18 November 2025 · Shift 3

EU carbon border tax The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a climate-and-trade instrument of the European Union. Its transitional, reporting-only phase began on 1 October 2023, and the financial obligation on importers starts from 2026. It places a carbon price on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. The purpose is to prevent 'carbon leakage' — the shifting of production to countries with weaker climate rules — by making imports bear the same carbon cost as goods made inside the EU. The UNFCCC only hosts climate negotiations, the WTO frames trade rules, and BRICS has no such levy; in fact India has objected to CBAM at the WTO. Hence option (c) is correct.

Indian sportspersons Manu Bhaker is India's leading pistol shooter, born in Jhajjar, Haryana in 2002. At the Paris 2024 Olympics she won bronze in the women's 10 m air pistol and a second bronze in the 10 m air pistol mixed team with Sarabjot Singh. That made her the first Indian since independence to win two medals at a single Olympic Games. She had earlier won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and several ISSF World Cup golds. Neeraj Chopra is a javelin thrower, Sania Mirza a tennis player and Dipa Karmakar a gymnast, so option (b) is correct.

Governor of Manipur Ajay Kumar Bhalla was appointed Governor of Manipur in December 2024 and was sworn in on 3 January 2025; he was still in office in November 2025. He is a 1984-batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre and served as Union Home Secretary from 2019 to 2024. In that role he handled the rollout of the CAA rules and of the three new criminal laws. He took over from Lakshman Prasad Acharya, the Governor of Assam, who was holding additional charge of Manipur. His internal-security experience was seen as suited to a state placed under President's Rule in February 2025 after the ethnic violence that began in 2023. Hence option (c) is correct.

Appointment: SBI Rama Mohan Rao Amara was appointed Managing Director of the State Bank of India in December 2024. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet cleared his name on 18 December 2024 for a three-year term. He joined SBI as a Probationary Officer in 1991 and was serving as a Deputy Managing Director before this elevation. The vacancy arose when C. S. Setty moved up to become Chairman of SBI in August 2024. Ashwini Kumar Tewari was already an SBI Managing Director from 2021 and was not the December 2024 appointee; Rajnish Kumar is a former SBI Chairman and Shanti Lal Jain headed Indian Bank. Hence option (b) is correct.

India's envoy to the UN Parvathaneni Harish took charge as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York in August 2024. A 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, he had earlier been India's Ambassador to Germany and to Vietnam. He also served as India's Sous-Sherpa for the G20 and BRICS, giving him wide multilateral experience. He succeeded Ruchira Kamboj, the first woman to hold this post, who retired in mid-2024. Syed Akbaruddin (2016-2020) and T. S. Tirumurti (2020-2022) held the post earlier, so option (b) is correct.

Subhadra Yojana of Odisha Five years. Subhadra Yojana, announced by the Odisha government in September 2024 and launched on 17 September 2024, gives every eligible woman ₹50,000 in all, spread over five years from 2024-25 to 2028-29. The money reaches her as ₹10,000 a year, paid in two equal instalments of ₹5,000 — one around Raksha Bandhan and one on International Women's Day — credited straight to her Aadhaar-linked bank account. Women aged 21 to 60 years of eligible families are covered, and each beneficiary also gets a Subhadra Debit Card, with incentives for digital transactions. Since ₹10,000 a year for five years adds up to ₹50,000, the period is five years, so option (b) is correct.

Swachhata Hi Seva campaign Swachhata Hi Seva. The Department of Health Research, with the ICMR and its institutes, observed the Swachhata Hi Seva (SHS) fortnight from 17 September to 2 October 2024. The 2024 edition carried the theme 'Swabhav Swachhata, Sanskar Swachhata' and marked ten years of the Swachh Bharat Mission, launched on 2 October 2014, Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is the parent mission itself and runs the year round; it is not the dated fortnight-long drive the question describes. Jal Jeevan Mission (2019) is about tap-water connections for rural households, and Mission LiFE is about environment-friendly lifestyles, so neither fits. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Judo competition area Square. A judo bout is fought on a square mat area built out of tatami mats. The whole mat is usually 14 m × 14 m and may go up to 16 m × 16 m at major championships. Inside it lies the square contest area of 8 m × 8 m (10 m × 10 m at big events); the strip around it is the safety area, which cushions a fighter thrown outside. The mats are made to absorb impact so that a thrown player can break the fall safely (ukemi). Since both the contest area and the mat around it are squares, option (a) is correct.

