IAS Mains 2009: General Studies Paper 2

1. Write notes on any three of the following (in about 150 words
each) 3×15=45
a) India’s strategic interests in South Asia
b) China’s ‘peaceful rise’ doctrine
c) India Russia Defence Ties
d) India’s ‘soft’ and ‘Hard’ power strategy in foreign policy

2. Write brief notes on any four of the following in about 50
words each 4×5=20
a) Nuclear Supply Group ( NSG ) and India
b) Your view on the recent ‘ Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment
and Self Governance Order 2009’
c) Wakhan Corridor
d) Nuclear Submarine ‘ Arihant’
e) National Security Advisory Board (NSAB)

3. Comment on any two of the following in about 100 words
2×10=20
a) India – USA as strategic partners
b) Ethnic conflict in South Asia
c) ‘ NEPAD’ and its objectives

4. Write on any two of the following in about 50 words each.
2×5=10
a) Indo-Bhutan trade relations
b) Sino Myanmar relations
c) Geopolitics and Geostrategy

5. Comment critically on any one of the following statements in
not more than 200 words: 20
a) “ Foreign investment is far from being critical to India’s
economic growth”
b) “ The Lesson of current global financial crisis is that
India should halt and may be even reverse financial
liberalization”.

6. Answer any one of the following in about 200 words : 20
a). “ In the WTO negotiations over the years of the DOHA
Rounds , India appears to be diluting its stand on agriculture
issues to pursue perceived gains in services”. Critically
examine this statements.
b). Discuss the Indo – US Knowledge initiative in
Agriculture.

7. Answer any two of the following questions (in about 150
words each) 15×2=30
a) Evaluate the prospects for greater economic cooperation
between India & China.
b) Does India need the world Bank ?
c) Critically assesses the recent Free Trade Agreement
entered into by India with ASEAN.

8. Answer any three of the following questions (in about 150
words each) 3 ×15=45
a) What do you understand by ‘Biosignatures’? Discuss
briefly.
b) Write about Green Florescence Protein ( GFP ) and its
application.
c) Define ‘ Bioinformatics’ . How does it work ? What is
the major branches and applications ?
d) What is the ‘ Hubble Space Telescope’ ? How many
Service Mission ( SMs) have been conducted for it ?

9. Explain any four of the following (100 words each) 4 ×10=40
a) DNA Finger Printing and its utility.
b) What is ‘Nanotech’. Give a brief account of its basic
concepts, material used and applications.
c) What is ‘ Graphene’? Mention at least three of its
applications.
d) Define ‘ optical frequency comb’ . Suggest at least three
applications.
e) Why is Tele-medicine important for country like India?

10. Write brief notes on any five of the following ( in about 30
words each): 5 ×13=15
a) Artificial Sun
b) ‘ Vegetable Gold’
c) PFCs and ‘ liquid breathing’
d) The ‘ P- 8 A Poseidon’
e) Biometric ATMs
f) Extra Vehicle Activity ( EVA)

11. a). The total areas of cultivation of high, medium and low
sugar content, sugarcanes in four regions of a state are given
below :
Sugar Region
Content North South East West
High 100 100 200 50
Medium 300 300 400 250
Low 800 400 1000 700
Total 1200 800 1600 1000
Draw suitable diagram that facilitates the comparison of areas of
cultivation of different sugar content varieties among the four
regions 6

b). The following table gives the production of soda ash ( in tons
) by three companies ( A , B and C ) over seven years period :
Company 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
A 20 25 28 31 34 36 41
B 15 18 23 35 40 46 50
C 45 43 40 37 30 26 20
Draw a suitable diagram so as to compare the performance of
these companies. 6

c). The following date relate to the sales and net profit ( in
Rupees Crores) of a company : 4
Years 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99
Sales 100 250 300 290 680
Net Profits 2.5 4.5 6 8.5 12
i). In which year the percentage of growth in sales, relative to the
previous year is higher?
ii). In which year the percentage of growth in net profit , relative
to the previous year , is higher?
iii). Let the probability be defined as the ratio of Net Profit to
sales. In which Year the profitability is higher ?
d). The Total sales ( in ‘000 rupees ) of a particular item in shop ,
on 10 consecutive days , is reported by a clerk as follows : 5
35.00 29.60 38.00 30.00 40.00
41.00 42.00 45.00 3.60 3.80
Later it was found that reports of the 4th and 8th days were 10.00
more than the true values and that in the last two days the clerk
put a decimal wrongly one place to the left ( for example , 3.60
was really 36.0 ). Calculate the true mean value of sale

12.a). In a factory , 1500 women are working . Eight hundred of
them come from rural areas and 450 of the married women are
skill labourers. The number of skilled , rural and married
labourers is 300. of the 400 unmarried and skilled women
labourers , 250 are from urban areas. The number of married ,
semi skill women labouers from urban areas is 200. One hundred
married rural women are semi skilled labourers.
Tabulate the above information. 4
b). The mean score of a class in an examination is 70. If the
mean score of boys is 60 and that of girls is 75, obtain the
percentage of girls in the class. 4
c). In a city 20% people read newspaper A , 25% people read B
and 10% read both A and B . What is the percentage of people
who read at least one of the two newspapers ? 2
d). In order to study the effect of inoculation on TB , It was
found that the number of inoculated and unaffected from TB is
28. and not inoculated and affected from TB is 13. If inoculation
was performed over 40 persons out of 60 persons, complete the
table and obtain the missing numbers.