Political Science Test - 16

The correct answer is Alaska.

Key Points

• Alaska is a state in the western United States located at the northwestern end of North America.
  • The purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements along the Pacific coast of North America and became a significant step in the rise of the United States as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region.
  • Beginning in 1725, when Russian Czar Peter the Great sent Vitus Bering to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia had a keen interest in the region, which was rich in natural resources and lightly inhabited.
  • Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, believing that the United States would harbor the design of Russia's biggest rival in the Pacific, Great Britain.
  • Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike Goldfields.
  • The strategic importance of Alaska was eventually recognized in World War II.  Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959.​

The correct answer is ​Operation Desert Storm.

 Important Points

• Operation 'Desert Storm' was the war between America and its allies against Iraq in 1991.
• Operation Desert Storm was the first major foreign crisis for the United States after the end of the Cold War.
• Desert Storm became the largest air campaign since the conflict in Southeast Asia.

 Additional Information

• Operation Wrath of God, covert assassination campaign carried out by Israel to avenge the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants in September 1972 at the Munich Olympics.
• Operation Rolling Thunder was a demonstration of America's near-total air supremacy during the Vietnam War.
  • It was started in an effort to demoralise the North Vietnamese people and to undermine the capacity of the government in North Vietnam.
• Operation Red Dawn, named after the 1984 film Red Dawn, was an American military operation conducted on 13 December 2003 in the town of ad-Dawr, Iraq, near Tikrit, that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein.

The correct answer is 1941.

Key Points

• World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.
• It involved two opposing forces: the Allies and the Axis powers.
• The United States became fully engaged in the Second World War in 1941.
• The U.S. involvement was quickly followed by massive mobilization efforts.
• The U.S. entry into the war helped to get the nation's economy back on its feet following the depression.

 Thus, we can say that the United States of America entered World War II in 1941.

Option 1 is correct, i.e. Racial discrimination.

• Apartheid was the name of a system of racial discrimination unique to South Africa.
• The white Europeans imposed this system on South Africa.
• During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the trading companies from Europe occupied it with arms and force, in the way they occupied India.
• But unlike India, a large number of ‘whites’ had settled in South Africa and became the local rulers.
• The system of apartheid divided the people and labeled them on the basis of their skin color.
• The native people of South Africa are black in color.
• They made up about three-fourths of the population and were called ‘blacks’.
• Besides these two groups, there were people of mixed races who were called ‘colored’ and people who migrated from India.
• The white rulers treated all nonwhites as inferiors. The non-whites did not have voting rights.
• The apartheid system was particularly oppressive for the blacks.

• During Gulf War II, Iraq was attacked by America on 20 March 2003.
• The justification of this war was the development of alleged chemical weapons for the mass destruction and Saddam Hussain’s government was supporting the terrorist organization Al Qaeda.

The correct answer is Vladimir Putin.

• Vladimir Putin got elected as the Head of the State four times.

Key Points

Additional Information

• Viktor Alekseevich Zubkov is a Russian civil servant, politician and businessman who served as the 36th Prime Minister of Russia from September 2007 to May 2008.
  • He was Vladimir Putin's first deputy prime minister during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev.
• Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian and Soviet politician who served as the first President of the Russian Federation from 1991 to 1999.
  • He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990.
• Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician serving as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020.
  • Medvedev served as President from 2008 to 2012 and as Prime Minister from 2012 to 2020.
  • Medvedev was elected president in the 2008 election.

The Correct Answer is Option 1, i.e. the United States.

• In 1949, in anticipation of the Soviet offensive, the United States established a NATO military alliance and called its global strategy toward Soviet containment of power.
• In 1955, the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in response to NATO.
• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military coalition comprising 30 North American and European countries.
• The organization, which was signed on 4 April 1949, incorporates the North Atlantic treaty.

The correct answer is 1996 - 2001.

Key Points

• The Taliban had previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
• American troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and toppled the Taliban’s control when the Taliban refused the U.S. demand to hand over bin Laden.
• The Taliban’s promise was to restore peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and enforce Sharia in the country.
• They endorsed Sharia mixed with the Pashtun tribal code.
• Only three countries recognised the Taliban while they were in power namely, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Important Points

• The Taliban refers to itself as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban is a Deobandi Islamist movement and military organization in Afghanistan. 
• The Taliban had first emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War.
• Mullah Mohammed Omar, a local imam, had founded the Taliban and Abdul Ghani Barabar was the co-founder.
• Mullah Mohammad Omar had led the Taliban militants until his death in 2013.  

The correct answer is India.

Key Points

• G-7 Countries
  • It is a group of the seven most advanced economies as per the International Monetary Fund.
  • It is an intergovernmental organization that was formed in 1975 by the top economies of the time as an informal forum to discuss pressing world issues.
  • G-7 Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
  • Summits are held annually and hosted on a rotation basis by the group's members.
  • The host country not only holds the G7 presidency but also sets the agenda for the year.
  • The United Kingdom is holding the G7 presidency for 2021.
  • Germany took Presidency from the UK in 2022 and will be succeeded by Japan in 2023.
  • The G-7 was known as the ‘G-8’ for several years after the original seven were joined by Russia in 1997.
  • The Group returned to being called G-7 after Russia was expelled as a member in 2014 following the latter's annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Additional Information

The correct answer is 1990.

• Russian Parliament declare its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.

Additional Information

• On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty established citizenship of Russia and stated that the RSFSR (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic) shall retain the right of free secession from the USSR.
• Political Un-accountability, Economic weakness, Rise of Nationalism, and Gorbachev's reforms are the factors that led to the disintegration of the USSR.
• The Russian Revolution of 1917 ended the Russian empire.
• This was followed by the Russian Civil War which finally resulted in the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922.
• The Soviet Union officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics  (USSR) was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991.
• USSR was a strong bloc with great control over global politics from 1922 to 1991 when it was disintegrated into smaller units.
• The USSR was a loose confederation of 15 republics with Russia as the leader.
• The USSR had a total of 15 republics before its disintegration in 1991 are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
• On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor.
• Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post as president of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as president of the newly independent Russian state.
• The office of president had been added to the political structure of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in 1991.
• Personality clashes between Yeltsin and the parliamentary leadership led to a break between the legislative and executive branches.

Important Points

• The current President of Russia - Vladimir Putin.
• The current Prime Minister of Russia - Mikhail Mishustin.
• Parliament name of Russia - Duma and Federal Council.
• Capital of Russia - Moscow.
• Currency of Russia - Ruble.