APEDA is the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, a statutory body set up by an Act that Parliament passed, numbered 2 of 1986, and it works under the Department of Commerce in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. On coming into force it took the place of the Processed Food Export Promotion Council. The Act assigns it the work of developing the industries behind the scheduled products for export: it registers exporters of those products, fixes standards and specifications for export, inspects meat and meat products wherever they are processed or stored, improves their packaging and their marketing outside India, collects statistics from the factories involved and trains people in the trades concerned. The scheduled products run from fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry and dairy to honey, cocoa, cereals, guar gum, floriculture and cashew nuts, and Basmati rice sits in the Second Schedule of the Act. It has also been given the monitoring of sugar imports. Separately it acts as the secretariat for the National Programme for Organic Production.
Ministry:Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of CommerceAct number:2 of 1986Body it replaced:Processed Food Export Promotion CouncilBasmati rice:Second Schedule of the APEDA ActSecretariat for:National Programme for Organic Production
Why it matters for exams: APEDA is a frequent Economy and Agriculture question: the ministry it works under, the council it replaced, the schedule Basmati rice sits in, and its role as secretariat of the National Programme for Organic Production.
APEDAAgricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority — The statutory authority for promoting exports of agricultural and processed food products.
Scheduled products — The products listed in the APEDA Act's schedule, which alone fall within its export mandate.
NPOPNational Programme for Organic Production — India's programme of standards and certification for organic produce, whose secretariat APEDA runs.
CSIR-CFTRI is the Central Food Technological Research Institute at Mysuru, and it is one of the constituent laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, whose headquarters is in New Delhi. The Council itself answers to the Ministry of Science and Technology. Four broad areas hold the institute's research together: engineering sciences, technology development, translational research, and food protection and safety. Under those headings sit departments for grain science and technology, food engineering, food packaging technology, meat and marine sciences, microbiology and fermentation technology, molecular nutrition, plant cell biotechnology, and plantation products, spices and flavour technology. A separate department works on traditional foods and applied nutrition. Away from Mysuru, the institute keeps resource centres at Hyderabad, Lucknow and Mumbai. Its work matters to small food processors because the technologies it develops are licensed out to industry.
Parent council:Council of Scientific and Industrial ResearchLocation:MysuruResource centres:Hyderabad, Lucknow, MumbaiResearch areas:Four
Why it matters for exams: CSIR laboratories and the city each sits in are a standard Science and Technology question, and CFTRI is the one that carries food science, with its three resource centres also asked.
The National Dairy Research Institute at Karnal in Haryana is India's main research institute for dairying, and it now carries the ICAR prefix. Its ancestry runs back to the Imperial Institute for Animal Husbandry and Dairying, which was opened at Bangalore as a centre for dairy education. Mahatma Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malviya spent a fortnight at that Bangalore institute learning modern methods of cattle management. The institute was renamed the Imperial Dairy Institute, and later moved to Karnal and took its present name. What was left behind at Bangalore became the Southern Regional Station, and an Eastern Regional Station was added at Kalyani in West Bengal. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research took charge of the institute afterwards. For its own degree programmes the institute holds the status of a Deemed University, and it supplies much of the teaching strength for dairy courses in the State Agricultural Universities.
Location:Karnal, HaryanaEarlier name:Imperial Institute for Animal Husbandry and DairyingRegional stations:Bengaluru (Southern), Kalyani (Eastern)Academic status:Deemed University
Why it matters for exams: NDRI is the standard dairy question in Agriculture: the state it sits in, the city it moved from, the council it answers to, and its Deemed University status.
Survey of India is the national survey and mapping organisation of the country and comes under the Ministry of Science and Technology. Its head is the Surveyor General of India, whose office stands at Hathibarkala Estate in Dehradun. The duty of making the topographic map database for the whole country, keeping it current and giving it out rests with this organisation, and that database is the base on which every other spatial dataset is built. Its stated mandate is to lead on opening up spatial data to users while not giving away anything that national security requires be held back. The National Map Policy is the framework it formulates and implements, and the body of data it maintains is called the National Foundation Dataset, which takes in three dimensional models, three dimensional point clouds and the Ortho Rectified Base Image. Its own Citizens' Charter is treated as a living document and is reviewed at least once in five years. Defence, navigation, tourism, disaster management, mining, agriculture and research are all listed among the users it serves.