India's first Olympic hockey gold 1928. India entered the Olympic hockey competition for the first time at the Amsterdam Games of 1928 and won the gold medal there. India beat the Netherlands 3-0 in the final and did not concede a single goal in the entire tournament. Dhyan Chand was the highest scorer of those Games with 14 goals. That win began a run of six successive Olympic golds from 1928 to 1956; 1948 in London was the fourth of them and the first won by independent India. Hockey was not part of the 1896 Athens Games at all, and India did not take part in 1904, so option (c) is the answer.

Cricket, the Gentleman's Game Cricket. The name goes back to Victorian England, where the game was played by the gentry with great stress on etiquette, fair play and accepting the umpire's word without argument. Until 1962 English cricket even divided its cricketers into 'Gentlemen' (unpaid amateurs) and 'Players' (paid professionals), who used separate dressing rooms and met in an annual Gentlemen v Players match. The idea survives today as the 'Spirit of Cricket', the preamble to the MCC Laws of Cricket, which asks for respect for opponents, umpires and the game itself. This is why a batter 'walking' without waiting for the umpire's decision is still admired in cricket, so option (b) is correct.

Shape of a basketball Spherical. A regulation basketball is a true sphere with a pebbled leather or composite surface that gives the fingers their grip. The men's ball (size 7) has a circumference of about 29.5 inches and weighs roughly 22 ounces; the women's ball (size 6) is slightly smaller and lighter. A sphere bounces back predictably in the direction it is pushed, which is exactly what dribbling needs; an oval ball, like a rugby ball, bounces unevenly. The game was invented by Dr James Naismith in 1891, and the familiar orange colour was adopted in 1957 to make the ball easier to see. So option (a) is correct.

Major Dhyan Chand Hockey. Major Dhyan Chand, called 'The Wizard' for his control of the ball, was a centre-forward of the Indian hockey team. He was part of the sides that won Olympic gold in 1928 at Amsterdam, 1932 at Los Angeles and 1936 at Berlin, and he captained India in 1936. He scored more than 400 goals in his career, and India celebrates National Sports Day on 29 August, his birthday. The country's highest sporting honour was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award in 2021. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Nilgiri Tahr census 2025 Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The two states carried out a joint, synchronised census of the Nilgiri Tahr in April 2025 across the southern Western Ghats. The count returned 2,668 animals in all — 1,365 in Kerala and 1,303 in Tamil Nadu. Surveyors used the 'bounded count' method, supported by camera traps and dung sampling, over more than 250 survey blocks; the exercise also marked the 50th year of Eravikulam National Park. The Nilgiri Tahr is endemic to the southern Western Ghats and is the state animal of Tamil Nadu, so only the two states holding that habitat could count it, giving option (c).

Ramsar sites in India 96. In mid-December 2025 two more wetlands — Siliserh Lake in Rajasthan and Kopra Reservoir in Chhattisgarh — were added to the Ramsar List, taking India's tally to 96. India thus has the largest number of Ramsar sites in Asia and stands third in the world, with Tamil Nadu leading among the Indian states. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was signed at Ramsar in Iran in 1971 and is named after that town. India joined the Convention in 1982, its first two sites being Chilika Lake in Odisha and Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan; the count was still 85 in early 2025, which is why option (c) is out of date. Hence option (d) is the answer.

WPL 2025 final Mumbai. The final of the Women's Premier League 2025 was played at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on 15 March 2025. Mumbai Indians, captained by Harmanpreet Kaur, beat Delhi Capitals by 8 runs to win their second WPL title; Delhi lost their third final in a row. Harmanpreet Kaur was named Player of the Match and Nat Sciver-Brunt Player of the Tournament. The season's matches were spread over Vadodara, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Mumbai, with Mumbai hosting the closing stage, so option (a) is the answer.

U-23 National Basketball Championship 1st. Assam hosted the very first Under-23 National Basketball Championship for Men and Women, held at Guwahati in March 2025. The matches were played at the Nabin Chandra Bordoloi Indoor Stadium, and the meet was organised by the Assam Basketball Association under the Basketball Federation of India. Haryana won the men's title and Tamil Nadu the women's title. Since this age-group national championship was being staged for the first time, no earlier edition exists and option (a) is the answer.

Folk dances of Ladakh Koshan. It is a folk dance of the Leh area of Ladakh, and by tradition a horse race is held just before the dancing begins. It is performed at festive gatherings such as the Ladakh Festival, the dancers wearing the Ladakhi goncha and the turquoise-studded perak headdress. Jabro is the dance of the Changthang nomads of eastern Ladakh, done to the drum and the damnyan, and has no horse race attached to it. Rouf is a women's dance of Kashmir performed in spring and at Eid, and Bhangra belongs to Punjab, so neither of them is a Ladakhi dance at all. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Maharatna status of PFC Maharatna. Power Finance Corporation was granted Maharatna status in October 2021, becoming the 11th Maharatna CPSE, and it continues to hold that status. PFC is a Schedule 'A' CPSE and a non-banking financial company under the Ministry of Power; Schedule 'A' is only a pay-and-size classification, while Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna measure financial autonomy. A Maharatna board may invest up to 15% of its net worth in a single project, subject to a ceiling of ₹5,000 crore, without seeking government approval. That autonomy suits PFC's role as India's largest lender to the power and renewable energy sector, so option (b) is the answer.

