOND SCHEDULE :
PART A. Provisions to the President and the Governors of States
PART B. (Repeated)
PART C. Provisions as to the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of the People and the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States and the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council of a State.
PART D. Provisions as to the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts.
PART E. Provisions as to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.
THIRD SCHEDULE : Forms of Oaths or Affirmations.
FOURTH SCHEDULE : Allocation of Seats in the Council of States.
FIFTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to the administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes.
PART A. General
PART B. Administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes
PART C. Scheduled Areas
PART D. Amendment of the Schedule
SIXTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to the administration of Tribal Areas in the States of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
SEVENTH SCHEDULE :
LIST I. Union List
LIST II. State List
LIST III. Concurrent List
EIGHTH SCHEDULE : Languages
NINTH SCHEDULE : Article 31B
TENTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to disqualification on the ground of defection
ELEVENTH SCHEDULE : Article 243G
TWELFTH SCHEDULE : Article 243W
The Preamble
Articles of the Constitution
Schedules
The task of framing the Constitution of India was given to the Constituent Assembly, formed under the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946. The inaugural meeting of the Constituent Assembly was held on December 9, 1946. Dr Sachidananda Sinha was dected provisional Chairman of the Constituent Assembly. On December 11, 1946, Dr. Rajendra Prasad was elected as the permanent chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
The Constitution of India was enacted, signed and adopted by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949.
On January 26, 1950, the Constitution of India came into force on which date India also became a Republic. Our constitution makes detailed provisions for the following:
Citizenship,
Fundamental Rights,
Directive Principles of State Policy,
Structure of the Government,
Parliament and State Legislatures,
Supreme Court and High Courts,
Relationship between the Union and the States,
Services,
Official Language and various other matters of basic importance
Salient Features of Constitution
It is the longest written constitution in the world.
Consisting of 22 Chapters, over 395 Articles and 12 Schedules.
It proclaims India a Sovereign Democratic Republic.
Fundamental Rights are guaranteed to all citizens of India.
Directive Principles of State Policy are incorporated.
It established the parliamentary system of government, i.e., the President of the Union is the constitutional head, the Council of Ministers or the Union Cabinet is the real executive and is responsible to the Lok Sabha.
It is federal in form (in normal times) but unitary in spirit (in emergencies).
It is neither too rigid (as some provisions can be amended by a simple majority) nor flexible (as some provisions require special majority for amendment).
It declares India a secular state.
It guarantees single citizenship to all citizens.
It introduced adult franchise, i.e., every adult above 18 years has the right to vote and the system of joint electorates.
It established an independent judiciary; the Supreme Court acts as a guardian of the Constitution in place of the Privy Council.
The Preamble
The draft of the Preamble was prepared by Jawaharlal Nehru and is based on the American model. The 42nd Amendment added the words ``Secular and Socialist'' and now the preamble reads as follows.
``We the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens :
Justice; social, economic and political;
Liberty; of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
Equality; of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all;
Fraternity; assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation;
In our Constituent Assembly, November 26, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution.
Articles of the Constitution
Part Article Deals with
Part I Articles 1-4 Territory of India,, admission,, establishment or formation of new states
Part II Articles 5-11 Citizenship
Part III Articles 12-35 Fundamental Rights
Part IV Articles 36-51 Directive Principles of State Policy
Part IV A Article 51-A Duties of a citizen of India. It was added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976
Part V Articles 52-151 Government at the Union level
Part VI Articles 152-237 Government at the State level
Part VII Article 238 Deals with states in Part B of the First Schedule. It was repealed by 7th Amendment in 1956
Part VIII Articles 239-241 Administration of Union Territories
Part IX Article 242-243 Territories in Part D of the First Schedule
and other territories. It was repealed by 7th Amendment in 1956
Part X Articles 244-244 A Scheduled and tribal areas
Part XI Articles 245-263 Relations between the Union and States
Part XII Articles 264-300 Finance,, property,, contracts and suits
Part XIII Articles 301-307 Trade,, commerce and travel within the
territory of India
Part XIV Articles 308-323 Services under the Union and States
Part XIV-A Articles 323A-323B Added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976
and deals with administrative tribunals to hear disputes and other complaints
Part XV Articles 324-329 Election and Election Commission
Part XVI Articles 330-342 Special provision to certain classes ST/SC
and Anglo Indians
Part XVII Articles 343-351 Official languages
Part XVIII Articles 352-360 Emergency provisions
Part XIX Articles 361-367 Miscellaneous provision regarding exemption of the President and governors from criminal proceedings
Part XX Article 368 Amendment of Constitution
Part XXI Articles 369-392 Temporary,, transitional and special provisions
Part XXII Articles 393-395 Short title, commencement and repeal
of the Constitution
Schedules
FIRST SCHEDULE : I. The State, II. The Union Territories.
SECOND SCHEDULE :
PART A. Provisions to the President and the Governors of States
PART B. (Repeated)
PART C. Provisions as to the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of the People and the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of States and the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and the Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council of a State.
PART D. Provisions as to the Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Courts.
PART E. Provisions as to the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.
THIRD SCHEDULE : Forms of Oaths or Affirmations.
FOURTH SCHEDULE : Allocation of Seats in the Council of States.
FIFTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to the administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes.
PART A. General
PART B. Administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes
PART C. Scheduled Areas
PART D. Amendment of the Schedule
SIXTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to the administration of Tribal Areas in the States of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
SEVENTH SCHEDULE :
LIST I. Union List
LIST II. State List
LIST III. Concurrent List
EIGHTH SCHEDULE : Languages
NINTH SCHEDULE : Article 31B
TENTH SCHEDULE : Provisions as to disqualification on the ground of defection
ELEVENTH SCHEDULE : Article 243G
TWELFTH SCHEDULE : Article 243W
The Basic Structure of the Indian Constitution
The Basic Structure of the Indian Constitution
Introduction
The debate on the 'basic structure' of the Constitution, lying somnolent in the archives of India's
constitutional history during the last decade of the 20th century, has reappeared in the public realm.
While setting up the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (the
Commission), the National Democratic Alliance government (formed by a coalition of 24 national and
regional level parties) stated that the basic structure of the Constitution would not be tampered with.
Justice M.N. Venkatachalaiah, Chairman of the Commission, has emphasised on several occasions
that an inquiry into the basic structure of the Constitution lay beyond the scope of the Commission's
work.
Several political parties -- notably the Congress (I) and the two Communist parties which are in the
opposition -- have made it clear that the review exercise was the government's ploy to seek legitimacy
for its design to adopt radical constitutional reforms thus destroying the basic structure of the
document.
Much of the public debate has been a victim of partial amnesia as even literate circles of urban India
are unsure of the ramifications of this concept, which was hotly debated during the 1970s and 1980s.
The following discussion is an attempt to chart the waters of that period rendered turbulent by the
power struggle between the legislative and the judicial arms of the State.
According to the Constitution, Parliament and the state legislatures in India have the power to make
laws within their respective jurisdictions. This power is not absolute in nature. The Constitution vests
in the judiciary, the power to adjudicate upon the constitutional validity of all laws. If a law made by
Parliament or the state legislatures violates any provision of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has
the power to declare such a law invalid or ultra vires. This check notwithstanding, the founding
fathers wanted the Constitution to be an adaptable document rather than a rigid framework for
governance. Hence Parliament was invested with the power to amend the Constitution. Article 368
of the Constitution gives the impression that Parliament's amending powers are absolute and
encompass all parts of the document. But the Supreme Court has acted as a brake to the legislative
enthusiasm of Parliament ever since independence. With the intention of preserving the original
ideals envisioned by the constitution-makers, the apex court pronounced that Parliament could not
distort, damage or alter the basic features of the Constitution under the pretext of amending it. The
phrase 'basic structure' itself cannot be found in the Constitution. The Supreme Court recognised this
concept for the first time in the historic Kesavananda Bharati case in 1973.1 Ever since the Supreme
Court has been the interpreter of the Constitution and the arbiter of all amendments made by Parliament.
The pre-Kesavanada position
Parliament's authority to amend the Constitution, particularly the chapter on the fundamental rights of
citizens, was challenged as early as in 1951. After independence, several laws were enacted in the
states with the aim of reforming land ownership and tenancy structures. This was in keeping with the
ruling Congress party's electoral promise of implementing the socialistic goals of the Constitution
[contained in Article 39 (b) and (c) of the Directive Principles of State Policy] that required
equitable distribution of resources of production among all citizens and prevention of
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Property owners -- adversely affected by these
laws -- petitioned the courts. The courts struck down the land reforms laws saying that they
transgressed the fundamental right to property guaranteed by the Constitution. Piqued by the
1 Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225: AIR 1973 SC 1461.
unfavourable judgements, Parliament placed these laws in the Ninth Schedule of2 the Constitution
through the First and Fourth amendments (1951 and 1952 respectively), thereby effectively
removing them from the scope of judicial review.
[Parliament added the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution through the very first amendment in 1951
as a means of immunising certain laws against judicial review. Under the provisions of Article 31,
which themselves were amended several times later, laws placed in the Ninth Schedule -- pertaining
to acquisition of private property and compensation payable for such acquisition -- cannot be
challenged in a court of law on the ground that they violated the fundamental rights of citizens. This
protective umbrella covers more than 250 laws passed by state legislatures with the aim of regulating
the size of land holdings and abolishing various tenancy systems. The Ninth Schedule was created
with the primary objective of preventing the judiciary - which upheld the citizens' right to property on
several occasions - from derailing the Congress party led government's agenda for a social
revolution.3]
Property owners again challenged the constitutional amendments which placed land reforms laws in
the Ninth Schedule before the Supreme Court, saying that they violated Article 13 (2) of the
Constitution.
Article 13 (2) provides for the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizen.4 Parliament and the
state legislatures are clearly prohibited from making laws that may take away or abridge the
fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizen. They argued that any amendment to the Constitution
had the status of a law as understood by Article 13 (2). In 1952 (Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union
of India5) and 1955 (Sajjan Singh v. Rajasthan6), the Supreme Court rejected both arguments and
upheld the power of Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution including that which affects the
fundamental rights of citizens. Significantly though, two dissenting judges in Sajjan Singh v.
Rajasthan case raised doubts whether the fundamental rights of citizens could become a plaything of
the majority party in Parliament.
The Golaknath verdict
In 1967 an eleven-judge bench of the Supreme Court reversed its position. Delivering its 6:5 majority
judgement in the Golaknath v. State of Punjab case7, Chief Justice Subba Rao put forth the curious
position that Article 368, that contained provisions related to the amendment of the Constitution,
merely laid down the amending procedure. Article 368 did not confer upon Parliament the power to
amend the Constitution. The amending power (constituent power) of Parliament arose from other
provisions contained in the Constitution (Articles 245, 246, 248) which gave it the power to make
laws (plenary legislative power). Thus, the apex court held that the amending power and legislative
powers of Parliament were essentially the same. Therefore, any amendment of the Constitution must
be deemed law as understood in Article 13 (2).
2 Originally, the Constitution guaranteed a citizen, the fundamental right to acquire hold and dispose of property under
Article 19f. Under Article 31 he could not be deprived of his property unless it was acquired by the State, under a law
that determined the amount of compensation he ought to receive against such an acquisition. Property owned by an
individual or a firm could be acquired by the State only for public purposes and upon payment of compensation
determined by the law. Article 31 has been modified six times -- beginning with the First amendment in 1951 --
progressively curtailing this fundamental right. Finally in 1978, Article 19f was omitted and Article 31 repealed by the Fortyfourth
amendment. Instead Article 300A was introduced in Part XII making the right to property only a legal right. This
provision implies that the executive arm of the government (civil servants and the police) could not interfere with the citizen's
right to property. However, Parliament and state legislatures had the power to make laws affecting the citizens' right to
property.]
3 Later on, laws relating to the nationalisation of certain sick industrial undertakings, the regulation of monopolies and restrictive
trade practices, transactions in foreign exchange, abolition of bonded labour, ceiling on urban land holdings, the supply and
distribution of essential commodities and reservation benefits provided for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in Tamil Nadu were
added to the Ninth Schedule through various constitutional amendments.
4 Article 13 (2) states- "The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the rights conferred by this Part and
any law made in contravention of this clause shall, to the extent of the contravention, be void." The term Part refers to Part III of
the Constitution which lists the fundamental rights of the citizen.
5 Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 458
6 Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1965 SC 845.
7 I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643.
The majority judgement invoked the concept of implied limitations on Parliament's power to
amend the Constitution. This view held that the Constitution gives a place of permanence to the
fundamental freedoms of the citizen. In giving the Constitution to themselves, the people had
reserved the fundamental rights for themselves. Article 13, according to the majority view, expressed
this limitation on the powers of Parliament. Parliament could not modify, restrict or impair
fundamental freedoms due to this very scheme of the Constitution and the nature of the freedoms
granted under it. The judges stated that the fundamental rights were so sacrosanct and
transcendental in importance that they could not be restricted even if such a move were to receive
unanimous approval of both houses of Parliament. They observed that a Constituent Assembly might
be summoned by Parliament for the purpose of amending the fundamental rights if necessary.
In other words, the apex court held that some features of the Constitution lay at its core and
required much more than the usual procedures to change them.
The phrase 'basic structure' was introduced for the first time by M.K. Nambiar and other counsels
while arguing for the petitioners in the Golaknath case, but it was only in 1973 that the concept
surfaced in the text of the apex court's verdict.
Nationalisation of Banks and Abolition of Privy Purses
Within a few weeks of the Golaknath verdict the Congress party suffered heavy losses in the
parliamentary elections and lost power in several states. Though a private member's bill - tabled by
Barrister Nath Pai - seeking to restore the supremacy of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution
was introduced and debated both on the floor of the house and in the Select Committee, it could not
be passed due to political compulsions of the time. But the opportunity to test parliamentary
supremacy presented itself once again when Parliament introduced laws to provide greater access to
bank credit for the agricultural sector and ensure equitable distribution of wealth and resources of
production and by:
a) nationalising banks and
b) derecognising erstwhile princes in a bid to take away their Privy purses, which were promised in
perpetuity - as a sop to accede to the Union - at the time of India's independence.
Parliament reasoned that it was implementing the Directive Principles of State Policy but the
Supreme Court struck down both moves. By now, it was clear that the Supreme Court and
Parliament were at loggerheads over the relative position of the fundamental rights vis-Ã -vis the
Directive Principles of State Policy. At one level, the battle was about the supremacy of Parliament
vis-Ã -vis the power of the courts to interpret and uphold the Constitution.
At another level the contention was over the sanctity of property as a fundamental right jealously
guarded by an affluent class much smaller than that of the large impoverished masses for whose
benefit the Congress government claimed to implement its socialist development programme.
Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down the President's order derecognising the
princes, in a quick move to secure the mandate of the people and to bolster her own stature Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and called a snap poll.
For the first time, the Constitution itself became the electoral issue in India. Eight of the ten
manifestos in the 1971 elections called for changes in the Constitution in order to restore the
supremacy of Parliament. A.K. Gopalan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) went to the extent
of saying that the Constitution be done away with lock stock and barrel and be replaced with one that
enshrined the real sovereignty of the people8. The Congress party returned to power with a two-thirds
majority. The electorate had endorsed the Congress party's socialist agenda, which among other
things spoke of making basic changes to the Constitution in order to restore Parliament's supremacy.
8 Quoted in Granville Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, The Indian Experience, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
1999, p. 235.
Through a spate of amendments made between July 1971 and June 1972 Parliament sought to
regain lost ground. It restored for itself the absolute power to amend any part of the Constitution
including Part III, dealing with fundamental rights.9 Even the President was made duty bound to give
his assent to any amendment bill passed by both houses of Parliament. Several curbs on the right
property were passed into law. The right to equality before the law and equal protection of the
laws (Article 14) and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 1910 were made
subordinate to Article 39 (b) & (c) in the Directive Principles of State Policy.11 Privy purses of
erstwhile princes were abolished and an entire category of legislation dealing with land reforms was
placed in the Ninth Schedule beyond the scope of judicial review.12
Emergence of the Basic Structure Concept- the Kesavanada milestone
Inevitably, the constitutional validity of these amendments was challenged before a full bench of the
Supreme Court (thirteen judges). Their verdict can be found in eleven separate judgements.13 Nine
judges signed a summary statement which records the most important conclusions reached by them
in this case. Granville Austin notes that there are several discrepancies between the points contained
in the summary signed by the judges and the opinions expressed by them in their separate
judgements.14 Nevertheless, the seminal concept of 'basic structure' of the Constitution gained
recognition in the majority verdict.
All judges upheld the validity of the Twenty-fourth amendment saying that Parliament had the power
to amend any or all provisions of the Constitution. All signatories to the summary held that the
Golaknath case had been decided wrongly and that Article 368 contained both the power and the
procedure for amending the Constitution.
However they were clear that an amendment to the Constitution was not the same as a law as
understood by Article 13 (2).
[It is necessary to point out the subtle difference that exists between two kinds of functions performed
by the Indian Parliament:
a) it can make laws for the country by exercising its legislative power15 and
b) it can amend the Constitution by exercising its constituent power.
Constituent power is superior to ordinary legislative power. Unlike the British Parliament which
is a sovereign body (in the absence of a written constitution), the powers and functions of the Indian
Parliament and State legislatures are subject to limitations laid down in the Constitution. The
Constitution does not contain all the laws that govern the country. Parliament and the state
legislatures make laws from time to time on various subjects, within their respective jurisdictions. The
general framework for making these laws is provided by the Constitution. Parliament alone is given
9 The Constitution (Twenty-fourth amendment) Act 1971.
10 Freedom of speech and expression, the right to assemble peacefully, the right to form unions and associations, the
right to move freely and reside in any part of India and the right to practise any profession or trade are the six
fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 19. The right to property was also guaranteed in this section until 1979 when it
was omitted by the Forty-fourth amendment during the Janata party regime.
11 The Constitution (Twenty-fifth amendment) Act 1971.
12 The Constitution (Twenty-sixth amendment) Act 1971 and The Constitution (Twenty-ninth amendment) Act 1972,
respectively.
13 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalavaru v State of Kerala and Another 1973 (4) SCC 225ff.
14 See Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution…, p.265.
15 By virtue of the powers conferred upon it in Articles 245 and 246, Parliament can make laws relating to any of the 97
subjects mentioned in the Union List and 47 subjects mentioned in the Concurrent List, contained in the Seventh Schedule
of the Constitution. Upon the recommendation of the Rajya Sabha (Council of States or the Upper House in Parliament)
Parliament can also make laws in the national interest, relating to any of the 66 subjects contained in the State List.
the power to make changes to this framework under Article 36816. Unlike ordinary laws,
amendments to constitutional provisions require a special majority vote in Parliament.
