28 November 2025 · Shift 2

Delhi Sultanate rulers Statement 1 is correct: Ghiyasuddin Balban, the ablest ruler of the Mamluk (Slave) dynasty, ruled Delhi from 1266 to 1287 CE. Bought as a slave by Iltutmish, he rose through the group of forty nobles (the Chalisa) and later destroyed it; he preached the kingship theory of Niyabat-i-Khudai (deputy of God on earth) and enforced sijda, paibos and the Persian festival of Nauroz at his court. Statement 2 is also correct: Firuz Shah Tughluq of the Tughluq dynasty ruled from 1351 to 1388 CE. He succeeded Muhammad-bin-Tughluq, dug canals from the Yamuna and the Sutlej, founded the towns of Firozabad, Jaunpur and Hisar, and levied the irrigation tax haqq-i-sharb. Both statements being correct, option (c) is correct.

Amendment of the Constitution Article 368 states both the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution and the procedure for doing so. An amendment bill may begin in either House, needs a special majority — a majority of the total membership of the House and two-thirds of the members present and voting — and, for federal provisions, ratification by the legislatures of at least half the States. In Kesavananda Bharati (1973) the Supreme Court held that this power cannot be used to alter the 'basic structure' of the Constitution. Article 352 proclaims a National Emergency, Article 245 fixes the territorial extent of laws made by Parliament and the State Legislatures, and Article 110 defines a Money Bill. Hence option (a) is correct.

Articles on the Supreme Court Article 126 provides for the appointment of an Acting Chief Justice of India. It applies when the office of the Chief Justice of India is vacant, or the Chief Justice is absent or otherwise unable to perform the duties of the office; the President then appoints one of the other judges of the Supreme Court — by convention the senior-most — to act as Chief Justice. The neighbouring articles cover the other options: Article 127 — appointment of ad hoc judges; Article 129 — the Supreme Court as a court of record; Article 130 — the seat of the Supreme Court. Hence option (b) is correct.

New Development Bank The New Development Bank (NDB) is the multilateral development bank created by the BRICS grouping. It was agreed upon at the 6th BRICS Summit at Fortaleza, Brazil, in July 2014 and began work in July 2015 with its headquarters at Shanghai, China; K. V. Kamath of India was its first President. The bank finances infrastructure and sustainable-development projects in the BRICS countries and in other emerging and developing economies, and its membership has since widened beyond the founding five. The WTO only frames trade rules, ASEAN is a South-East Asian political-economic bloc, and the ADB is a separate Manila-based bank of 1966 — none of them runs the NDB. Hence option (a) is correct.

BIMSTEC Summit 2025 The 6th BIMSTEC Summit was held at Bangkok, Thailand, on 4 April 2025, and Thailand took over the chairmanship of the grouping from Sri Lanka. The summit adopted the 'Bangkok Vision 2030' document and saw the signing of the BIMSTEC Agreement on Maritime Transport Cooperation; India's Prime Minister attended and offered a 21-point action plan. BIMSTEC — the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation — was set up by the Bangkok Declaration of 1997 and has seven members: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Its permanent secretariat is at Dhaka, Bangladesh, and it works on trade, connectivity, energy, security and people-to-people contact. Hence option (d) is correct.

Dadasaheb Phalke Award Amitabh Bachchan was selected for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2018; the selection was announced in September 2019 and the award was presented at the 67th National Film Awards ceremony held in October 2021. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award is India's highest recognition in cinema. It was instituted in 1969 to mark the birth centenary of Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, known as Dadasaheb Phalke, who made India's first full-length feature film Raja Harishchandra (1913). It is conferred by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the National Film Awards ceremony and carries a Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus), a cash prize and a shawl, for outstanding lifetime contribution to Indian cinema. Hence option (c) is correct.

First Indian woman doctor Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi (1865–1887) was the first Indian woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine. She graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, USA, in March 1886, at the age of about 21, writing her thesis on obstetrics among Hindu women. Encouraged by her husband Gopalrao Joshi, she sailed to the United States in 1883; she died of tuberculosis in 1887, soon after returning to India. The other names are 'firsts' of a different kind, which is what makes them tempting distractors. Hence option (d) is correct.

CII President 2025-26 Rajiv Memani took over as President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the financial year 2025-26 on 1 June 2025, succeeding Sanjiv Puri of ITC. He is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EY India, one of the leading professional services firms in the country. R. Mukundan, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Chemicals, is the President-Designate for the same year, which is why option (b) looks attractive. CII, founded in 1895 and headquartered in New Delhi, is a non-government, not-for-profit body that is industry-led and industry-managed, and works with government on policy for business growth. Hence option (c) is correct.

