29 November 2025 · Shift 3

Sports personalities Boxer Vijender Singh comes from Kaluwas village in the Bhiwani district of Haryana. Bhiwani is nicknamed 'Little Cuba' or India's boxing nursery because of the many boxers it has produced. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics he won bronze in the middleweight (75 kg) class, India's first Olympic medal in boxing. He was given the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 2009 and the Padma Shri in 2010. Hence the correct option is (a).

ESIC schemes SPREE stands for the Scheme to Promote Registration of Employers and Employees, run by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). It was first launched in 2016 and was brought back as SPREE 2025 so that left-out establishments and workers could register under the ESI Act, 1948 without penalty for the past period. Its whole aim is therefore to widen social security coverage — medical, sickness, maternity and disablement benefits — to more workers. It is not a housing scheme, not a separate gig-worker insurance scheme and not a pension scheme for state employees, so the other options do not fit. Hence the correct option is (a).

Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant took oath as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on 24 November 2025. He succeeded Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, who demitted office on 23 November 2025. He is the first person from Haryana to hold the office of CJI. The CJI and the other judges of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President under Article 124(2) of the Constitution. Hence the correct option is (b).

Civilian awards P.V. Narasimha Rao, Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996, was conferred the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 2024. The Bharat Ratna is India's highest civilian award, instituted in 1954. Rao is remembered as the architect of the 1991 economic reforms of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. In the same year the Bharat Ratna also went to Karpoori Thakur, L.K. Advani, Chaudhary Charan Singh and M.S. Swaminathan. Hence the correct option is (a).

Summits and conferences The Youth Spiritual Summit, themed 'Nasha Mukt Yuva for Viksit Bharat', concluded at the Rudraksh International Convention Centre in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, in July 2025. It was organised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports along with spiritual and social organisations. The summit ended with the adoption of the Kashi Declaration, a pledge to work for a drug-free India. Hence the correct option is (a).

New criminal laws The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 is India's new substantive criminal law and it replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860. It received the President's assent on 25 December 2023 and came into force on 1 July 2024. The other two new laws replace different Acts, so options (b) and (d) do not fit the question. Hence the correct option is (a).

India Innovation Index The India Innovation Index is brought out by NITI Aayog in partnership with the Institute for Competitiveness. It was first released in 2019 and ranks States and Union Territories on pillars such as human capital, investment, knowledge workers, business environment and safety & legal environment. CII, FICCI and NASSCOM are industry associations and are not the knowledge partner of this index. Hence the correct option is (a).

Landslide forecasting centre The National Landslide Forecasting Centre (NLFC) was inaugurated in July 2024 at the Geological Survey of India's 'Dharitri' campus at Salt Lake, Kolkata. Kolkata was chosen because it is the headquarters of the Geological Survey of India, the nodal agency for landslide studies in the country. On the same occasion the Bhusanket web portal and the Bhooskhalan mobile app were launched to carry daily landslide early warnings to the public. Hence the correct option is (a).

Aravalli Green Wall The Aravalli Green Wall Project aims to raise green cover in a 5 km wide buffer around the Aravalli hill range. This buffer covers 29 districts spread over four States/UTs — Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Delhi. Launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in March 2023, it is India's version of the wider 'Green Wall' idea used to check desertification and land degradation. Hence the correct option is (a).

Assamese folk music In Assamese folk music the lullaby is the Nichukoni-geet; the word comes from 'nisukowa', to soothe or quieten a child to sleep. Hence the correct option is (a).

Red Fort, Delhi Shah Jahan began building the Red Fort (Lal Qila) as the palace-fort of his new capital Shahjahanabad in 1639, and the work was completed in 1648. It was designed by Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the architect of the Taj Mahal, and is built of red sandstone, which gives the fort its name. The distractors are close years: 1648 is the year of completion, not of commencement. Hence the correct option is (a).

Folk dance Terah Taali 'Terah Taali' is a folk dance of Rajasthan, performed mainly by the Kamad community of the Marwar and Shekhawati regions in devotion to the folk deity Baba Ramdev. The women dancers tie thirteen (terah) manjiras or small cymbals to their body and strike them in rhythm while seated, which is how the dance gets its name. Hence the correct option is (a).

Europa Clipper mission Europa Clipper is a NASA mission, and Europa is one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Launched in October 2024, it will study Europa's icy crust and the salty ocean believed to lie beneath it, to judge whether the moon could support life. Titan belongs to Saturn, so option (b) is the usual trap here. Hence the correct option is (a).

