17 November 2025 · Shift 3

Parts of the Constitution Elections are dealt with in Part XV of the Constitution (Articles 324 to 329), not in Part XVII, so this pairing is the wrong one. Article 324 sets up the Election Commission, Article 326 grants adult suffrage at 18 years and Article 329 bars courts from interfering in electoral matters. The other three are correctly paired: Part IV carries the Directive Principles, Part XVII the Official Language and Part XVIII the Emergency Provisions. Hence option (c) is the answer.

Author of a novel 'The Blue Umbrella' (1980) was written by Ruskin Bond; it is set in a Garhwal village and was made into a film by Vishal Bhardwaj in 2005. Ruskin Bond, a Padma Bhushan awardee who lives in Mussoorie, also wrote 'The Room on the Roof', 'The Cherry Tree' and 'Angry River'. Hence option (a) is the answer.

Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Vinai Kumar Saxena has been the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi since May 2022 and was holding that office in July 2025. He earlier headed the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC); the Lieutenant Governor is the constitutional head of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Hence option (a) is the answer.

Swavalambini Programme The Swavalambini Women Entrepreneurship Programme is run by NITI Aayog together with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. It was launched in February 2025 to train women students of higher-education institutions to start and run their own enterprises. NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) mentors and recognises the participants, which is why the programme is identified with NITI Aayog. Hence option (d) is the answer.

Agricultural scheme 2025 The Pradhan Mantri Dhan-Dhaanya Krishi Yojana was cleared by the Union Cabinet on 16 July 2025. It covers 100 districts marked by low crop productivity, low cropping intensity and poor access to credit. The scheme works by converging 36 existing schemes of 11 ministries, was announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 and runs for six years from 2025-26. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Cricket bowling types Bowling in cricket is divided into two broad families — pace (fast) bowling, which depends on speed and swing, and spin bowling, which depends on turn off the pitch. A yorker pitches right at the batter's feet, an out-swinger moves away from the right-handed batter in the air, and a slower bouncer is a short ball released with deliberately reduced pace — all three are weapons of a pace bowler. A Chinaman is left-arm unorthodox wrist spin: the left-arm wrist spinner turns the ball into a right-handed batter, so it is a variety of spin bowling. The delivery that does not belong to fast bowling is therefore the Chinaman, so option (c) is the answer.

Ranji Trophy history The Ranji Trophy is India's premier domestic first-class competition, started by the BCCI in the 1934-35 season. It is named after Ranjitsinhji, the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar and the first Indian to play Test cricket; the trophy itself was donated by the Maharaja of Patiala. The first final was played at the Gymkhana Ground in Bombay, where Bombay defeated Northern India to become the inaugural champion. Bombay (now Mumbai) has since remained by far the most successful team of the tournament. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Mission Amrit Sarovar Mission Amrit Sarovar was launched on 24 April 2022, National Panchayati Raj Day, as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, with the aim of conserving water for the future. Its target was to develop or rejuvenate at least 75 ponds, called Amrit Sarovars, in every district of the country. It is a whole-of-government mission, but the Ministry of Rural Development is the nodal ministry that leads its implementation, working through the district administration and largely using MGNREGS funds and works. Hence option (c) is the answer.

Mission Mausam Mission Mausam was approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2024 and is run by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, with an outlay of about ₹2,000 crore for its first two years. Statement I is correct: the declared aim of the mission is to make India 'weather-ready and climate-smart' by sharply improving the accuracy of weather and climate prediction. Statement II is also correct: the mission funds next-generation high-resolution models along with more Doppler radars, wind profilers and radiosondes, particularly to forecast the monsoon better. Both statements state the mission's aims correctly, so option (c) is the answer.

Sports bodies: FIH The Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) is the world governing body of field hockey and indoor hockey. It was founded on 7 January 1924 in Paris by Paul Léautey, who became its first President, after field hockey was left out of the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. Its headquarters is today at Lausanne in Switzerland, and it conducts the Hockey World Cup and the FIH Pro League. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Marathi Sangeet Natak Bal Gandharva was the stage name of Narayanrao Shripad Rajhans (1888-1967), the greatest singer-actor of Marathi Sangeet Natak, the musical theatre of Maharashtra. Since women were not allowed on the stage of his time, he became famous for playing the female roles (stri-bhumika) in plays such as Sangeet Saubhadra and Sangeet Manapman. The title 'Bal Gandharva' was given to him by Bal Gangadhar Tilak; he received the Padma Bhushan in 1964, and the Bal Gandharva Rang Mandir in Pune is named after him. His art therefore belongs to the musical tradition of Maharashtra, so option (b) is the answer.

Authors and their books Two Lives (2005) is a memoir written by Vikram Seth about his great-uncle Shanti Behari Seth and Shanti's German-Jewish wife Henny Caro, whose lives run through the Second World War. Vikram Seth's other well-known works are A Suitable Boy, The Golden Gate and An Equal Music. Hence option (c) is the answer.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites The Mahabodhi Temple Complex stands at Bodh Gaya, on the bank of the Niranjana (Falgu) river in the state of Bihar. It marks the place where Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, which makes it the holiest site of the Buddhist world. The first shrine here was raised by Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE; the present brick temple belongs to the 5th-6th century CE and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2002. Hence option (a) is the answer.

