10 February 2025 · Shift 3

Keynesian fiscal policy Correct option: (b) Implement contractionary fiscal policies. An economy is said to be 'overheated' when aggregate demand runs ahead of its capacity to produce, so prices rise sharply. Keynes treats this as a problem of excess demand, and fiscal policy is the tool used to pull that demand back. A contractionary fiscal policy works in two ways at once: the government cuts its own spending and raises taxes, which lowers disposable income and therefore consumption. The other three options - cutting taxes, raising government spending and encouraging consumers to spend - are all expansionary. They are the Keynesian cure for a recession, and in an overheated economy they would only add to inflation.

Employment scheme date Correct option: (c) 1st October 2020. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) was announced as part of Aatmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 in November 2020, but the scheme was given effect from 1st October 2020, and that is the date treated as its launch. It is run by the Ministry of Labour and Employment through the EPFO. For every new employee drawing less than ₹15,000 a month, the Government itself paid the provident-fund contribution for two years - both shares (12% + 12%) in establishments employing up to 1,000 workers, and only the employee's 12% in larger ones. The purpose was to restore the formal jobs lost in the COVID-19 lockdown, so 2015 is far too early; registration of new beneficiaries stayed open only till 31st March 2022, so the 2021 and 2023 dates fall in the scheme's closing phase, not at its start.

Drainage basin term Correct option: (b) Watershed. The whole tract of land whose rainfall and run-off drain into one river or lake is that waterbody's watershed - also called its catchment area or drainage basin. The ridge line that separates two such tracts is the water divide. Delta and estuary are both landforms at a river's mouth, not collecting areas: a delta is the triangular deposit of silt built where the river breaks into distributaries, and an estuary is the funnel-shaped tidal mouth where fresh water mixes with sea water. A reservoir is a man-made lake stored behind a dam, so it too describes where water is held, not the land that feeds it.

IPL awards Correct option: (d) Mohammad Shami. The Purple Cap goes to the leading wicket-taker of an IPL season. In IPL 2023 Mohammed Shami of Gujarat Titans finished on top with 28 wickets in 17 matches. His nearest challengers were his own team-mates Mohit Sharma and Rashid Khan with 27 wickets each, while Piyush Chawla of Mumbai Indians took 22 - good, but not the highest. Fix the 2023 pair together: Purple Cap - Mohammed Shami; Orange Cap - Shubman Gill (890 runs); champions - Chennai Super Kings, who beat Gujarat Titans in the final for their fifth title.

Kathak gharanas Correct option: (d) Lucknow Gharana. Pandit Ishwari Prasad of Handia, near Allahabad, is regarded as the founder of the Lucknow gharana of Kathak. His descendants - Thakur Prasad and later Bindadin Maharaj and Kalka Prasad - carried the style to its height in the court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh. The Lucknow gharana is known for grace and for expressive abhinaya (bhava), while heavy, mathematical footwork is the mark of the Jaipur gharana. Keep the founders separate: Banaras - Janakiprasad, Jaipur - Bhanuji, Raigarh - Raja Chakradhar Singh.

Union territory administration Correct option: (b) Ladakh. Brig. (Dr.) B. D. Mishra (Retd.) took oath as Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh in February 2023 and was holding that office in September 2024. He had earlier served as the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh. Ladakh was carved out as a union territory without a legislature on 31 October 2019, so it is administered directly by a Lieutenant Governor; Mishra was its second. The other three union territories had different incumbents on that date, as the table shows, which is why each of them is ruled out.

Round Table Conferences Correct option: (d) 1933. The third Round Table Conference met in London from 17 November to 24 December 1932. The Congress stayed away from it, and so did several other major leaders. Its recommendations were published by the British government as a White Paper on constitutional reform in March 1933. A Joint Select Committee of Parliament then examined that paper, and its report became the Government of India Act, 1935. The other years belong to different steps of the same story - 1931 and 1932 are conference years and 1934 is the year of the Joint Select Committee's scrutiny - so only 1933 fits the White Paper.