Another illustration is useful to demonstrate the difference between Parliament's constituent power
and law making powers. According to Article 21 of the Constitution, no person in the country may
be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
The Constitution does not lay down the details of the procedure as that responsibility is vested with
the legislatures and the executive. Parliament and the state legislatures make the necessary laws
identifying offensive activities for which a person may be imprisoned or sentenced to death. The
executive lays down the procedure of implementing these laws and the accused person is tried in a
court of law. Changes to these laws may be incorporated by a simple majority vote in the concerned
state legislature. There is no need to amend the Constitution in order to incorporate changes to these
laws. However, if there is a demand to convert Article 21 into the fundamental right to life by
abolishing death penalty, the Constitution may have to be suitably amended by Parliament using its
constituent power.
Most importantly seven of the thirteen judges in the Kesavananda Bharati case, including Chief
Justice Sikri who signed the summary statement, declared that Parliament's constituent power
was subject to inherent limitations. Parliament could not use its amending powers under Article
368 to 'damage', 'emasculate', 'destroy', 'abrogate', 'change' or 'alter' the 'basic structure' or
framework of the Constitution.
Basic Features of the Constitution according to the Kesavanada verdict
Each judge laid out separately, what he thought were the basic or essential features of the
Constitution. There was no unanimity of opinion within the majority view either.
Sikri, C.J. explained that the concept of basic structure included:
• supremacy of the Constitution
• republican and democratic form of government
• secular character of the Constitution
• separation of powers between the legislature, executive and the judiciary
• federal character of the Constitution
Shelat, J. and Grover, J. added two more basic features to this list:
• the mandate to build a welfare state contained in the Directive Principles of State Policy
• unity and integrity of the nation
Hegde, J. and Mukherjea, J. identified a separate and shorter list of basic features:
• sovereignty of India
• democratic character of the polity
• unity of the country
• essential features of the individual freedoms secured to the citizens
• mandate to build a welfare state
Jaganmohan Reddy, J. stated that elements of the basic features were to be found in the Preamble
of the Constitution and the provisions into which they translated such as:
• sovereign democratic republic
16 However certain constitutional amendments must be ratified by at least half of the State legislatures before they can come
into force. Matters such as the election of the President of the republic, the executive and legislative powers of the Union and
the States, the High Courts in the States and Union Territories, representation of States in Parliament and the Constitution
amending provisions themselves, contained in Article 368, must be amended by following this procedure.
• parliamentary democracy
• three organs of the State
He said that the Constitution would not be itself without the fundamental freedoms and the
directive principles.17
Only six judges on the bench (therefore a minority view) agreed that the fundamental rights of
the citizen belonged to the basic structure and Parliament could not amend it.
The minority view
The minority view delivered by Justice A.N. Ray (whose appointment to the position of Chief Justice
over and above the heads of three senior judges, soon after the pronunciation of the Kesavananda
verdict, was widely considered to be politically motivated), Justice M.H. Beg, Justice K.K. Mathew
and Justice S.N. Dwivedi also agreed that Golaknath had been decided wrongly. They upheld the
validity of all three amendments challenged before the court. Ray, J. held that all parts of the
Constitution were essential and no distinction could be made between its essential and non-essential
parts. All of them agreed that Parliament could make fundamental changes in the Constitution by
exercising its power under Article 368.
In summary the majority verdict in Kesavananda Bharati recognised the power of Parliament to
amend any or all provisions of the Constitution provided such an act did not destroy its basic
structure. But there was no unanimity of opinion about what appoints to that basic structure. Though
the Supreme Court very nearly returned to the position of Sankari Prasad (1952) by restoring the
supremacy of Parliament's amending power, in effect it strengthened the power of judicial review
much more.18
Basic Structure concept reaffirmed- the Indira Gandhi Election case
In 1975, The Supreme Court again had the opportunity to pronounce on the basic structure of the
Constitution. A challenge to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's election victory was upheld by the
Allahabad High Court on grounds of electoral malpractice in 1975. Pending appeal, the vacation
judge- Justice Krishna Iyer, granted a stay that allowed Smt. Indira Gandhi to function as Prime
Minister on the condition that she should not draw a salary and speak or vote in Parliament until the
case was decided. Meanwhile, Parliament passed the Thirty-ninth amendment to the Constitution
which removed the authority of the Supreme Court to adjudicate petitions regarding elections of the
President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Instead, a body constituted
by Parliament would be vested with the power to resolve such election disputes. Section 4 of the
Amendment Bill effectively thwarted any attempt to challenge the election of an incumbent, occupying
any of the above offices in a court of law. This was clearly a pre-emptive action designed to benefit
Smt. Indira Gandhi whose election was the object of the ongoing dispute.
Amendments were also made to the Representation of Peoples Acts of 1951 and 1974 and placed in
the Ninth Schedule along with the Election Laws Amendment Act, 1975 in order to save the Prime
Minister from embarassment if the apex court delivered an unfavourable verdict. The mala fide
intention of the government was proved by the haste in which the Thirty-ninth amendment was
passed. The bill was introduced on August 7, 1975 and passed by the Lok Sabha the same day. The
Rajya Sabha (Upper House or House of Elders) passed it the next day and the President gave his
assent two days later. The amendment was ratified by the state legislatures in special Saturday
sessions. It was gazetted on August 10. When the Supreme Court opened the case for hearing the
next day, the Attorney General asked the Court to throw out the case in the light of the new
amendment.
17 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalavaru v State of Kerala and Another 1973 (4) SCC pp. 637-38.
18 The majority view declared certain parts of the Twenty-fifth amendment invalid especially those relating to Article 31 (c)
and upheld the Twenty-ninth amendment- for a detailed account see Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution…, pp.
265ff.
Counsel for Raj Narain who was the political opponent challenging Mrs. Gandhi's election argued that
the amendment was against the basic structure of the Constitution as it affected the conduct of free
and fair elections and the power of judicial review. Counsel also argued that Parliament was not
competent to use its constituent power for validating an election that was declared void by the High
Court.
Four out of five judges on the bench upheld the Thirty-ninth amendment, but only after striking down
that part which sought to curb the power of the judiciary to adjudicate in the current election dispute.19
One judge, Beg, J. upheld the amendment in its entirety. Mrs. Gandhi's election was declared valid
on the basis of the amended election laws. The judges grudgingly accepted Parliament's power to
pass laws that have a retrospective effect.
Basic Features of the Constitution according to the Election case verdict
Again, each judge expressed views about what amounts to the basic structure of the Constitution:
According to Justice H.R. Khanna, democracy is a basic feature of the Constitution and
includes free and fair elections.
Justice K.K. Thomas held that the power of judicial review is an essential feature.
Justice Y.V. Chandrachud listed four basic features which he considered unamendable:
• sovereign democratic republic status
• equality of status and opportunity of an individual
• secularism and freedom of conscience and religion
• 'government of laws and not of men' i.e. the rule of law
According to Chief Justice A.N. Ray, the constituent power of Parliament was above the Constitution
itself and therefore not bound by the principle of separation of powers. Parliament could therefore
exclude laws relating election disputes from judicial review. He opined, strangely, that democracy
was a basic feature but not free and fair elections. Ray, C.J. held that ordinary legislation was not
within the scope of basic features.
Justice K.K. Mathew agreed with Ray, C.J. that ordinary laws did not fall within the purview of basic
structure. But he held that democracy was an essential feature and that election disputes must
be decided on the basis of law and facts by the judiciary.
Justice M.H. Beg disagreed with Ray, C.J. on the grounds that it would be unnecessary to have a
Constitution if Parliament's constituent power were said to be above it.20 Judicial powers were vested
in the Supreme Court and the High Courts and Parliament could not perform them. He contended that
supremacy of the Constitution and separation of powers were basic features as understood by
the majority in the Kesavananda Bharati case. Beg, J. emphasised that the doctrine of basic
structure included within its scope ordinary legislation also.
Despite the disagreement between the judges on what constituted the basic structure of the
Constitution, the idea that the Constitution had a core content which was sacrosanct was
upheld by the majority view.
19 The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Thirty-ninth amendment Act, i.e. Article 329A of the Constitution as it
existed in 1975.
20 A comparison with the Westminster model would bring out the subtleties involved in this matter more clearly. The United
Kingdom does not have a written Constitution like India or the USA. The British Parliament is a sovereign body and there is
very little difference between constitutional law and ordinary law in that country. The Indian Parliament owes its existence to a
written Constitution that was put together by another sovereign body, namely, the Constituent Assembly. Parliament's powers
(including the power to amend) are not sui juris but essentially derived from this Constitution. Therefore it cannot be said to
occupy a position superior to the Constitution.
The Kesavananda Review Bench
Within three days of the decision on the Election case Ray, C.J. convened a thirteen judge bench to
review the Kesavanada verdict on the pretext of hearing a number of petitions relating to land ceiling
laws which had been languishing in high courts. The petitions contended that the application of land
ceiling laws violated the basic structure of the Constitution. In effect the Review bench was to decide
whether or not the basic structure doctrine restricted Parliament's power to amend the
Constitution. The decision in the Bank Nationalisation case was also up for review.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a speech in Parliament, refused to accept the
dogma of basic structure.21
It must be remembered that no specific petition seeking a review of the Kesavananda verdict filed
before the apex court- a fact noted with much chagrin by several members of the bench. N.N.
Palkhivala appearing for on behalf of a coal mining company eloquently argued against the move to
review the Kesavananda decision. Ultimately, Ray, C.J. dissolved the bench after two days of
hearings. Many people have suspected the government's indirect involvement in this episode seeking
to undo an unfavourable judicial precedent set by the Kesavananda decision. However no concerted
efforts were made to pursue the case.
The declaration of a National Emergency in June 1975 and the consequent suspension of
fundamental freedoms, including the right to move courts against preventive detention, diverted the
attention of the country from this issue.
Sardar Swaran Singh Committee and the Forty-second amendment
Soon after the declaration of National Emergency, the Congress party constituted a committee under
the Chairmanship of Sardar Swaran Singh to study the question of amending the Constitution in the
light of past experiences. Based on its recommendations, the government incorporated several
changes to the Constitution including the Preamble, through the Forty-second amendment (passed
in 1976 and came into effect on January 3, 1977). Among other things the amendment:
a) gave the Directive Principles of State Policy precedence over the Fundamental Rights
contained in Article 14 (right to equality before the law and equal protection of the laws),
Article 19 (various freedoms like freedom of speech and expression, right to assemble
peacefully, right to form associations and unions, right to move about and reside freely in
any part of the country and the right to pursue any trade or profession) and Article 21 (right
to life and personal liberty). Article 31C was amended to prohibit any challenge to laws made
under any of the Directive Principles of State Policy;22
b) laid down that amendments to the Constitution made in the past or those likely to be made in
future could not be questioned in any court on any ground;
c) removed all amendments to fundamental rights from the scope of judicial review and
d) removed all limits on Parliament's power to amend the Constitution under Article 368.
21 Speech in Parliament- October 27, 1976: see Indira Gandhi: Selected Speeches and Writings, vol. 3, p.288.
22 Article 31C stated that laws passed to implement the Directive Principles of State Policy could not be challenged in courts
on the ground that they violated any fundamental right. Prior to the Forty-second amendment this clause was applicable only
to Article 39 (b) & (c) of the Directive Principles which dealt with equitable distribution of wealth and resources of production.
Basic structure doctrine reaffirmed- the Minerva Mills and Waman Rao cases
Within less than two years of the restoration of Parliament's amending powers to near absolute terms,
the Forty-second amendment was challenged before the Supreme Court by the owners of Minerva
Mills (Bangalore) a sick industrial firm which was nationalised by the government in 1974.23
Mr. N.A. Palkhivala, renowned constitutional lawyer and counsel for the petitioners, chose not to
challenge the government's action merely in terms of an infringement of the fundamental right to
property. Instead, he framed the challenge in terms of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution.
Mr. Palkhivala argued that Section 55 of the amendment24 had placed unlimited amending power in
the hands of Parliament. The attempt to immunise constitutional amendments against judicial review
violated the doctrine of basic structure which had been recognised by the Supreme Court in the
Kesavananda Bharati and Indira Gandhi Election Cases. He further contended that the amended
Article 31C was constitutionally bad as it violated the Preamble of the Constitution and the
fundamental rights of citizens. It also took away the power of judicial review.
Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, delivering the majority judgement (4:1), upheld both contentions.
The majority view upheld the power of judicial review of constitutional amendments. They maintained
that clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 conferred unlimited power on Parliament to amend the
Constitution. They said that this deprived courts of the ability to question the amendment even if it
damaged or destroyed the Constitution's basic structure.
The judges, who concurred with Chandrachud, C.J. ruled that a limited amending power itself
is a basic feature of the Constitution.
Bhagwati, J. the dissenting judge also agreed with this view stating that no authority howsoever lofty,
could claim to be the sole judge of its power and actions under the Constitution.25
The majority held the amendment to Article 31C unconstitutional as it destroyed the harmony and
balance between fundamental rights and directive principles which is an essential or basic
feature of the Constitution.26 The amendment to Article 31C remains a dead letter as it has not
been repealed or deleted by Parliament. Nevertheless cases under it are decided as it existed prior to
the Forty-second amendment.
In another case relating to a similar dispute involving agricultural property the apex court, held that all
constitutional amendments made after the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgement were open to
judicial review.27 All laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after the date of the Kesavananda Bharati
judgement were also open to review in the courts. They can be challenged on the ground that they
are beyond Parliament's constituent power or that they have damaged the basic structure of the
Constitution. In essence, the Supreme Court struck a balance between its authority to interpret the
Constitution and Parliament's power to amend it.
23 Minerva Mills Ltd. v Union of India (1980) 3 SCC 625.
24 The Constitution (Forty-second amendment) Act 1976 [corresponding to Article 368 (4) & (5)]
25 Such a position seems contrary to the philosophy of separation of powers that characterise the structure of governance in
India. The Constitution provides for a scheme of checks and balances between the three organs of government namely, the
legislature, the executive and the judiciary, against any potential abuse of power. For example, the judges of the Supreme
Court and the High Courts in the States are appointed by the executive i.e. the President acting on the advice of the Prime
Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But they may be removed from office only if they are impeached by
Parliament. This measure helps the judiciary to function without any fear of the executive. Similarly, the executive is responsible
to Parliament in its day to day functioning. While the President appoints the leader of the majority party or a person who he
believes commands a majority in the Lok Sabha (House of the People or the Lower House) a government is duty bound to lay
down power if the House adopts a motion expressing no confidence in the government.
26 Bhagwati, J. upheld its validity and concurred that the government's takeover of the sick mill was valid.
27 Waman Rao v Union of India 1981 2 SCC 362. The Supreme Court decided this case along with that of Minerva Mills.
Bhagwati, J. who was in the minority again incorporated his opinions on both cases in a single judgment.
Summary
It may be said that the final word on the issue of the basic structure of the Constitution has not been
pronounced by the Supreme Court- a scenario that is unlikely to change in the near future. While the
idea that there is such a thing as a basic structure to the Constitution is well established its contents
cannot be completely determined with any measure of finality until a judgement of the Supreme Court
spells it out. Nevertheless the sovereign, democratic and secular character of the polity, rule of
law, independence of the judiciary, fundamental rights of citizens etc. are some of the
essential features of the Constitution that have appeared time and again in the apex court's
pronouncements. One certainty that emerged out of this tussle between Parliament and the
judiciary is that all laws and constitutional amendments are now subject to judicial review and laws
that transgress the basic structure are likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. In essence
Parliament's power to amend the Constitution is not absolute and the Supreme Court is the final
arbiter over and interpreter of all constitutional amendments.
Introduction
The debate on the 'basic structure' of the Constitution, lying somnolent in the archives of India's
constitutional history during the last decade of the 20th century, has reappeared in the public realm.
While setting up the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (the
Commission), the National Democratic Alliance government (formed by a coalition of 24 national and
regional level parties) stated that the basic structure of the Constitution would not be tampered with.
Justice M.N. Venkatachalaiah, Chairman of the Commission, has emphasised on several occasions
that an inquiry into the basic structure of the Constitution lay beyond the scope of the Commission's
work.
Several political parties -- notably the Congress (I) and the two Communist parties which are in the
opposition -- have made it clear that the review exercise was the government's ploy to seek legitimacy
for its design to adopt radical constitutional reforms thus destroying the basic structure of the
document.
Much of the public debate has been a victim of partial amnesia as even literate circles of urban India
are unsure of the ramifications of this concept, which was hotly debated during the 1970s and 1980s.
The following discussion is an attempt to chart the waters of that period rendered turbulent by the
power struggle between the legislative and the judicial arms of the State.
According to the Constitution, Parliament and the state legislatures in India have the power to make
laws within their respective jurisdictions. This power is not absolute in nature. The Constitution vests
in the judiciary, the power to adjudicate upon the constitutional validity of all laws. If a law made by
Parliament or the state legislatures violates any provision of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has
the power to declare such a law invalid or ultra vires. This check notwithstanding, the founding
fathers wanted the Constitution to be an adaptable document rather than a rigid framework for
governance. Hence Parliament was invested with the power to amend the Constitution. Article 368
of the Constitution gives the impression that Parliament's amending powers are absolute and
encompass all parts of the document. But the Supreme Court has acted as a brake to the legislative
enthusiasm of Parliament ever since independence. With the intention of preserving the original
ideals envisioned by the constitution-makers, the apex court pronounced that Parliament could not
distort, damage or alter the basic features of the Constitution under the pretext of amending it. The
phrase 'basic structure' itself cannot be found in the Constitution. The Supreme Court recognised this
concept for the first time in the historic Kesavananda Bharati case in 1973.1 Ever since the Supreme
Court has been the interpreter of the Constitution and the arbiter of all amendments made by Parliament.
The pre-Kesavanada position
Parliament's authority to amend the Constitution, particularly the chapter on the fundamental rights of
citizens, was challenged as early as in 1951. After independence, several laws were enacted in the
states with the aim of reforming land ownership and tenancy structures. This was in keeping with the
ruling Congress party's electoral promise of implementing the socialistic goals of the Constitution
[contained in Article 39 (b) and (c) of the Directive Principles of State Policy] that required
equitable distribution of resources of production among all citizens and prevention of
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Property owners -- adversely affected by these
laws -- petitioned the courts. The courts struck down the land reforms laws saying that they
transgressed the fundamental right to property guaranteed by the Constitution. Piqued by the
1 Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 SCC 225: AIR 1973 SC 1461.
unfavourable judgements, Parliament placed these laws in the Ninth Schedule of2 the Constitution
through the First and Fourth amendments (1951 and 1952 respectively), thereby effectively
removing them from the scope of judicial review.
