NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 133 of 146

Correct — B, Manipur. The National Sports University Ordinance was promulgated on 31 May 2018 to set up India's first university dedicated to sports education, coaching and sports science, with its headquarters in Manipur. The Prime Minister had already laid the foundation stone for the campus at Imphal West on 16 March 2018, and the university began functioning from a temporary campus at the Khuman Lampak Sports Complex in Imphal. The choice of Manipur was not arbitrary — the state sends a strikingly large share of India's international competitors in boxing, weightlifting, hockey and football relative to its population.

• (a)Chhattisgarh — Chhattisgarh has no connection with this ordinance. Nothing in the 2018 sports-policy announcements placed the national university there.
• (c)Kerala — Kerala has a long athletics and football tradition and a state sports council of its own, which is what makes it a plausible-sounding guess, but the National Sports University was located in the North-East, not the South.
• (d)West Bengal — West Bengal is India's oldest centre of organised football and the home of the Kolkata clubs, so it too reads as reasonable. The ordinance, however, names Manipur.

An ordinance is a law made by the President under Article 123 when Parliament is not in session, and it has the same force as an Act but must be laid before Parliament and replaced within six weeks of the House reassembling. That is exactly what happened here: the Ordinance of 31 May 2018 was succeeded by the National Sports University Act, 2018, and it is the timing of that transition that explains why this paper, written for a September 2018 exam, still refers to the Ordinance rather than the Act.

This is a pure current-affairs recall item, but the reasoning is not blind. Two of the four states offered are the sentimental favourites for a sports institution — Kerala and West Bengal — and government siting decisions of this period consistently went to the North-East as part of a deliberate policy of placing national institutions there. A candidate who knew only that a major sports university had been announced for the North-East could reach Manipur, since it is the only North-Eastern state in the list. As of the September 2018 exam this was still a proposed institution; it has since been established under the Act of 2018 and functions from Imphal.

• The National Sports University Ordinance was promulgated on 31 May 2018 and later replaced by the National Sports University Act, 2018.
• The university's headquarters is in Manipur, with its permanent campus site at Imphal West.
• The foundation stone was laid on 16 March 2018 and the university began working from a temporary campus at the Khuman Lampak Sports Complex, Imphal.
• It is India's first university devoted specifically to sports education, coaching and sports sciences.

• Guessing a state by its sporting reputation rather than by the government notification.
• Treating an ordinance as something less than law; it carries the force of an Act until it lapses or is replaced.
• Confusing this university with the older National Institute of Sports at Patiala, which is a coaching institute, not a university.

Asked as a scheme-to-state recall item drawn from a legislative instrument of the same year as the exam.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  An ordinance promulgated by the President under Article 123 must be laid before Parliament and ceases to operate at the expiration of

  • (a)two weeks from the reassembly of Parliament
  • (b)six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament
  • (c)three months from the date of promulgation
  • (d)one year from the date of promulgation

  Answer(b) six weeks from the reassembly of Parliament — unless a resolution disapproving it is passed earlier, or it is replaced by an Act.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Institute of Sports, the country's principal coaching institute, is located at

  • (a)Patiala
  • (b)Imphal
  • (c)Pune
  • (d)Bengaluru

  Answer(a) Patiala — the Sports Authority of India's flagship coaching institute, distinct from the National Sports University in Manipur.