National Logistics Policy, 2022 Statement I is wrong. The National Logistics Policy, released on 17 September 2022, sets out to reduce the cost of logistics, bringing it down from about 13-14% of GDP towards global benchmarks by 2030. Statement II is right. A data-driven decision support mechanism for the sector is one of the policy's declared targets, and the Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) delivers it by pooling data of the transport ministries into a single digital window. The third target is to lift India's rank in the World Bank's Logistics Performance Index, and the whole policy is carried out through the Comprehensive Logistics Action Plan (CLAP). So only statement II is correct, and option (b) is the answer.

Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 May 2005. Parliament passed the Special Economic Zones Act in May 2005 — the Lok Sabha on 10 May and the Rajya Sabha on 12 May. It received the President's assent on 23 June 2005, and the Act along with the SEZ Rules came into force on 10 February 2006. An SEZ is treated as a duty-free enclave and, for trade operations, duties and tariffs, as territory outside the customs area of India. The Act's aims are to generate additional economic activity, promote exports of goods and services, attract domestic and foreign investment, create employment and develop infrastructure. India's SEZ policy itself dates from April 2000, while Asia's first export processing zone had already opened at Kandla in 1965, so option (b) is the answer.

Census 2011: state populations Bihar. In Census 2011 only three states crossed 100 million, that is 10 crore: Uttar Pradesh (about 19.98 crore), Maharashtra (about 11.24 crore) and Bihar (about 10.41 crore). Bihar was therefore the third most populous state, and it also had the highest population density in the country, about 1,106 persons per sq km. Gujarat (about 6.04 crore), Karnataka (about 6.11 crore) and Odisha (about 4.20 crore) were all far short of the 10 crore mark. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Non-rivalry of public goods Non-rivalrous means that one person's consumption takes nothing away from anyone else: the very same unit can serve everybody at the same time. National defence, the beam of a lighthouse and street lighting are the standard examples — one more ship using the light costs the lighthouse nothing, so the marginal cost of serving an extra user is zero. Option (d) states the opposite property, rivalry, which belongs to private goods such as a sandwich or a seat on a bus. Public goods are usually non-excludable too, since non-payers cannot easily be kept out; that free-rider problem is why the market under-supplies them and the government provides them. Hence option (b) is the answer.

Replacement investment Depreciation of capital. Machines, buildings and tools lose value as they are used up in production, and that loss is depreciation, also called consumption of fixed capital. Replacement investment is precisely the spending needed to make good that loss and keep the capital stock intact, so replacement investment equals depreciation. Gross investment minus depreciation gives net investment, which alone adds to the capital stock; the same subtraction turns gross domestic product into net domestic product. Transfer payments involve no production at all, while wages and entrepreneurial profit are factor incomes, not the replacement of worn-out capital, so option (a) is the answer.

Upanishadic concept of Atman The inner self or soul. In the Upanishads, Atman is the unchanging, eternal essence of a person, distinct from the body, the senses, the mind and the ego. It is the true self that passes through the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara) and is not destroyed when the body dies. The central teaching of the Upanishads is the identity of Atman with Brahman, the universal reality, stated in mahavakyas such as 'Tat Tvam Asi' (That thou art) and 'Aham Brahmasmi' (I am Brahman). Ritual fire (Agni) and sacred chants belong to the earlier Vedic ritual tradition, from which the Upanishads turn towards philosophical enquiry, and Atman is not a deity either. So option (a) is the answer.

Maitraka dynasty of Vallabhi Maitraka dynasty. Dhruvasena II, also called Baladitya, ruled in the first half of the 7th century CE from Vallabhi in Saurashtra, in present-day Gujarat. The Maitrakas were founded by Bhatarka, a Gupta general, who carved out an independent kingdom at Vallabhi in the later 5th century. Dhruvasena II married a daughter of Harshavardhana of Kanauj, turning an earlier conflict into an alliance, and he attended Harsha's great assembly at Prayag. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) visited his court and wrote of his quick intelligence and generosity. Vallabhi was also famous for its Buddhist mahavihara, a seat of learning ranked with Nalanda. The Kushanas and Mauryas belong to far earlier centuries and the Cholas to the Tamil country, so option (c) is the answer.