The amendment process of the Indian Constitution provides a means to address contemporary challenges and ensure the document’s continued relevance in the face of societal changes. The Constitution has been amended several times since its adoption in 1950, demonstrating its flexibility and the ability of the legislature to respond to evolving needs.

1.Environmental Protection:

• The Constitution can be amended to strengthen provisions related to environmental protection, such as adding a new Fundamental Right to a clean and healthy environment.
• Amendments can be made to expand the Directive Principles of State Policy, which provide guidance to the government on environmental stewardship and sustainable development.
• The Constitution can be amended to grant legal personhood status to natural resources, such as rivers and forests, empowering the judiciary to protect them more effectively.

2.Technological Advancements:

• The Constitution can be amended to address issues arising from technological progress, such as data privacy, digital rights, and the regulation of emerging technologies.
• Amendments can be made to the Union and State Lists to ensure the appropriate distribution of legislative and executive powers in the realm of technology.
• The amendment process can be used to create new institutions or modify existing ones to oversee the governance of technological advancements.

3. Emerging Human Rights Concerns:

• The Constitution can be amended to incorporate new Fundamental Rights, such as the right to a basic income, the right to access essential services, or the right to a dignified life.
• Amendments can be made to strengthen the protection of vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as women, children, minorities, and persons with disabilities.
• The amendment process can be used to align the Constitution with evolving international human rights standards and obligations.

4.Ensuring Relevance:

• The amendment process can be utilized to address gaps or ambiguities in the Constitution, enabling it to keep pace with societal changes.
• Amendments can be made to the Seventh Schedule, which outlines the distribution of legislative powers, to ensure it remains responsive to emerging challenges.
• The amendment procedure can be used to create new institutional mechanisms, such as specialized constitutional bodies or commissions, to address contemporary issues.

It’s important to note that the amendment process in India is designed to strike a balance between flexibility and stability. The Constitution requires a special majority (two-thirds of the members present and voting) in both Houses of Parliament, along with the ratification by at least half of the state legislatures for certain types of amendments.

This high threshold for constitutional amendments ensures that the Constitution is not altered lightly and that any changes garner substantial consensus among the political stakeholders and the public. This approach helps maintain the Constitution’s integrity and long-term relevance, while still allowing for adaptations to address contemporary challenges.

The primary functions of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) in India are as follows:

1. Recruitment for Civil Services:

   • The UPSC conducts the prestigious Civil Services Examination (CSE) to recruit officers for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), and other All India Services.
   • It also conducts examinations for various other Group A and Group B central civil services.

2. Advising the Government:

   • The UPSC advises the Government of India on matters related to the recruitment, promotion, and disciplinary actions for senior civil servants.
   • It provides recommendations on the suitability of candidates for appointments to various high-level positions in the government.

3. Conducting Examinations:

   • In addition to the CSE, the UPSC conducts examinations for recruitment to various other central government services, such as the Indian Engineering Services, the Indian Economic Service, and the Indian Statistical Service.

4. Providing Recommendations for Appointments:

   • The UPSC is responsible for recommending suitable candidates for appointments to various statutory and other high-level positions, such as the Chief Election Commissioner, Comptroller and Auditor General, and members of the Union Public Service Commission itself.

5. Conducting Departmental Examinations:

   • The UPSC conducts departmental examinations for the promotion of officers in various civil services.

6. Advising on Disciplinary Matters:

   • The UPSC provides advice to the government on disciplinary cases involving senior civil servants, including matters related to dismissal, removal, or reduction in rank.

7. Ensuring Impartiality and Fairness:

   • The UPSC’s role is to ensure that the recruitment and promotion of civil servants are conducted in a transparent, impartial, and fair manner, upholding the principles of merit and equality.

The UPSC’s primary objective is to maintain the integrity and efficiency of the civil services in India by overseeing the recruitment, training, and management of senior civil servants. Its recommendations and advice play a crucial role in maintaining the independence and professionalism of the Indian bureaucracy.

Answer: The endogenic and exogenic forces causing physical stresses and chemical actions on earth materials and bringing about changes in the configuration of the surface of the earth are known as geomorphic processes. While, diastrophism and volcanism are endogenic geomorphic processes, weathering, mass wasting, erosion and deposition are exogenic geomorphic processes. The differences between the two processes are as follows:

Significance of Weathering: Weathering is the action of elements of weather and climate over the earth’s materials. There are a number of processes within weathering that act either individually or together to affect the earth’s materials in order to reduce them to a fragmental state.

• Weathering processes are responsible for breaking down the rocks into smaller fragments and preparing the way for the formation of not only regolith and soils but also erosion and mass movements.
• Weathering is an important process in the formation of soils. Biodiversity depends upon vegetation, which in turn, is dependent upon the depth of weathering mantles.
• Weathering aids mass wasting, erosion, and reduction of relief. Also, changes in landforms are a consequence of erosion.
• Weathering of rocks and deposits helps in the enrichment and concentrations of certain valuable ores of iron, manganese, aluminum, copper, etc., which are of great importance to the national economy.
• Weathering processes are conditioned by many complex geological, climatic, topographic and vegetative factors.