Delhi Sultanate monuments Feroz Shah Kotla was built in 1354 CE by Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq of the Tughlaq dynasty. It was the citadel of Firozabad, the new capital he raised on the bank of the Yamuna, counted as the fifth city of Delhi. Within it stands an Ashokan pillar of the 3rd century BCE, which the Sultan had carried to Delhi from Topra in present-day Haryana and set up on a stepped rubble pyramid. The ruins are popularly called the 'home of the djinns', and people still come on Thursdays to leave written petitions there — a living practice grown around a medieval monument. Hence option (a) is the answer.

Kumbh Mela sites The Kumbh Mela is held by rotation at four holy places, each standing on a sacred river. Varanasi, though one of the holiest cities of India and itself on the Ganga, has never been one of these four Kumbh sites. At each site the Kumbh returns once in twelve years, the date being fixed by the position of Jupiter, the Sun and the Moon; UNESCO added the Kumbh Mela to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017. Hence option (d) is the answer.

Communication satellites A communication satellite is placed in a geostationary orbit, roughly 36,000 km above the equator. At exactly that height the satellite takes 24 hours to complete one revolution — the same time in which the Earth rotates — so it appears to hang motionless over one point on the equator. That is why it behaves like an extremely tall television tower: a tower on the ground can serve only a few tens of kilometres, while one geostationary satellite covers about a third of the globe, so three of them can link almost the whole Earth. Hence option (c) is the answer.

ISRO solar mission Aditya-L1 is India's first space-based solar observatory, launched on 2 September 2023 by PSLV-C57 from Sriharikota. It carries seven payloads, of which the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) is the main one, and it was inserted into a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L1 in January 2024. L1 lies about 1.5 million km from the Earth towards the Sun; from there the Sun can be watched continuously, without any eclipse or occultation blocking the view. Hence option (c) is the answer.

SI units Pressure is defined as the force acting normally per unit area: $P=\frac{F}{A}$. Force is measured in newton (N) and area in $m^2$, so the unit of pressure is $1{N/m}^2$, which is given the name pascal (Pa). Joule is the unit of work or energy, volt of electric potential difference and newton of force, so none of them measures pressure. Hence option (c) is the answer.

Chandrayaan-2 mission Chandrayaan-2 was launched by ISRO on 22 July 2019 aboard GSLV Mk III-M1 to explore the south polar region of the Moon. It had three modules: the Orbiter, the lander named Vikram after Vikram Sarabhai, and the rover named Pragyan, a Sanskrit word meaning wisdom. The orbiter reached lunar orbit and still works, but Vikram hard-landed during the final descent, so Pragyan could not be deployed; the same two names were used again on Chandrayaan-3, which landed successfully on 23 August 2023. Hence option (a) is the answer.

International Years The United Nations General Assembly, by its resolution of 7 June 2024, proclaimed 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. The year marks a hundred years of the birth of modern quantum mechanics, dated to Werner Heisenberg's work of 1925. UNESCO is only the lead implementing agency for the year's programmes; the declaration itself came from the UN, because an International Year can be proclaimed only by the UN General Assembly. Hence option (d) is the answer.

Regulatory bodies: PFRDA The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority was set up by the Government of India on 23 August 2003 to regulate and develop the pension sector; its head office is in New Delhi. It began as an interim authority and was given statutory status only by the PFRDA Act, 2013. It regulates the National Pension System (NPS) and administers the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), the aim in both cases being old-age income security. Hence option (c) is the answer.

Disinvestment of PSUs Disinvestment means the government sells a part of the shares it holds in a Public Sector Undertaking, so its own stake in the unit comes down. The purpose is to raise non-tax revenue, cut the fiscal deficit and bring in private participation that improves efficiency; the work is handled by DIPAM under the Ministry of Finance. When the sale is large enough to transfer management control to the buyer, it is called strategic disinvestment, as in the sale of Air India in 2021-22. Buying shares would raise the stake instead of reducing it, and allowing direct or indirect foreign investment is a matter of FDI policy, not of disinvestment. Hence option (b) is the answer.

91st Constitutional Amendment The 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003 inserted Article 75(1A), which fixed a ceiling on the size of the Union Council of Ministers. The total number of ministers, including the Prime Minister, must not exceed 15% of the total strength of the House of the People, that is the Lok Sabha. With a Lok Sabha strength of 543, the ceiling comes to $\frac{15}{100}\times 543=81.45$, so at most 81 ministers. The same amendment added Article 164(1A) for the states, where the limit is again 15% of the assembly's strength but not fewer than 12 ministers; the object was to end over-sized ministries and to curb defection. Hence option (b) is the answer.

ATP and cell energy ATP, adenosine triphosphate, is the energy currency of the cell; the energy is held in its high-energy phosphate bonds. When ATP is hydrolysed to ADP and inorganic phosphate, that bond breaks and energy is released, so this step itself is energy-yielding. The energy so released is spent on reactions that cannot run by themselves because they need an input of energy — that is, endothermic (energy-absorbing) reactions such as protein synthesis, muscle contraction and active transport across a membrane. Exothermic reactions give out energy and need no such help, so they are not the ones ATP drives. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Sangam literature The earliest Tamil works are the Sangam compositions, so called because tradition says they were presented in the sangams, the assemblies of poets held at Madurai under the Pandya kings. They were composed roughly between 300 BCE and 300 CE, which places them about 2,300 years before the present. About 2,381 poems by some 473 poets survive, gathered in anthologies such as the Ettuthogai and the Pattuppattu; they speak of kings and chiefs, war, love and the five tinai landscapes. The other options are far off: 8,000 and 3,300 years ago would take the poems back to prehistory, and 1,000 years ago is the age of much later Tamil devotional writing. Hence option (c) is the answer.