15 November 2025 · Shift 1

Delhi Sultanate taxation Khums was the levy on war booty and captured treasure in the Delhi Sultanate. By Islamic law the state's share of the spoils was one-fifth, that is 20 per cent, and the remaining 80 per cent went to the soldiers. Alauddin Khalji reversed this proportion, keeping four-fifths for the treasury and leaving only one-fifth to the army, which is an easy point to remember him by. The other three are land-related: Kharaj was the land revenue paid by non-Muslim cultivators, Ushr the one-tenth land tax on Muslim holdings and Charai a grazing tax on cattle. Hence the answer is Khums, so option (b) is correct.

Pastoral tribes of India The Gaddis were a shepherd tribe of the Western Himalayas, centred on Bharmour in the Chamba region of present-day Himachal Pradesh. They were semi-nomadic pastoralists who practised transhumance: they wintered with their flocks of sheep and goats in the low Shiwalik hills and climbed to the high alpine meadows in summer. That up-and-down cycle only makes sense in a high mountain belt, which is why the tribe is tied to the Western Himalayas and not to any plain or plateau. The Deccan Plateau and the Nilgiri Hills lie far to the south, and the Gangetic Plains are settled farming country rather than seasonal pasture. Hence the answer is the Western Himalayas, so option (b) is correct.

ASEAN membership Pakistan is not a member of ASEAN — it is a South Asian country and belongs to SAARC instead. ASEAN was formed by the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 and grew to ten members; Timor-Leste was admitted as the eleventh on 26 October 2025, so as on 30 November 2025 it has eleven member states. Thailand was a founding member in 1967, the Philippines too, and Viet Nam joined in 1995 — all three are Southeast Asian. Pakistan is only a Sectoral Dialogue Partner of ASEAN, and a dialogue partnership is not membership. Hence the answer is Pakistan, so option (c) is correct.

India's military exercises 'Surya Kiran' is the annual joint military exercise of the armies of India and Nepal. It is held alternately in the two countries; the 19th edition began at Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand on 25 November 2025, the previous one having been held at Saljhandi in Nepal. The training focuses on jungle and mountain warfare, counter-terrorism operations and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). The exercises with the other neighbours carry different names — 'Sampriti' with Bangladesh and 'Mitra Shakti' with Sri Lanka — which rules those options out. Hence the answer is Nepal, so option (c) is correct.

Titles of national leaders The British journalist Valentine Chirol called Bal Gangadhar Tilak the 'Father of the Indian Unrest' in his book Indian Unrest, published in 1910. Chirol traced the anti-British agitation to Tilak's Swaraj campaign, his Ganapati and Shivaji festivals and his newspapers Kesari and Maratha; Tilak sued him for libel in London and lost the case. The other three titles belong elsewhere: Sardar Patel is the Iron Man of India, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan the Frontier Gandhi and Dadabhai Naoroji the Grand Old Man of India. Hence the correctly matched pair is Bal Gangadhar Tilak - Father of the Indian Unrest, so option (b) is correct.

National Film Awards The National Film Award for Best Actor was instituted in 1967, and Uttam Kumar was its very first recipient; the award was then given under the name 'Bharat Award'. He was honoured for two Bengali films of 1967 — 'Anthony Firingee', in which he played the Portuguese-origin folk poet, and Satyajit Ray's 'Chiriyakhana', in which he played the detective Byomkesh Bakshi. Called the 'Mahanayak' of Bengali cinema, he thus became the first actor from any Indian film industry to be honoured in this category on a national platform. Soumitra Chatterjee received this award much later, Sanjeev Kumar won it for 'Dastak' and 'Koshish', and Raj Kapoor was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, so option (b) is correct.

Current affairs — diplomacy G. Balasubramanian, a 1998-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, was named India's High Commissioner to the Maldives in November 2024. At the time of that appointment he was serving as India's High Commissioner to Nigeria, with concurrent accreditation to Benin and Chad. Earlier in his career he had been Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow and Bangkok and Joint Secretary (Europe West) in the Ministry of External Affairs; in Male he succeeded Munu Mahawar. Hence the correct option is (b).

Government initiatives UDISE+ stands for Unified District Information System for Education Plus, so the sector it covers is education. Run by the Ministry of Education, it is an online database that gathers information from schools all over India — enrolment, teachers, dropouts, buildings, toilets, computers — from pre-primary up to Class 12. The UDISE+ report discussed in early 2025 drew attention because total school enrolment showed a fall once data began to be collected student by student instead of in aggregate. Hence the correct option is (c).

