BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 27 of 142

Correct — C, Fertilizers. In the vocabulary of India's so-called colour revolutions, the Grey Revolution denotes the expansion of fertiliser production and use — the chemical input that made the Green Revolution's high-yielding varieties worth planting, since a dwarf wheat or rice variety only outperforms a traditional one when it is fed. The strongest argument for this answer is not the colour itself but the option set, and it is worth working through because it is the fastest route to a mark. Each of the other three options already belongs to a different colour. Oilseeds are the YELLOW Revolution, launched through the Technology Mission on Oilseeds of 1986 to cut India's dependence on imported edible oil. Potatoes are the ROUND Revolution. Fisheries and aquaculture are the BLUE Revolution, the programme behind India's rise to become one of the world's largest fish producers. That leaves fertilisers with no other colour to claim, and grey with no other subject to attach to. One caveat should be stated honestly rather than hidden: this palette is a convention of Indian general-knowledge writing, not an official Government of India nomenclature, and a few of the colours have more than one reading — grey is also used, less often, for the development of wool. Since wool is not among the options and each of the other three subjects is already spoken for, fertilisers is the only reading the question permits.

• (a)Oilseeds — The Yellow Revolution, and the colour is easy to remember because mustard and sunflower fields are yellow. It refers to the sharp rise in oilseed output after the Technology Mission on Oilseeds was set up in 1986, which reduced India's edible-oil import bill for a decade before demand outran it again.
• (b)Potatoes — The Round Revolution, named for the shape of the tuber rather than for a colour, which is precisely why it is easy to forget and easy to plant as a distractor. It is the least commonly cited of the whole set and appears here to fill the fourth place.
• (d)Fisheries — The Blue Revolution — the growth of inland and marine fish production and aquaculture, carried forward in recent years through the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana. The colour is intuitive enough that a candidate who knows only one entry in this list usually knows this one, which makes it a poor guess here.

The colour revolutions are a shorthand for the sectoral transformations of Indian agriculture since the 1960s. The Green Revolution is the parent: from the mid-1960s, high-yielding semi-dwarf varieties of wheat and rice, combined with assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser and pesticides, lifted Indian foodgrain output out of chronic shortage, most dramatically in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Every other colour describes a comparable push in a single commodity. The White Revolution, Operation Flood, ran from 1970 under Verghese Kurien and the National Dairy Development Board on the Anand cooperative model, and made India the world's largest milk producer. The Blue Revolution did the same for fish, the Yellow for oilseeds, the Golden for horticulture and honey, the Silver for eggs and poultry, the Pink for onions and prawns, and the Grey for fertilisers. The set is a teaching device rather than a set of official programme names, but it is examined as though it were a list — so it has to be learned as one.

Two habits make these questions quick. First, answer by elimination rather than by recall of the asked colour: in a four-option set, three of the options usually belong to colours you do know, and the fourth is the answer by default. That works here without any independent knowledge of what grey means. Second, group the list by how the colour was chosen, because that is what makes it memorable — some are literal (white for milk, blue for water, yellow for mustard fields, red for meat and tomato), some are about the shape or the product (round for potato, golden fibre for jute, silver fibre for cotton), and grey is one of the abstract ones, taken from the colour of fertiliser rather than from anything visual about a crop. Note finally the substantive point behind this particular colour: the Green Revolution depended on the Grey one. High-yielding varieties are fertiliser-responsive by design, which is why India's fertiliser consumption, domestic urea capacity and fertiliser subsidy all rose together with foodgrain output — and why the subsidy remains one of the largest single items in the Union budget.

• The commonly taught palette: Green — foodgrains; White (Operation Flood) — milk; Blue — fisheries; Yellow — oilseeds; Grey — fertilisers; Round — potato; Golden — horticulture and honey; Golden Fibre — jute; Silver — eggs and poultry; Silver Fibre — cotton; Pink — onions and prawns; Red — meat and tomato; Black — petroleum.
• The Yellow Revolution followed the Technology Mission on Oilseeds set up in 1986; the White Revolution was Operation Flood from 1970, led by Verghese Kurien through the National Dairy Development Board on the Anand cooperative model.
• High-yielding semi-dwarf varieties are fertiliser-responsive by design, so the Green Revolution could not have worked without a parallel expansion of fertiliser supply — which is what the Grey Revolution names.
• The colour palette is a convention of Indian general-knowledge writing rather than official Government of India nomenclature, and a few colours carry more than one reading — grey is occasionally used for wool.
• Bihar's own fertiliser link is Barauni in Begusarai district, where a urea plant built in the public sector was closed and later revived, feeding a State whose agriculture is dominated by smallholdings.

• Trying to recall the asked colour instead of eliminating the others. Three of the four options in a set like this normally belong to colours you already know.
• Assuming the palette is official. It is a convention of examination writing, and a few colours have more than one reading, which is why the option set has to do the deciding.
• Confusing the Round Revolution with the Golden Revolution. Round is potato; Golden is horticulture, fruits and honey.

BPSC asks the colour revolutions almost every cycle, usually as a single colour with four commodities beneath it, and rewards a candidate who has memorised the full palette. UPSC has moved away from the list entirely and asks about the underlying programmes instead — what Operation Flood did, what the nutrient-based subsidy is for, why neem-coated urea was mandated — so the same material has to be known as policy rather than as vocabulary.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The White Revolution in India is associated with

  • (a)Cotton production
  • (b)Milk production
  • (c)Salt production
  • (d)Poultry production

  Answer(b) Milk production — Operation Flood from 1970, led by Verghese Kurien through the National Dairy Development Board, built on the Anand cooperative model and made India the world's largest milk producer. Poultry and eggs are the Silver Revolution.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Yellow Revolution in India refers to a sharp increase in the production of

  • (a)Maize
  • (b)Oilseeds
  • (c)Turmeric
  • (d)Gold reserves

  Answer(b) Oilseeds — driven by the Technology Mission on Oilseeds set up in 1986, which was aimed at reducing India's dependence on imported edible oil.