Notes:
India’s first elephant rehabilitation centre will be set up by the Kerala Government in Kottoor, an ecotourism village near the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. The centre is expected to have an elephant museum, mahout training centre, super-specialty hospital, a retirement home and crematorium for the animals. It will also house orphaned, injured and older elephants. The centre will also have a training centre for mahouts along with a residential facility for them. It is being planned on the lines of the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka.

Notes:
There was a movement named Save Silent Valley. It was aimed at the protection of Silent Valley. It was to suspend the Silent Valley Hydroelectric Project .The movement started as a localized movement through individual and small group protests. The General Assembly of the IUCN urges the Government to conserve the undisturbed forest area.

Notes:
The Kerala government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) to support its efforts in promoting Space Technology vertical in the State. The agreement will facilitate VSSC to support the Kerela’s project to set up India’s first state-of-the-art Space Systems Park at Knowledge City in Thiruvanathapuram to attract global start-ups in the space sector and make it a major manufacturing hub for space-related technology, research and development. Through the MOU, VSSC will support Kerala Space Park in the technical and leadership responsibility and promote the SMEs, startups and other partner entities in developing products and services for the Space Industry. The MOU also states VSSC’s interest in providing opportunities for companies operating out of the Space Park to participate in its procurement process.

Notes:
• Ghana—Rajasthan
• Gir—Gujarat
• Manas—Assam
• Corbett—Uttrakhand
• Periyar—Kerala
• Dudwa—U.P.

Notes:
The Gonds are the tribal community mostly found in the Gond forests of the central India. Eskimos are the indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited in Canada and surrounding regions. The lapps are a small group of people, about 33,000 in all, widely scattered over four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Moplas are from the Malabar region of Kerala.

Notes:
Kerala is the largest producer of natural rubber in India. Other important producers are Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Kerala produces about 6 lakh tons of rubber, which is more than 80 per cent of the total rubber production in India.

Notes:
Tapioca is cultivated in an area of 0.21 million ha in India, with a total production of 7.74 million tonnes. This tuber crop is largely cultivated in Tamil Nadu (64%).

Notes:
Statement 1 is correct:
Diphtheria is predominantly a childhood disease. Kerala is seeing the disease shifting targets to school children (9 years and above) and older people. One of the reasons quoted is epidemiological pattern change due to intense vaccination of infants, i.e, the pathogen is targeting the population with waning immunity.
Statement 2 is correct:
The substitution of TT vaccines with Td vaccine was recommended by WHO in 1998. This was adopted by the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) and also implemented in Kerala. This was because tetanus and diphtheria are associated with waning adult immunity.
 

Notes:
Statement 1 is correct:
The PTR norms are set down under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. The Unified District Information on School Education (UDISE) published data about the PTR compliance of states and UTs. The differences in the optimum pupil strength per class varies across the world. This makes global PTR data not uniformly comparable. However, UNESCO has said that the Indian standards are comparable to other nations of similar socio-economic standing.
Statement 2 is incorrect:
PTR implementation among the schools is in the state and UT government’s jurisdiction. But their effort is aided by Centre’s flagship programs for improving education coverage. The Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is concerned with universal elementary education. But the secondary education is dealt with by the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan. These two schemes provide additional teachers in order to reach the optimal PTR levels.
Statement 3 is incorrect:
According to the UDISE report of 2017-18, the smaller states are the best performing with respect to PTR levels. Tripura, Sikkim and Nagaland are the top performing states. UTs also showed good performance. The worst performing states were the larger states, especially, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The percentage of schools that are non-compliant with national standards is also very high in these states. E.g.: about 67% and 77% of primary and upper primary schools of Bihar are non-compliant to norms.
Statement 4 is correct:
The UDISE report shows that Kerala is the most compliant to PTR norms among the larger states. It has very low compliance issue- less than 5% of primary and upper primary schools are non-compliant. It also has the best compliance to the provisions of RTE. Kerala has historically been a high spender in the education field. Some of its initiatives, like State Literacy Mission, are keenly involved in improving the state’s educational standing.

Notes:
Statement 1 is incorrect:
A Kerala village recently named the road from Kuntangeradka to Bejappe after the orange breasted green pigeon. The road was named as Manjavariyan Road and is about 2km long. The species was spotted for the first time in the region in 2016. It is not endemic to India. It is also found in other countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, etc.
Statement 2 is incorrect:
IUCN has listed the orange breasted green pigeon as a species of least concern. It is especially found in the forested regions of Western and Eastern Ghats in south India. In the north, it is found in lower Himalayan regions.