16th National Meet of Biodiversity Boards Opens in Chandigarh

The correct answer is Chandigarh. The release states that the 16th National Meet, organised by the National Biodiversity Authority, was inaugurated there and runs for two days, on 6 and 7 September. Option C, Panchkula, is a very strong distractor: the same Union Minister was in Panchkula the same day for International Vulture Awareness Day, and the two towns sit next to each other. Read such releases carefully and tie each event to its own venue. Option A and option D name cities that do not appear in this release at all. It helps to remember who presided over the inaugural session, since that fixes the place in memory: Gulab Chand Kataria, who is Governor of Punjab and Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh, sat alongside Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and Haryana's Environment Minister Rao Narbir Singh.

The correct answer is the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The Union Minister referred to it as the foundation of the country's biodiversity governance and noted that two later measures have strengthened and streamlined it: the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Biological Diversity Rules, 2024. He asked States and Union Territories to bring their own rules, institutional mechanisms and implementation processes into line with that amended framework, which is the practical purpose of the national meet. Options A, B and D are all genuine environmental statutes, and that is what makes them useful distractors, but none of them creates the structure of the National Biodiversity Authority, the State Biodiversity Boards and the Biodiversity Management Committees. Remember the three dates together as a set: the Act of 2002, the amendment of 2023 and the rules of 2024.

The correct answer is the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The release says India's updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, covering the period from 2024 to 2030, has been aligned with it, and that States and Union Territories were encouraged to become partners in meeting the global 30-by-30 conservation target that flows from it. Option B names the earlier set of global biodiversity targets, which the Kunming-Montreal framework succeeded, so it is the most tempting wrong answer. Option C belongs to disaster risk reduction and option D to the conservation of wetlands, so neither fits. Two related commitments are worth carrying alongside this: India has submitted its 7th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity and its 1st National Report on the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing.

The correct answer is over Rs 200 crore. Speaking on Access and Benefit Sharing, the Union Minister said the National Biodiversity Authority has shared more than that amount of ABS funds with farmers, local communities, Biodiversity Management Committees, State Biodiversity Boards, Union Territory Biodiversity Councils and research institutions. He added that the benefit should be tangible for communities while also supporting conservation and sustainable livelihoods, and a document on the Authority's work over the past year was released at the event to show how the funds have been distributed. Options A, C and D are round figures that do not appear in the release. Learn this figure together with another number from the same speech: the Minister called for more than 2.76 lakh Biodiversity Management Committees to be made functional and effective, and for People's Biodiversity Registers to turn into working planning tools for local bodies.