Statements: I. India has surpassed the value of tea exports this year over all…

Concept: In a Cause-and-Effect reasoning item, a pair of statements is classified by checking whether one statement causes the other, whether both are effects of one shared underlying cause, whether both are effects of two separate causes, or whether both are simply two separate, self-contained developments (independent causes) with no causal link between them at all.

Application: Statement I reports a generalised economic development, a rise in tea export value, and states its own explanation within itself (rising European demand for quality tea). Statement II reports a separate generalised development, a rise in domestic coffee demand over the last two years, with no stated link to Statement I. Neither statement follows from or explains the other.

Cross-check: Testing the alternatives: tea-export growth driven by European demand has no route to changing Indian coffee consumption, so Statement I cannot be the cause of Statement II, and the reverse direction fails for the same reason. Since Statement I already names its own cause, neither statement is left as a bare, unexplained effect awaiting a common or external trigger. What remains is two separate, self-contained developments in unrelated markets, with no causal connection between them.

Both statements I and II are independent causes.