[Parliament added the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution through the very first amendment in 1951
as a means of immunising certain laws against judicial review. Under the provisions of Article 31,
which themselves were amended several times later, laws placed in the Ninth Schedule -- pertaining
to acquisition of private property and compensation payable for such acquisition -- cannot be
challenged in a court of law on the ground that they violated the fundamental rights of citizens. This
protective umbrella covers more than 250 laws passed by state legislatures with the aim of regulating
the size of land holdings and abolishing various tenancy systems. The Ninth Schedule was created
with the primary objective of preventing the judiciary - which upheld the citizens' right to property on
several occasions - from derailing the Congress party led government's agenda for a social
revolution.3]
Property owners again challenged the constitutional amendments which placed land reforms laws in
the Ninth Schedule before the Supreme Court, saying that they violated Article 13 (2) of the
Constitution.
Article 13 (2) provides for the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizen.4 Parliament and the
state legislatures are clearly prohibited from making laws that may take away or abridge the
fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizen. They argued that any amendment to the Constitution
had the status of a law as understood by Article 13 (2). In 1952 (Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union
of India5) and 1955 (Sajjan Singh v. Rajasthan6), the Supreme Court rejected both arguments and
upheld the power of Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution including that which affects the
fundamental rights of citizens. Significantly though, two dissenting judges in Sajjan Singh v.
Rajasthan case raised doubts whether the fundamental rights of citizens could become a plaything of
the majority party in Parliament.
The Golaknath verdict
In 1967 an eleven-judge bench of the Supreme Court reversed its position. Delivering its 6:5 majority
judgement in the Golaknath v. State of Punjab case7, Chief Justice Subba Rao put forth the curious
position that Article 368, that contained provisions related to the amendment of the Constitution,
merely laid down the amending procedure. Article 368 did not confer upon Parliament the power to
amend the Constitution. The amending power (constituent power) of Parliament arose from other
provisions contained in the Constitution (Articles 245, 246, 248) which gave it the power to make
laws (plenary legislative power). Thus, the apex court held that the amending power and legislative
powers of Parliament were essentially the same. Therefore, any amendment of the Constitution must
be deemed law as understood in Article 13 (2).
2 Originally, the Constitution guaranteed a citizen, the fundamental right to acquire hold and dispose of property under
Article 19f. Under Article 31 he could not be deprived of his property unless it was acquired by the State, under a law
that determined the amount of compensation he ought to receive against such an acquisition. Property owned by an
individual or a firm could be acquired by the State only for public purposes and upon payment of compensation
determined by the law. Article 31 has been modified six times -- beginning with the First amendment in 1951 --
progressively curtailing this fundamental right. Finally in 1978, Article 19f was omitted and Article 31 repealed by the Fortyfourth
amendment. Instead Article 300A was introduced in Part XII making the right to property only a legal right. This
provision implies that the executive arm of the government (civil servants and the police) could not interfere with the citizen's
right to property. However, Parliament and state legislatures had the power to make laws affecting the citizens' right to
property.]
3 Later on, laws relating to the nationalisation of certain sick industrial undertakings, the regulation of monopolies and restrictive
trade practices, transactions in foreign exchange, abolition of bonded labour, ceiling on urban land holdings, the supply and
distribution of essential commodities and reservation benefits provided for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in Tamil Nadu were
added to the Ninth Schedule through various constitutional amendments.
4 Article 13 (2) states- "The State shall not make any law which takes away or abridges the rights conferred by this Part and
any law made in contravention of this clause shall, to the extent of the contravention, be void." The term Part refers to Part III of
the Constitution which lists the fundamental rights of the citizen.
5 Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India, AIR 1951 SC 458
6 Sajjan Singh v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1965 SC 845.
7 I.C. Golaknath v. State of Punjab, AIR 1967 SC 1643.
The majority judgement invoked the concept of implied limitations on Parliament's power to
amend the Constitution. This view held that the Constitution gives a place of permanence to the
fundamental freedoms of the citizen. In giving the Constitution to themselves, the people had
reserved the fundamental rights for themselves. Article 13, according to the majority view, expressed
this limitation on the powers of Parliament. Parliament could not modify, restrict or impair
fundamental freedoms due to this very scheme of the Constitution and the nature of the freedoms
granted under it. The judges stated that the fundamental rights were so sacrosanct and
transcendental in importance that they could not be restricted even if such a move were to receive
unanimous approval of both houses of Parliament. They observed that a Constituent Assembly might
be summoned by Parliament for the purpose of amending the fundamental rights if necessary.
In other words, the apex court held that some features of the Constitution lay at its core and
required much more than the usual procedures to change them.
The phrase 'basic structure' was introduced for the first time by M.K. Nambiar and other counsels
while arguing for the petitioners in the Golaknath case, but it was only in 1973 that the concept
surfaced in the text of the apex court's verdict.
Nationalisation of Banks and Abolition of Privy Purses
Within a few weeks of the Golaknath verdict the Congress party suffered heavy losses in the
parliamentary elections and lost power in several states. Though a private member's bill - tabled by
Barrister Nath Pai - seeking to restore the supremacy of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution
was introduced and debated both on the floor of the house and in the Select Committee, it could not
be passed due to political compulsions of the time. But the opportunity to test parliamentary
supremacy presented itself once again when Parliament introduced laws to provide greater access to
bank credit for the agricultural sector and ensure equitable distribution of wealth and resources of
production and by:
a) nationalising banks and
b) derecognising erstwhile princes in a bid to take away their Privy purses, which were promised in
perpetuity - as a sop to accede to the Union - at the time of India's independence.
Parliament reasoned that it was implementing the Directive Principles of State Policy but the
Supreme Court struck down both moves. By now, it was clear that the Supreme Court and
Parliament were at loggerheads over the relative position of the fundamental rights vis-Ã -vis the
Directive Principles of State Policy. At one level, the battle was about the supremacy of Parliament
vis-Ã -vis the power of the courts to interpret and uphold the Constitution.
At another level the contention was over the sanctity of property as a fundamental right jealously
guarded by an affluent class much smaller than that of the large impoverished masses for whose
benefit the Congress government claimed to implement its socialist development programme.
Less than two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down the President's order derecognising the
princes, in a quick move to secure the mandate of the people and to bolster her own stature Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi dissolved the Lok Sabha and called a snap poll.
For the first time, the Constitution itself became the electoral issue in India. Eight of the ten
manifestos in the 1971 elections called for changes in the Constitution in order to restore the
supremacy of Parliament. A.K. Gopalan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) went to the extent
of saying that the Constitution be done away with lock stock and barrel and be replaced with one that
enshrined the real sovereignty of the people8. The Congress party returned to power with a two-thirds
majority. The electorate had endorsed the Congress party's socialist agenda, which among other
things spoke of making basic changes to the Constitution in order to restore Parliament's supremacy.
8 Quoted in Granville Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, The Indian Experience, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
1999, p. 235.
Through a spate of amendments made between July 1971 and June 1972 Parliament sought to
regain lost ground. It restored for itself the absolute power to amend any part of the Constitution
including Part III, dealing with fundamental rights.9 Even the President was made duty bound to give
his assent to any amendment bill passed by both houses of Parliament. Several curbs on the right
property were passed into law. The right to equality before the law and equal protection of the
laws (Article 14) and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 1910 were made
subordinate to Article 39 (b) & (c) in the Directive Principles of State Policy.11 Privy purses of
erstwhile princes were abolished and an entire category of legislation dealing with land reforms was
placed in the Ninth Schedule beyond the scope of judicial review.12
Emergence of the Basic Structure Concept- the Kesavanada milestone
Inevitably, the constitutional validity of these amendments was challenged before a full bench of the
Supreme Court (thirteen judges). Their verdict can be found in eleven separate judgements.13 Nine
judges signed a summary statement which records the most important conclusions reached by them
in this case. Granville Austin notes that there are several discrepancies between the points contained
in the summary signed by the judges and the opinions expressed by them in their separate
judgements.14 Nevertheless, the seminal concept of 'basic structure' of the Constitution gained
recognition in the majority verdict.
All judges upheld the validity of the Twenty-fourth amendment saying that Parliament had the power
to amend any or all provisions of the Constitution. All signatories to the summary held that the
Golaknath case had been decided wrongly and that Article 368 contained both the power and the
procedure for amending the Constitution.
However they were clear that an amendment to the Constitution was not the same as a law as
understood by Article 13 (2).
[It is necessary to point out the subtle difference that exists between two kinds of functions performed
by the Indian Parliament:
a) it can make laws for the country by exercising its legislative power15 and
b) it can amend the Constitution by exercising its constituent power.
Constituent power is superior to ordinary legislative power. Unlike the British Parliament which
is a sovereign body (in the absence of a written constitution), the powers and functions of the Indian
Parliament and State legislatures are subject to limitations laid down in the Constitution. The
Constitution does not contain all the laws that govern the country. Parliament and the state
legislatures make laws from time to time on various subjects, within their respective jurisdictions. The
general framework for making these laws is provided by the Constitution. Parliament alone is given
9 The Constitution (Twenty-fourth amendment) Act 1971.
10 Freedom of speech and expression, the right to assemble peacefully, the right to form unions and associations, the
right to move freely and reside in any part of India and the right to practise any profession or trade are the six
fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 19. The right to property was also guaranteed in this section until 1979 when it
was omitted by the Forty-fourth amendment during the Janata party regime.
11 The Constitution (Twenty-fifth amendment) Act 1971.
12 The Constitution (Twenty-sixth amendment) Act 1971 and The Constitution (Twenty-ninth amendment) Act 1972,
respectively.
13 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalavaru v State of Kerala and Another 1973 (4) SCC 225ff.
14 See Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution…, p.265.
15 By virtue of the powers conferred upon it in Articles 245 and 246, Parliament can make laws relating to any of the 97
subjects mentioned in the Union List and 47 subjects mentioned in the Concurrent List, contained in the Seventh Schedule
of the Constitution. Upon the recommendation of the Rajya Sabha (Council of States or the Upper House in Parliament)
Parliament can also make laws in the national interest, relating to any of the 66 subjects contained in the State List.
the power to make changes to this framework under Article 36816. Unlike ordinary laws,
amendments to constitutional provisions require a special majority vote in Parliament.
Another illustration is useful to demonstrate the difference between Parliament's constituent power
and law making powers. According to Article 21 of the Constitution, no person in the country may
be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.
The Constitution does not lay down the details of the procedure as that responsibility is vested with
the legislatures and the executive. Parliament and the state legislatures make the necessary laws
identifying offensive activities for which a person may be imprisoned or sentenced to death. The
executive lays down the procedure of implementing these laws and the accused person is tried in a
court of law. Changes to these laws may be incorporated by a simple majority vote in the concerned
state legislature. There is no need to amend the Constitution in order to incorporate changes to these
laws. However, if there is a demand to convert Article 21 into the fundamental right to life by
abolishing death penalty, the Constitution may have to be suitably amended by Parliament using its
constituent power.
Most importantly seven of the thirteen judges in the Kesavananda Bharati case, including Chief
Justice Sikri who signed the summary statement, declared that Parliament's constituent power
was subject to inherent limitations. Parliament could not use its amending powers under Article
368 to 'damage', 'emasculate', 'destroy', 'abrogate', 'change' or 'alter' the 'basic structure' or
framework of the Constitution.
Basic Features of the Constitution according to the Kesavanada verdict
Each judge laid out separately, what he thought were the basic or essential features of the
Constitution. There was no unanimity of opinion within the majority view either.
Sikri, C.J. explained that the concept of basic structure included:
• supremacy of the Constitution
• republican and democratic form of government
• secular character of the Constitution
• separation of powers between the legislature, executive and the judiciary
• federal character of the Constitution
Shelat, J. and Grover, J. added two more basic features to this list:
• the mandate to build a welfare state contained in the Directive Principles of State Policy
• unity and integrity of the nation
Hegde, J. and Mukherjea, J. identified a separate and shorter list of basic features:
• sovereignty of India
• democratic character of the polity
• unity of the country
• essential features of the individual freedoms secured to the citizens
• mandate to build a welfare state
Jaganmohan Reddy, J. stated that elements of the basic features were to be found in the Preamble
of the Constitution and the provisions into which they translated such as:
• sovereign democratic republic
16 However certain constitutional amendments must be ratified by at least half of the State legislatures before they can come
into force. Matters such as the election of the President of the republic, the executive and legislative powers of the Union and
the States, the High Courts in the States and Union Territories, representation of States in Parliament and the Constitution
amending provisions themselves, contained in Article 368, must be amended by following this procedure.
• parliamentary democracy
• three organs of the State
He said that the Constitution would not be itself without the fundamental freedoms and the
directive principles.17
Only six judges on the bench (therefore a minority view) agreed that the fundamental rights of
the citizen belonged to the basic structure and Parliament could not amend it.
The minority view
The minority view delivered by Justice A.N. Ray (whose appointment to the position of Chief Justice
over and above the heads of three senior judges, soon after the pronunciation of the Kesavananda
verdict, was widely considered to be politically motivated), Justice M.H. Beg, Justice K.K. Mathew
and Justice S.N. Dwivedi also agreed that Golaknath had been decided wrongly. They upheld the
validity of all three amendments challenged before the court. Ray, J. held that all parts of the
Constitution were essential and no distinction could be made between its essential and non-essential
parts. All of them agreed that Parliament could make fundamental changes in the Constitution by
exercising its power under Article 368.
In summary the majority verdict in Kesavananda Bharati recognised the power of Parliament to
amend any or all provisions of the Constitution provided such an act did not destroy its basic
structure. But there was no unanimity of opinion about what appoints to that basic structure. Though
the Supreme Court very nearly returned to the position of Sankari Prasad (1952) by restoring the
supremacy of Parliament's amending power, in effect it strengthened the power of judicial review
much more.18
Basic Structure concept reaffirmed- the Indira Gandhi Election case
In 1975, The Supreme Court again had the opportunity to pronounce on the basic structure of the
Constitution. A challenge to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's election victory was upheld by the
Allahabad High Court on grounds of electoral malpractice in 1975. Pending appeal, the vacation
judge- Justice Krishna Iyer, granted a stay that allowed Smt. Indira Gandhi to function as Prime
Minister on the condition that she should not draw a salary and speak or vote in Parliament until the
case was decided. Meanwhile, Parliament passed the Thirty-ninth amendment to the Constitution
which removed the authority of the Supreme Court to adjudicate petitions regarding elections of the
President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Instead, a body constituted
by Parliament would be vested with the power to resolve such election disputes. Section 4 of the
Amendment Bill effectively thwarted any attempt to challenge the election of an incumbent, occupying
any of the above offices in a court of law. This was clearly a pre-emptive action designed to benefit
Smt. Indira Gandhi whose election was the object of the ongoing dispute.
Amendments were also made to the Representation of Peoples Acts of 1951 and 1974 and placed in
the Ninth Schedule along with the Election Laws Amendment Act, 1975 in order to save the Prime
Minister from embarassment if the apex court delivered an unfavourable verdict. The mala fide
intention of the government was proved by the haste in which the Thirty-ninth amendment was
passed. The bill was introduced on August 7, 1975 and passed by the Lok Sabha the same day. The
Rajya Sabha (Upper House or House of Elders) passed it the next day and the President gave his
assent two days later. The amendment was ratified by the state legislatures in special Saturday
sessions. It was gazetted on August 10. When the Supreme Court opened the case for hearing the
next day, the Attorney General asked the Court to throw out the case in the light of the new
amendment.
17 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharati Sripadagalavaru v State of Kerala and Another 1973 (4) SCC pp. 637-38.
18 The majority view declared certain parts of the Twenty-fifth amendment invalid especially those relating to Article 31 (c)
and upheld the Twenty-ninth amendment- for a detailed account see Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution…, pp.
265ff.
Counsel for Raj Narain who was the political opponent challenging Mrs. Gandhi's election argued that
the amendment was against the basic structure of the Constitution as it affected the conduct of free
and fair elections and the power of judicial review. Counsel also argued that Parliament was not
competent to use its constituent power for validating an election that was declared void by the High
Court.
Four out of five judges on the bench upheld the Thirty-ninth amendment, but only after striking down
that part which sought to curb the power of the judiciary to adjudicate in the current election dispute.19
One judge, Beg, J. upheld the amendment in its entirety. Mrs. Gandhi's election was declared valid
on the basis of the amended election laws. The judges grudgingly accepted Parliament's power to
pass laws that have a retrospective effect.
Basic Features of the Constitution according to the Election case verdict
Again, each judge expressed views about what amounts to the basic structure of the Constitution:
According to Justice H.R. Khanna, democracy is a basic feature of the Constitution and
includes free and fair elections.
Justice K.K. Thomas held that the power of judicial review is an essential feature.
Justice Y.V. Chandrachud listed four basic features which he considered unamendable:
• sovereign democratic republic status
• equality of status and opportunity of an individual
• secularism and freedom of conscience and religion
• 'government of laws and not of men' i.e. the rule of law
According to Chief Justice A.N. Ray, the constituent power of Parliament was above the Constitution
itself and therefore not bound by the principle of separation of powers. Parliament could therefore
exclude laws relating election disputes from judicial review. He opined, strangely, that democracy
was a basic feature but not free and fair elections. Ray, C.J. held that ordinary legislation was not
within the scope of basic features.
Justice K.K. Mathew agreed with Ray, C.J. that ordinary laws did not fall within the purview of basic
structure. But he held that democracy was an essential feature and that election disputes must
be decided on the basis of law and facts by the judiciary.
Justice M.H. Beg disagreed with Ray, C.J. on the grounds that it would be unnecessary to have a
Constitution if Parliament's constituent power were said to be above it.20 Judicial powers were vested
in the Supreme Court and the High Courts and Parliament could not perform them. He contended that
supremacy of the Constitution and separation of powers were basic features as understood by
the majority in the Kesavananda Bharati case. Beg, J. emphasised that the doctrine of basic
structure included within its scope ordinary legislation also.
Despite the disagreement between the judges on what constituted the basic structure of the
Constitution, the idea that the Constitution had a core content which was sacrosanct was
upheld by the majority view.
19 The Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Thirty-ninth amendment Act, i.e. Article 329A of the Constitution as it
existed in 1975.
20 A comparison with the Westminster model would bring out the subtleties involved in this matter more clearly. The United
Kingdom does not have a written Constitution like India or the USA. The British Parliament is a sovereign body and there is
very little difference between constitutional law and ordinary law in that country. The Indian Parliament owes its existence to a
written Constitution that was put together by another sovereign body, namely, the Constituent Assembly. Parliament's powers
(including the power to amend) are not sui juris but essentially derived from this Constitution. Therefore it cannot be said to
occupy a position superior to the Constitution.