Governor of Sikkim In July 2024 Om Prakash Mathur was appointed Governor of Sikkim and he was sworn in at Raj Bhavan, Gangtok, on 30 July 2024. A veteran organisational leader from Rajasthan and a former member of the Rajya Sabha, he succeeded Lakshman Prasad Acharya, who had been holding the charge of Sikkim along with Assam. Sikkim is India's least populous state; it merged with the Indian Union in 1975 as the 22nd state through the 36th Constitutional Amendment, and its capital is Gangtok. Constitutionally, Article 155 provides that the Governor of a State is appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal, and Article 156 lays down that the Governor holds office during the pleasure of the President for a term of five years. Hence option (b) is correct.

EPFO auto-settlement limit In June 2025 the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) raised the auto-settlement of advance claim (ASAC) limit from ₹1 lakh to ₹5 lakh. Auto-settlement means the claim is processed end-to-end by the IT system with no manual intervention, so an eligible member's money can reach the bank account within about three days. The facility began in 2020 for illness-related advances and has since been extended to advances for education, marriage and housing as well. EPFO works under the Ministry of Labour and Employment and administers the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. Hence option (c) is correct.

PM Surya Ghar Yojana PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, launched on 13 February 2024, is implemented by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The scheme aims to install rooftop solar plants in one crore households and to give up to 300 units of free electricity a month to each of them. Central Financial Assistance covers 60% of the benchmark cost for a system up to 2 kW and 40% of the additional cost between 2 kW and 3 kW, which works out to a maximum subsidy of about ₹78,000 for a 3 kW plant. Surplus electricity generated is fed back to the grid through net metering, so a household can even earn from the plant, while the country moves towards its renewable-energy targets. Hence option (a) is correct.

Ethanol blending E20 The clarification was about E20, that is, petrol blended with 20 per cent ethanol. Responding to media reports that E20 harms older engines and sharply cuts mileage, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that such concerns are not supported by evidence: the loss in fuel efficiency is marginal and engine performance is not impaired. The Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme is run by this Ministry through the oil marketing companies; the country reached an average 20 per cent blending in 2025, well ahead of the originally announced target year of 2030. Ethanol blending saves foreign exchange on crude oil imports, lowers carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions, and gives sugarcane and surplus-grain farmers an assured market. Hence option (b) is correct.

Commonwealth Games 2022 Sanket Mahadev Sargar won India's first medal at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 — a silver in men's 55 kg weightlifting on 30 July 2022, the opening day of competition. He lifted 113 kg in the snatch and 135 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 248 kg, missing the gold by a single kilogram after hurting his elbow in his final attempts. Weightlifting gave India all its early medals at these Games, so the order in which they came is worth remembering. India finished fourth in the medal tally with 61 medals — 22 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze — while Australia topped the table and host England was second. Hence option (a) is correct.

Paris Olympics 2024 sports Ice skating is a winter sport, contested at the Winter Olympics and not at the Summer Olympics, so it was not part of the Paris 2024 programme. Basketball, badminton and tennis are all long-standing Summer Olympic sports and were held at Paris 2024, which featured 32 sports and 329 events; breaking made its Olympic debut at these Games. Figure skating and speed skating belong to the Winter Games, first held at Chamonix, France, in 1924, whereas the first modern Summer Olympics were held at Athens, Greece, in 1896. The Games are governed by the International Olympic Committee, founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin, with its headquarters at Lausanne, Switzerland. Hence option (a) is correct.

AroTrack water sensor AroTrack is a portable, low-cost device for detecting aromatic pollutants in water, developed by a research team of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. It is a biosensor: bacterial proteins inside the device bind to a specific pollutant, and that binding changes an optical signal which the instrument reads out. It can sense phenol, benzene and xylenols at very low concentrations, and being battery-operated and field-ready it can test river, lake and industrial water on the spot instead of in a laboratory. This makes routine water-quality monitoring cheap and quick, which is its main significance for public health. Hence option (a) is correct.

Aravalli Green Wall Project Under the Aravalli Green Wall Project, afforestation is planned in a 5 km wide buffer zone around the Aravalli hill range. The project was launched on 21 March 2023, the International Day of Forests, by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, along with the National Action Plan to combat desertification and land degradation through forestry interventions. The green belt is to run about 1,400 km along the Aravallis and will cover four states and union territory areas — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi. Work includes planting native species, restoring degraded land and rejuvenating water bodies, so as to check the eastward spread of the Thar desert and dust storms towards Delhi. It supports India's commitment to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 and is India's own version of the 'Great Green Wall' idea. Hence option (a) is correct.

Founder of judo Judo was founded in 1882 by Jigoro Kano, who opened the Kodokan school in Tokyo. He reworked the older jujutsu by removing its most dangerous techniques and building the practice around two principles — maximum efficiency with minimum effort, and mutual welfare and benefit; hence the name judo, 'the gentle way'. Kano also introduced the coloured-belt grading system and the judogi uniform, and in 1909 became the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee. The other three names founded different martial arts, which is what makes them plausible options. Judo entered the Olympics for men at Tokyo 1964 and for women at Barcelona 1992. Hence option (b) is correct.

