What was the main objective of the Second Green Revolution in India?

Correct — B. The second Green Revolution is defined by what the first one left out.

The first raised wheat and rice yields in the irrigated north-west through seed, fertiliser and water, and it carried a bill: degraded soil, falling water tables, and whole crops and regions untouched.

The second is framed as the correction — all crops and not cereals alone, rainfed and eastern regions and not the irrigated north-west alone, with sustainability and farm incomes counted alongside output.

That whole-system aim is what option (b) means by holistic development in agriculture.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Ensuring food security in the western states — Food security in the western states restates the first revolution's geography. The second is aimed at the belts it skipped, the rainfed and eastern regions.
• (c)
  Increasing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides — Heavier chemical use is the problem the second revolution answers, not its objective. Fertiliser and pesticide loading is what degraded soil and groundwater in the first place.
• (d)
  Promoting conventional agricultural practices — Promoting conventional practices points backwards. The second revolution leans on new technology — better seed, water-saving irrigation and soil health management — rather than a return to older methods.

Second Green Revolution names an agenda rather than a dated event: extend the first revolution's gains without repeating its damage.

Its stated concerns are breadth and durability. Pulses, oilseeds and horticulture as well as cereals. Rainfed and eastern India as well as the irrigated north-west. Soil and groundwater kept in condition, and farmer income treated as the outcome that matters.

M.S. Swaminathan's term for the same idea is the evergreen revolution: raising productivity in perpetuity without ecological harm.

Key facts

• The second Green Revolution targets the crops and regions the first bypassed, particularly rainfed and eastern India.
• The Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI) programme was announced in the 2010-11 Union Budget.
• M.S. Swaminathan used the term evergreen revolution for productivity raised in perpetuity without ecological harm.
• Soil degradation and groundwater depletion are the standard criticisms of the first Green Revolution.

Common traps

• Choosing the fertiliser-and-pesticide option because it sounds like agricultural intensification
• Assuming the second revolution simply repeats the first in the same states

No directly related past PYQ was found.