25 November 2025 · Shift 1

Delhi Sultanate historians Minhaj-us-Siraj recorded in his chronicle Tabaqat-i-Nasiri that Raziyya was more able and more distinguished than all her brothers. He was a qazi and court historian under Iltutmish and Nasiruddin Mahmud, so he wrote as a contemporary of Raziyya's reign (1236–1240). Raziyya was the first and only woman ever to sit on the throne of Delhi; Minhaj still disapproved of a woman ruling, which makes his praise of her ability all the more telling. Amir Khusrau was a poet at the later Khalji–Tughlaq court, Ibn Khaldun was a 14th-century North African historian, and Al-Masudi a 10th-century Arab traveller — none of them chronicled Raziyya. Hence option (b) is correct.

Bandagan of the Sultanate 'Bandagan' is the Persian plural of banda, 'slave', and in the Delhi Sultanate it meant the military slaves bought, trained and promoted by the Sultan himself. Iltutmish depended on them most; his group of leading slave officers became famous as the Chihalgani or 'the Forty'. Having no clan or landed family of their own, they owed everything to the Sultan, so they were counted the most loyal men available and were given the highest army and administrative posts. Hereditary nobles, provincial governors (muqti/wali) and court scholars (ulama) were quite separate groups, so options (a), (b) and (c) do not fit. Hence option (d) is correct.

High Courts in the Constitution Article 214, in Part VI of the Constitution, says that there shall be a High Court for each State, making it the highest court of the State judiciary. Article 231 then permits Parliament to establish a common High Court for two or more States, which is why some States and Union Territories share one. Article 224 covers the appointment of additional and acting judges of a High Court, and Article 226 gives High Courts their wide writ jurisdiction. Article 114 has nothing to do with the judiciary — it deals with Appropriation Bills, i.e. withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund of India. Hence option (a) is correct.

NDA women cadets The first batch of women cadets of the National Defence Academy passed out in 2025, with the 148th course at Khadakwasla. Women were admitted to the NDA for the first time in 2022 following a Supreme Court order, and the three-year course brought that batch to the passing-out parade three years later. The NDA was set up in 1954 at Khadakwasla near Pune, Maharashtra, and is the world's first tri-service academy, training Army, Navy and Air Force cadets together. Hence option (c) is correct.

ODF Plus villages By December 2024 about 5.61 lakh villages of the country had declared themselves ODF Plus under Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase II. An ODF Plus village is one that sustains its Open Defecation Free status and, in addition, manages its solid and liquid waste and stays visually clean. ODF Plus has three progressive stages — Aspiring, Rising and Model. SBM-G Phase II, launched in 2020-21, set ODF Plus status for every village as its goal, so the figure of about 6.90 lakh in option (c) exceeds the total number of villages covered. Hence option (a) is correct.

Union Budget 2025, gig workers The Union Budget 2025-26 announced a dedicated social-security package for gig and platform workers of the online economy. Statement I is correct: such workers are to be given identity cards and registered on the e-Shram portal, which builds a single national database of unorganised workers. Statement II is correct: registered gig workers are to receive healthcare under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), which gives a cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year. About 1 crore gig workers were expected to benefit from the package. Both statements are therefore correct, so option (d) is right.

MOVCDNER scheme MOVCDNER stands for Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region, so the sector concerned is agriculture. It is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, launched in 2015-16 for the eight North-Eastern States. The mission develops the whole organic value chain — forming farmer producer organisations, arranging organic certification, and supporting collection, processing, packaging, branding and marketing of the produce. The North-East suits organic farming because chemical fertiliser use there has always been low. Hence option (b) is correct.

Environmental Performance Index 2024 The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2024 placed Estonia first among 180 countries. The EPI is published every two years by Yale University and Columbia University; the 2024 edition ranked countries on 58 indicators grouped under climate change, environmental health and ecosystem vitality. Estonia topped the list mainly because it cut its greenhouse-gas emissions sharply by moving power generation away from oil shale. India stood 176th out of 180 with a score of 27.6, held down by poor air quality and rising emissions. Hence option (b) is correct.