The Kesavananda Review Bench
Within three days of the decision on the Election case Ray, C.J. convened a thirteen judge bench to
review the Kesavanada verdict on the pretext of hearing a number of petitions relating to land ceiling
laws which had been languishing in high courts. The petitions contended that the application of land
ceiling laws violated the basic structure of the Constitution. In effect the Review bench was to decide
whether or not the basic structure doctrine restricted Parliament's power to amend the
Constitution. The decision in the Bank Nationalisation case was also up for review.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in a speech in Parliament, refused to accept the
dogma of basic structure.21
It must be remembered that no specific petition seeking a review of the Kesavananda verdict filed
before the apex court- a fact noted with much chagrin by several members of the bench. N.N.
Palkhivala appearing for on behalf of a coal mining company eloquently argued against the move to
review the Kesavananda decision. Ultimately, Ray, C.J. dissolved the bench after two days of
hearings. Many people have suspected the government's indirect involvement in this episode seeking
to undo an unfavourable judicial precedent set by the Kesavananda decision. However no concerted
efforts were made to pursue the case.
The declaration of a National Emergency in June 1975 and the consequent suspension of
fundamental freedoms, including the right to move courts against preventive detention, diverted the
attention of the country from this issue.
Sardar Swaran Singh Committee and the Forty-second amendment
Soon after the declaration of National Emergency, the Congress party constituted a committee under
the Chairmanship of Sardar Swaran Singh to study the question of amending the Constitution in the
light of past experiences. Based on its recommendations, the government incorporated several
changes to the Constitution including the Preamble, through the Forty-second amendment (passed
in 1976 and came into effect on January 3, 1977). Among other things the amendment:
a) gave the Directive Principles of State Policy precedence over the Fundamental Rights
contained in Article 14 (right to equality before the law and equal protection of the laws),
Article 19 (various freedoms like freedom of speech and expression, right to assemble
peacefully, right to form associations and unions, right to move about and reside freely in
any part of the country and the right to pursue any trade or profession) and Article 21 (right
to life and personal liberty). Article 31C was amended to prohibit any challenge to laws made
under any of the Directive Principles of State Policy;22
b) laid down that amendments to the Constitution made in the past or those likely to be made in
future could not be questioned in any court on any ground;
c) removed all amendments to fundamental rights from the scope of judicial review and
d) removed all limits on Parliament's power to amend the Constitution under Article 368.
21 Speech in Parliament- October 27, 1976: see Indira Gandhi: Selected Speeches and Writings, vol. 3, p.288.
22 Article 31C stated that laws passed to implement the Directive Principles of State Policy could not be challenged in courts
on the ground that they violated any fundamental right. Prior to the Forty-second amendment this clause was applicable only
to Article 39 (b) & (c) of the Directive Principles which dealt with equitable distribution of wealth and resources of production.
Basic structure doctrine reaffirmed- the Minerva Mills and Waman Rao cases
Within less than two years of the restoration of Parliament's amending powers to near absolute terms,
the Forty-second amendment was challenged before the Supreme Court by the owners of Minerva
Mills (Bangalore) a sick industrial firm which was nationalised by the government in 1974.23
Mr. N.A. Palkhivala, renowned constitutional lawyer and counsel for the petitioners, chose not to
challenge the government's action merely in terms of an infringement of the fundamental right to
property. Instead, he framed the challenge in terms of Parliament's power to amend the Constitution.
Mr. Palkhivala argued that Section 55 of the amendment24 had placed unlimited amending power in
the hands of Parliament. The attempt to immunise constitutional amendments against judicial review
violated the doctrine of basic structure which had been recognised by the Supreme Court in the
Kesavananda Bharati and Indira Gandhi Election Cases. He further contended that the amended
Article 31C was constitutionally bad as it violated the Preamble of the Constitution and the
fundamental rights of citizens. It also took away the power of judicial review.
Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, delivering the majority judgement (4:1), upheld both contentions.
The majority view upheld the power of judicial review of constitutional amendments. They maintained
that clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 conferred unlimited power on Parliament to amend the
Constitution. They said that this deprived courts of the ability to question the amendment even if it
damaged or destroyed the Constitution's basic structure.
The judges, who concurred with Chandrachud, C.J. ruled that a limited amending power itself
is a basic feature of the Constitution.
Bhagwati, J. the dissenting judge also agreed with this view stating that no authority howsoever lofty,
could claim to be the sole judge of its power and actions under the Constitution.25
The majority held the amendment to Article 31C unconstitutional as it destroyed the harmony and
balance between fundamental rights and directive principles which is an essential or basic
feature of the Constitution.26 The amendment to Article 31C remains a dead letter as it has not
been repealed or deleted by Parliament. Nevertheless cases under it are decided as it existed prior to
the Forty-second amendment.
In another case relating to a similar dispute involving agricultural property the apex court, held that all
constitutional amendments made after the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgement were open to
judicial review.27 All laws placed in the Ninth Schedule after the date of the Kesavananda Bharati
judgement were also open to review in the courts. They can be challenged on the ground that they
are beyond Parliament's constituent power or that they have damaged the basic structure of the
Constitution. In essence, the Supreme Court struck a balance between its authority to interpret the
Constitution and Parliament's power to amend it.
23 Minerva Mills Ltd. v Union of India (1980) 3 SCC 625.
24 The Constitution (Forty-second amendment) Act 1976 [corresponding to Article 368 (4) & (5)]
25 Such a position seems contrary to the philosophy of separation of powers that characterise the structure of governance in
India. The Constitution provides for a scheme of checks and balances between the three organs of government namely, the
legislature, the executive and the judiciary, against any potential abuse of power. For example, the judges of the Supreme
Court and the High Courts in the States are appointed by the executive i.e. the President acting on the advice of the Prime
Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But they may be removed from office only if they are impeached by
Parliament. This measure helps the judiciary to function without any fear of the executive. Similarly, the executive is responsible
to Parliament in its day to day functioning. While the President appoints the leader of the majority party or a person who he
believes commands a majority in the Lok Sabha (House of the People or the Lower House) a government is duty bound to lay
down power if the House adopts a motion expressing no confidence in the government.
26 Bhagwati, J. upheld its validity and concurred that the government's takeover of the sick mill was valid.
27 Waman Rao v Union of India 1981 2 SCC 362. The Supreme Court decided this case along with that of Minerva Mills.
Bhagwati, J. who was in the minority again incorporated his opinions on both cases in a single judgment.
Summary
It may be said that the final word on the issue of the basic structure of the Constitution has not been
pronounced by the Supreme Court- a scenario that is unlikely to change in the near future. While the
idea that there is such a thing as a basic structure to the Constitution is well established its contents
cannot be completely determined with any measure of finality until a judgement of the Supreme Court
spells it out. Nevertheless the sovereign, democratic and secular character of the polity, rule of
law, independence of the judiciary, fundamental rights of citizens etc. are some of the
essential features of the Constitution that have appeared time and again in the apex court's
pronouncements. One certainty that emerged out of this tussle between Parliament and the
judiciary is that all laws and constitutional amendments are now subject to judicial review and laws
that transgress the basic structure are likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. In essence
Parliament's power to amend the Constitution is not absolute and the Supreme Court is the final
arbiter over and interpreter of all constitutional amendments.
APPSC TOWN PLANNING OVERSEER & ASST. ARCHITECTURAL DRAUGHTMAN MODEL PAPER
APPSC TOWN PLANNING OVERSEER & ASST. ARCHITECTURAL DRAUGHTMAN MODEL PAPER
1. perpendicular offset form the junction of transition curve and curricular curve to the tangent is equal to
1) shift 2) two times the shift
3) three times the shift 4) four times the shift
2. If the radius of circular curve is five times the length of the transition curve, then the spiral angle is given by
1) 1/5 radian 2) 1/10 radian
3) 1/20 radian 4) 1/40 radian
3. If L is the length of transition curve and R is the radius of circular curve, then the shift of the curve is directly proportional to
1) R and 2) 1/R and L2
3)and L 4) R2 and 1/L
4. If an upgrade of 1-5% is followed by a downgrade of 0.5% and rate of change of grade is 0.2% per 20m chain, then the length of vertical is
1) 100m 2) 200m
3) 300m 4) 400m
5. By plane table surveying
1) field work alone is possible
2) plotting alone is possible
3) both field work and plotting has are possible simultaneously
4) both field work in the field and plotting on office are possible
6. The plots intended for residential purposes in a municipal area should not be less than
1) 80 m2 2) 120m2
3) 160m2 4) 200m2
7. The plot size in residential layouts in corporation limits for row housing in m2 is
1) 50-100 2) 100-150
3) 150-200 4) 200
8. In the double application of principle of reversion, the apparent error is
1) equal to true error
2) half the true error
3) two times the true error
4) four times the true error
9. The maximum value of centrifugal ratio on roads and railways respectively are taken as
1) 1/4 and 1/6 2)1/6 and 1/8
3) 1/4 and 1/8 4)1/8 and 1/4
10. Agonic line is the line joining points having
1) Zero declination 2) minimum declination
3) maximum declination
4) declination
11. The difference in elevation of points between a vertical and a tangent is
1) directly proportional to its horizontal distance form the point of tangency
2) ineresely proportional to its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
3) directly proportional to the square of its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
4) inversely proportional to the square of its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
12. The type of pointing in which the mortar is first pressed into the raked joints and then finished off flush with the edges of the bricks or stones, is called
1) flust pointing 2) struck pointing
3) V-grooved pointing 4) tuck pointing
13. A block of stone or concrete provided under the end of tie beam to spread the load from the roof over a large area of bearing, is called
1) gable 2) hip
3) verge 4) template
14. The horizontal members of wood or steel used to support the common rafter of a sloping roof, are called
1) purlins 2) cleats
3) hip rafters 4) valley rafters
15. The type of pointing in which the mortar is first pressed into the raked joint and then finished off flush with the face of the bricks or stones is called
1) flush pointing 2) struck pointing
3) V-grooved pointing 4) tuck pointing
16. The efficiency of a riveted joint is :
1) Tearing efficiency 2) Shearing efficiency
3) Crushing efficiency 4) Least of the above
17. The efficiency of pile group is
1) always less than one
2) always more than one
3) always equal to one
4) less than, equal to or more than one
18. Read the following two statements and select the correct answer
i) Shift bisects the transition curve
ii) Transition curve bisects the shift
1) only (i) is correct 2) only (ii) correct
3) both (i) and (ii) are correct
4) neither (i) nor (ii) is correct
19. A curve tangential to four straight lines and consisting of arcs of different radii is known as 1) one centred compound curve
2) two centred compound curve
3) three centred compound curve
4) four centred compound curve
20. If the degree of a curve is 10, then radius of the curve is equal to
1) 5400 m 2) 1720m
3) m 4) m
21. The contour shown in figure indicates
1) a depression
2) a hill
3) steep slope
4) plain ground
22. for the computation of areas, which rule is most accurate?
1) Mid-ordinate rule 2) Average Ordinate rule
3) Trapezoidal rule 4) Simpson's rule
23. A pantograph is used for
1) Measuring
2) measuring distances on maps
3) reproducing, enlarging or reducing the maps
4) Measuring vertical angles
24. The apparent movement of the image of the staff relative to the cross hairs is known as
1) shift 2) slint
3) parallax error 4) sight error
25. A working profile gives
1) ground levels only
2) formation levels only
3) difference in ground levels & formation levels
4) all of the above
26. The error in the staff readings due to curvature of the earth when the length of sight is 1 Km is 1) -0.0785 m 2) +0.0785 m
3) -0.0667 m 4) +0.0667 m
27. The vertical distance between the upper surface of the successive treads is known as
'going of step'
1) true 2) false
28. The brick flooring is used in
1) workshops 2) godowns
3) verandahs 4) none of these
29. The flooring made with small pieces of broken tiles of china glazed or of marble arranged in different pattern, is known as
1) asphalt flooring 2) mosaic flooring
3) terrazo flooring 4) granolithic flooring
30. In stairs, the flier is
1) a vertical portion of a step providing a support to the tread
2) a straight step having a parallel width of tread
3) the under surface of a stair
4) the angle which the line of nosing of the stair makes with the horizontal
31. The maximum velocity of flow is limited to about 3 m/sec, though in practice it should preferably not exceed
1) 2 m/sec 2) 2.25 m/sec
3) 2.5m/sec 4) 3 m/sec
32. The circular section of a sewer is very common but it is best suitable when diamter is up to 1) 0.75 m 2) 1.25m
3) 1.5m 4) 3m
33. While designing a sewerage system, the span of design period is generally taken as
1) one year 2) 5 years
3) 10 years 4) 20 years
34. Which of the following represents a correct match?
i) moveable hair method--
the intercept of levelling staff is kept constant and stadia hair interval is variable
ii) fixed hair method--
The intercept on levelling staff is variable and stadia hair interval is fixed
iii) tangential hair method
The stadia hairs are not used
1) only (iii) is correct
2) only (i) and (ii) are correct
3) all (i), (ii) and (iii) are correct
4) none is correct
35. The longest time without unreasonable delay, the would be required for a drop of water to flow from the upper limit of the drainage area to the point where concentration or the maximum effect of flood considered, is known as
1) inlet time 2) time of flow
3) time of concentration
4) time-intensity
36. The time required for first drops of rain water to flow from the distant points of water shed to the head of the sewer or drain is known as
1) inlet time
2) time of flow
3) time of concentration
4) time intensity
37. In question no.89 the R.L of last point
1) is greater than R.L of first point
2) is same As R.L of first point
3) is smaller than R.L of first point
4) cannot be determined from the given data
38.
________________________________________
Station B.S I.S F.S H.I R.L Remarks
_________________________________________
A 2.3 102.3 100.00 B.M
B 1.3 101.00
C 2.3 X
________________________________________
The above table shows a part of a level field book. The value of X should be
1) 98.70 2) 100.00
3) 102.30 4) 103.30
39. The multiplying constant of a theodolite is 1) f/i 2) (f+d)
3) (f/i+d) 4) (f/d+1)
where f is focal length of object lens
I is stadia hair interval
d is the distance between the optical centre of the object lens and the axis of the theodolite
40. The distance between centre to centre of two adjacent rivet holes should not be less than
1) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet hole
2) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet
3) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet head
4) 2.5 times the diameter of rivet
41. If an up grade of +1% on first class railway is followed by a down grade of -2%, then the length of vertical curve will be
1) 20 chains 2) 40 chains
3) 50 chains 4) 80 chains
42. An outline or -------- should never by used as a dimension line
1) inner line 2) centre line
3) outer line 4) Perpendicular
43. Mutual crossing of dimension lines and dimensioning between ---------- should be avoided
1) dotted line 2) straight line
3) curved line 4) dashed line
44. The recommended rate of change of grade for second class railways per 20-m distance at sages is
1) 0.12% 2) 0.1%
3) 0.8% 4) 0.06%
45. The distance between centre to centre of any two adjacent rivets shall not exceed by ____ when the rivets do not lie in the direction of stresses
1) 12xthickness of the thinnest plate
2) 16x thickness of the thinnest plate
3) 32xthickness of the thinnest plate
4) 32xdiameter of the rivet used
46. A surveyor's chain is made of
1) cast iron 2) stainless steel
3) aluminium 4) galvanized mild steel
47. If a chain is found to be short, it can be adjusted by
1) straightening the bent links
2) removing one or more circular rings
3) closing the joints that have opened out
4) any of the above
48. A telescope is said to be inverted if its
1) vertical circle is to its right and the bubble of the telescope is down
2) vertical circle is to its right and the bubble of the telescope is up
3) vertical circle is to its left and the bubble of the telescope is down
4) vertical circle is to its left and the bubble of the telescope is up
49. The cross hairs in the surveying telescope are placed
1) midway between eye piece and objective lens
2) much closer to the eye piece than to the ob jective lens
3) much closer to the objective lens than to the eye piece
4) anywhere between eye piece and objective lens
50. The foundation in a building is provided to
1) distribute the load over a large area
2) increase overall stability of the structure
3) transmit load to the bearing surface (sub soil) at a uniform rate
4) all of the above
51. The failure of foundation of a building is due to
1) withdraw of subsoil moisture
2) unequal settlement of soil
3) lateral escape of the supporting material
4) all of these
52. The ability of sub-soil to support the load of the structure without yielding is known as
1) bearing value of soil
2) bearing power of soil
3) bearing capacity of soil
4) any one of these
53. Ranging rods cannot be used at a distance of more than
1) 1 km 2) 500 m
3) 400 m 4) 200 m
54. Two points A and B are 1530 m apart across a wide river. The following reciprocal levels are taken with one level.
LEVEL AT READINGS ON
A 2.165 3.810
B 0.910 2.355
The true difference in level between A and B would be
1) 1.255m 2)1.455m
3) 1.545m 4) 1.645m
55. The Simpson Rule for area when D is the strip and h1,h2 ---- etc, are the ordinates.
1) A = d[h1+h2+h3-----+hn]
2) A = d/2[(h1+h2)+2(h3+h5+-----+hn-2)+4(h2+h4+-----+hn-1)]
3) A = d/3[(h1+hn)+2(h3+h5+-----+hn-2)+4(h2+h4+-----+hn-1)]
4) A = d/3[(h1+hn)+2(h2+h4+-----)+4(h3+h5+-----)]
56. In a closed traverse sum of exterior angle is
1) (2n-4)Xrt. angles 3) 4n rt.angles
4) 2n rt angles 4) none
57. In separate sewers the minimum velocity of flow should not be less than
1) 0.6 m/sec 2) 0.75 m/sec
3) 1 m/sec 4) 6 m/sec
58. Ventilation column are provided at the upper end of every branch sewer and they are generally spaced at a distance of
