Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan Turns Six: National Pledge Planned

The correct answer is 15 August 2020. The release states that the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan on that date to combat the demand for drugs in the country, which is why the campaign is now marking its sixth anniversary with a National Mass Pledge Against Drug Abuse. Options A, C and D are national dates of the kind examiners attach to schemes to see whether a candidate has memorised the correct one; none of them appears in this release. The anniversary arithmetic is itself a favourite question, so keep the launch year and the ordinal number together. Two more facts belong with the answer: the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the nodal Ministry for the campaign, and the pledge aims to bring in more than 10 crore citizens through physical and online participation.

The correct answer is more than 34.56 crore. That is the total reach of the campaign as stated in the release. The two smaller figures in options A and B are real but are subsets of the total, and they are the traps that cost marks: over 13.71 crore of those reached are youth and over 10.65 crore are women. Option C is invented. A candidate should therefore read whether the question asks for the total, the youth figure or the women's figure. One more number belongs in the same group and is asked just as often: more than 1.64 lakh Nasha Mukti Mitras have joined the campaign to strengthen community participation, and a citizen may register as one through the Department's official website. Keep the de-addiction helpline number 14446 with these figures as well.

The correct answer is the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre at AIIMS, New Delhi. The release explains that the Ministry runs a comprehensive and evidence-based strategy under the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction, and that the strategy is based on the findings of the first National Survey on the Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India, carried out by that centre. Options A and C name agencies associated with crime statistics and with narcotics enforcement, which sound plausible in a drug-related question but belong to a different ministry and a different function. Option D is a well-known medical research body that the release does not mention here. Under the plan the Ministry gives financial assistance to State Governments, Union Territories, non-government organisations and government hospitals for preventive education, awareness generation, counselling, treatment and rehabilitation.