UPSC Prelims 2015 · Question 53 of 98

UPSC Prelims 2015 question on Amnesty International

Amnesty International is

  1. an agency of the United Nations to help refugees of civil wars
  2. a global Human Rights Movement
  3. a non-governmental voluntary organization to help very poor people
  4. an inter-governmental agency to cater to medical emergencies in war-ravaged regions
Show answer

Answer: B. a global Human Rights Movement

Verdict

The answer is that it is a global human rights movement. Amnesty International is a non governmental organisation working on human rights.

Analysis

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of members and supporters campaigning against human rights violations, best known for its work on prisoners of conscience, the death penalty and torture. The first option describes the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The third describes a poverty focused voluntary organisation, which misstates the mandate. The fourth describes something closer to Medecins Sans Frontieres and also wrongly calls it intergovernmental, whereas that body too is non governmental.

Source

Amnesty International India material.

How to crack it

Two questions settle almost every organisation identity item: what is its subject and who are its members. Amnesty's subject is human rights and its members are individuals, so it is a non governmental human rights movement. Any option that changes either the subject or the membership type is wrong. Keep a short list of the bodies UPSC reuses, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres and Transparency International, each with subject and membership noted.

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