PREAMBLE IAS

JULY 2021

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Israel

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Maldives

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Srisailam Dam

Srisailam Damq The Srisailam Dam is constructed across the Krishna River in

Kurnool district, AP near Srisailam temple town.q It is the 2nd largest capacity working hydroelectric station in the

country.q The dam was constructed in a deep gorge in the Nallamala Hills in

between Kurnool and Mahabubnagar districts, 300 m (980 ft)above sea level.

q It has a reservoir of 616 square kilometres.

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Srisailam Dam

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Nagarjuna Sagar Dam

Nagarjuna Sagar Damq The Nagarjuna Sagar Dam on River Krishna is considered to be

the largest stone masonry dam in the world.q Around 150 km from Hyderabad, with a catchment of 2,15,000

sq km, it has the most widely spread canal system in India.q Completed in 1969, the 124-m-high dam is one kilometer long

and has 26 crest gates.q Its reservoir can store up to 11,472 million cubic meters of

water.

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Nagarjuna Sagar Dam

q It is one of the first projects built for the purpose of generatinghydro-electricity after India gained Independence.

q A lake has been built behind the dam, which is one of the largestman-made lakes in the world.

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Gulf of Mexico

q It is the largest gulf in the world.q It is bordered by the United States, Mexico, and the island

nation of Cuba.q It has a coastline of about 5,000 km.

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Gulf of Mexico

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Cyprus

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OPEC

OPECq OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting

Countries.q It is a permanent, intergovernmental organization, created at the

Baghdad Conference in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,and Venezuela.

q It aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price ofoil in the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that mightaffect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries.

q OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantialexporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the organization.

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OPEC

OPEC+q The non-OPEC countries which export crude oil along with the 14

OPECs are termed as OPEC plus countries.q OPEC plus countries include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei,

Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan andSudan.

q Saudi and Russia, both have been at the heart of a three-yearalliance of oil producers known as OPEC Plus — which nowincludes 11 OPEC members and 10 non-OPEC nations — thataims to shore up oil prices with production cuts.

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OPEC

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Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Damq It is Africa’s biggest dam project and will have lasting impacts on

its longest river- Nile.q The hydroelectric dam is being built on the Nile (north-flowing

river in Africa), in the lowlands of Ethiopia.q Concerns: The Nile is under serious threat of severe pollution,

climate change and Egypt’s growing population.q Egypt is one of the driest countries on earth, with 95% of its

people living along the Nile (or its overflowing Delta).

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Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

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Ethiopia

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Kamchatka Peninsula

Kamchatka Peninsulaq The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometre-long peninsula in

the Russian Far East.q The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the

peninsula’s eastern and western coastlines, respectively.q Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula

runs the 10,500-metre-deep Kuril–Kamchatka Trench.q The Kamchatka peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a

UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Kamchatka Peninsula

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Suez Canal city of Ismailia

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Krishna Raja Sagar Dam

Krishna Raja Sagar Damq The Krishna Raja Sagar Dam was built across river Cauvery in

1932.q It is named for the then ruler of the Mysore Kingdom,

Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV.q The dam is the main source of drinking water for the Mysore city

and almost the whole of Bangalore, Karnataka.q Further, the water is also used as an important source of water in

the state of Tamil Nadu.

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Krishna Raja Sagar Dam

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Georgia

Georgia q Georgia declared its independence in the wake of the

disintegration of the USSR in 1991.q India recognized Georgia on 26th December 1991.q Strategic location: it is a country at the intersection of Europe and

Asia.q It is bounded on the north and northeast by Russia, on the east

and southeast by Azerbaijan, on the south by Armenia andTurkey, and on the west by the Black Sea.

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Georgia

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Vietnam

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Saskatchewan province

Saskatchewan provinceq Saskatchewan is a Canadian province that borders the United

States to the south.q Grassland covers its southern plains, and to the north are the

rugged rock of the Canadian Shield plateau, coniferous forests,rivers and lakes.

q Regina, the provincial capital, is home to the RoyalSaskatchewan Museum, with exhibits on natural history and thepeople of Canada’s First Nations.

