(a) On the outline map of India provided to you, mark the location of all of the following. Write in your QCA Booklet the…

(a) Map locations and their significance

(i) Nathula (27.4° N, 88.8° E), a pass on the Sikkim-Tibet border. A historic Silk Route link, it reopened for India-China border trade in 2006 and is a Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route and a strategic point.

(ii) Hutti (16.2° N, 76.7° E), Raichur district, Karnataka. It has the Hutti Gold Mines, one of India's few primary gold producers, in the Dharwar greenstone belt.

(iii) Ross Island (11.7° N, 92.8° E), near Port Blair, Andaman. Now renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep, it has the ruins of the British administrative centre and is a heritage and tourism site.

(iv) Moreh (24.2° N, 94.3° E), Manipur, on the Myanmar border opposite Tamu. It has the Integrated Check Post for Indo-Myanmar trade and lies on the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, central to the Act East policy.

(v) Ramappa (18.3° N, 79.9° E), Palampet, Telangana. The 13th-century Kakatiya Rudreswara temple, known for floating bricks and sandstone carving, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.

(vi) Namdapha National Park (27.5° N, 96.4° E), Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh. A tiger reserve and biodiversity hotspot, it has the tiger, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard, red panda and hoolock gibbon.

(vii) Sela Tunnel (27.5° N, 92.1° E), West Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh. Opened in 2024 beneath Sela Pass on the Balipara-Charduar-Tawang road, it gives all-weather access to Tawang and strengthens border defence.

(viii) Ennore Port (13.2° N, 80.3° E), north of Chennai, now Kamarajar Port. A major port handling coal, ores and vehicles for the thermal stations and industry, its creek suffers ecological stress from ash and the 2017 oil spill.

(ix) Ramagundam (18.8° N, 79.5° E), Peddapalli, Telangana, in the Godavari valley. It has NTPC's super thermal power station using Singareni coal, and a fertiliser plant.

(x) Betwa River. It rises in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, flows through the Vindhyan region and joins the Yamuna near Hamirpur. It irrigates Bundelkhand and is linked to the Ken by the Ken-Betwa river-linking project, which affects Panna Tiger Reserve.

(b) Gondwana system of rocks in India

Origin. The system is a thick sequence of continental sediments, sandstones, shales, conglomerates and coal, laid down from the Upper Carboniferous to the Lower Cretaceous, roughly 300 to 100 million years ago. Peninsular India lay in Gondwanaland, and rivers filled rift valleys and troughs along old faults with sediments of lakes, rivers and swamps, in cold to warm humid conditions. Plant fossils such as Glossopteris record this.

Divisions. Lower Gondwanas: Talchir (glacial boulder beds), Damuda (Barakar, Barren Measures, Raniganj) and Panchet. Upper Gondwanas: Mahadeva, Parsora, Kamthi, Maleri, Jabalpur and the Rajmahal traps.

Distribution. They occur in narrow linear troughs: the Damodar valley (Jharia, Raniganj, Bokaro), the Son-Mahanadi valleys (Singrauli, Korba, Talcher), the Pranhita-Godavari valley (Singareni) and the Satpura region (Pench-Kanhan), with outcrops in Rajmahal, Kutch and Rajasthan.

Economic significance. About 98 per cent of India's coal, including coking coal, comes from them, and they support power, steel and cement. They also give fireclay, limestone, iron ore, building sandstone and clays. Kota sandstone and Pranhita-Godavari fossils have scientific value.

(c) Indian earth observation satellites for weather forecasting and disaster management

(i) Weather forecasting. The INSAT-3D, 3DR and 3DS series carry an imager and a 19-channel sounder that give temperature and humidity profiles, cloud motion winds, rainfall and fog. Oceansat, SCATSAT-1 and Megha-Tropiques give sea-surface winds and temperature, and tropical rainfall and humidity data. These feed the IMD's numerical models, improving the track and landfall forecasts of cyclones such as Fani, Amphan and Biparjoy, with lives saved by timely evacuation, and extending monsoon and heat-wave outlooks.

(ii) Disaster management. Resourcesat, Cartosat and the radar-imaging RISAT, which sees through clouds, map flood inundation, landslides, forest fires and damage after earthquakes or cyclones. Satellite links provide emergency communication. NRSC's Decision Support Centre and the Bhuvan portal deliver maps to the NDMA and states, which help in early warning, relief and recovery.

(iii) Limits. Revisit interval, cloud cover for optical sensors, ground validation, local capacity and last-mile communication limit the use, and a finer resolution and denser constellation are still needed.

(d) Impact of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 on forest conservation

The NGT Act, 2010 created a specialised tribunal, with judicial and expert members, for quick disposal of environmental cases, based on Article 21 and on India's international commitments. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 is one of the Acts under its jurisdiction.

(i) Positive impact. It applies the precautionary principle, polluter pays and sustainable development, hears civil cases and appeals against forest clearances, and orders compensatory afforestation, restoration and penalties. It has questioned clearances for mines, roads and power projects in forests and checked illegal felling and encroachment.

(ii) Access and expertise. Citizens and NGOs can approach it cheaply, and expert members add scientific input, which lessens the burden on the High Courts.

(iii) Limits. Its jurisdiction leaves out the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Orders are often not implemented by state agencies, there are vacancies and few regional benches, and the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, which exempts certain categories of forest land, reduces what the tribunal can enforce.

It has therefore made forest governance more accountable, but its impact depends on implementation.