Ministry:Ministry of Science and TechnologyHead:Surveyor General of IndiaHeadquarters:Hathibarkala Estate, DehradunPolicy framework:National Map PolicyData holding:National Foundation Dataset
Why it matters for exams: Survey of India is asked as the national mapping agency: the ministry it sits under, the title of its head, the city of its headquarters and the National Map Policy it implements.
The National Archives of India keeps the records of enduring value that the Union government creates, and it is an attached office of the Ministry of Culture. It opened as the Imperial Records Department, housed in the Imperial Secretariat Building at Calcutta, with Professor G. W. Forrest as its first officer in charge. The seat of government shifted to New Delhi, the department followed, and it later took over the building it still occupies. After independence the department was renamed and the post of Keeper of Records became Director of Archives; that post was redesignated Director General of Archives decades later. The mandate for working the Public Records Act, 1993 rests with the Director General, and that law governs how the Central Government's offices and other records creating agencies manage and preserve their own records. A Conservation Research Laboratory was built to study the problems of preserving paper. Outside Delhi the department runs a Regional Office at Bhopal and Records Centres at Jaipur, Puducherry and Bhubaneswar.
Ministry:Ministry of CultureHead:Director General of ArchivesGoverning Act:Public Records Act, 1993Original name:Imperial Records DepartmentRecords Centres:Jaipur, Puducherry, BhubaneswarRegional Office:Bhopal
Why it matters for exams: The National Archives is asked about through the Public Records Act, 1993, the title of its head, the ministry it is attached to and its first name as the Imperial Records Department.
The National Financial Reporting Authority, shortened to NFRA, is the body that watches over accounting and auditing in India's larger companies. Section 132 of the Companies Act, 2013 is its source, and the Government of India constituted it under the first sub-section there. Its duties are set out in the next sub-section of the same section. It recommends the accounting and the auditing policies and standards that companies should follow, and the Central Government approves them. Compliance with those standards is then monitored and enforced by the Authority. It also keeps an eye on how well the professions tied to that compliance are serving, and suggests how the quality of service can be improved. The NFRA Rules, 2018 require it to work in the interest of the public and of investors, creditors and others connected with the companies and bodies corporate it covers, and the same Rules set out which classes of company fall within its reach.
Constituted under:Section 132(1), Companies Act, 2013Duties provision:Section 132(2)Rules:NFRA Rules, 2018Approves the standards:Central Government
Why it matters for exams: NFRA is a frequent Economy and Company Law question: the section of the Companies Act, 2013 that constitutes it, who approves the standards it recommends, and the Rules that fix its reach.
The Botanical Survey of India works under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and has its headquarters at Kolkata. It was set up to explore the plant resources of the country and to pick out the species that carry economic value. A later reorganisation gave it three objectives: to run intensive floristic surveys and gather exact information on where plants occur, how they are distributed, their ecology and their economic use; to collect, identify and pass on material that educational and research institutions can use; and to act as custodian of authentic collections in planned herbaria while documenting plant resources as local, district, state and national flora. Its own account traces the idea back to the garden the East India Company laid out at Sibpur near Calcutta on the recommendation of Colonel Robert Kyd, later renamed the Royal Botanic Garden. Among the early works it names is Hortus Malabaricus, compiled from the plants of the Malabar coast by Hendrik van Rheede, which it calls the first work on the systematics of Indian plants. The Central National Herbarium and the Central Botanical Laboratory both sit at Howrah, and eleven regional centres run from Port Blair and Itanagar to Coimbatore and Solan.
