Current Affairs Question - 07 January 2020

Explanation :

• The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1956 when during the course of debate on the report of the States Re-organisation Commission.
• The Zonal Councils are the statutory (and not the constitutional) bodies, established by an Act of the Parliament- States Reorganisation Act of 1956.
• The act divided the country into five zones- Northern, Central, Eastern, Western and Southern and provided a zonal council for each zone.
• North Eastern Council (NEC) is a statutory advisory body constituted under the NEC Act 1971 and came into being on the 7th November, 1972 at Shillong. Eight States of Northeast India viz. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim, are members of the council, with their respective Chief Ministers and Governors representing them.

Composition

• The Zonal Council meetings are chaired by the Union Home Minister. The Chief Ministers and two Ministers from the member States are the members ineach Zonal Council. In case of UTs, there are two members from each UT.

Zonal Councils and Member States

• The Northern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, , Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territories of Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh
• The Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
• The Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Sikkim and West Bengal.
• The Western Zonal Council, comprising the States of Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
• The Southern Zonal Council, comprising the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

Explanation :

• The structure, known as the ‘Taj of the Deccan’ because of its striking resemblance to the Taj Mahal, was commissioned by Emperor Aurangzeb in 1660 in the memory of his first wife Dilras Banu Begum (posthumously known as Rabia-ud-Daurani).
• Also called the Tomb of the Lady, Bibi Ka Maqbara was designed by Ataullah, the son of Ahmad Lahauri, the architect of the Taj Mahal which explains its appearance heavily based on the prime marvel.