25 November 2025 · Shift 2

Chola dynasty Rajendra I was the son of Rajaraja I, also called Rajaraja the Great, and he succeeded his father in 1014 CE. He led a famous northern expedition up to the river Ganga and took the title Gangaikonda Chola, meaning the one who brought the Ganga. He shifted his capital to the new city of Gangaikonda Cholapuram and used a powerful navy to carry Chola power to Sri Lanka and the Srivijaya empire in South-East Asia. Vijayalaya founded the imperial Chola line and Aditya I was his son, while Kulothunga I ruled much later, from 1070 CE, so none of them was Rajendra I's father. Hence option (b) is correct.

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council has 15 members in all. Five of them are permanent members holding the veto power: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The remaining ten are non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms, five of them being replaced every year. The strength was raised from 11 to 15 by an amendment to the UN Charter that came into force in 1965 and has stayed unchanged since. Hence option (c) is correct.

Appointments in news Amrit Mohan Prasad, a 1989-batch IPS officer of the Odisha cadre, was appointed Director General of the Sashastra Seema Bal in September 2024 by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. He was then serving as Special Director General of the CRPF, and he took charge from Daljit Singh Chaudhary, the BSF chief who was holding additional charge of the SSB. The SSB is the Central Armed Police Force that guards India's borders with Nepal and Bhutan and works under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Hence option (b) is correct.

Union Budget 2025-26 In the Union Budget 2025-26 speech the Finance Minister announced that the Jal Jeevan Mission would be extended up to 2028. The mission was launched in 2019 with the goal of giving every rural household a functional tap water connection. The extended phase puts the stress on quality of infrastructure, operation and maintenance of the schemes, and on Jan Bhagidari, that is people's participation. Hence option (b) is correct.

PM Vishwakarma scheme PM Vishwakarma is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, so the District Project Management Units created under it in July 2025 also work under that ministry. The scheme was launched on 17 September 2023 to support traditional artisans and craftspeople of 18 trades who work with their hands and simple tools. It gives recognition through a PM Vishwakarma certificate and ID card, skill training with a stipend, a toolkit incentive, collateral-free credit and marketing support. The DPMUs give every district a dedicated team for registration, verification, training and monitoring, so that the scheme reaches artisans faster. Hence option (b) is correct.

Origin of sports Dr. James Naismith, a physical-education instructor at the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts, invented basketball in December 1891. He needed a game that could be played indoors during the harsh New England winter, so he fixed two peach baskets to the gallery railing, used a football and framed 13 basic rules. The other three sports are credited to different people, so option (b) is correct.

Indian hockey history The 1928 Amsterdam Olympics gave India its first-ever Olympic gold medal in hockey, and Major Dhyan Chand was the star of that team. He finished as the highest scorer of the tournament with 14 goals and went on to win gold again in 1932 (Los Angeles) and 1936 (Berlin). Nicknamed 'The Wizard' for his ball control, his birthday, 29 August, is celebrated as National Sports Day in India. The other three players belong to later decades, so option (b) is correct.

Origin of judo Judo was developed in 1882 by Jigoro Kano, who founded the Kodokan Judo Institute at Tokyo in that year. He reshaped the older combat art of jujutsu into a safe, throw-based sport built on the maxim 'maximum efficiency, minimum effort'. The name itself means 'the gentle way' — the judoka uses the opponent's own force instead of resisting it. Judo became the first Asian martial art in the Olympics, at the Tokyo Games of 1964, so option (b) is correct.

Green waste plant India's first green (garden) waste processing plant on the Public-Private Partnership model came up at Bicholi Hapsi in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, in 2025. Set up under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, it processes the city's leaves, branches and grass cuttings into wooden pellets and sawdust. The pellets are sold to industry as a cleaner substitute for coal, so the municipal corporation earns revenue instead of paying to dump the waste. Indore, repeatedly ranked India's cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan survey, is therefore the answer and option (b) is correct.

Folk music of India Mando is the ceremonial song-and-dance form of Goa, sung mainly in Konkani by the Goan Catholic community. It grew in the 19th century out of the meeting of Indian melody with Portuguese harmony, which is why it is slow, dignified and accompanied by the violin along with the local ghumot drum. Its verses speak of love and longing, but also of social injustice and colonial politics — exactly the themes named in the question. Hence the form belongs to Goa and option (b) is correct.

Books and authors War Talk (2003) is a collection of political essays by Arundhati Roy on nuclear weapons, war and global justice. Roy is best known for her debut novel The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997. The other three titles belong to Kiran Desai and Anita Desai, so option (b) is correct.

Books and authors Ladies Coupe (2001) is the best-known novel of the Indian writer Anita Nair. It follows Akhila, a middle-aged woman travelling alone, who hears the life stories of five women sharing a ladies' compartment and decides to live for herself. The other titles are by Arundhati Roy, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Khushwant Singh, so option (b) is correct.

