NTPC stands for National Thermal Power Corporation. NTPC has adopted a pro-active approach to preserve the natural environment and resources around the thermal power plants it sets-up.
To ensure minimum pollution of the environment near these plants, the measures it adopts while setting-up these plants are
1. Using the latest techniques and upgrading existing equipment to minimise generation of polluting by-products.
2. Maximising the utilisation of ash generated so that the waste generated is reduced.
3. Establishing green belts and forests to maintain an ecological balance around the power plants being set-up.
4. Setting-up ash pond management, ash water recycling and liquid waste management systems in the plants to reduce environmental pollution.
5. Monitoring, reviewing and managing the databases online for all the power plants set-up.

(a) Women
The spread of print culture in the 19th century India benefited Indian women through learning and education. Reading habits improved among them. With increase in literacy, women took great interest in reading and writing. Many journals started emphasising the importance of women's education. Many magazines and books were specially published for women.
The print culture gave the women some amount of freedom to read and develop their own views on various issues, especially those related to women. Women novelists such as Jane Austen and Bronte sisters in Europe and Kailashbashini Debi, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai in India presented the new type of woman: a woman with the power to think and with the ability to act with, determination.
(b) The Poor
The poor people benefited from the spread of print culture as books were available at a low price. As the literacy rate improved in Europe as well as in India, printed material, especially for entertainment, began to reach even the poor.
In England, Penny Magazines were carried by peddlars and sold for a penny, so that even poor people could buy them. Those who could not read, could listen to the stories and folklore. These could be read out to them by others.
Books could be hired on a nominal fee from some book owners. Even in India, very cheap small books were brought to market in 19th century Madras and small towns, allowing poor people to have an access to print culture. Public libraries were set up in the early 20th century where poor people could visit and borrow books. Gradually, even poor people began to read religious stories, books with simple instructions or stories and folklore.
(c) Reformers
Reformers used newspapers, journals and books to highlight the social evils prevailing in society. Raja Rammohun Roy published the 'Sambad Kaumudi' to highlight the plight of widows. This newspaper actively campaigned for the abolition of the Sati.
In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of the upper-caste Hindu women. Especially the widows.
Jyotiba Phule wrote about the poor condition of the 'low caste people.' In his book 'Gulamgiri (1871), he wrote about the injustices of the caste system. In the 20th century, BR Ambedkar also wrote powerfully against the caste system. He also wrote against untouchability. EV Ramaswamy Naicker, also known as Periyar, wrote about the caste system prevailing in Madras

(i) Women of the upper and middle classes in Britain, faced increasingly higher levels of isolation, although their lives were made easier by domestic maids who cooked, cleaned and cared for young children on low wages.
(ii) Women who worked for wages had some control over their lives, particularly among the lower social classes. However, many social reformers felt that the family, as an institution had broken down, and needed to be saved or reconstructed by pushing these women back into the home.
(iii) The city life was dominated by men and women who were forced to withdraw into their homes.
(iv) Most of the conservatives were against the presence of women in the public places. 

(i) Carefully devised changes in law can help to discourage wrong political practices and encourage good ones. At the same time, legal-constitutional changes by themselves cannot overcome challenges to democracy. They are to be carried out mainly by political activities, parties movements and politically conscious citizens.
(ii) Legal changes can sometimes be counter-productive. Generally, laws that seek to ban something are not very successful. Rather laws that give political actors incentives to do good things have more chances of working. For, example, the `Right to Information Act' empowers people to act as watchdogs of democracy.
(iii) The main focus of political reforms should be on ways to strengthen democratic practice. The most important concern should be to increase and improve the quality of political participation by ordinary citizens.
(iv) Any proposal for political reforms should think not only about what is a good solution but also about who will implement it and how measures that rely or democratic movements, citizens' organisations and the media are likely to succeed. 

(a) Social division takes place when some social difference overlaps with other differences. The difference between the Blacks and Whites becomes a social division in the US because the Blacks tend to be poor, homeless and are discriminated.
(b) In our country, Dalits tend tie be poor and landless. They often face discrimination and injustice. Situations of this kind produce social divisions, when one kind of social difference becomes more important than the other and people start feeling that they belong to different communities.
(c) If social differences cross cut one another, it is difficult to differentiate one group of people against the other. It means that, groups that share a common interest on one issue are likely to be in different sides on a different issue
(d) In Northern Ireland, class and religion overlap with each other. If you are Catholic, you are also more likely to be poor, and you may have suffered a history of discrimination.
(e) In the Netherlands, class and religion tend to cut across each other.
(f) Catholics and Protestants are about equally likely to be poor or rich. (g) The result is that Catholics and Protestants have had conflicts in Northern Ireland, while they do not do so in the Netherlands.
(h) Overlapping social differences create possibilities of deep social divisions and tensions. Crosscutting social differences are easier to accommodate. ​​​​​

