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🇵🇰 CSS Pakistan Affairs · flashcards
CSS Pakistan Affairs Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues Flashcards
50 question-and-answer cards covering Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues as it is examined in CSS Pakistan Affairs. 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
What is Pakistan's largest industrial sector, and its importance to exports?
The textile and garment industry is the largest manufacturing sector, accounting for about 55-60% of total export earnings and a major share of industrial employment.
What is the Green Revolution, and how did it affect Pakistan?
The Green Revolution (1960s-70s) introduced high-yield seed varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, and tube-well irrigation, sharply raising wheat and rice yields and making Pakistan largely self-sufficient in food grains.
What is the Indus Basin Irrigation System, and why is it significant?
It is the world's largest contiguous irrigation network, comprising major dams, barrages, link canals, and watercourses fed by the Indus and its tributaries; it irrigates most of Pakistan's farmland.
What is CPEC, and what is its approximate value?
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative, a collection of infrastructure, energy, and connectivity projects worth originally about 46 billion USD, later expanded to over 62 billion USD.
What is the strategic significance of Gwadar Port in CPEC?
Gwadar, a deep-sea port in Balochistan on the Arabian Sea, is the southern terminus of CPEC. It gives China a short, secure route to the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz, and aims to make Pakistan a regional trade and transit hub.
What are Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under CPEC, and name a few.
SEZs are designated industrial zones offering tax and regulatory incentives to attract investment and promote industrialization. Examples include Rashakai (KP), Dhabeji (Sindh), Allama Iqbal Industrial City (Faisalabad), and Bostan (Balochistan).
What are the main phases or pillars of CPEC?
CPEC pillars include: Gwadar Port development, energy projects, transport infrastructure (roads, rail, the Karakoram Highway), and industrial cooperation through SEZs. Recent 'CPEC 2.0' emphasizes agriculture, IT, and socio-economic development.
What are the main causes of Pakistan's energy crisis?
Heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, circular debt, line losses and theft, inadequate generation and transmission capacity, expensive thermal generation, governance/management failures, and a poor energy mix.
What is 'circular debt' in Pakistan's power sector?
Circular debt is the cascading unpaid payment chain across the power supply system, where distribution companies fail to pay generators, who fail to pay fuel suppliers, due to non-recovery of bills, theft, subsidies, and inefficiencies, accumulating into the trillions of rupees.
What is the composition of Pakistan's electricity generation mix?
Pakistan's mix is dominated by thermal (oil, gas, coal, around 55-60%), followed by hydropower (about 25-30%), nuclear (around 8-10%), and a growing share of renewables (wind, solar).
Name Pakistan's two largest hydroelectric dams.
Tarbela Dam (on the Indus) and Mangla Dam (on the Jhelum) are the two largest, providing hydropower, irrigation storage, and flood control.
What is the Indus Waters Treaty (1960), and how does it divide the rivers?
A water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan brokered by the World Bank. It gives Pakistan the three western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) and India the three eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej).
What is hydro-politics, and why is it critical for Pakistan?
Hydro-politics refers to political conflicts and negotiations over shared water resources. It is critical because Pakistan is a lower-riparian state heavily dependent on Indus waters originating in or controlled upstream by India and China, creating disputes over dams and flows.
Define 'water scarcity' thresholds, and where does Pakistan stand?
A country is 'water stressed' below 1,700 cubic metres per capita per year and 'water scarce' below 1,000. Pakistan has fallen below 1,000 m3 per capita, making it a water-scarce country approaching the absolute scarcity threshold (500 m3).
What are inter-provincial water disputes in Pakistan an example of, and name a flashpoint project.
They reflect intra-national hydro-politics, especially Sindh's fears of upstream Punjab. The Kalabagh Dam is a long-standing flashpoint, opposed by smaller provinces over water distribution and flooding concerns.
What is the Water Apportionment Accord of 1991?
An agreement among Pakistan's four provinces to distribute Indus river system waters, administered by the Indus River System Authority (IRSA). It aimed to resolve inter-provincial water-sharing disputes.
What is Pakistan's approximate maternal and infant mortality situation, and what does it indicate?
Pakistan has relatively high maternal mortality (around 154-186 per 100,000 live births) and infant mortality (around 50-55 per 1,000 live births), indicating weak healthcare infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
What share of GDP does Pakistan typically spend on education and on health, and why is it problematic?
Pakistan spends roughly 1.7-2% of GDP on education and under 1% (public) on health, well below recommended levels (UNESCO suggests 4-6% for education). This underinvestment worsens human development outcomes.
How many out-of-school children does Pakistan have, and why does it matter?
Roughly 22-26 million children are out of school, one of the highest figures globally. It undermines literacy, the demographic dividend, and long-term economic development.
What is the Human Development Index (HDI), and where does Pakistan rank?
The HDI is a composite measure of life expectancy, education (mean and expected years of schooling), and per capita income. Pakistan ranks in the 'low human development' category, around 161-164 out of 193 countries.
What is the multidimensional poverty headcount in Pakistan, and how does MPI differ from income poverty?
About 38-40% of Pakistanis are multidimensionally poor. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures deprivations in health, education, and living standards, capturing poverty beyond mere income.
What is the Gini coefficient, and what does it measure regarding inequality?
The Gini coefficient measures income/wealth inequality on a scale from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). Pakistan's is around 0.30-0.33, but inequality is sharper across regions, rural-urban, and gender lines.
What are the main governance challenges contributing to Pakistan's socio-economic problems?
Weak institutions, corruption, political instability, poor tax collection (low tax-to-GDP ratio around 9-10%), bureaucratic inefficiency, lack of rule of law, and centralization despite the 18th Amendment's devolution.
What is the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and what does it represent?
BISP is Pakistan's largest social safety net and unconditional cash-transfer programme, launched in 2008 to support poor (mostly female-headed) households. It represents the state's flagship anti-poverty intervention.
What this deck covers
The Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues deck follows the CSS Pakistan Affairs Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues syllabus — 4 chapters and 11 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 12.5 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 215 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues flashcards FAQ
How many Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues flashcards are in this CSS Pakistan Affairs deck?
50 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these CSS Pakistan Affairs flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 50-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues cards cover?
They follow the CSS Pakistan Affairs Land, People and Socio-Economic Issues syllabus — 4 chapters and 11 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.