August 12 is celebrated as
- (a)the World Environment Day
- (b)the World No-Tobacco Day
- (c)the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
- (d)the International Youth Day
Correct — D, the International Youth Day. The United Nations General Assembly fixed 12 August as International Youth Day by resolution A/RES/54/120 of 1999, acting on a recommendation of the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth held at Lisbon in 1998; the first observance was in 2000. Each of the other three is a real observance on a different date, and the three dates are worth carrying together: World No-Tobacco Day is 31 May, a World Health Organization observance created by resolution 42.19; World Environment Day is 5 June, established by General Assembly resolution 2994 (XXVII) of 1972 alongside the Stockholm Conference; and the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is 26 June, under resolution 42/112 of 1987.
- (a)the World Environment Day — 5 June, not 12 August. It dates from the Stockholm Conference year of 1972 and is the most widely observed of the four in India.
- (b)the World No-Tobacco Day — 31 May. It is a World Health Organization observance rather than a General Assembly one.
- (c)the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking — 26 June, established in 1987. It falls only two days before the last week of June, which is why it is often muddled with the June observances rather than with August.
International days are designated either by the United Nations General Assembly or by a specialised agency such as the World Health Organization or the Food and Agriculture Organization, and each carries the number of the resolution that created it. They are advocacy devices: a day gives governments and civil society a fixed point in the calendar for campaigns, reports and events on a theme, and the United Nations announces a fresh theme for most of them every year.
Calendar questions look like pure memory and mostly are, but the load can be cut. Cluster the dates by month rather than learning them singly — the last day of May and the first week of June carry tobacco and environment, late June carries drugs, and August carries the indigenous peoples on the ninth, youth on the twelfth and humanitarian work on the nineteenth. It also helps to attach each day to its founding moment: environment to Stockholm in 1972, youth to the Lisbon ministers' conference of 1998. For India there is a separate National Youth Day on 12 January, the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, which is a common source of confusion with the international observance in August.
- International Youth Day is observed on 12 August, designated by General Assembly resolution A/RES/54/120 in 1999.
- World No-Tobacco Day is 31 May, a World Health Organization observance under resolution 42.19.
- World Environment Day is 5 June, designated by General Assembly resolution 2994 (XXVII) in 1972, the year of the Stockholm Conference.
- The International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking is 26 June, under resolution 42/112 of 1987.
- India separately observes National Youth Day on 12 January, the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
Group the dates by month and attach each to the event that created it; that is far easier than learning twelve isolated numbers.
- Confusing International Youth Day on 12 August with India's National Youth Day on 12 January.
- Assuming every international day is created by the General Assembly. Several belong to specialised agencies.
- Mixing 26 June with the June environment observances because both fall in the same month.
As a date-to-observance matching item, or as a which-day-is-observed-on item with three neighbouring dates as distractors.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
World Environment Day is observed on which date?
- (a)22 April
- (b)5 June
- (c)16 September
- (d)11 December
Answer(b) 5 June — designated by the General Assembly in 1972, the year of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In India, National Youth Day is observed on 12 January to mark the birth anniversary of which one of the following?
- (a)Bhagat Singh
- (b)Swami Vivekananda
- (c)Subhas Chandra Bose
- (d)Rabindranath Tagore
Answer(b) Swami Vivekananda — this is the national observance, distinct from International Youth Day on 12 August.