Great Indian Bustard Soft Release Centre Opens in Kachchh

The correct answer is the Great Indian Bustard. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the Soft Release Centre for the bird at the facility in Naliya, in the Kachchh district of Gujarat, and the centre carries infrastructure meant to support conservation, monitoring and the gradual adaptation of these birds to the natural environment. The three distractors are all species associated with Gujarat, which is why they are plausible. Option A is wrong because the Asiatic lion is linked with the Gir landscape and not with this facility. Option C is wrong because the Indian wild ass is associated with the Rann, and no such centre was announced for it here. Option D is wrong because sea turtles do not figure in this release at all, although the Minister did visit mangrove and seaweed sites at Jakhau on the same day. Candidates should tie the Great Indian Bustard to Kachchh in Gujarat as well as to the Thar landscape.

The correct answer is 33. The Minister flagged off that many new patrolling and rescue vehicles, and they are to be used across various divisions under the Kachchh Forest Circle for forest protection, forest development, wildlife protection, field patrolling, monitoring and quick response work. The other options are drawn from figures that appear elsewhere in the same release, which is what makes them tempting. Option A is wrong because 15 square kilometres is the area covered by the predator proof fencing raised in the bustard landscape. Option D is wrong because 47 is the number of native species planted at the Sayara Van Kavach, not a count of vehicles. Option B does not correspond to any figure in the release. When several numbers appear in one news item, the safest method is to attach each number to its own noun: 11 square kilometres of grassland restored, 30 kilometres of fencing, 15 square kilometres enclosed, 33 vehicles and 47 species.

The correct answer is the Miyawaki method, which raises dense, multi layered forest in a small space. The Sayara Van Kavach has been developed over a site of 9.46 square kilometres and holds more than 10,000 saplings across 47 native species chosen to suit the saline, low water conditions of Kachchh. It is expected to lower local temperatures, help recharge groundwater, check soil erosion and give birds, insects and small wildlife a natural habitat, besides serving eco tourism, environmental education and local employment. Option B is wrong because the taungya method interplants crops with young trees and is a plantation practice of a different kind. Option C is wrong because coppicing regenerates trees from cut stumps rather than raising a new dense patch. Option D is wrong because the shelterwood system is a technique of regeneration under an existing canopy. The Minister praised the Van Kavach model as a green protective shield developed around human settlements.