Union Budget 2025-26 The Union Budget 2025-26 extended the Jal Jeevan Mission up to 2028 so that every rural household is covered with safe drinking water. Launched in 2019 under the slogan 'Har Ghar Jal' and run by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the mission provides a Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) to each rural home; its original deadline was 2024. Along with the extension the Budget raised the outlay and put the stress on the quality of the pipelines built and on their long-term operation and maintenance. The other schemes deal with irrigation, river cleaning and village ponds rather than household drinking water, so option (b) is correct.

Classification of sports Among the four choices only surfing is played on water, so it is the aquatic sport. Aquatic sports are those contested in or on water — swimming, diving, water polo, artistic swimming and surfing; the surfer rides a breaking wave standing on a board. Surfing is governed by the International Surfing Association (ISA); it made its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 and at Paris 2024 its events were held at Teahupo'o in Tahiti. Lawn tennis, volleyball and hockey are all played on land — on a court or a field — so option (b) is correct.

Athletics — combined events The decathlon is a combined event of athletics, that is, of track and field. It has ten events spread over two days: 100 m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400 m on the first day; 110 m hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw and 1500 m on the second. Each performance is turned into points by standard scoring tables and the athlete with the highest total wins; the corresponding women's event is the heptathlon, of seven events. Gymnastics, triathlon and modern pentathlon are separate sports with entirely different event lists, so option (b) is correct.

Current affairs — India Water Week The 8th India Water Week was held in New Delhi, at Bharat Mandapam, from 17 to 20 September 2024. It was organised by the Ministry of Jal Shakti and inaugurated by President Droupadi Murmu, on the theme 'Partnerships and Cooperation for Inclusive Water Development and Management'. India Water Week is a conference-cum-exhibition that brings policymakers, scientists, industry and foreign delegations together on water security, river basin management and the reuse of treated water. Hence the correct option is (b).

Asian Games — volleyball Women's volleyball entered the Asian Games for the first time at the 1962 Games held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Volleyball itself had come into the Asian Games four years earlier, at Tokyo 1958, but only as a men's event; the women's competition was added at the next edition. The 1962 Games therefore mark an important widening of women's team sport in Asia — at Jakarta the women played both the six-a-side and the nine-a-side form of the game. Hence the correct option is (c).

Ramsar sites of India On World Environment Day, 5 June 2025, Khichan Bird Sanctuary and Menar Wetland — both in Rajasthan — were declared Ramsar sites, taking India's total to 91. Khichan, in Phalodi district of the Thar desert, is famous for the thousands of Demoiselle cranes that winter there; Menar, in Udaipur district, is a monsoon-fed complex of ponds rich in bird life. With these two, Rajasthan's count of Ramsar sites rose to four; a Ramsar site is a wetland of international importance designated under the Ramsar Convention signed in 1971 in Iran. Tampara and Ansupa lakes (Odisha), Pala wetland (Mizoram), Sakhya Sagar (Madhya Pradesh) and Thane Creek (Maharashtra) were all designated in earlier years, so option (b) is correct.

Current affairs — sports events Australia was chosen to host the Beach Volleyball World Championships 2025, the venue being the city of Adelaide. This is the FIVB's flagship beach volleyball event, held every two years with separate men's and women's competitions, and 2025 is the first time Australia has staged it. Adelaide was picked for its coastal setting and ready event infrastructure, backed by Australia's strong record in the sport since beach volleyball entered the Olympics at Atlanta 1996. Hence the correct option is (b).

Fairs and festivals The Manimahesh Fair is a state-level fair of Himachal Pradesh. It is centred on the sacred Manimahesh Lake at the foot of the Manimahesh Kailash peak in Chamba district and is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The yatra runs from Janmashtami to Radhashtami in August-September; pilgrims trek up from Hadsar and take a holy dip in the lake, which makes it one of the biggest religious gatherings of the state. Hence the correct option is (b).

Ancient Indian architecture The shift from rock-cut cave shrines to free-standing structural temples belongs mainly to the Gupta period, roughly the 4th to the 6th century CE. Gupta builders raised the shrine on a plinth using dressed stone or brick: a small square garbhagriha, a flat roof or an early shikhara above it, and a pillared mandapa in front. Temple No. 17 at Sanchi, the brick temple at Bhitargaon and the Dashavatara temple at Deogarh are the surviving prototypes from which the later Nagara and Dravida styles grew. Mauryan architecture is known for polished pillars and the earliest Barabar caves, Kushan art for the Gandhara and Mathura schools of sculpture, and Chola temples come much later, so option (b) is correct.

