Match the following pairs :
(A)
(a) Dr. Nitin Karmalkar Committee
(b) Nitin Karir Committee
(c) Sunil Pawar Committee
(d) Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee
(B)
(i) For implementation of National Educatio

Question

Match the following pairs :
(A)
(a) Dr. Nitin Karmalkar Committee
(b) Nitin Karir Committee
(c) Sunil Pawar Committee
(d) Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee
(B)
(i) For implementation of National Education Policy - 2020 in Maharashtra
(ii) To enquire the incident which happened during the distribution of Maharashtra Bhushan Award
(iii) To study why the rates of onion collapse.
(iv) To make the syllabus for pre-primary to degree according to National Education Policy - 2020

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (1), '(a) – (i), (b) – (ii), (c) – (iii), (d) – (iv)'. Settle each committee on its own before looking at the grid. Dr Nitin Karmalkar, a former Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, chairs Maharashtra's committee on the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020 in the state's universities and colleges; his committee reviews what each university has done under the policy, whether it has an implementation committee of its own and how that committee is functioning — so (a) goes with (i). Nitin Karir, then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue) of Maharashtra, was appointed a one-man committee to enquire into the deaths that followed the Maharashtra Bhushan award function held at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai on 16 April 2023, where a large open-air gathering assembled to see the award conferred on Appasaheb Dharmadhikari and a number of people died of heat stroke — so (b) goes with (ii). Sunil Pawar headed the committee that examined the working of the onion market in Maharashtra, the reason prices collapse when arrivals surge at harvest, and what could be done about it; its principal recommendation was to move all market committees to electronic auctions so that produce is not bought up at distress prices — so (c) goes with (iii). Dr K. Kasturirangan, the former ISRO chairman, chaired the committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020 and then the national steering committee for the new curriculum frameworks that translate the policy into what is actually taught, stage by stage — so (d) goes with (iv). The pairing that results is the one printed in option (1). Note that here the straight-through pairing happens to be correct, which is a useful corrective to the opposite superstition: a neat diagonal is neither a guarantee nor a disqualification, and the columns must be settled on their content either way.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Every pairing in this option is wrong, and the one that makes it attractive is the last: it sends Dr Kasturirangan to (i), the implementation of the National Education Policy in Maharashtra. Kasturirangan is a national figure — he chaired the drafting of the policy itself and then the steering committee for the curriculum frameworks — and he has no role in a state's implementation machinery, which is what Dr Karmalkar's committee handles. The option also makes an education specialist enquire into an award ceremony and a revenue secretary study onion prices, both of which fail on the plainest test available in this question: does the person's field match the task ?  (c) This option again places Dr Kasturirangan on the Maharashtra implementation committee and again mismatches every other pair, sending the Pune university head to the onion market and the revenue secretary to curriculum design. Two anchors dispose of it at once: the Kharghar enquiry was Nitin Karir's, and the onion committee was Sunil Pawar's. In a four-pair matching question, being certain of any two pairs normally eliminates three of the four options, and that is exactly how this one should be attacked.  (d) This is the near miss. It gets one pair right — Nitin Karir with the Maharashtra Bhushan enquiry — and then rotates the remaining three, giving curriculum design to Dr Karmalkar, the state implementation committee to Sunil Pawar and the onion inquiry to Dr Kasturirangan. The last of those is absurd on its face once the person is known, which is the point: matching questions about committees are really questions about who a person is. The two education committees in this set are the discriminating pair, and keeping them apart — Karmalkar for Maharashtra's implementation, Kasturirangan for the national policy and its curriculum frameworks — decides the question.

Concept: Committees of inquiry and of policy design are a standing feature of Indian administration and MPSC examines them as person-to-task pairs. Four appear here and each belongs to a different strand of recent Maharashtra and national policy. The National Education Policy 2020, drafted by a committee under Dr K. Kasturirangan, replaced the policy of 1986 and set out the 5+3+3+4 school structure, the four-year undergraduate degree with multiple entry and exit points, the Academic Bank of Credits and a target of six per cent of GDP for education; Kasturirangan went on to chair the national steering committee for the curriculum frameworks that convert the policy into syllabus. Maharashtra's own machinery for putting the policy into practice in its universities and colleges is chaired by Dr Nitin Karmalkar, formerly Vice-Chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University. Separately, the Maharashtra Bhushan is the state's highest civilian honour; the ceremony at which it was conferred at Kharghar in April 2023 drew an enormous open-air crowd in extreme heat and a number of people died of heat stroke, and a one-man committee under Nitin Karir, then Additional Chief Secretary (Revenue), was appointed to enquire into it. And the collapse of onion prices at harvest — a chronic Maharashtra problem, since the state is the country's largest onion producer and Lasalgaon in Nashik district hosts Asia's largest onion market — was examined by a committee under Sunil Pawar, which recommended universal electronic auctioning in the market committees to stop distress sales.

State PCS 2024 Q96 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q96 — Current Affairs PYQ with Answer