It refers to the utilization of land for various purposes such as cultivation grazing of animals construction of roads etc.
Factors
1) Topography
2) Climate
3) Human Factor
4) Accessibility

(i) In the 19^th century, hundreds of thousands of Indians and Chinese laborers went to work on plantations in mines and in mines and in road and railways construction projects around the world.
(ii) In India, indentures laborers were hired under contracts which promises return travel to India after they had worked for five years on plantations.
(iii) Gradually in India cottage industries declined, land rents rose, land were cleared for mines and plantations. All this affected the lines of the poor. They failed to pay their rents become indebted, and were forced to migrate in search of work.
(iv) The main destinations of Indian indentured migrants were the Caribbean islands, Trinidad, Guyana, Surinam, Mauritius, Fiji and Ceylon and Malaya.
(v) Recruitment was done by agent engaged by employers and paid small commission.

(a) An Indian Wildlife Act was passed in 1972 for conservation of biodiversity of India.
(b) It contains a list of protected species in the country.
(c) It imposed ban on hunting.
(d) It established national parks and wildlife sanctuaries throughout the country.
(e) It restricted trade on wildlife.
(f) Legal protection was provided to the habitats of endangered species including the tiger, the one-horned rhinoceros, the Kashmir stag or hangul, three types of crocodiles - fresh water crocodile, saltwater crocodile and the Gharial, the Asiatic lion,
(g) The Indian elephant, black buck, the great Indian bustard and the snow leopard, etc. have been given legal protection against hunting and trade through India.
(h) Projects such as Project Tiger, Project Elephant etc. that were specific to a particular species were formulated.

Consumers are exploited in the market in a number of ways. Individual consumers often find themselves in a difficult situation to protect their interests. Certain rules and regulations are, therefore, required for the markets to work in a fair manner, where the producers are few and powerful and consumers are scattered and purchase in small quantities. Some examples showing exploitation of consumers are:
(a) Sometimes traders indulge in unfair trade practices such as underweight and under measurement, adulteration, hoarding etc. Adulteration in vegetable oils, spices, milk, ghee etc. are common during the festive seasons.
(b) Whenever a complaint regarding goods or service is made, the seller tries to shift all the responsibility on the buyer.
(c) Producers may create artificial scarcity by hoarding so as to sell the products at a higher price and maximize their profits such as cereals, vegetables, food grains etc. are stored by the wholesaler and released in the market after a long time.

(i) Integrated steel plants are different from mini steel plants in many aspects.
   (a) An integrated steel plant is large and handles everything in one complex from integrating raw materials to steel making, rolling and shaping.
   (b) On the other hand, a mini steel plant is smaller, has electric furnaces, uses steel scrap and sponge iron, and has re-rollers that use steel ingots as well. It produces mild and alloy steel of given specifications.
The problems faced by this industry are:
   (a) high production costs and limited availability of coking coal
   (b) lower productivity of labour
   (c) irregular supply of energy
   (d) poor infrastructure. Recent developments that have led to a rise in the production capacity of this industry are liberalisation and Foreign Direct Investment, with help from private entrepreneurs.
(ii) Industrial pollution of the environment is of four types: air, water, land and noise. Air pollution is caused by smoke released by chemical and paper factories, brick kilns, refineries and smelting plants, and burning of fossil fuels in factories ignoring pollution norms. Water pollution is caused by the discharging of organic and inorganic industrial wastes and effluents into rivers. This form of pollution is caused by paper, pulp, chemical, textile, dyeing, petroleum refineries, tanneries and electroplating industries. The major solid wastes released into rivers in India are fly ash, phospo - gypsum, and iron and steel slags. Thermal pollution of water is another form of water pollution, caused by the emission of hot water from factories and thermal plants into rivers and ponds. Dumping of solid wastes renders the soil infertile and useless too. Lastly, noise pollution results from industrial and construction activities, machinery, generators, and saws, pneumatic and electric drills.
(iii) The steps to be taken to minimise environmental degradation by industry are as follows:
   (a) To control water pollution, industrial effluents need to be treated on all three levels (primary, secondary and tertiary); the use of water for processing should be minimised via reuse and recycling; rainwater can be harvested to meet water requirements, and ground water usage should be regulated by law.
   (b) For the minimisation of air pollution, smoke stacks should be fitted to factories with electrostatic precipitators, fabric filters, scrubbers and inertial separators. Also, smoke can be reduced by using oil or gas instead of coal.
   (c) Noise pollution can be controlled by fitting generators with silencers, redesigning machinery to reduce noise, and using earplugs and earphones besides other noise absorbing material.