Folk traditions of Punjab The custom described is called Jaago. On the night before a Punjabi wedding the women of the family carry a decorated earthen pot (gaggar) fitted with lighted oil lamps on their heads and move through the neighbourhood singing 'jaago' songs. The word 'jaago' itself means 'wake up' — the singing is a joyful announcement to the whole locality that a wedding is about to take place, and neighbours join in as the group passes. Giddha and Sammi are folk dances of Punjabi women and Kikli is a spinning-and-clapping dance of young girls, so option (b) is correct.

Geostationary satellites A geostationary satellite has zero relative velocity with respect to a point on the Earth's surface, so from the ground it seems to hang motionless in the sky. It goes round in the equatorial plane from west to east at a height of about 36,000 km, and its period is 24 hours — exactly the Earth's rotation period, which is why it keeps pace with the point below it. Since it stares at the same region all the time, it can send back a picture of that region every few minutes, and putting those pictures in sequence shows clouds forming, moving and a storm growing. Options (a) and (c) describe a polar satellite, and a satellite moving faster than the Earth's rotation (d) would drift away from the region, so option (b) is correct.

Weight and gravity Weight is the gravitational force on a body, W=mg; the mass m stays the same everywhere, only g changes. The Moon's gravity is about one-sixth of the Earth's, so $g_m=\frac{g_e}{6}$. On the Moon $W_m=m\times \frac{g_e}{6}$, hence $W_e=m{g}_e=6\times W_m$. Substituting $W_m=3$ N gives $W_e=6\times 3=18$ N. Hence the correct option is (d).

Economic reforms of 1991 The urgent measure taken in the 1991 balance of payments crisis was the devaluation of the national currency, the rupee. India's foreign exchange reserves had fallen to about two weeks of imports, so the RBI devalued the rupee in two steps on 1 and 3 July 1991, by roughly 18-19 per cent in all. Devaluation makes exports cheaper for foreign buyers and imports dearer at home, so it lifts export earnings, curbs non-essential imports and rebuilds the reserves. It was followed by an IMF loan against pledged gold and by the wider liberalisation reforms of 1991, whereas import substitution and tighter currency controls were the old policies being given up, so option (b) is correct.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ranjit Singh occupied Lahore in July 1799 and made it the capital of his rising Sikh state. He took the city from the Bhangi Misl sardars, whose rule the citizens of Lahore themselves wanted removed, and he was only about nineteen years old at the time. Lahore gave him command of the trade routes of the Punjab; in 1801 he assumed the title of Maharaja there, and Amritsar, the religious centre, was added in 1802. Hence the correct option is (b).

FRBM Act, 2003 The FRBM Act, 2003 requires three statements to be laid before both Houses along with the Annual Financial Statement: the Medium Term Fiscal Policy Statement, the Fiscal Policy Strategy Statement and the Macroeconomic Framework Statement. A Monetary Policy Statement is not one of them, so it is the odd one out here. Monetary policy is the domain of the Reserve Bank of India: the Monetary Policy Statement is issued separately by the RBI after each meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee, and has no link with the Budget documents. The three FRBM statements set out the fiscal targets, the strategy behind them and an assessment of growth, so that the Budget's fiscal stance is transparent; the question asks for the one NOT required, so option (c) is correct.

Organ donation A living person may legally donate a part of the liver as well as one kidney, so both statements I and II are correct. The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 permits living donation only of an organ whose removal does not endanger the donor's own life, and only after medical screening and approval by an authorisation committee. The liver satisfies this condition because it regenerates and grows back to nearly its full size after a lobe is removed, and a healthy person can live a normal life with a single kidney. Organs such as the heart and the whole liver can be taken only from a deceased donor, so option (c) is correct.

Magadha — Shishunaga dynasty Shishunaga's most significant achievement was the defeat of Avanti (Malwa) and its annexation to Magadha. Avanti, ruled by the Pradyota dynasty from Ujjayini, had been the most serious rival of Magadha among the four great mahajanapadas for about a hundred years, and its fall left Magadha without an equal. Shishunaga founded the Shishunaga dynasty around 413 BCE after the Haryanka line ended, and he is also said to have kept Vaishali as a second capital for a time. Kalinga was conquered by Ashoka, the fort at Pataligrama is associated with Ajatashatru, and the First Buddhist Council met at Rajgriha under Ajatashatru, so option (d) is correct.