1) 500 m 2) 300m
3) 100m 4) 50m
59. In the quadrantal bearing system, a whole circle bearing of 2930 30' can be expressed as
1) W 230 30'N 2) N 660 30'N
3) W 1130 30'N 4) N 230 30'W
60. The prismatic compass and surveyor's compass respectively give
1 ) Whole circle bearing (WCB) of a line and quadrantal bearings (QB) of line
2)both QB of a line and WCB of a line
3) both QB of a line
4) both WCB of a line
61. The direction of the magnetic meridian in a plane table survey is determined by means of
1) compass box 2) alidade
3) trough compass 4) magmatic needle
62. A flat rectangular piece of metal used to sight object in plane table survey is called....
1) Level edge 2) Cross edge
3) Alidade 4) fiducial edge
63. Main title of inked drawing is generally written in
1) gothic letters 2) simple letters
3) straight letters 4) cornor letters
64. The two types of single-stroke letters are vertical and
1) straight 2) horizontal
3) inclined 4) perpendicular
65. A level was set up at a point A and distance to the staff station B was 100m. The net combined correction due to curvature and refraction as applied to the staff reading is
1) 0.00673 m 2) 0.000673 m
3) -0.000673 m 4) -0.00673 m
66. In levelling between two points A and B on opposite banks of a river, the following readings were taken
Lavel position Staff readings
A B
A 1.500 1.000
B 1.350 0.850
If R.L of A is 100.0m, the R.L of B
1) is less than 100.0m 2) is more than 100.0m
3) is 100.0m
4) cannot be detremined form given date
67. The errors measured due to the incorrect holding of chain is ;
1) Cumulative error 2) Compensating error
3) Curvature error 4) Isolated error
68. A line joining same fixed points on the main survey lines is known as :
1) Base line 2) Check line
3) Contour line 4) Tie line
69. The process of taking levels on each side of a main line at right angles to the centre line in order to determine the vertical cross-section of the ground is known as
1) Differential levelling 2) Reciprocal levelling
3) Profile levelling 4) Cross-sectioning
70. A curve of varying radius introduced between two branches of a compound curve is known as
1) Mean curve 2) Common curve
3) Transition curve 4) Right hand curve
71. Lettering should be so done as can be read from the font with the main title
1) Vertical 2) horizontal
3) Straight 4) Perpendicular
72. A steel pile which function more efficiently in soft clay or loose sand, is
1) H-pile 2) pipe pile
3) screw pile 4) disc pile
73. A screw pile consists of cast iron or steel shaft of external diameter varying from
1) 0 to 150 mm 2) 150 to 300 mm
3) 300 to 450 mm 4) 450 to 600 mm
74. Sheet piles are made of
1) wood 2) steel
3) concrete 4) all of these
75. The coefficient of friction between the concrete and soil is
1) 0.20 to 0.25 2) 0.25 to 0.30
3) 0.30 to 0.35 4) 0.35 to 0.50
76. The Indian tangent clinometer is very useful in
1) reconnaissance survey
2) compass survey
3) plane table survey when contouring is done simultaneously
4) plane table survey when three point problem has to be solved
77. While locating a number of points on a given gradient during preliminary survey of a hill road, the instrument most, suitable is
1) hand level
2) abney's hand level
3) tangent clinometer
4) ceylon ghat tracer
78. As compared to chain riveting, diamond riveting is preferred because
1) width of the plate required is less
2) saving in the material
3) efficiency is more
4) all the above are correct
79. In a structural connection, if the member is subjected to compression, then maximum pitch of the joint should be least of 200 mm or
1) 12t 2) 16t
3) 32t 4) 16d
80. The arrangement of members in a truss is made in such a way so that they should form 1) rectangles 2) quadrilaterals
3) polygons 4) triangles
81. In a truss, as far as possible, the length of one independent member should not be more than 1) 1.5m 2) 2m
3) 3m 4) 5m
82. A watertight surface constructed in connection with excavations for foundations of bridges, piers etc., is known as
1) caisson 2) cofferdam
3) well foundation 4) raft foundation
83. According to Rankine's formula, the minimum depth of foundation should be
1) 2)
3) 4)
where
P= safe permissible pressure on base in N/M2,
w= Weight of soil in N/m3, and
= Angle of repose of the soil
84. The minimum depth of foundation for the load bearing wall of a building is restricted to
1) 600 mm 2) 700 mm
3) 800 mm 4) 900 mm
85. The permissible error in chaining for measurement with chain on rough of hilly ground is
1) 1 in 100 2) 1 in 250
3) 1 in 500 4) 1 in 1000
86. The correction for sag is
1) always additive
2) always subtractive
3) always zero
4)sometimes additive and sometimes substracitve
87. Cross staff is an instrument used for
1) measuring approximate horizontal angles
2) setting out right angles
3) measuring bearings of the lines
4) none of the above
88. The foundation supporting all the columns of a structure is called :
1) Raft foundation
2) Combined footing
3) Strip footing
4) Isolated footing
89. The method of finding out the difference in elevation between two points eliminating the effect of curvature and refraction is known as :
1) Fly levelling 2) Geodetic levelling
3) Precise levelling 4) Contour levelling
90. Superelevation of a horizontal curve is needed to counteract
1) Curve resistance 2) Centrifugal force
3) Centripetal force 4) Frictional force
91. The weight of the foundation may be assumed to be :
1) 25% of the column loads
2) 10% of the column loads
3) 20% of the column loads
4) 15% of the column loads
92. Figure shows the entries in a filed book for a chain line AB
What is the angle between chain line and railway line? 1) 260 34 2) 300
3) 450 4) 600
93. what is the distance between trees T1 and T2 shown in Figure?
1) 4m 2) 5m
3) 7m 4) 12m
94. Theory of probability is applied to
1) accidental errors only
2) cumulative errors only
3) both accidents and cumulative errors
4) none of the above
95. If altitude bubble is provided both on index frames as well as on telescope of a theodolite, then the instrument is levelled with reference to
(i) altitude bubble in index frame
(ii) altitude bubble on index frame if it is to be used as a level
(iii) altitude bubble on telescope
(iv) altitude bubble on telescope if it is to be used as a level
The correct answer is
1) only (i) 2) both (i) and (iv)
3) only (iii) 4) both (ii) and (iii)
96. When two or more parts are connected together, a line of rivet shall be provided whose distance from the nearest edge should not be more than 1) 37 mm
2) 37 mm + thickness of thinnest outside plate
3) 50 mm
4) 37 mm+4x thickness of thinnest outside plate
97. In compression members having both components back to back, the maximum distance between two adjacent tacking rivets shall not be more than
1) 600 mm 2) 300 mm
3) 200 mm 4) 100 cm
98. If the R.L. of a B.M. is 100.00m, the back sight is 1.215m and the foresight is 1 870m, The R.L. of the forward station is
1) 99.345m 2) 100.345m
3) 100.655m 4) 101.870m
99. A survey is conducted with a view to prepare the map of an area to a scale of 1:1000. If a scale with least count of 0.1mm is used for plotting, what would be the accuracy in length measurement in the field?
1) 0.325 m 2) 0.01 m
3) 0.1 m 4) 1m
100. The safe bearing capacity of the soil is equal to
1) Nominal strength X factor of safety
2)
3)
4)
101. The bearing capacity of soils can be improved by
1) increasing the depth of footing
2) draining the sub-soil water
3) ramming the granular material like crushed stone in the soil
4) all of the above
102. The diameter of the drilled piles should not exceed
1) 200 mm 2) 400 mm
3) 600 mm 4) 800 mm
103. The pre-stressed concrete piles as compared to pre-cast and reinforced concrete piles
1) are lesser in weight
2) have high load carrying capacity
3) are extremely durable
4) all of these
104. H-piles
1) require large storage space
2) are difficult to handle
3) cannot withstand large impact stress developed during hand driving
4) none of the above
105. A raking shore is a system of
1) giving temporary lateral support to an unsafe wall
2) providing temporary support to the party walls of two buildings where the intermediate building is to be pulled down and rebuilt
3) providing vertical support to walls and roofs, floors etc. when the lower part of a wall has to be removed for the purpose of providing an opening in the wall
4) all of the above
106. For a building on the side of a busy street where the ordinary scaffolding will obstruct the traffic on road, the type of scaffolding provided is
1) brick layer's scaffold
2) mason's scaffold
3) steel scaffold 4) needle scaffold
107. A horizontal layer of bricks laid in mortar is known as
1) course 2) stretcher
3) header 4) closer
108. A plane, which is perpendicular to the plumb line through a point and is tangential to the level surface at that point is called a
1) tangential plane 2) vertical plane
3) level plane 4) horizontal plane
109. The rays drawn to the points of known location from the unplotted stations occupied by the plane table are called
1)intersectors 2) resectors
3) medians 4) medullary rays
110. In case the plane table is correctly oriented the resectors will
1) form a triangle of error
2) form a great triangle
3) form a greate circle
4) meet at a point
111. An open-newel stair consists of two or more straight flights arranged in such a manner that a clear space occurs between the backward and forward flights.
1) agree 2) disagree
112. In wooden stairs, the thickness of tread is adopted as
1) 28 mm 2) 38 mm
3) 48 mm 4) 58 mm
113. The inner surface of an arch is called
1) extrados 2) intrados
3) crown 4) voussior
114. The vertex is the point at which the ------- cuts the axis
1. conic 2. lines
3. angles 4. ellipse
115. The sum of the distances of any point on the ----from its two foci is alwasy the same and equal to the major axis
1. ellipse 2. parabola
3. hyperbola 4. triangle
116. Finding the location of the station occupied by the table, on the sheet by means of sighting to three well defined points whose locations have been previously plotted on the sheet, is known as
1) resection 2) traversing
3) three point problem
4) two point problem
117. A straight line normal to the plumb line at a point, and tangential to the level line at that point is called a
1) level line 2) horizontal line
3) vertical line 4) plumb line
118. The first sight or staff reading, taken from any levelling station to the levelling staff held at a point of known elevation, is called
1) fore sight 2) back sight
3) intermediate sight 4) fore bearing
119. In stairs, the vertical portion of a step providing a support to the tread, is known as
1) riser 2) flier
3) soffit 4) pitch or slope
120. The size of a step commonly adopted for residential buildings is
1) 250 mm x 160 mm
2) 270 mm x 150 mm
3) 300 mm x 130 mm
4) 350 mm x 100 mm
121. When a curve consists of two simple circular arcs of same or different radii, curving in opposite directions with a common tangent at their junction (centres of the two arcs being on opposite sides of the common tangent), such a curve is called as
1) simple circular curve
2) compound curve
3) reverse curve
4) vertical curve
122. A curve having varying radiuses and introduced in between a straight and a circular curve is known as
1) compound curve 2) transition curve
3) vertical curve 4) super elevation
123. Generally the diameter of rivets used in structural members, is not less than
1) 6 mm 2) 12 mm
3) 16 mm 4) 20 mm
124. In residential building, the average value of stair width is
1) 600 mm 2) 700 mm
3) 800 mm 4) 900 mm
125. In first-angle projection method, The top view is always below the ------ view
1) top 2) back
3) front 4) above
126. The principle of working of an optical square is based upon
1) refraction 2) reflection
3) double refraction 4)double reflection
127. The angle between two plane mirrors of an optical square should be
1) 300 2) 450
3) 600 4) 900
128. Dimensions of cylindrical parts should as far as possible be shown in the views in which they are seen as
1) circles 2) rectangles
3) squares 4) triangles
129. Dimensions of a cylinder should never be given as a
1) radius 2) hergs
3) diameter 4) none
130. The longest line passing through the centre of the area known as
1) base line 2) chain line
3) survey line 4) centre line
131. The curve generated by a point on the circumference of a circle rolling along a straight line is called a
1. epicycloid 2. hypocycloid
3. trochoid 4. cycloid
132. The number of steps in an ordinary flight should not be more than
1) 12 2) 10
3) 15 4) 20
133. The extreme support of a hand railing provided at the tope and bottom of a flight is known as
1) baluster 2) newel post
3) ballustrade 4) barrister
134. The head room in a staircase should not be less than
1) 3.5m 2) 3m
3) 2.10m 4) 2m
135. Pitched roofs are particularly suitable in hilly regions because
1) they are lighter in weight
2) it is very easy to repair pitched roof as compared to flat roof
3) of heavy rain fall and snow fall
4) all the above are correct
136. Generally for a column is a workshop using Gantry cranes, the foundation to be used should be 1) Pile foundation
2) Grillage foundation
3) Raft foundation
4) Well foundation
137. For an ordinary double storey building, the type of foundation to be used should be
1) Spread footing foundation
2) Stepped foundation
3) Raft foundation
4) Any other type of foundation
138. The representative fraction 1/1,00,000 signifies a scale of
1) 1cm=100 mtrs 2) 1cm=10 k.mtr
3) 1cm=1 k.mtr 4) 1cm=100,000cm
139. The representative fraction of the scale 1cm=100 k.mtrs will be
1) 1/100,00 2) 1/100
3) 1/1,00,000 4) 1/1,00,00,000
140. The errors which go on increasing in magnitude (either positive or negative) with the increase in measured distance will be called as
1) cumulative errors
2) compensating errors
3) procedural errors
4) mistakes
141. The most suitable type of pitched roof for a span of 2.5 metre is
1) lean to roof 2) couple roof
3) collar roof 4) king post truss roof
142. The pitched roof which slopes in all the four directions is named as
1) shed roof 2) gable roof
3) hip roof 4) mansard roof
143. The methods used for locating the plane table stations are
i) radiation
ii) traversing
iii) intersection
iv) resection
The correct answer is
1) (i) and (ii) 2) (iii) and (iv)
3) (ii) and (iv) 4) (i) and (iii)
144. After fixing the plane table to the tripod, the man operations which are needed at each plane table station are
i) levelling
ii) orientation
iii) centring
The correct sequence of these operations is
1) (i), (ii), (iii) 2) (i), (iii), (ii)
3) (iii), (i), (ii) 4) (ii), (iii), (i)
145. As compared to the floor area of a room, the glass area in a window should not be less than 1) 25% 2) 20%
3) 15% 4) 10%
146. A horizontal member fixed in a door or window frame for the separation of fan light is known as 1) transom 2) threshold
3) mullion 4) sill
147. In airconditioned buildings a door is required which can serve both the purposes, i.e., opening and closing and for this purpose the most suitable type of door is
1) swinging door 2) sliding door
3) rolling shutter 4) revolving door
148. The type of truss commonly used for spans varying from 5 to 9 metre is
1) queen post truss 2) king post truss
3) mansard truss 4) composite truss
149. In a queen post truss, _______ vertical posts are used.
1) two 2) three
3) four 4) six
150. Lettering should be in plain and simple style so that it could be done freehand and
1) stedy 2) speedily
3) straight 4) cornor
ANSWERS
1. 4 2. 4 3. 2 4. 2 5. 3 6. 4 7. 1 8. 4 9. 3 10. 1 11. 3 12. 1 13. 4 14. 1 15. 4 16. 2 17. 1 18. 3 19. 3 20. 2 21. 1 22. 4 23. 3 24. 3 25. 4 26. 1 27. 2 28. 2 29. 2 30. 2 31. 2 32. 3 33. 4 34. 3 35. 3 36. 1 37. 3 38. 2 39. 1 40. 4 41. 3 42. 2 43. 4 44. 4 45. 3 46. 2 47. 1 48. 1 49. 2 50. 4 51. 4 52. 4 53. 4 54. 4 55. 3 56. 4 57. 1 58. 2 59. 2 60. 1 61. 3 62. 3 63. 1 64. 3 65. 3 66 .3 67. 1 68. 1 69. 4 70. 3 71. 2 72. 3 73. 2 74. 4 75. 3 76. 3 77. 4 78. 4 79. 1 80. 4
81. 3 82. 1 83. 2 84. 4 85. 2 86. 2 87. 2 88. 1 89. 3 90. 2 91. 1 92. 3 93. 2 94. 1 95. 2 96. 4 97. 1 98. 1 99. 3 100. 2 101. 4 102. 3 103. 4 104. 4 105. 4 106. 4 107. 1 108. 3 109. 2 110. 4 111. 1 112. 2 113. 2 114. 1 115. 1 116. 3 117. 2 118. 2 119. 1 120. 1 121. 2 122. 2 123. 2 124. 4 125. 3 126. 4 127. 2 128. 2 129. 1 130. 1 131. 4 132. 1 133. 2 134. 3 135. 4 136. 2 137. 1 138. 3 139. 4 140. 1 141. 1 142. 3 143. 3 144. 2 145. 3 146. 1 147. 4 148. 2 149. 1 150. 2
1. perpendicular offset form the junction of transition curve and curricular curve to the tangent is equal to
1) shift 2) two times the shift
3) three times the shift 4) four times the shift
2. If the radius of circular curve is five times the length of the transition curve, then the spiral angle is given by
1) 1/5 radian 2) 1/10 radian
3) 1/20 radian 4) 1/40 radian
3. If L is the length of transition curve and R is the radius of circular curve, then the shift of the curve is directly proportional to
1) R and 2) 1/R and L2
3)and L 4) R2 and 1/L
4. If an upgrade of 1-5% is followed by a downgrade of 0.5% and rate of change of grade is 0.2% per 20m chain, then the length of vertical is
1) 100m 2) 200m
3) 300m 4) 400m
5. By plane table surveying
1) field work alone is possible
2) plotting alone is possible
3) both field work and plotting has are possible simultaneously
4) both field work in the field and plotting on office are possible
6. The plots intended for residential purposes in a municipal area should not be less than
1) 80 m2 2) 120m2
3) 160m2 4) 200m2
7. The plot size in residential layouts in corporation limits for row housing in m2 is
1) 50-100 2) 100-150
3) 150-200 4) 200
8. In the double application of principle of reversion, the apparent error is
1) equal to true error
2) half the true error
3) two times the true error
4) four times the true error
9. The maximum value of centrifugal ratio on roads and railways respectively are taken as
1) 1/4 and 1/6 2)1/6 and 1/8
3) 1/4 and 1/8 4)1/8 and 1/4
10. Agonic line is the line joining points having
1) Zero declination 2) minimum declination
3) maximum declination
4) declination
11. The difference in elevation of points between a vertical and a tangent is
1) directly proportional to its horizontal distance form the point of tangency
2) ineresely proportional to its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
3) directly proportional to the square of its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
4) inversely proportional to the square of its horizontal distance from the point of tangency
12. The type of pointing in which the mortar is first pressed into the raked joints and then finished off flush with the edges of the bricks or stones, is called
1) flust pointing 2) struck pointing
3) V-grooved pointing 4) tuck pointing
13. A block of stone or concrete provided under the end of tie beam to spread the load from the roof over a large area of bearing, is called
1) gable 2) hip
3) verge 4) template
14. The horizontal members of wood or steel used to support the common rafter of a sloping roof, are called
1) purlins 2) cleats
3) hip rafters 4) valley rafters
15. The type of pointing in which the mortar is first pressed into the raked joint and then finished off flush with the face of the bricks or stones is called
1) flush pointing 2) struck pointing
3) V-grooved pointing 4) tuck pointing
16. The efficiency of a riveted joint is :
1) Tearing efficiency 2) Shearing efficiency
3) Crushing efficiency 4) Least of the above
17. The efficiency of pile group is
1) always less than one
2) always more than one
3) always equal to one
4) less than, equal to or more than one
18. Read the following two statements and select the correct answer
i) Shift bisects the transition curve
ii) Transition curve bisects the shift
1) only (i) is correct 2) only (ii) correct
3) both (i) and (ii) are correct
4) neither (i) nor (ii) is correct
19. A curve tangential to four straight lines and consisting of arcs of different radii is known as 1) one centred compound curve
2) two centred compound curve
3) three centred compound curve
4) four centred compound curve
20. If the degree of a curve is 10, then radius of the curve is equal to
1) 5400 m 2) 1720m
3) m 4) m
21. The contour shown in figure indicates
1) a depression
2) a hill
3) steep slope
4) plain ground
22. for the computation of areas, which rule is most accurate?