India Open badminton 2025 The India Open 2025 badminton tournament was held from 14 to 19 January 2025 at the K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall of the Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi. It is organised by the Badminton Association of India and is the highest-ranked badminton event staged in the country. The tournament began in 2008 as a Grand Prix Gold event, was upgraded to a BWF Superseries in 2011, and now sits in the BWF World Tour Super 750 category. New Delhi has hosted almost every edition, which is why the venue is a standard fact about the tournament. Hence option (a) is correct.

Attukal Pongala festival Attukal Pongala, celebrated at the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest single gathering of women for a religious activity. The record was first set in 1997 with about 15 lakh women and was bettered in 2009, when more than 25 lakh women took part. Pongala is the ritual of cooking a sweet offering of rice, jaggery and coconut in earthen pots on brick hearths laid along the streets; only women perform it, which is why the temple is called the 'Sabarimala of Women'. The ten-day festival falls in the Malayalam month of Kumbham, that is February–March, and culminates on the Pongala day. The other options are Kerala festivals of a different character: Thrissur Pooram is a temple festival of caparisoned elephants and fireworks, Vishu is the Malayalam New Year, and Onam is the state's harvest festival. Hence option (d) is correct.

Robert Clive in Bengal Robert Clive was appointed Governor of Bengal for the second time in 1764 and took charge at Calcutta in May 1765; among the years offered, 1764 is the one that marks this decisive phase of Company rule. In his first term (1757–1760) he had won the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and placed Mir Jafar on the masnad of Bengal. He returned after the Company's victory at the Battle of Buxar (1764) and secured the Diwani — the right to collect revenue — of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha from Emperor Shah Alam II by the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765. He then set up the Dual Government in Bengal, under which the Company held the revenue power while the Nawab was left with the administration, and he tried to curb the private trade and presents taken by Company servants. Hence option (c) is correct.

Malhotra Committee on insurance The Malhotra Committee, headed by R. N. Malhotra, a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, was constituted in April 1993 and submitted its report in January 1994. It recommended opening the insurance sector to private companies, allowing foreign insurers to enter through joint ventures with Indian partners, and lowering the government's stake in LIC and GIC. Its key structural recommendation was an autonomous regulator for the sector, which led to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 1999, and to the regulator, now IRDAI, becoming a statutory body in 2000; its headquarters is at Hyderabad. Hence option (c) is correct.

Songram Sangma uprising Songram Sangma led a tribal uprising against British authority in 1906 in the Garo Hills, then part of the province of Assam and today in Meghalaya. The immediate cause was the British forest and revenue regulations, which took away the customary rights of the Garos over their forest land and their traditional jhum (shifting) cultivation. The rising was suppressed and its leader arrested, but Songram Sangma is remembered as a symbol of Garo resistance, an earlier example being Pa Togan Nengminja Sangma, who fought the British in 1872. Note the pattern the examiner is testing: colonial forest laws provoked tribal revolts across India, from the Santhal Hool of 1855 to Birsa Munda's Ulgulan of 1899–1900. Hence option (a) is correct.

Fiscal crisis of 1990-91 By 1990-91 India's gross fiscal deficit had risen to nearly 10 per cent of GDP, counting the Centre and the States together. The Centre's own fiscal deficit was above 8 per cent of GDP, and interest payments alone were absorbing a very large share of revenue receipts, so fresh borrowing was going largely into servicing old debt. Heavy expenditure on subsidies and a stagnant tax-to-GDP ratio, worsened by the 1990 Gulf War oil shock and falling remittances, pulled foreign exchange reserves down to about two weeks of imports. This twin fiscal and balance-of-payments crisis forced the reforms of July 1991 — liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation — under Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. Hence option (a) is correct.

Article 77 of the Constitution Article 77 deals with the conduct of business of the Government of India, which covers both the transaction and the authentication of government business. All executive action of the Government of India is expressed to be taken in the name of the President; orders and instruments so made are authenticated in the manner laid down in rules made by the President, and their validity cannot then be questioned on the ground that they were not made by the President. The President also makes rules for the more convenient transaction of the business of the Government and for its allocation among Ministers — the Transaction of Business Rules and the Allocation of Business Rules. Article 166 makes exactly the same provision at the level of a State Government. Hence option (c) is correct.

State Legislative Council Under Article 171, about one-third of the members of a State Legislative Council are elected by electorates made up of members of local authorities such as municipalities and district boards. The remaining seats are filled in fixed proportions, so the whole composition is best remembered as a single picture. The nominated members, roughly one-sixth, are chosen by the Governor from persons with special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, the co-operative movement and social service. The total strength of a Council cannot exceed one-third of the strength of that State's Legislative Assembly and cannot be less than 40 members. Hence option (b) is correct.