Ministry:Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate ChangeHeadquarters:KolkataRegional centres:ElevenHerbarium:Central National Herbarium, HowrahEarly work named:Hortus Malabaricus
Why it matters for exams: The Botanical Survey of India is asked alongside the Zoological Survey: the ministry over it, its Kolkata headquarters, and Hortus Malabaricus, the Malabar work it names as the first systematics of Indian plants.
The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration at Mussoorie is India's premier training institution for the civil services. It is an attached office of the Department of Personnel and Training, and the officer who heads it, the Director, holds the rank of a Secretary to the Government of India. Entrants to the All India Services, to the Indian Foreign Service, to the Group A services of the Union and to the Royal Bhutan Service all take a common Foundation Course there. After that course the Academy gives professional training to the direct recruits of the Indian Administrative Service and to members of the Royal Bhutan Service. Officers promoted into the IAS from the State civil services come for an Induction Training Programme, and serving IAS officers return for Mid-Career Training Programmes. Two sets of rules govern a probationer's time there: the IAS (Probation) Rules, 1954, which fix the probation period and the grounds for discharge, and the IAS Probationer's Final Examination Regulations, 1955. Article 311 of the Constitution is the provision that calls for an inquiry before a civil servant is dismissed, removed or reduced in rank, and that same Article also lists the situations in which such an inquiry need not be held.
Location:MussoorieAttached to:Department of Personnel and TrainingHead:Director, of the rank of Secretary to the Government of IndiaProbation rules:IAS (Probation) Rules, 1954Constitutional safeguard:Article 311
Why it matters for exams: LBSNAA is asked through the department it is attached to, the rank of its Director, the services that share its Foundation Course, and Article 311, which its own rule book sets out.
General aids to marine navigation along the Indian coast are provided by the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships, a subordinate office of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. Its headquarters is at Noida in Uttar Pradesh, which is inland, and for administrative control the whole coastline is cut into nine Districts. Those Districts keep regional headquarters at Mumbai, Goa, Cochin, Chennai and Visakhapatnam, with Gandhidham and Jamnagar to the west, Kolkata to the east and Port Blair in the islands. The aids it provides fall into two kinds. The visual ones are lighthouses, light vessels, buoys and beacons; the radio ones include DGPS and RACONs, and none of these talks back to the mariner. The Directorate has since moved into an interactive aid as well, the Vessel Traffic Service. Aids are also sorted by whose job they are: general aids are the Directorate's charge, while local aids rest with port and State maritime board organisations, which the Directorate supports technically and whose lights it may take over if they cannot be kept to standard.
Ministry:Ministry of Ports, Shipping and WaterwaysHeadquarters:Noida, Uttar PradeshCoastal Districts:NineKerala District headquarters:CochinInteractive aid:Vessel Traffic Service
Why it matters for exams: The Directorate is asked about as the body behind India's lighthouses: the ministry it belongs to, its Noida headquarters, the nine coastal Districts and the split between general and local aids.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, or ITAT, is a statutory quasi-judicial institution, and in the field of Direct Taxes it is the second appellate authority for disputes. It was created under the Income Tax Act, 1961, and it works under the Ministry of Law and Justice. Nishpaksh Sulabh Satvar Nyay is its motto, and what it stands for is Impartial, Easy and Speedy Justice. The Tribunal is widely acclaimed as the Mother Tribunal. Its Benches are spread over regular stations around the country, with Circuit Benches at Varanasi and Dehradun. For administration those Benches are divided into Zones, and a Vice President heads each Zone. A President heads the Tribunal and directs its judicial proceedings, and an appeal can be heard by video conferencing, with both parties joining from remote locations.
Motto:Nishpaksh Sulabh Satvar NyayAlso called:Mother TribunalCreated under:Income Tax Act, 1961Parent ministry:Ministry of Law and JusticePlace in the appeal chain:second appellate authorityHead of each Zone:Vice President
Why it matters for exams: ITAT is asked about as the Mother Tribunal: the ministry it works under, the Act it was created under, and its place as the second appellate authority in the field of Direct Taxes.