CryoSat satellite CryoSat is a satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) and belongs to its Earth Explorer programme. CryoSat-1 was lost in a launch failure in 2005, so CryoSat-2 was launched in 2010; its SIRAL radar altimeter measures the thickness of floating sea ice and the height of the ice sheets. The prefix 'cryo-' itself means ice or extreme cold, which makes the satellite's purpose easy to remember. Hence the correct option is (a).

Navratna CPSEs The Government of India introduced the Navratna scheme, along with the Miniratna scheme, in 1997, to give greater financial and managerial autonomy to well-performing Central Public Sector Enterprises so that they could grow into global players. To become a Navratna, a CPSE must already be a Miniratna Category-I and a Schedule 'A' company, and must score at least 60 out of 100 on parameters such as net profit, net worth and cost of manpower. Hence the correct option is (a).

First Governor-General Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General (of Fort William in Bengal, and so of British India), holding office from 1773 to 1785. The post was created by the Regulating Act of 1773, which placed the Bombay and Madras Presidencies under the supervision of Bengal. Lord Ripon (1880-84) and Lord Curzon (1899-1905) were much later Viceroys, and Lord Mountbatten was the last Viceroy in 1947, so options (b), (c) and (d) are ruled out. Hence the correct option is (a).

FRBM Act The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act was passed by Parliament in 2003 and was brought into force on 5 July 2004. It binds the Union Government to fiscal discipline — reducing the fiscal deficit, limiting borrowing, and laying medium-term fiscal policy statements before Parliament along with the Budget every year. The N. K. Singh Committee (2017) later reviewed the Act and recommended a debt-to-GDP anchor of 60% for the general government. Hence the correct option is (c).

Himalayan mineral belt The Himalayan mineral belt runs along the northern mountains through Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. It is a non-fuel, metallic belt known for copper, lead, zinc, cobalt and tungsten, so both minerals named in the question occur in it. So statements I and II are both correct. Hence the correct option is (c).

Census 1951 density The 1951 Census, the first census of independent India, recorded a population density of 117 persons per square kilometre. Density has climbed at every census since then, reaching 382 persons per square kilometre in Census 2011. Hence the correct option is (d).

Planning Commission The Planning Commission was set up by a Cabinet resolution on 15 March 1950, and the Prime Minister was made its ex-officio Chairperson. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister, was therefore its first Chairperson; Gulzarilal Nanda was its first Deputy Chairman. It was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, which also has the Prime Minister as its Chairperson. Hence the correct option is (a).

Five-Year Plans The Eleventh Five-Year Plan ran from 2007 to 2012, so it opened exactly as the global financial crisis of 2008 broke out. Its theme was 'faster and more inclusive growth'; the 9% growth target had to be scaled down because of the worldwide slowdown. Hence the correct option is (d).

Administrative towns Towns are classified by their dominant function; an administrative town is one whose chief function is to house the headquarters of government. Chandigarh is a planned administrative town — the capital of both Punjab and Haryana and a Union Territory in itself. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is likewise listed among India's administrative towns in the standard functional classification, along with New Delhi, Bhopal, Shillong, Gandhinagar and Chennai. So both I and II are correct. Hence the correct option is (c).

Respiratory tract filtering Cilia are the microscopic hair-like projections that line the nasal passage, the trachea and the bronchi. They beat rhythmically and, working with the mucus that traps dust and germs, sweep the trapped particles up towards the throat, where they are coughed out or swallowed — the mucociliary escalator. Alveoli are the sites of gas exchange and bronchioles only conduct air to them, so options (a), (b) and (c) describe no filtering role. Hence the correct option is (d).

Gustatory receptors Gustatory receptors are the receptor cells of the taste buds on the tongue, so they are associated with the sense of taste ('gustation' means tasting). They respond to the five basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami — and send signals to the brain through the facial, glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves. Smell is picked up by olfactory receptors, vision by photoreceptors and touch by tactile (mechano) receptors, so options (a), (b) and (d) are wrong. Hence the correct option is (c).

Vedic literature The Brahmanas are the prose portions of Vedic literature that explain the mantras of the Samhitas and set out the procedure and meaning of the sacrificial rituals for the priests. Hence the correct option is (d).