Festivals of India The annual Tulip Festival is held in Srinagar, at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden on the slopes of the Zabarwan range overlooking Dal Lake. Opened in 2007, it is Asia's largest tulip garden and blooms for only a few weeks in late March and April. The festival marks the start of Kashmir's tourist season, when lakhs of tulips of dozens of varieties open together. Hence the city is Srinagar and option (a) is correct.

Gupta architecture The Bhitargaon temple stands in the Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh and dates from the 5th century CE, the Gupta age. It is the oldest surviving brick-and-terracotta temple in India, and the largest of its kind. Its importance lies in the shikhara — a tall pyramidal tower over the sanctum, an early step towards the classical North Indian temple form — and in the terracotta panels of deities on its walls. So the district is Kanpur and option (a) is correct.

Folk dances of India Badhai is a folk dance of the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh. The word 'badhai' means congratulation, and the dance is performed on happy occasions — the birth of a child, a marriage or a festival — often as a thanksgiving to the goddess. Men and women dance together to the beat of the dholak, nagara and the shehnai. Hence the state is Madhya Pradesh and option (b) is correct.

Indian space missions Mangalyaan, formally the Mars Orbiter Mission, was launched by ISRO on 5 November 2013 and entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. It was India's first mission beyond the Earth-Moon system, and India became the first country in the world to reach Mars orbit at its very first attempt. Chandrayaan-2 went to the Moon, Shukrayaan is the planned Venus mission and AstroSat is a space telescope, so option (b) is correct.

Characteristics of sound Pitch is the sensation by which the brain judges how shrill or how deep a sound is, and it is decided by the frequency of the sound wave. The higher the frequency, the higher the pitch: a whistle is shriller than a drum because its frequency is greater. Frequency is the objective quantity measured in hertz, while pitch is what we perceive; amplitude decides loudness, not pitch. Hence option (b) is correct.

Battery technology In 2025 scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru — an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology — announced a super-fast-charging sodium-ion battery. It reaches about 80 per cent charge in roughly six minutes and survives more than 3,000 charge-discharge cycles. The gain came from a NASICON-type electrode chemistry improved by aluminium doping, which lets sodium ions move in and out quickly. Sodium is far cheaper and far more abundant in India than lithium, so the work supports self-reliance in energy storage. Hence option (a) is correct.

Doctrine of Lapse Satara was annexed in 1848 — the very first state taken over by Lord Dalhousie under the Doctrine of Lapse. The doctrine said that if a ruler died without a natural heir, the British would not recognise an adopted son and the state would 'lapse' to the Company. Such annexations bred deep resentment among princes and were a major cause of the Revolt of 1857, so option (b) is correct.

Kelkar Committee The Government of India set up the Task Force headed by Dr. Vijay Kelkar in 2002-03 to review fiscal policy and suggest a framework of reform. Its terms covered both direct and indirect taxes: widen the base, lower and simplify rates, cut exemptions and computerise administration. The recommendations fed into the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act of 2003 and later into the design of GST. A separate Kelkar Committee on the FRBM roadmap was appointed in 2012, but the fiscal-reform task force of the question belongs to 2002-03, so option (b) is correct.

Industrial Policy 1956 The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 divided industry into three schedules, A, B and C. Schedule A listed 17 industries reserved for the State, Schedule B listed 12 in which the State would take the lead while private firms could supplement it, and Schedule C left everything else to the private sector. The aim was the 'socialistic pattern of society' of the Second Five Year Plan, which is why this resolution is called the economic constitution of India. Hence the number of categories is three and option (c) is correct.

Brain drain Brain drain is the migration of trained and skilled people to other countries, and it is driven by push factors at home and pull factors abroad. Statement I is a push factor: too few jobs and limited openings in advanced research force qualified people to look outside for careers and better pay. Statement II is a pull factor: when higher education at home is seen as weaker in research facilities and curriculum, students go abroad to study and many settle there. Both factors therefore contribute, so option (d) is correct.

Intermediate goods An intermediate good is one that is bought by a producer to be used up or transformed while making another good; a final good is bought for final use and needs no further processing. Copper bought to manufacture utensils is consumed inside the production process, so it is an intermediate good. A bicycle, a television and a refrigerator bought by households are final goods. Note also that only final goods are counted in national income; counting intermediate goods too would mean counting the same value twice, so option (b) is correct.

Human heart Deoxygenated blood from the body is collected by the superior and inferior vena cava, which empty into the right atrium. Atria are the receiving chambers of the heart and ventricles are the pumping chambers, so blood always enters an atrium first. From the right atrium it passes through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle, which pumps it to the lungs through the pulmonary artery. Hence the first chamber is the right atrium and option (b) is correct.

Foreign travellers Xuanzang, also written Hiuen Tsang, was a Chinese Buddhist monk who travelled in India in the 7th century, in the reign of Harshavardhana. He spent about fifteen years here, studied at Nalanda under Silabhadra and carried back hundreds of Buddhist manuscripts and relics to China. His account Si-Yu-Ki, 'Record of the Western Regions', is a chief source for the society, religion and politics of that age. The other travellers belong to other lands and other centuries, so option (b) is correct.