Elderly population projection The Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections (July 2020) is the official source for India's projected age structure. It projects the elderly population, that is persons aged 60 years and above, at about 193.4 million in 2031. That is a rise of roughly 41 per cent over the 138 million elderly estimated for 2021. The elderly therefore grow from about 10.1 per cent of the population in 2021 to about 13.1 per cent in 2031. Such a jump makes geriatric health care, pensions and old-age social security urgent policy concerns. Hence option (d) is correct.

19th Asian Games The 19th Asian Games were held at Hangzhou in China from 23 September to 8 October 2023. They were originally fixed for 2022 but were put off by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the edition was actually staged in 2023 while keeping the name Hangzhou 2022. India won a record 107 medals there — 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze — finishing fourth in the medal table. Hence option (c) is correct.

Volleyball in Asian Games Men's volleyball entered the Asian Games programme at the 3rd edition, held at Tokyo in 1958. The women's event was added only at the next edition, Jakarta 1962. The first two editions, Delhi 1951 and Manila 1954, carried no volleyball at all, which rules out 1952 and 1956 — no Asian Games were even held in those years. Hence option (c) is correct.

Length of India's coastline India's coastline has been re-measured by the Survey of India on large-scale maps that follow every creek, bay, estuary and island edge. The revised total length is $11,098.8$ km, against the older figure of 7,516.6 km. The increase comes only from the finer scale of measurement; no territory has been added. The total covers the mainland coast together with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. Nine coastal States and four Union Territories share this coastline, Gujarat having the longest stretch. Hence option (b) is correct.

Booker Prize, Indian authors 'The White Tiger' (2008) is the debut novel of Aravind Adiga and won him the Man Booker Prize that same year. It is told through letters written by Balram Halwai, a village boy who becomes a driver and then an entrepreneur, and it exposes the gulf between the two Indias. Arundhati Roy won the Booker for 'The God of Small Things' and Salman Rushdie for 'Midnight's Children', while Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Interpreter of Maladies'. Hence option (a) is correct.

Gandhara school of art Gandhara art, which flourished in the north-west around Peshawar, Taxila and eastern Afghanistan, joins Hellenistic Greek form to Indian Buddhist subject matter, and is therefore called Greco-Buddhist art. Greek influence reached the region after Alexander's invasion and was carried further by the Indo-Greek and Kushana rulers, above all Kanishka. Its Buddha images have wavy hair, sharp Greek features, a moustache and heavy drapery with deep realistic folds, carved mostly in grey schist and stucco. The Mathura school by contrast is wholly indigenous and uses spotted red sandstone; Amaravati worked in white marble and Gupta art is a mature Indian synthesis. Hence option (c) is correct.

Order of the planets The first body in the figure is the largest disc, banded and carrying the Great Red Spot — that is Jupiter. The second is unmistakable from its broad ring system — Saturn. The last two are the smaller ice giants, Uranus and then Neptune. This is exactly their order of distance from the Sun, since the full order outward is Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Hence option (b) is correct.

Power and work done Climbing raises the body against gravity, so the work done is the gain in potential energy, W=mgh. $W=40\times 9.8\times 5=1960$ J. Power is the work done in unit time, $P=\frac{W}{t}$. $P=\frac{1960}{20}=98$ W. Hence option (b) is correct.

First complete rice pangenome In May 2025 an international team led by Chinese scientists announced the world's first complete pangenome of Asian cultivated rice, Oryza sativa. A pangenome is the entire gene pool of a species — the core genes carried by every variety plus the accessory genes carried by only some. Because a single reference genome hides the accessory genes, the pangenome exposes variation controlling yield, grain quality and tolerance of drought, salinity and disease. Rice feeds more than half the world's people, so the resource is central to breeding climate-resilient varieties. Hence option (b) is correct.