Answer: Continental drift is the movement of the Earth’s continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents ‘drift’ was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. However, it was not until the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, that a sufficient geological explanation of that movement was understood. According to Wegener, all the continents formed a single continental mass named Pangaea, which was surrounded by a mega-ocean Panthalassa. He argued that, around 200 million years ago, the supercontinent, Pangaea, began to split and the drift started. Pangaea first broke into two large continental masses Laurasia and Gondwanaland forming the northern and southern components respectively. Subsequently, Laurasia and Gondwanaland continued to break into various smaller continents that exist today. Wegener suggested that the movement responsible for the drifting of the continents was caused by pole-fleeing force and tidal force. Following evidence in support of the continental drift theory was given by him:

• Matching of continents (jig-saw-fit): The shorelines of Africa and South America facing each other has a remarkable and unmistakable match. Similarly, when matched, Africa, Madagascar, and India’s east coast all fit together.
• Rocks of the same age across the oceans: The belt of ancient rocks of 2,000 million years from Brazil’s coast matches with those from western Africa. The earliest marine deposits along the coastline of South America and Africa are of the Jurassic age. This suggests that the ocean did not exist prior to that time.
• Tillite deposits: The glacial tillite found in the Gondwana system of sediments from India has a resemblance to six different landmasses of the Southern Hemisphere. Counterparts of this succession are found in Africa, Falkland Island, Madagascar, Antarctica, and Australia besides India.
• Placer deposits: Rich placer deposits of gold are found on the Ghana coast despite the absolute absence of source rock in the region. The gold deposits of Ghana seem to have been derived from the Brazil plateau when the two continents were once joined.
• Distribution of fossils: Identical species of plants and animals adapted to living on land or in freshwater are found on either side of the marine barriers. For example, skeletons of Mesosaurus a small reptile adapted to shallow brackish water are found only in the Southern Cape province of South Africa and the Iraver formations of Brazil. But, the two localities are presently 4,800 km apart with an ocean in between them.

Wegener’s theory was criticized on the grounds of forces such as pole-fleeing force and tidal force, which are considered to be too weak to be able to move continents. Plate tectonics accommodated continental motion through the mechanism of seafloor spreading. There is now considerable evidence that the continents are parts of lithospheric plates and these plates move over the asthenosphere and cause continents to drift. New rock is created by volcanism at mid-ocean ridges and returned to the Earth’s mantle at ocean trenches..

Answer: Running water is considered one of the most important geomorphic agents bringing about the degradation of the land surface. There are two components of running water. One is overland flow on the general land surface as a sheet and another is linear flow as streams and rivers in valleys. Significance of running water in the evolution of landforms:

• Most of the erosional landforms made by running water are associated with vigorous and youthful rivers flowing over steep gradients.
• With time, stream channels over steep gradients turn gentler due to continued erosion, and as a consequence, lose their velocity, facilitating active deposition.
• There may be depositional forms associated with streams flowing over steep slopes. But these phenomena will be on a small scale compared to those associated with rivers flowing over medium to gentle slopes.
• The gentler the river channels in gradient or slope, the greater the deposition. When the stream beds turn gentler due to continued erosion, downward cutting becomes less dominant lateral erosion of banks increases and as a consequence, the hills and valleys are reduced to plains.
• Overland flow causes sheet erosion. Depending upon irregularities of the land surface, the overland flow may concentrate into narrow to wide paths forming rills, gullies, and ultimately valleys.

Depositional Features of Running Water

Feature	Characteristics	Diagram
Alluvial Fans	Alluvial fans are formed when streams flowing from higher levels break into foot slope plains of low gradient. Normally very coarse load is carried by streams flowing over mountain slopes. This load becomes too heavy for the streams to be carried over gentler gradients and gets dumped and spread as a broad low to high cone-shaped deposit called an alluvial fan.
Deltas	Deltas are like alluvial fans but develop at a different location. The load carried by the rivers is dumped and spread into the sea. If this load is not carried away far into the sea or distributed along the coast, it spreads and accumulates as a low cone. Unlike in alluvial fans, the deposits making up deltas are well very sorted with clear stratification.
Floodplains, Natural Levees and Point Bars	Deposition develops a floodplain just as erosion makes valleys. Floodplain is a major landform of river deposition. Large-sized materials are deposited first when the stream channel breaks into a gentle slope. Thus, normally, fine-sized materials like sand, silt, and clay are carried by relatively slow-moving waters in gentler channels usually found in the plains and deposited over the bed and when the waters spill over the banks during flooding above the bed. Natural levees are found along the banks of large rivers. They are low, linear, and parallel ridges of coarse deposits along the banks of rivers, quite often cut into individual mounds. Point bars are also known as meander bars. They are found on the concave side of meanders of large rivers and are sediments deposited in a linear fashion by flowing waters along the bank.

The study of running water in the evolution of landforms helps us understand and appreciate the diversity of landforms on the surface of the earth.