Difficulty: Easy
Correct Answer: Platform
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
Child labour is a serious social problem, and the Government of India has introduced several initiatives to prevent it and to protect children. One such initiative is the PENCIL portal, a technology based system that aims to coordinate complaints, enforcement, and rehabilitation for child labour cases. This question checks whether you remember the full form of the PENCIL acronym, especially what the letter P stands for, which is a favourite fact based item in competitive exams on current affairs and social welfare schemes.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
PENCIL stands for Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour. The key word for the letter P is Platform, because the portal acts as a digital platform that brings together different stakeholders such as government departments, district officials, civil society, and the general public. The approach is simple factual recall. Once you know that the full form begins with Platform, you can immediately match it with the correct option and rule out the other words that do not appear in the official expansion.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Recall that PENCIL is associated with child labour free society and complaint resolution.
Step 2: Remember or reconstruct the full form as Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour.
Step 3: Identify the first word in that expansion. It is the word Platform, which corresponds to the letter P.
Step 4: Compare this with the options: Partnership, Platform, Podium, and People.
Step 5: Choose Platform, because it exactly matches the official name of the portal and correctly expresses the idea of an online collaborative space.
Verification / Alternative check:
A good way to verify is to think about the function of the portal. It is not simply a group of people or a temporary event. It is a web based system that connects many participants, which is best described by the word Platform. Government initiatives that are web portals often use similar terminology, such as online platforms for services, grievance redress, and coordination. Once you recall this pattern, you can cross check that Platform sounds natural and officially correct in this context, whereas the other options feel out of place in a formal scheme title.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Partnership is wrong because although partnership between stakeholders is important, the official name does not start with this word. Podium is wrong because it usually refers to a physical stage, not a national digital system. People is also incorrect, because the focus of the portal name is on the technology based structure rather than on a generic reference to people. None of these other words appear in the official expansion of PENCIL, so they cannot represent the correct meaning of P.
Common Pitfalls:
A common mistake is to guess based on vague memory of hearing the acronym without noting the exact words in the expansion. Students sometimes choose Partnership because it sounds like a social initiative word or People because child labour issues clearly involve people. However, exam questions on abbreviations demand precision, and small changes in words make the answer invalid. Another pitfall is mixing up this acronym with other schemes or portals that may start with words like Pragati, Pradhan, or Programme. Careful reading and memorisation of the exact phrase Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour avoids such confusion.
Final Answer:
The correct answer is Platform, because in the PENCIL portal the letter P stands for Platform in the full form Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour.
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