1) Mid-ordinate rule 2) Average Ordinate rule
3) Trapezoidal rule 4) Simpson's rule
23. A pantograph is used for
1) Measuring
2) measuring distances on maps
3) reproducing, enlarging or reducing the maps
4) Measuring vertical angles
24. The apparent movement of the image of the staff relative to the cross hairs is known as
1) shift 2) slint
3) parallax error 4) sight error
25. A working profile gives
1) ground levels only
2) formation levels only
3) difference in ground levels & formation levels
4) all of the above
26. The error in the staff readings due to curvature of the earth when the length of sight is 1 Km is 1) -0.0785 m 2) +0.0785 m
3) -0.0667 m 4) +0.0667 m
27. The vertical distance between the upper surface of the successive treads is known as
'going of step'
1) true 2) false
28. The brick flooring is used in
1) workshops 2) godowns
3) verandahs 4) none of these
29. The flooring made with small pieces of broken tiles of china glazed or of marble arranged in different pattern, is known as
1) asphalt flooring 2) mosaic flooring
3) terrazo flooring 4) granolithic flooring
30. In stairs, the flier is
1) a vertical portion of a step providing a support to the tread
2) a straight step having a parallel width of tread
3) the under surface of a stair
4) the angle which the line of nosing of the stair makes with the horizontal
31. The maximum velocity of flow is limited to about 3 m/sec, though in practice it should preferably not exceed
1) 2 m/sec 2) 2.25 m/sec
3) 2.5m/sec 4) 3 m/sec
32. The circular section of a sewer is very common but it is best suitable when diamter is up to 1) 0.75 m 2) 1.25m
3) 1.5m 4) 3m
33. While designing a sewerage system, the span of design period is generally taken as
1) one year 2) 5 years
3) 10 years 4) 20 years
34. Which of the following represents a correct match?
i) moveable hair method--
the intercept of levelling staff is kept constant and stadia hair interval is variable
ii) fixed hair method--
The intercept on levelling staff is variable and stadia hair interval is fixed
iii) tangential hair method
The stadia hairs are not used
1) only (iii) is correct
2) only (i) and (ii) are correct
3) all (i), (ii) and (iii) are correct
4) none is correct
35. The longest time without unreasonable delay, the would be required for a drop of water to flow from the upper limit of the drainage area to the point where concentration or the maximum effect of flood considered, is known as
1) inlet time 2) time of flow
3) time of concentration
4) time-intensity
36. The time required for first drops of rain water to flow from the distant points of water shed to the head of the sewer or drain is known as
1) inlet time
2) time of flow
3) time of concentration
4) time intensity
37. In question no.89 the R.L of last point
1) is greater than R.L of first point
2) is same As R.L of first point
3) is smaller than R.L of first point
4) cannot be determined from the given data
38.
________________________________________
Station B.S I.S F.S H.I R.L Remarks
_________________________________________
A 2.3 102.3 100.00 B.M
B 1.3 101.00
C 2.3 X
________________________________________
The above table shows a part of a level field book. The value of X should be
1) 98.70 2) 100.00
3) 102.30 4) 103.30
39. The multiplying constant of a theodolite is 1) f/i 2) (f+d)
3) (f/i+d) 4) (f/d+1)
where f is focal length of object lens
I is stadia hair interval
d is the distance between the optical centre of the object lens and the axis of the theodolite
40. The distance between centre to centre of two adjacent rivet holes should not be less than
1) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet hole
2) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet
3) 1.5 times the diameter of rivet head
4) 2.5 times the diameter of rivet
41. If an up grade of +1% on first class railway is followed by a down grade of -2%, then the length of vertical curve will be
1) 20 chains 2) 40 chains
3) 50 chains 4) 80 chains
42. An outline or -------- should never by used as a dimension line
1) inner line 2) centre line
3) outer line 4) Perpendicular
43. Mutual crossing of dimension lines and dimensioning between ---------- should be avoided
1) dotted line 2) straight line
3) curved line 4) dashed line
44. The recommended rate of change of grade for second class railways per 20-m distance at sages is
1) 0.12% 2) 0.1%
3) 0.8% 4) 0.06%
45. The distance between centre to centre of any two adjacent rivets shall not exceed by ____ when the rivets do not lie in the direction of stresses
1) 12xthickness of the thinnest plate
2) 16x thickness of the thinnest plate
3) 32xthickness of the thinnest plate
4) 32xdiameter of the rivet used
46. A surveyor's chain is made of
1) cast iron 2) stainless steel
3) aluminium 4) galvanized mild steel
47. If a chain is found to be short, it can be adjusted by
1) straightening the bent links
2) removing one or more circular rings
3) closing the joints that have opened out
4) any of the above
48. A telescope is said to be inverted if its
1) vertical circle is to its right and the bubble of the telescope is down
2) vertical circle is to its right and the bubble of the telescope is up
3) vertical circle is to its left and the bubble of the telescope is down
4) vertical circle is to its left and the bubble of the telescope is up
49. The cross hairs in the surveying telescope are placed
1) midway between eye piece and objective lens
2) much closer to the eye piece than to the ob jective lens
3) much closer to the objective lens than to the eye piece
4) anywhere between eye piece and objective lens
50. The foundation in a building is provided to
1) distribute the load over a large area
2) increase overall stability of the structure
3) transmit load to the bearing surface (sub soil) at a uniform rate
4) all of the above
51. The failure of foundation of a building is due to
1) withdraw of subsoil moisture
2) unequal settlement of soil
3) lateral escape of the supporting material
4) all of these
52. The ability of sub-soil to support the load of the structure without yielding is known as
1) bearing value of soil
2) bearing power of soil
3) bearing capacity of soil
4) any one of these
53. Ranging rods cannot be used at a distance of more than
1) 1 km 2) 500 m
3) 400 m 4) 200 m
54. Two points A and B are 1530 m apart across a wide river. The following reciprocal levels are taken with one level.
LEVEL AT READINGS ON
A 2.165 3.810
B 0.910 2.355
The true difference in level between A and B would be
1) 1.255m 2)1.455m
3) 1.545m 4) 1.645m
55. The Simpson Rule for area when D is the strip and h1,h2 ---- etc, are the ordinates.
1) A = d[h1+h2+h3-----+hn]
2) A = d/2[(h1+h2)+2(h3+h5+-----+hn-2)+4(h2+h4+-----+hn-1)]
3) A = d/3[(h1+hn)+2(h3+h5+-----+hn-2)+4(h2+h4+-----+hn-1)]
4) A = d/3[(h1+hn)+2(h2+h4+-----)+4(h3+h5+-----)]
56. In a closed traverse sum of exterior angle is
1) (2n-4)Xrt. angles 3) 4n rt.angles
4) 2n rt angles 4) none
57. In separate sewers the minimum velocity of flow should not be less than
1) 0.6 m/sec 2) 0.75 m/sec
3) 1 m/sec 4) 6 m/sec
58. Ventilation column are provided at the upper end of every branch sewer and they are generally spaced at a distance of
1) 500 m 2) 300m
3) 100m 4) 50m
59. In the quadrantal bearing system, a whole circle bearing of 2930 30' can be expressed as
1) W 230 30'N 2) N 660 30'N
3) W 1130 30'N 4) N 230 30'W
60. The prismatic compass and surveyor's compass respectively give
1 ) Whole circle bearing (WCB) of a line and quadrantal bearings (QB) of line
2)both QB of a line and WCB of a line
3) both QB of a line
4) both WCB of a line
61. The direction of the magnetic meridian in a plane table survey is determined by means of
1) compass box 2) alidade
3) trough compass 4) magmatic needle
62. A flat rectangular piece of metal used to sight object in plane table survey is called....
1) Level edge 2) Cross edge
3) Alidade 4) fiducial edge
63. Main title of inked drawing is generally written in
1) gothic letters 2) simple letters
3) straight letters 4) cornor letters
64. The two types of single-stroke letters are vertical and
1) straight 2) horizontal
3) inclined 4) perpendicular
65. A level was set up at a point A and distance to the staff station B was 100m. The net combined correction due to curvature and refraction as applied to the staff reading is
1) 0.00673 m 2) 0.000673 m
3) -0.000673 m 4) -0.00673 m
66. In levelling between two points A and B on opposite banks of a river, the following readings were taken
Lavel position Staff readings
A B
A 1.500 1.000
B 1.350 0.850
If R.L of A is 100.0m, the R.L of B
1) is less than 100.0m 2) is more than 100.0m
3) is 100.0m
4) cannot be detremined form given date
67. The errors measured due to the incorrect holding of chain is ;
1) Cumulative error 2) Compensating error
3) Curvature error 4) Isolated error
68. A line joining same fixed points on the main survey lines is known as :
1) Base line 2) Check line
3) Contour line 4) Tie line
69. The process of taking levels on each side of a main line at right angles to the centre line in order to determine the vertical cross-section of the ground is known as
1) Differential levelling 2) Reciprocal levelling
3) Profile levelling 4) Cross-sectioning
70. A curve of varying radius introduced between two branches of a compound curve is known as
1) Mean curve 2) Common curve
3) Transition curve 4) Right hand curve
71. Lettering should be so done as can be read from the font with the main title
1) Vertical 2) horizontal
3) Straight 4) Perpendicular
72. A steel pile which function more efficiently in soft clay or loose sand, is
1) H-pile 2) pipe pile
3) screw pile 4) disc pile
73. A screw pile consists of cast iron or steel shaft of external diameter varying from
1) 0 to 150 mm 2) 150 to 300 mm
3) 300 to 450 mm 4) 450 to 600 mm
74. Sheet piles are made of
1) wood 2) steel
3) concrete 4) all of these
75. The coefficient of friction between the concrete and soil is
1) 0.20 to 0.25 2) 0.25 to 0.30
3) 0.30 to 0.35 4) 0.35 to 0.50
76. The Indian tangent clinometer is very useful in
1) reconnaissance survey
2) compass survey
3) plane table survey when contouring is done simultaneously
4) plane table survey when three point problem has to be solved
77. While locating a number of points on a given gradient during preliminary survey of a hill road, the instrument most, suitable is
1) hand level
2) abney's hand level
3) tangent clinometer
4) ceylon ghat tracer
78. As compared to chain riveting, diamond riveting is preferred because
1) width of the plate required is less
2) saving in the material
3) efficiency is more
4) all the above are correct
79. In a structural connection, if the member is subjected to compression, then maximum pitch of the joint should be least of 200 mm or
1) 12t 2) 16t
3) 32t 4) 16d
80. The arrangement of members in a truss is made in such a way so that they should form 1) rectangles 2) quadrilaterals
3) polygons 4) triangles
81. In a truss, as far as possible, the length of one independent member should not be more than 1) 1.5m 2) 2m
3) 3m 4) 5m
82. A watertight surface constructed in connection with excavations for foundations of bridges, piers etc., is known as
1) caisson 2) cofferdam
3) well foundation 4) raft foundation
83. According to Rankine's formula, the minimum depth of foundation should be
1) 2)
3) 4)
where
P= safe permissible pressure on base in N/M2,
w= Weight of soil in N/m3, and
= Angle of repose of the soil
84. The minimum depth of foundation for the load bearing wall of a building is restricted to
1) 600 mm 2) 700 mm
3) 800 mm 4) 900 mm
85. The permissible error in chaining for measurement with chain on rough of hilly ground is
1) 1 in 100 2) 1 in 250
3) 1 in 500 4) 1 in 1000
86. The correction for sag is
1) always additive
2) always subtractive
3) always zero
4)sometimes additive and sometimes substracitve
87. Cross staff is an instrument used for
1) measuring approximate horizontal angles
2) setting out right angles
3) measuring bearings of the lines
4) none of the above
88. The foundation supporting all the columns of a structure is called :
1) Raft foundation
2) Combined footing
3) Strip footing
4) Isolated footing
89. The method of finding out the difference in elevation between two points eliminating the effect of curvature and refraction is known as :
1) Fly levelling 2) Geodetic levelling
3) Precise levelling 4) Contour levelling
90. Superelevation of a horizontal curve is needed to counteract
1) Curve resistance 2) Centrifugal force
3) Centripetal force 4) Frictional force
91. The weight of the foundation may be assumed to be :
1) 25% of the column loads
2) 10% of the column loads
3) 20% of the column loads
4) 15% of the column loads
92. Figure shows the entries in a filed book for a chain line AB
What is the angle between chain line and railway line? 1) 260 34 2) 300
3) 450 4) 600
93. what is the distance between trees T1 and T2 shown in Figure?
1) 4m 2) 5m
3) 7m 4) 12m
94. Theory of probability is applied to
1) accidental errors only
2) cumulative errors only
3) both accidents and cumulative errors
4) none of the above
95. If altitude bubble is provided both on index frames as well as on telescope of a theodolite, then the instrument is levelled with reference to
(i) altitude bubble in index frame
(ii) altitude bubble on index frame if it is to be used as a level
(iii) altitude bubble on telescope
(iv) altitude bubble on telescope if it is to be used as a level
The correct answer is
1) only (i) 2) both (i) and (iv)
3) only (iii) 4) both (ii) and (iii)
96. When two or more parts are connected together, a line of rivet shall be provided whose distance from the nearest edge should not be more than 1) 37 mm
2) 37 mm + thickness of thinnest outside plate
3) 50 mm
4) 37 mm+4x thickness of thinnest outside plate
97. In compression members having both components back to back, the maximum distance between two adjacent tacking rivets shall not be more than
1) 600 mm 2) 300 mm
3) 200 mm 4) 100 cm
98. If the R.L. of a B.M. is 100.00m, the back sight is 1.215m and the foresight is 1 870m, The R.L. of the forward station is
1) 99.345m 2) 100.345m
3) 100.655m 4) 101.870m
99. A survey is conducted with a view to prepare the map of an area to a scale of 1:1000. If a scale with least count of 0.1mm is used for plotting, what would be the accuracy in length measurement in the field?
1) 0.325 m 2) 0.01 m
3) 0.1 m 4) 1m
100. The safe bearing capacity of the soil is equal to
1) Nominal strength X factor of safety
2)
3)
4)
101. The bearing capacity of soils can be improved by
1) increasing the depth of footing
2) draining the sub-soil water
3) ramming the granular material like crushed stone in the soil
4) all of the above
102. The diameter of the drilled piles should not exceed
1) 200 mm 2) 400 mm
3) 600 mm 4) 800 mm
103. The pre-stressed concrete piles as compared to pre-cast and reinforced concrete piles
1) are lesser in weight
2) have high load carrying capacity
3) are extremely durable
4) all of these
104. H-piles
1) require large storage space
2) are difficult to handle
3) cannot withstand large impact stress developed during hand driving
4) none of the above
105. A raking shore is a system of
1) giving temporary lateral support to an unsafe wall
2) providing temporary support to the party walls of two buildings where the intermediate building is to be pulled down and rebuilt
3) providing vertical support to walls and roofs, floors etc. when the lower part of a wall has to be removed for the purpose of providing an opening in the wall
4) all of the above
106. For a building on the side of a busy street where the ordinary scaffolding will obstruct the traffic on road, the type of scaffolding provided is
1) brick layer's scaffold
2) mason's scaffold
3) steel scaffold 4) needle scaffold
107. A horizontal layer of bricks laid in mortar is known as
1) course 2) stretcher
3) header 4) closer
108. A plane, which is perpendicular to the plumb line through a point and is tangential to the level surface at that point is called a
1) tangential plane 2) vertical plane
3) level plane 4) horizontal plane
109. The rays drawn to the points of known location from the unplotted stations occupied by the plane table are called
1)intersectors 2) resectors
3) medians 4) medullary rays
110. In case the plane table is correctly oriented the resectors will
1) form a triangle of error
2) form a great triangle
3) form a greate circle
4) meet at a point
111. An open-newel stair consists of two or more straight flights arranged in such a manner that a clear space occurs between the backward and forward flights.
