UPSC Prelims 2021— Question 14

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal Union ministry for implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The Act concerns recognition of forest rights of forest-dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. Other ministries have related environmental, rural or local-government functions but are not the national nodal ministry for the Act. The final answer-key position for Set C identifies option D as the correct option. Option A — Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option B — Ministry of Panchayati Raj — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option C — Ministry of Rural Development — is not correct because it does not satisfy the specific condition tested in the question; it represents an alternative that is contradicted, incomplete, or less precise than the accepted answer. Option D — Ministry of Tribal Affairs — is correct because it is the alternative that matches the constitutional, historical, geographical, scientific or economic principle established above. For PYQ interpretation, the distinction between the correct alternative and merely related facts is important. UPSC often places plausible distractors beside the precise statement that matches the underlying rule, chronology, definition or empirical relationship. The answer should therefore be read against the exact wording of the question rather than against a broadly related fact.