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Saskatchewan province

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Haiti

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Tigray

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Province Of Kwazulu-natal

KwaZulu-Natalq KwaZulu-Natal, formerly Natal, province of South Africa,

occupying the south-eastern portion of the country.q It is bounded to the north by Swaziland and Mozambique, to the

east by the Indian Ocean, to the south by Eastern Cape province,to the west by Lesotho and Free State province, and to thenorthwest by Mpumalanga province.

q Within KwaZulu-Natal is an enclave of Eastern Cape provinceconsisting of the eastern portion of the former GriqualandEast (around Umzimkulu).

q The provincial capital is Pietermaritzburg.

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Province Of Kwazulu-natal

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Xinjiang region

Xinjiang region q Xinjiang lies in the north-west of China and is the country’s

biggest region.q Like Tibet, it is autonomous, meaning – in theory – it has some

powers of self-governance. But in practice, both face majorrestrictions by the central government.

q It is a mostly desert region, producing about a fifth of the world’scotton.

q It is also rich in oil and natural gas and because of its proximity toCentral Asia and Europe is seen by Beijing as an important tradelink.

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Xinjiang region

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Germany

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Northern City Of Tripoli

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Tomsk region of western Siberia

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Afghanistan

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Uzbekistan

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Pakistan

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Arctic

Arcticq The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of

Earth.q The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts

of Alaska (United States), Canada, Finland, Greenland(Denmark), Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden.

q Land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow andice cover.

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Arctic

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Guantanamo

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Zhengzhou

Zhengzhouq Zhengzhou is the capital and largest city of Henan Province in

the central part of the People's Republic of China.q Located in north-central Henan, it is one of the National Central

Cities in China, the centre of Central Plains area, and serves asthe political, economic, technological, and educational centre ofthe province.

q The Zhengzhou metropolitan area (including Zhengzhouand Kaifeng) is the core area of the Central Plains EconomicZone.

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Zhengzhou

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Madagascar

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Nyingchi town (China)

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Tokyo

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Kawal Tiger Reserve

Kawal Tiger Reserveq Kawal Tiger Reserve is located in Adilabad district in Telangana

state.q It was declared as a Tiger Reserve in 2012. The reserve is a

catchment area for the rivers Godavari and Kadam.q Vegetation: It is a dry deciduous teak forest mixed with bamboo,

terminalia, Pterocarpus and cassias constitute the predominantflora of the region.

q The reserve has several species of animals including Cheetal,Sambar, Barking Deer, Nilgai, Sloth Bear, Indian Bison, Pantherand Tiger.

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Kawal Tiger Reserve

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Amboseli National Park

Amboseli National Parkq Amboseli National Park lies between longitude 37°E and 37° 30'

E and Latitude 2° 30' and 2° 45' S in southern Kenya, 240 kmsoutheast of Nairobi.

q The southern boundary of the park lies less than 5 km from theTanzanian border at the base of Africa's highest mountain,snow-capped Kilimanjaro.

q Amboseli is a small National Park, measuring only 392 km2.

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Amboseli National Park

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Montana

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Sardinia

Sardiniaq The island of Sardinia is an autonomous region of Italy, located

in the western part of the Mediterranean sea.q It is between Europe and the north of Africa.q With an area of 24,100 square kilometres, its the third-largest

region of Italy after Sicily and Piedmont, and the second-largestisland in the Meditteranean after Sicily

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Sardinia

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Catalonia

Cataloniaq Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain in the north-

east end of the Iberian Peninsula.q It has four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona.q Catalonia was historically an autonomous region of the Iberian

peninsula, which encompasses Spain and Portugal.q However, its autonomy was never recognised despite having its

own language, laws, and customs.

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Catalonia