1) agree 2) disagree
112. In wooden stairs, the thickness of tread is adopted as
1) 28 mm 2) 38 mm
3) 48 mm 4) 58 mm
113. The inner surface of an arch is called
1) extrados 2) intrados
3) crown 4) voussior
114. The vertex is the point at which the ------- cuts the axis
1. conic 2. lines
3. angles 4. ellipse
115. The sum of the distances of any point on the ----from its two foci is alwasy the same and equal to the major axis
1. ellipse 2. parabola
3. hyperbola 4. triangle
116. Finding the location of the station occupied by the table, on the sheet by means of sighting to three well defined points whose locations have been previously plotted on the sheet, is known as
1) resection 2) traversing
3) three point problem
4) two point problem
117. A straight line normal to the plumb line at a point, and tangential to the level line at that point is called a
1) level line 2) horizontal line
3) vertical line 4) plumb line
118. The first sight or staff reading, taken from any levelling station to the levelling staff held at a point of known elevation, is called
1) fore sight 2) back sight
3) intermediate sight 4) fore bearing
119. In stairs, the vertical portion of a step providing a support to the tread, is known as
1) riser 2) flier
3) soffit 4) pitch or slope
120. The size of a step commonly adopted for residential buildings is
1) 250 mm x 160 mm
2) 270 mm x 150 mm
3) 300 mm x 130 mm
4) 350 mm x 100 mm
121. When a curve consists of two simple circular arcs of same or different radii, curving in opposite directions with a common tangent at their junction (centres of the two arcs being on opposite sides of the common tangent), such a curve is called as
1) simple circular curve
2) compound curve
3) reverse curve
4) vertical curve
122. A curve having varying radiuses and introduced in between a straight and a circular curve is known as
1) compound curve 2) transition curve
3) vertical curve 4) super elevation
123. Generally the diameter of rivets used in structural members, is not less than
1) 6 mm 2) 12 mm
3) 16 mm 4) 20 mm
124. In residential building, the average value of stair width is
1) 600 mm 2) 700 mm
3) 800 mm 4) 900 mm
125. In first-angle projection method, The top view is always below the ------ view
1) top 2) back
3) front 4) above
126. The principle of working of an optical square is based upon
1) refraction 2) reflection
3) double refraction 4)double reflection
127. The angle between two plane mirrors of an optical square should be
1) 300 2) 450
3) 600 4) 900
128. Dimensions of cylindrical parts should as far as possible be shown in the views in which they are seen as
1) circles 2) rectangles
3) squares 4) triangles
129. Dimensions of a cylinder should never be given as a
1) radius 2) hergs
3) diameter 4) none
130. The longest line passing through the centre of the area known as
1) base line 2) chain line
3) survey line 4) centre line
131. The curve generated by a point on the circumference of a circle rolling along a straight line is called a
1. epicycloid 2. hypocycloid
3. trochoid 4. cycloid
132. The number of steps in an ordinary flight should not be more than
1) 12 2) 10
3) 15 4) 20
133. The extreme support of a hand railing provided at the tope and bottom of a flight is known as
1) baluster 2) newel post
3) ballustrade 4) barrister
134. The head room in a staircase should not be less than
1) 3.5m 2) 3m
3) 2.10m 4) 2m
135. Pitched roofs are particularly suitable in hilly regions because
1) they are lighter in weight
2) it is very easy to repair pitched roof as compared to flat roof
3) of heavy rain fall and snow fall
4) all the above are correct
136. Generally for a column is a workshop using Gantry cranes, the foundation to be used should be 1) Pile foundation
2) Grillage foundation
3) Raft foundation
4) Well foundation
137. For an ordinary double storey building, the type of foundation to be used should be
1) Spread footing foundation
2) Stepped foundation
3) Raft foundation
4) Any other type of foundation
138. The representative fraction 1/1,00,000 signifies a scale of
1) 1cm=100 mtrs 2) 1cm=10 k.mtr
3) 1cm=1 k.mtr 4) 1cm=100,000cm
139. The representative fraction of the scale 1cm=100 k.mtrs will be
1) 1/100,00 2) 1/100
3) 1/1,00,000 4) 1/1,00,00,000
140. The errors which go on increasing in magnitude (either positive or negative) with the increase in measured distance will be called as
1) cumulative errors
2) compensating errors
3) procedural errors
4) mistakes
141. The most suitable type of pitched roof for a span of 2.5 metre is
1) lean to roof 2) couple roof
3) collar roof 4) king post truss roof
142. The pitched roof which slopes in all the four directions is named as
1) shed roof 2) gable roof
3) hip roof 4) mansard roof
143. The methods used for locating the plane table stations are
i) radiation
ii) traversing
iii) intersection
iv) resection
The correct answer is
1) (i) and (ii) 2) (iii) and (iv)
3) (ii) and (iv) 4) (i) and (iii)
144. After fixing the plane table to the tripod, the man operations which are needed at each plane table station are
i) levelling
ii) orientation
iii) centring
The correct sequence of these operations is
1) (i), (ii), (iii) 2) (i), (iii), (ii)
3) (iii), (i), (ii) 4) (ii), (iii), (i)
145. As compared to the floor area of a room, the glass area in a window should not be less than 1) 25% 2) 20%
3) 15% 4) 10%
146. A horizontal member fixed in a door or window frame for the separation of fan light is known as 1) transom 2) threshold
3) mullion 4) sill
147. In airconditioned buildings a door is required which can serve both the purposes, i.e., opening and closing and for this purpose the most suitable type of door is
1) swinging door 2) sliding door
3) rolling shutter 4) revolving door
148. The type of truss commonly used for spans varying from 5 to 9 metre is
1) queen post truss 2) king post truss
3) mansard truss 4) composite truss
149. In a queen post truss, _______ vertical posts are used.
1) two 2) three
3) four 4) six
150. Lettering should be in plain and simple style so that it could be done freehand and
1) stedy 2) speedily
3) straight 4) cornor
ANSWERS
1. 4 2. 4 3. 2 4. 2 5. 3 6. 4 7. 1 8. 4 9. 3 10. 1 11. 3 12. 1 13. 4 14. 1 15. 4 16. 2 17. 1 18. 3 19. 3 20. 2 21. 1 22. 4 23. 3 24. 3 25. 4 26. 1 27. 2 28. 2 29. 2 30. 2 31. 2 32. 3 33. 4 34. 3 35. 3 36. 1 37. 3 38. 2 39. 1 40. 4 41. 3 42. 2 43. 4 44. 4 45. 3 46. 2 47. 1 48. 1 49. 2 50. 4 51. 4 52. 4 53. 4 54. 4 55. 3 56. 4 57. 1 58. 2 59. 2 60. 1 61. 3 62. 3 63. 1 64. 3 65. 3 66 .3 67. 1 68. 1 69. 4 70. 3 71. 2 72. 3 73. 2 74. 4 75. 3 76. 3 77. 4 78. 4 79. 1 80. 4
81. 3 82. 1 83. 2 84. 4 85. 2 86. 2 87. 2 88. 1 89. 3 90. 2 91. 1 92. 3 93. 2 94. 1 95. 2 96. 4 97. 1 98. 1 99. 3 100. 2 101. 4 102. 3 103. 4 104. 4 105. 4 106. 4 107. 1 108. 3 109. 2 110. 4 111. 1 112. 2 113. 2 114. 1 115. 1 116. 3 117. 2 118. 2 119. 1 120. 1 121. 2 122. 2 123. 2 124. 4 125. 3 126. 4 127. 2 128. 2 129. 1 130. 1 131. 4 132. 1 133. 2 134. 3 135. 4 136. 2 137. 1 138. 3 139. 4 140. 1 141. 1 142. 3 143. 3 144. 2 145. 3 146. 1 147. 4 148. 2 149. 1 150. 2
R.R.B. Bhubaneshwar (A.S.M) Exam., 2009 : Solved Paper
R.R.B. Bhubaneshwar (A.S.M) Exam., 2009 : Solved Paper
(Held on 30-8-2009)
1. Where is the Punjab Lalit Kala Academy located ?
(A) Muktasar
(B) Ludhiana
(C) Patiala
(D) Chandigarh
Ans : (D)
2. What does happens when water is condensed into ice ?
(A) Heat is absorbed
B) Heat is released
(C) Quantity of heat remains unchanged
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
3. Which of the following gases is not a noble gas ?
(A) Zenon
(B) Argon
(C) Helium
(D) Chlorine
Ans : (D)
4. Which of the following diffuses most quickly ?
(A) Solid
(B) Gas
(C) Liquid
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
5. Which temperature in Celsius scale is equal to 300 K ?
(A) 30°C
(B) 27°C
(C) 300°C
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
6. First Youth Olympic games will be held in—
(A) Japan
(B) China
(C) North Korea
(D) Singapore
Ans : (D)
7. Where was the capital of Pandya dynasty situated ?
(A) Mysore
(B) Kanchipuram
(C) Madurai
(D) Delhi
Ans : (C)
8. Tripitik is the scripture of—
(A) Jain religion
(B) Hindu religion
(C) Buddhishtha religion
(D) Muslim religion
Ans : (C)
9. Who is the author of ‘Adhe-Adhure’ ?
(A) Mohan Rakesh
(B) Prem Chand
(C) Nirala
(D) Pant
Ans : (A)
10. Which of the following Constitutional Amendments has included fundamental duties into the Constitution ?
(A) 42nd
(B) 43rd
(C) 44th
(D) 39th
Ans : (A)
11. Where is the Central Food Technology Research Institute situated ?
(A) Delhi
(B) Anand
(C) Ahmedabad
(D) Mysore
Ans : (D)
12. Which of the following is common in both, Buddhism and Jainism ?
(A) Nonviolence
(B) Violence
(C) Triratna
(D) Truth
Ans : (A)
13. Light-year measures which of the following ?
(A) Intensity of light
(B) Mass
(C) Time
(D) Distance
Ans : (D)
14. Which of the following gases is used for ripening the fruits ?
(A) Methane
(B) Ethane
(C) Ethylene
(D) Acetylene
Ans : (C)
15. Who among the following was involved in Alipore bomb case ?
(A) Aravind Ghosh
(B) P. C. Banerjee
(C) Bipin Chandra Paul
(D) Chandrashekhar Azad
Ans : (A)
16. Sikh Guru Arjundev was contemporary to which of the following rulers ?
(A) Humayun
(B) Akbar
(C) Shahjahan
(D) Jahangir
Ans : (D)
17. Besides hydrogen, which of the following elements is common in organic compounds ?
(A) Phosphorus
(B) Sulphur
(C) Nitrogen
(D) Carbon
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 18–21) Find the correct meanings of the words given below :
18. EWE
(A) Calf
(B) Female sheep
(C) Deer
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
19. Buffalo
(A) Calf
(B) Baby box
(C) Baby bison
(D) Baby cow
Ans : (C)
20. Veneration—
(A) Esteem
(B) High respect
(C) Devotion
(D) Worship
Ans : (B)
21. Vicious—
(A) Remorseless
(B) Ferocious
(C) Kind
(D) Wicked
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 22–25) Choose the word / phrase which is nearest in meaning to the words in question :
22. Bizarre
(A) Colourful
(B) Odd
(C) Insipid
(D) Smart
Ans : (B)
23. Innuendo
(A) Narration
(B) Insinuation
(C) Insist
(D) Insutale
Ans : (B)
24. Salutary
(A) Welcome
(B) Discharge
(C) Promoting
(D) Remove
Ans : (C)
25. Fictile
(A) Fiction
(B) Moulded
(C) Fictitious
(D) Smooth
Ans : (B)
26. Solid Carbon dioxide is termed as—
(A) Soft ice
(B) Dry ice
(C) White ice
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
27. 1 kg of a liquid is converted into its vapour at its boiling point. The heat absorbed in the process is called—
(A) Latent heat of vaporisation
(B) Latent heat of fusion
(C) Latent heat of sublimation
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
28. Whether all the universities in the country should start online admission at all levels with immediate effect ?
(i) No, since all the students may not have access to the internet easily.
(ii) Yes, it may liberate the students and their parents from the long-standing problems of knocking at the doors of different colleges and standing in queue.
(A) Only argument (i) is correct
(B) Only argument (ii) is correct
(C) Neither argument (i) nor argument (ii) is correct
(D) Both the arguments, (i) and (ii), are correct
Ans : (D)
29. The product ‘Fair and Lovely’ is related to—
(A) WIPRO
(B) I.T.C.
(C) P & G
(D) H.U.L.
Ans : (D)
30. Should the Government make it compulsory for the private medical colleges to join the entrance test conducted by the Government ?
(i) No, private institutions should be empowered, so that they may decide their own admission strategy and improve their work-management.
(ii) Yes, all medical institutions, whether these are private or government’s, should adopt the same entrance standard.
(A) Only argument (i) is correct
(B) Only argument (ii) is correct
(C) Either argument (i) is correct or argument (ii) is correct
(D) Neither argument (i) is correct nor argument (ii) is correct
Ans : (B)
31. In case the President of India decides to resign, he will address his letter of resignation to—
(A) Prime Minister
(B) Chief Justice
(C) Speaker of Lok Sabha
(D) Vice-President
Ans : (D)
32. The metal extracted from Bauxite is—
(A) Silver
(B) Copper
(C) Manganese
(D) Aluminium
Ans : (D)
33. The Cyclone represents a state of atmosphere in which—
(A) Low pressure in the center and high pressure around
(B) There is high pressure in the center and low pressure around
(C) There is low pressure all around
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
34. The ‘Ocean of Storms’ is the name given to—
(A) Atlantic Ocean
(B) Pacific Ocean
(C) A waterless area on moon surface
(D) None of these
Ans : (C)
35. The capital of Pallavas was—
(A) Arcot
(B) Kanchi
(C) Malkhed
(D) Banavasi
Ans : (B)
36. Which Indian state was ranked as the No. 2 tourist destination in the world by LONELY PLANET?
(A) Himachal Pradesh
(B) Tamil Nadu
(C) Kerala
(D) Uttarakhand
Ans : (C)
37. How much water is contained in our body by mass ?
(A) 65%
(B) 70%
(C) 60%
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
38. What determines the sex of a child ?
(A) Chromosomes of the father
(B) Chromosomes of the mother
(C) RH factor of the parents
(D) Blood group of the father
Ans : (A)
39. The two civilizations which helped in the formation of Gandhara School of Art are—
(A) Indian and Roman
(B) Indian and Egyptian
(C) Greek and Roman
(D) Indian and Greek
Ans : (D)
40. ‘Thinkpad’ is a laptop associated with which among the following companies ?
(A) HP
(B) TCS
(C) Infosys
(D) IBM
Ans : (D)
41. The first summit of SAARC was held at—
(A) Kathmandu
(B) Colombo
(C) New Delhi
(D) Dhaka
Ans : (D)
42. The wire of flash bulb is made of—
(A) Copper
(B) Barium
(C) Magnesium
(D) Silver
Ans : (C)
43. The curves showing the volume pressure behaviour of gases plotted at different fixed temperatures are called—
(A) Isochors
(B) Isothermals
(C) V.T.P. Curves
(D) Isocurves
Ans : (B)
44. Project Tiger was launched in—
(A) 1973
(B) 1976
(C) 1978
(D) 1983
Ans : (A)
Directions—(Q. 45 and 46) Attempt the question to the best of your judgement.
45. How many letters in the word TRYST have as many letters between them as in the alpha bet ?
(A) None
(B) 2
(C) 3
(D) 4
Ans : (B)
46. From the alternatives, select the set which is most like the given set. Given set (23, 29, 31)—
(A) (17, 21, 29)
(B) (31, 37, 49)
(C) (13, 15, 23)
(D) (41, 43, 47)
Ans : (D)
Directions—What should come in place of question mark (?) in the following number series ?
47. 13 13 65 585 7605 129285 …?…
(A) 2456415
(B) 2235675
(C) 2980565
(D) 2714985
Ans : (D)
48. If ‘VEHEMENT’ is written as ‘VEHETNEM’ then in that code how will you code ‘MOURNFUL’ ?
(A) MOURLUFN
(B) MOUNULFR
(C) OURMNFUL
(D) URNFULMO
Ans : (A)
49. MOLLIFY is to APPEASE as APPURTENANCE is to ?
(A) Gratify
(B) Avarice
(C) Accessory
(D) Amend
Ans : (C)
50. Praduman is older than Janaki; Shreshtha is older than Chhama; Ravindra is not as old as Shreshtha but is older than Janaki. Chhama is not as old as Janaki. Who is the youngest ?
(A) Praduman
(B) Janaki
(C) Shreshtha
(D) Chhama
Ans : (D)
51. In a row of children facing North, Bharat is eleventh from the right end and is third to the right of Samir who is fifteenth from the left end. Total how many children are there in the row ?
(A) 29
(B) 28
(C) 30
(D) 27
Ans : (B)
52. Which number is missing ?
45389, ?, 453, 34
(A) 34780
(B) 8354
(C) 4892
(D) 3478
Ans : (B)
53. If in the word CALIBRE, the previous letter in the English alphabet replaces each consonant and each vowel is replaced by the next letter and then the order of letters is reversed, which letter will be third from the right end ?
(A) A
(B) C
(C) B
(D) K
Ans : (D)
54. How many such digits are there in the number 57683421, each of which is as far away from the beginning of the number, as they will be when arranged in descending order within the number ?
(A) One
(B) Two
(C) Three
(D) More than three
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 55 to 57) In the following question there are two words to the left of the sign (::) which are connected in some way. The same relationship obtains between the third word and one of the four alter-natives under it. Find the correct alternative in each case.
55. Medicine : Sickness : : Book : ?
(A) Ignorance
(B) Knowledge
(C) Author
(D) Teacher
Ans : (A)
56. River : Dam : : Traffic : ?
(A) Signal
(B) Vehicle
(C) Motion
(D) Lane
Ans : (A)
57. Session : Concludes : : ? : Lapses
(A) Leave
(B) Permit
(C) Agency
(D) Policy
Ans : (D)
58. If 16 = 11, 25 = 12, 36 = 15, then 49 = ?
(A) 14
(B) 20
(C) 19
(D) 17
Ans : (B)
59. Pick out the odd in the following—
(A) Ashok—Assam
(B) Poonam—Punjab
(C) Gyanendra—Gujarat
(D) Anjana—Rajasthan
Ans : (D)
60. KEATS = 25, SHELLEY = 35, BROWNING = ?
(A) 45
(B) 37
(C) 50
(D) 40
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 61 and 62) What approximate value should come in place of question-mark (?) in the following questions ?
(You are not expected to calculate the exact value)
61. (9321 + 5406 + 1001) ÷ (498 + 929 + 660) = ?
(A) 13•5
(B) 4•5
(C) 16•5
(D) 7•5
Ans : (D)
62. 561204 ×58 = ? ×55555
(A) 606
(B) 646
(C) 586
(D) 716
Ans : (C)
63. The difference between the greatest number and the smallest number of 5 digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 using all but once is—
(A) 32976
(B) 32679
(C) 32769
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
64. Area of a parallelogram whose base is 9 cm and height 4 cm is ……… sq cm.
(A) 9
(B) 4
(C) 36
(D) 13
Ans : (C)
65. The number which is neither prime nor composite is—
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 3
(D) 2
Ans : (B)
66. The length of a room is three times its breadth. If the perimeter of the room is 64 cm, then its breadth is ……… cm.
(A) 64
(B) 32
(C) 16
(D) 8
Ans : (D)
67. Aditi read 4/5th of Tintin comic book which has 100 pages. How many pages of the book is not yet read by Aditi ?
(A) 40
(B) 60
(C) 80
(D) 20
Ans : (D)
68. What is the meaning of beckoned ?
(A) Summon by sign or gesture
(B) Did not signal
(C) Did not call
(D) Invite
Ans : (A)
69. A box contains coins (equal no. of every one) of rupee and half rupee, coins of 25 paise, 10 paise, 5 paise value, 2 paise value and one paise value. The total value of coins in the box is Rs. 1158. Find the number of coins of each value.
(A) 500
(B) 400
(C) 700
(D) 600
Ans : (D)
70. The area of a rhombus with diagonals 12 cm and 20 cm is ……… sq cm.
(A) 120
(B) 12
(C) 20
(D) 240
Ans : (A)
71. A piece of road is one kilometer in length. We have to supply lamp posts. One post at each end, distance between two consecutive lamp posts is 25 metres. The number of lamp posts required is—
(A) 41
(B) 51
(C) 61
(D) 42
Ans : (A)
72. There are 800 students in a class. On one particular day, if 1/10th of the students were absent, how many students were present ?
(A) 700
(B) 650
(C) 720
(D) 750
Ans : (C)
73. The quotient in a division is 403. The divisor is 100 and the remainder is 58, the dividend is—
(A) 40458
(B) 34058
(C) 43058
(D) 40358
Ans : (D)
74. A labourer was engaged for 25 days on the condition that for every day, he works, he will be paid Rs. 2 and for every day, he is absent he will be fined 50p. If he receives only Rs. 37•50, find the no. of days he was absent—
(A) 5
(B) 6
(C) 7
(D) 4
Ans : (A)
Directions—(Q. 75 to 77) Choose the word/phrase which is most opposite in meaning to the word ?