Mewar and the Mughals Mewar, ruled by the Sisodia Rajputs from Chittor and later Udaipur, is the one Rajput kingdom that refused Mughal overlordship generation after generation. Rana Sanga fought Babur at Khanwa in 1527, Udai Singh II lost Chittor to Akbar in 1568, and Maharana Pratap fought Akbar at Haldighati in 1576 and kept up the struggle from the hills till his death. Amber, Bikaner and Jodhpur entered Mughal service early and sealed the alliance with matrimonial ties; Mewar alone never gave a daughter to the Mughal house. Peace came only in 1615, between Rana Amar Singh I and Jahangir, on terms that left Mewar's autonomy and honour intact. Hence option (b) is correct.

CPSE ratna classification Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, set up in 2000 under the Ministry of Communications, is classified as a Miniratna Category-I CPSE. A Miniratna Category-I enterprise must have earned profits continuously in the last three years, with a pre-tax profit of at least ₹30 crore in one of them, and must have a positive net worth. Its board may then spend on a new project up to ₹500 crore, or an amount equal to its net worth, whichever is lower, without prior government approval. BSNL has not been raised to Navratna or Maharatna, which demand far higher and sustained financial performance. Hence option (d) is correct.

Tax Reforms Committee 1991 The Tax Reforms Committee appointed by the Government of India in August 1991 was chaired by Prof. Raja J. Chelliah. It advised fewer and lower rates of direct tax on a broader base, a simpler customs tariff, and a shift towards taxing value added — the blueprint of the post-reform tax system. Chelliah is called the 'Father of Tax Reforms' in India and was the founder-Director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. Montek Singh Ahluwalia was Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, while C. Rangarajan and Y. V. Reddy served as Governors of the RBI. Hence option (b) is correct.

Capital expenditure Capital expenditure is government spending that either creates an asset or reduces a liability. Statement I is wrong: creating assets is exactly what capital expenditure does — roads, bridges, canals, railway lines, school and hospital buildings. Statement II is correct: buying equipment or machinery adds a durable asset, so it is capital expenditure. Salaries, pensions, subsidies and interest payments create no asset and are therefore revenue expenditure. Only statement II holds, so option (a) is right.

Mangal Pandey, Revolt of 1857 Mangal Pandey, a sepoy of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry, attacked his British officers on the parade ground at Barrackpore near Calcutta on 29 March 1857. He was tried by court-martial and hanged at Barrackpore itself on 8 April 1857, at the age of 29. The immediate cause was the greased cartridge of the new Enfield rifle, believed to be smeared with cow and pig fat. The revolt proper broke out later at Meerut on 10 May 1857, which is why Meerut is the tempting wrong option here. Hence option (c) is correct.

Article 368, special majority Article 368 lays down the special majority by which a Constitution Amendment Bill must be passed in each House. Two conditions must be met together: a majority of the total membership of that House, and a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting. A simple majority of those present and voting is enough only for ordinary bills, so that option is ruled out. Amendments touching the federal provisions need, in addition, ratification by the legislatures of at least half of the States. Hence option (b) is correct.

Phases of population growth India's population growth is studied in four phases, and 1921-1951 is the phase of steady growth. The year 1921 is called the 'Great Divide' or demographic divide, because after it the country's population never fell again. In this phase death rates began to come down with better health care, sanitation and control of epidemics and famines, while birth rates stayed high — hence steady growth. 1901-1921 was the stagnant phase, 1951-1981 the phase of population explosion, and after 1981 growth stayed high but definite signs of slowing appeared. Hence option (b) is correct.

Life of Gautama Buddha Gautama Buddha belongs to the sixth century BCE, his birth being placed by tradition at about 563 BCE at Lumbini in the Sakya country. Among the years offered, 560 BCE is the one that matches this approximate date. Born Siddhartha of the Sakya clan, he renounced the world at 29 and attained enlightenment at 35 under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya. His first sermon at Sarnath is called the Dharmachakrapravartana, the turning of the wheel of law. He attained Mahaparinirvana at Kushinagar at the age of 80, about 483 BCE, which fits a birth in the 560s BCE. Hence option (a) is correct.