BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 107 of 143

Correct — A, Alok Shukla, India. The Goldman Environmental Foundation's own citation for its 2024 Asia recipient reads: 'Alok Shukla led a successful community campaign that saved 445,000 acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In July 2022, the government canceled the 21 proposed coal mines in Hasdeo Aranya, whose pristine forests—popularly known as the lungs of Chhattisgarh—are one of the largest intact forest areas in India.' Shukla, 43 at the time of the award, is a convenor of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan, an unpaid alliance of grassroots movements, and a founding member of the Hasdeo Aranya Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, which united forest-dwelling villagers across the region. What was at stake explains why the prize went there. The Hasdeo Aranya tract runs to 657 square miles, forms a tiger corridor between neighbouring sanctuaries, supports about 50 endangered Asian elephants, 25 endangered species, 92 bird species and 167 rare and medicinal plants, and is the catchment of the Hasdeo river, which feeds the Hasdeo Bango reservoir irrigating 741,000 acres. Nearly 15,000 Adivasi depend on the forest. Beneath it lie some 5.6 billion tonnes of coal, in a country that is the world's second largest coal producer and consumer and draws about 70 per cent of its electricity from it. India's environment ministry had declared Hasdeo a 'no-go' zone in 2010 but never gave that status the force of law. Three things make this a well-set question rather than a lucky guess. Alok Shukla is the only Indian in the option set; he is also the only 2024 winner in it; and the other three are all real Goldman laureates from other years, which is what makes them dangerous. The six 2024 winners, announced on 29 April 2024, were Shukla for Asia, Sinegugu Zukulu and Nonhle Mbuthuma of South Africa for Africa, Teresa Vicente of Spain for Europe, Murrawah Maroochy Johnson of Australia for Islands and Island Nations, Andrea Vidaurre of the United States for North America, and Marcel Gomes of Brazil for South and Central America.

• (b)Thai Van Nguyen, Vietnam — A genuine Goldman laureate for Asia, but for 2021, not 2024 — his work is with pangolin conservation and anti-poaching in Vietnam. Right prize, right region, wrong year by three, which is the classic construction of an awards distractor and the reason a year has to be memorised along with a name.
• (c)Delima Silalahi, Indonesia — Also a real Asia recipient, and the most recent wrong option: she won in 2023, the year immediately before, for restoring community-managed forest land in North Sumatra. Anyone who half-remembers 'an Asian forest campaigner won the Goldman' will be pulled here, since that description fits both her and Shukla.
• (d)Chibeze Ezekiel, Ghana — The easiest option to eliminate and the only one that fails on geography: Ghana is in Africa, so he cannot be the Asia recipient whatever the year. He is a real laureate — Africa, 2020, for a campaign that stopped a coal plant and port project in Ghana — which is why the name looks familiar.

The Goldman Environmental Prize was created in 1989 by the San Francisco philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman and is awarded every year to grassroots environmental activists — not to scientists, ministers or corporations, but to people organising in their own communities. Its distinctive structure is regional: one award is made from each of the world's six geographic regions, namely Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. Winners are chosen by an international jury working from confidential nominations, and the prize is widely described as the 'Green Nobel'. India has a long presence on the roll: Medha Patkar in 1992 for the Narmada campaign, the environmental lawyer M. C. Mehta in 1996, Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla in 2004 for the Bhopal gas survivors, Ramesh Agrawal in 2014, Prafulla Samantara in 2017 for the Niyamgiri case, and Alok Shukla in 2024. Read that list and a pattern appears: almost every Indian winner has fought an extractive or industrial project on behalf of forest-dwelling or displaced communities, which is exactly the kind of conflict the Forest Rights Act and the gram sabha's consent requirement were designed to regulate.

Awards questions are decided by three filters, and applying them in order costs nothing. First, region: the stem asks for Asia, and Ghana is in Africa, so option (d) is gone before any recall is needed. Second, year: the remaining three are all Asian laureates, so the question reduces entirely to which of them won in 2024 — and here the useful anchor is the campaign rather than the person, because the Hasdeo Aranya story ran in Indian newspapers through 2022 and 2023 and was the year's most reported Indian environmental campaign. Third, plausibility of scale: the citation mentions 445,000 acres and 21 cancelled coal mines, figures large enough that a candidate who followed the news at all will recognise them. The wider lesson is about how these option sets are built. BPSC did not invent three fake names; it took three real winners of the same prize from adjacent years and regions, which means that recognising a name proves nothing. For any prize question, store the triple — prize, year, and what the person actually did — because any two of the three can be made to look right on their own.

• Goldman Environmental Prize citation, 2024 Asia: Alok Shukla 'saved 445,000 acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines' in Chhattisgarh; the government cancelled the 21 proposed mines in Hasdeo Aranya in July 2022
• Shukla is a convenor of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan and a founding member of the Hasdeo Aranya Bachao Sangharsh Samiti
• Hasdeo Aranya covers 657 square miles, forms a tiger corridor, holds about 50 endangered Asian elephants, 25 endangered species, 92 bird species and 167 rare and medicinal plant species, and supports nearly 15,000 Adivasi
• Around 5.6 billion tonnes of coal lie beneath the forest; India's environment ministry called Hasdeo Aranya a 'no-go' zone in 2010 but never gave that status legal form
• The prize was created in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman and is given annually to one grassroots activist from each of six regions — Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America
• Earlier Indian recipients: Medha Patkar (1992), M. C. Mehta (1996), Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla (2004), Ramesh Agrawal (2014) and Prafulla Samantara (2017)

• Recognising a name and assuming the year — Thai Van Nguyen (2021) and Delima Silalahi (2023) are real Asia winners from other years
• Ignoring the region named in the stem; a Ghanaian laureate cannot be the Asia recipient in any year
• Confusing the Goldman Prize with the UNEP Champions of the Earth award, which goes to policymakers and entrepreneurs as well as activists

BPSC's awards questions name the prize and the year and then offer four real recipients, so the distractors are never invented — they are neighbours in time or in region, and only an exact pairing of prize, year and person survives. UPSC has largely dropped bare awards recall, and reaches the same ground through the law instead: who initiates a forest-rights claim, what a gram sabha can and cannot do in a Scheduled Area, how coal blocks are allocated.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Hasdeo Aranya forests, at the centre of a campaign that won the 2024 Goldman Environmental Prize, lie in which State ?

  • (a)Jharkhand
  • (b)Odisha
  • (c)Chhattisgarh
  • (d)Madhya Pradesh

  Answer(c) Chhattisgarh — the Hasdeo Aranya tract is in central Chhattisgarh and is the catchment of the Hasdeo river, a tributary system feeding the Hasdeo Bango reservoir.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded annually to one grassroots activist from each of how many geographic regions ?

  • (a)Four
  • (b)Five
  • (c)Six
  • (d)Seven

  Answer(c) Six — Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America.