75. Quixotic
(A) Visionary
(B) Whimsical
(C) Realistic
(D) Foolish
Ans : (C)
76. Rabid
(A) Mad
(B) Normal
(C) Furious
(D) Fanatical
Ans : (B)
77. Scurrilous
(A) Inoffensive
(B) Vulgar
(C) Insulting
(D) Coarse
Ans : (A)
78. Digits of first place and third place are interchanged of the numbers 349, 483, 766, 598, 674 and then the new numbers are arranged in ascending order. Which would be the fourth number ?
(A) 483
(B) 766
(C) 674
(D) 598
Ans : (D)
79. What least number should be added to 2600 to make it a complete square ?
(A) 3
(B) 9
(C) 1
(D) 25
Ans : (C)
80. When sun-light passes through a glass prism, which of the following colours refracts the most ?
(A) Blue
(B) Red
(C) Orange
(D) Green
Ans : (A)
81. If (78)2 is subtracted from the square of a number, we get 6460. What is that number ?
(A) 109
(B) 112
(C) 111
(D) 115
Ans : (B)
82. The difference between 28% and 42% of a number is 210. What is 59% of this number ?
(A) 900
(B) 420
(C) 885
(D) None of these
Ans : (C)
83. A–B means A is the father of B. A + B means A is the daughter of B. A ÷ B means A is the son of B. A ×B means A is the wife of B. Then, what is the relation of P with T in the expression P + S – T ?
(A) Son
(B) Daughter
(C) Sister
(D) Wife
Ans : (C)
84. Ellora caves in Maharashtra were built during the rule of which of the following dynasties ?
(A) Rashtrakoot
(B) Pallav
(C) Pala
(D) Chola
Ans : (A)
85. But for the Surgeon’s skill, the patient ……… died.
(A) may have
(B) must have
(C) should have
(D) would have
Ans : (D)
86. I want to see the Principal, …… I have something to tell him urgently.
(A) so
(B) for
(C) since
(D) and
Ans : (C)
87. I wasn’t really listening and didn’t ……… what he said.
(A) catch
(B) receive
(C) accept
(D) take
Ans : (A)
88. The first division of Congress took place in—
(A) Surat
(B) Kolkata
(C) Allahabad
(D) Chennai
Ans : (A)
89. What is ginger ?
(A) Flower
(B) Root
(C) Stem
(D) Leaf
Ans : (B)
90. Battle of Kalinga was fought at which of the following places ?
(A) Udaigiri
(B) Dhauli
(C) Balasore
(D) Barabaki
Ans : (B)
91. MIG aircraft manufacturing plant is located at which of the following places of Orissa ?
(A) Beharampur
(B) Sunabeda
(C) Koraput
(D) Sambalpur
Ans : (C)
(Held on 30-8-2009)
1. Where is the Punjab Lalit Kala Academy located ?
(A) Muktasar
(B) Ludhiana
(C) Patiala
(D) Chandigarh
Ans : (D)
2. What does happens when water is condensed into ice ?
(A) Heat is absorbed
B) Heat is released
(C) Quantity of heat remains unchanged
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
3. Which of the following gases is not a noble gas ?
(A) Zenon
(B) Argon
(C) Helium
(D) Chlorine
Ans : (D)
4. Which of the following diffuses most quickly ?
(A) Solid
(B) Gas
(C) Liquid
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
5. Which temperature in Celsius scale is equal to 300 K ?
(A) 30°C
(B) 27°C
(C) 300°C
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
6. First Youth Olympic games will be held in—
(A) Japan
(B) China
(C) North Korea
(D) Singapore
Ans : (D)
7. Where was the capital of Pandya dynasty situated ?
(A) Mysore
(B) Kanchipuram
(C) Madurai
(D) Delhi
Ans : (C)
8. Tripitik is the scripture of—
(A) Jain religion
(B) Hindu religion
(C) Buddhishtha religion
(D) Muslim religion
Ans : (C)
9. Who is the author of ‘Adhe-Adhure’ ?
(A) Mohan Rakesh
(B) Prem Chand
(C) Nirala
(D) Pant
Ans : (A)
10. Which of the following Constitutional Amendments has included fundamental duties into the Constitution ?
(A) 42nd
(B) 43rd
(C) 44th
(D) 39th
Ans : (A)
11. Where is the Central Food Technology Research Institute situated ?
(A) Delhi
(B) Anand
(C) Ahmedabad
(D) Mysore
Ans : (D)
12. Which of the following is common in both, Buddhism and Jainism ?
(A) Nonviolence
(B) Violence
(C) Triratna
(D) Truth
Ans : (A)
13. Light-year measures which of the following ?
(A) Intensity of light
(B) Mass
(C) Time
(D) Distance
Ans : (D)
14. Which of the following gases is used for ripening the fruits ?
(A) Methane
(B) Ethane
(C) Ethylene
(D) Acetylene
Ans : (C)
15. Who among the following was involved in Alipore bomb case ?
(A) Aravind Ghosh
(B) P. C. Banerjee
(C) Bipin Chandra Paul
(D) Chandrashekhar Azad
Ans : (A)
16. Sikh Guru Arjundev was contemporary to which of the following rulers ?
(A) Humayun
(B) Akbar
(C) Shahjahan
(D) Jahangir
Ans : (D)
17. Besides hydrogen, which of the following elements is common in organic compounds ?
(A) Phosphorus
(B) Sulphur
(C) Nitrogen
(D) Carbon
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 18–21) Find the correct meanings of the words given below :
18. EWE
(A) Calf
(B) Female sheep
(C) Deer
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
19. Buffalo
(A) Calf
(B) Baby box
(C) Baby bison
(D) Baby cow
Ans : (C)
20. Veneration—
(A) Esteem
(B) High respect
(C) Devotion
(D) Worship
Ans : (B)
21. Vicious—
(A) Remorseless
(B) Ferocious
(C) Kind
(D) Wicked
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 22–25) Choose the word / phrase which is nearest in meaning to the words in question :
22. Bizarre
(A) Colourful
(B) Odd
(C) Insipid
(D) Smart
Ans : (B)
23. Innuendo
(A) Narration
(B) Insinuation
(C) Insist
(D) Insutale
Ans : (B)
24. Salutary
(A) Welcome
(B) Discharge
(C) Promoting
(D) Remove
Ans : (C)
25. Fictile
(A) Fiction
(B) Moulded
(C) Fictitious
(D) Smooth
Ans : (B)
26. Solid Carbon dioxide is termed as—
(A) Soft ice
(B) Dry ice
(C) White ice
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
27. 1 kg of a liquid is converted into its vapour at its boiling point. The heat absorbed in the process is called—
(A) Latent heat of vaporisation
(B) Latent heat of fusion
(C) Latent heat of sublimation
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
28. Whether all the universities in the country should start online admission at all levels with immediate effect ?
(i) No, since all the students may not have access to the internet easily.
(ii) Yes, it may liberate the students and their parents from the long-standing problems of knocking at the doors of different colleges and standing in queue.
(A) Only argument (i) is correct
(B) Only argument (ii) is correct
(C) Neither argument (i) nor argument (ii) is correct
(D) Both the arguments, (i) and (ii), are correct
Ans : (D)
29. The product ‘Fair and Lovely’ is related to—
(A) WIPRO
(B) I.T.C.
(C) P & G
(D) H.U.L.
Ans : (D)
30. Should the Government make it compulsory for the private medical colleges to join the entrance test conducted by the Government ?
(i) No, private institutions should be empowered, so that they may decide their own admission strategy and improve their work-management.
(ii) Yes, all medical institutions, whether these are private or government’s, should adopt the same entrance standard.
(A) Only argument (i) is correct
(B) Only argument (ii) is correct
(C) Either argument (i) is correct or argument (ii) is correct
(D) Neither argument (i) is correct nor argument (ii) is correct
Ans : (B)
31. In case the President of India decides to resign, he will address his letter of resignation to—
(A) Prime Minister
(B) Chief Justice
(C) Speaker of Lok Sabha
(D) Vice-President
Ans : (D)
32. The metal extracted from Bauxite is—
(A) Silver
(B) Copper
(C) Manganese
(D) Aluminium
Ans : (D)
33. The Cyclone represents a state of atmosphere in which—
(A) Low pressure in the center and high pressure around
(B) There is high pressure in the center and low pressure around
(C) There is low pressure all around
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
34. The ‘Ocean of Storms’ is the name given to—
(A) Atlantic Ocean
(B) Pacific Ocean
(C) A waterless area on moon surface
(D) None of these
Ans : (C)
35. The capital of Pallavas was—
(A) Arcot
(B) Kanchi
(C) Malkhed
(D) Banavasi
Ans : (B)
36. Which Indian state was ranked as the No. 2 tourist destination in the world by LONELY PLANET?
(A) Himachal Pradesh
(B) Tamil Nadu
(C) Kerala
(D) Uttarakhand
Ans : (C)
37. How much water is contained in our body by mass ?
(A) 65%
(B) 70%
(C) 60%
(D) None of these
Ans : (B)
38. What determines the sex of a child ?
(A) Chromosomes of the father
(B) Chromosomes of the mother
(C) RH factor of the parents
(D) Blood group of the father
Ans : (A)
39. The two civilizations which helped in the formation of Gandhara School of Art are—
(A) Indian and Roman
(B) Indian and Egyptian
(C) Greek and Roman
(D) Indian and Greek
Ans : (D)
40. ‘Thinkpad’ is a laptop associated with which among the following companies ?
(A) HP
(B) TCS
(C) Infosys
(D) IBM
Ans : (D)
41. The first summit of SAARC was held at—
(A) Kathmandu
(B) Colombo
(C) New Delhi
(D) Dhaka
Ans : (D)
42. The wire of flash bulb is made of—
(A) Copper
(B) Barium
(C) Magnesium
(D) Silver
Ans : (C)
43. The curves showing the volume pressure behaviour of gases plotted at different fixed temperatures are called—
(A) Isochors
(B) Isothermals
(C) V.T.P. Curves
(D) Isocurves
Ans : (B)
44. Project Tiger was launched in—
(A) 1973
(B) 1976
(C) 1978
(D) 1983
Ans : (A)
Directions—(Q. 45 and 46) Attempt the question to the best of your judgement.
45. How many letters in the word TRYST have as many letters between them as in the alpha bet ?
(A) None
(B) 2
(C) 3
(D) 4
Ans : (B)
46. From the alternatives, select the set which is most like the given set. Given set (23, 29, 31)—
(A) (17, 21, 29)
(B) (31, 37, 49)
(C) (13, 15, 23)
(D) (41, 43, 47)
Ans : (D)
Directions—What should come in place of question mark (?) in the following number series ?
47. 13 13 65 585 7605 129285 …?…
(A) 2456415
(B) 2235675
(C) 2980565
(D) 2714985
Ans : (D)
48. If ‘VEHEMENT’ is written as ‘VEHETNEM’ then in that code how will you code ‘MOURNFUL’ ?
(A) MOURLUFN
(B) MOUNULFR
(C) OURMNFUL
(D) URNFULMO
Ans : (A)
49. MOLLIFY is to APPEASE as APPURTENANCE is to ?
(A) Gratify
(B) Avarice
(C) Accessory
(D) Amend
Ans : (C)
50. Praduman is older than Janaki; Shreshtha is older than Chhama; Ravindra is not as old as Shreshtha but is older than Janaki. Chhama is not as old as Janaki. Who is the youngest ?
(A) Praduman
(B) Janaki
(C) Shreshtha
(D) Chhama
Ans : (D)
51. In a row of children facing North, Bharat is eleventh from the right end and is third to the right of Samir who is fifteenth from the left end. Total how many children are there in the row ?
(A) 29
(B) 28
(C) 30
(D) 27
Ans : (B)
52. Which number is missing ?
45389, ?, 453, 34
(A) 34780
(B) 8354
(C) 4892
(D) 3478
Ans : (B)
53. If in the word CALIBRE, the previous letter in the English alphabet replaces each consonant and each vowel is replaced by the next letter and then the order of letters is reversed, which letter will be third from the right end ?
(A) A
(B) C
(C) B
(D) K
Ans : (D)
54. How many such digits are there in the number 57683421, each of which is as far away from the beginning of the number, as they will be when arranged in descending order within the number ?
(A) One
(B) Two
(C) Three
(D) More than three
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 55 to 57) In the following question there are two words to the left of the sign (::) which are connected in some way. The same relationship obtains between the third word and one of the four alter-natives under it. Find the correct alternative in each case.
55. Medicine : Sickness : : Book : ?
(A) Ignorance
(B) Knowledge
(C) Author
(D) Teacher
Ans : (A)
56. River : Dam : : Traffic : ?
(A) Signal
(B) Vehicle
(C) Motion
(D) Lane
Ans : (A)
57. Session : Concludes : : ? : Lapses
(A) Leave
(B) Permit
(C) Agency
(D) Policy
Ans : (D)
58. If 16 = 11, 25 = 12, 36 = 15, then 49 = ?
(A) 14
(B) 20
(C) 19
(D) 17
Ans : (B)
59. Pick out the odd in the following—
(A) Ashok—Assam
(B) Poonam—Punjab
(C) Gyanendra—Gujarat
(D) Anjana—Rajasthan
Ans : (D)
60. KEATS = 25, SHELLEY = 35, BROWNING = ?
(A) 45
(B) 37
(C) 50
(D) 40
Ans : (D)
Directions—(Q. 61 and 62) What approximate value should come in place of question-mark (?) in the following questions ?
(You are not expected to calculate the exact value)
61. (9321 + 5406 + 1001) ÷ (498 + 929 + 660) = ?
(A) 13•5
(B) 4•5
(C) 16•5
(D) 7•5
Ans : (D)
62. 561204 ×58 = ? ×55555
(A) 606
(B) 646
(C) 586
(D) 716
Ans : (C)
63. The difference between the greatest number and the smallest number of 5 digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 using all but once is—
(A) 32976
(B) 32679
(C) 32769
(D) None of these
Ans : (A)
64. Area of a parallelogram whose base is 9 cm and height 4 cm is ……… sq cm.
(A) 9
(B) 4
(C) 36
(D) 13
Ans : (C)
65. The number which is neither prime nor composite is—
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 3
(D) 2
Ans : (B)
66. The length of a room is three times its breadth. If the perimeter of the room is 64 cm, then its breadth is ……… cm.
(A) 64
(B) 32
(C) 16
(D) 8
Ans : (D)
67. Aditi read 4/5th of Tintin comic book which has 100 pages. How many pages of the book is not yet read by Aditi ?
(A) 40
(B) 60
(C) 80
(D) 20
Ans : (D)
68. What is the meaning of beckoned ?
(A) Summon by sign or gesture
(B) Did not signal
(C) Did not call
(D) Invite
Ans : (A)
69. A box contains coins (equal no. of every one) of rupee and half rupee, coins of 25 paise, 10 paise, 5 paise value, 2 paise value and one paise value. The total value of coins in the box is Rs. 1158. Find the number of coins of each value.
(A) 500
(B) 400
(C) 700
(D) 600
Ans : (D)
70. The area of a rhombus with diagonals 12 cm and 20 cm is ……… sq cm.
(A) 120
(B) 12
(C) 20
(D) 240
Ans : (A)
71. A piece of road is one kilometer in length. We have to supply lamp posts. One post at each end, distance between two consecutive lamp posts is 25 metres. The number of lamp posts required is—
(A) 41
(B) 51
(C) 61
(D) 42
Ans : (A)
72. There are 800 students in a class. On one particular day, if 1/10th of the students were absent, how many students were present ?
(A) 700
(B) 650
(C) 720
(D) 750
Ans : (C)
73. The quotient in a division is 403. The divisor is 100 and the remainder is 58, the dividend is—
(A) 40458
(B) 34058
(C) 43058
(D) 40358
Ans : (D)
74. A labourer was engaged for 25 days on the condition that for every day, he works, he will be paid Rs. 2 and for every day, he is absent he will be fined 50p. If he receives only Rs. 37•50, find the no. of days he was absent—
(A) 5
(B) 6
(C) 7
(D) 4
Ans : (A)
Directions—(Q. 75 to 77) Choose the word/phrase which is most opposite in meaning to the word ?
75. Quixotic
(A) Visionary
(B) Whimsical
(C) Realistic
(D) Foolish
Ans : (C)
76. Rabid
(A) Mad
(B) Normal
(C) Furious
(D) Fanatical
Ans : (B)
77. Scurrilous
(A) Inoffensive
(B) Vulgar
(C) Insulting
(D) Coarse
Ans : (A)
78. Digits of first place and third place are interchanged of the numbers 349, 483, 766, 598, 674 and then the new numbers are arranged in ascending order. Which would be the fourth number ?
(A) 483
(B) 766
(C) 674
(D) 598
Ans : (D)
79. What least number should be added to 2600 to make it a complete square ?
(A) 3
(B) 9
(C) 1
(D) 25
Ans : (C)
80. When sun-light passes through a glass prism, which of the following colours refracts the most ?
(A) Blue
(B) Red
(C) Orange
(D) Green
Ans : (A)
81. If (78)2 is subtracted from the square of a number, we get 6460. What is that number ?
(A) 109
(B) 112
(C) 111
(D) 115
Ans : (B)
82. The difference between 28% and 42% of a number is 210. What is 59% of this number ?
(A) 900
(B) 420
(C) 885
(D) None of these
Ans : (C)
83. A–B means A is the father of B. A + B means A is the daughter of B. A ÷ B means A is the son of B. A ×B means A is the wife of B. Then, what is the relation of P with T in the expression P + S – T ?
(A) Son
(B) Daughter
(C) Sister
(D) Wife
Ans : (C)
84. Ellora caves in Maharashtra were built during the rule of which of the following dynasties ?
(A) Rashtrakoot
(B) Pallav
(C) Pala
(D) Chola
Ans : (A)
85. But for the Surgeon’s skill, the patient ……… died.
(A) may have
(B) must have
(C) should have
(D) would have
Ans : (D)
86. I want to see the Principal, …… I have something to tell him urgently.
(A) so
(B) for
(C) since
(D) and
Ans : (C)
87. I wasn’t really listening and didn’t ……… what he said.
(A) catch
(B) receive
(C) accept
(D) take
Ans : (A)
88. The first division of Congress took place in—
(A) Surat
(B) Kolkata
(C) Allahabad
(D) Chennai
Ans : (A)
89. What is ginger ?
(A) Flower
(B) Root
(C) Stem
(D) Leaf
Ans : (B)
90. Battle of Kalinga was fought at which of the following places ?
(A) Udaigiri
(B) Dhauli
(C) Balasore
(D) Barabaki
Ans : (B)
91. MIG aircraft manufacturing plant is located at which of the following places of Orissa ?
(A) Beharampur
(B) Sunabeda
(C) Koraput
(D) Sambalpur
Ans : (C)
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