Playback singers Correct option: (d) Yaari Hai Imaan Mera Yaar Meri Zindagi. This song is from Zanjeer (1973), with music by Kalyanji-Anandji, and it was sung by Manna Dey - so it is the one NOT sung by Kishore Kumar. The other three are all Kishore Kumar numbers, each a duet with Lata Mangeshkar: 'Kora Kagaz Tha Yeh Man Mera' from Aradhana (1969), 'Gaata Rahe Mera Dil' from Guide (1965) and 'Dekha Ek Khwaab' from Silsila (1981). Note that the question asks for the exception, so the odd song out is the answer. Kishore Kumar won eight Filmfare awards for best male playback singer, and the Madhya Pradesh government's Kishore Kumar Samman is named after him.

Census 2011 literacy Correct option: (b) Kerala. Census 2011 records Kerala's literacy rate as 93.91%, that is about 94%, the highest of any Indian state. The all-India figure was 74.04% - 82.14% for males and 65.46% for females. The other options stand well below Kerala: Goa 88.70%, Tamil Nadu 80.09% and Assam 72.19%, with Bihar the lowest state at 61.80%. Among union territories Lakshadweep led with 91.85%, but that is a union territory, so Kerala remains the most literate state.

Meaning of commerce Correct option: (b) Distribution of goods. Business activity is divided into industry, which creates goods, and commerce, which distributes them. Commerce therefore means trade - buying and selling - together with the aids to trade: transport, warehousing, banking, insurance and advertising. Its whole purpose is to remove the hindrances of place, time, finance, risk and information that stand between the producer and the consumer. Production and manufacturing of goods belong to industry, and agriculture is a primary-sector activity; all three describe the making of goods, not their movement to the buyer.

Padma Shri award year Correct option: (b) 2024. Shri Narayanan E. P., a veteran Theyyam performer from Kannur in Kerala, was conferred the Padma Shri in 2024 in the field of art. Theyyam is the ritual dance-worship of North Malabar in northern Kerala. The performer, in towering headgear and elaborate face paint, is believed to become the deity himself and then blesses the devotees, so dance, music and worship are one act. The Padma Shri is India's fourth-highest civilian award, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, and the list is announced every year on the eve of Republic Day.

Tribal development mission Correct option: (b) October 2024. The Prime Minister launched the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan on 2 October 2024 from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. The mission has an outlay of about ₹79,156 crore and carries 25 interventions of 17 ministries - pucca houses, roads, drinking water, electricity, health, education and livelihood - to roughly 63,000 tribal-majority villages, covering about 5 crore tribal people. 'Dharti Aaba' means 'Father of the Earth' and is the title by which the tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda is remembered; naming the abhiyan after him also fixes its home state, Jharkhand, and its year, 2024.

Phylum Porifera Correct option: (b) Sponges. Phylum Porifera is the phylum of sponges, and sponges are the oldest surviving group of metazoans - multicellular animals - on the earth; they form the basal branch of the animal family tree. A sponge is sessile, has no true tissues or organs, and feeds by drawing water in through many tiny pores called ostia and driving it out through a large opening, the osculum, filtering food particles on the way. Sycon is only one genus of sponges, so it is much narrower than the group the question asks for, while Hydra and sea anemones are cnidarians, not poriferans.

Stone Age periods Correct option: (a) Mesolithic. About 12,000 years ago the last Ice Age ended: the climate turned warmer, grasslands spread and hunters turned to smaller, faster animals. The period of this environmental change, from roughly 12,000 to 10,000 years ago, is the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age. Its typical tools are microliths - tiny stone blades hafted into wood or bone - so 'microlith' names a tool, not a period, and option (b) is the wrong kind of thing altogether. The Palaeolithic runs from about 2 million to 12,000 years ago and the Neolithic begins about 10,000 years ago with farming and herding. Bagor in Rajasthan and Adamgarh in Madhya Pradesh are well-known Mesolithic sites.

Constitutional bodies Correct option: (d) Union Public Service Commission - Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. The UPSC is created by Article 315 and conducts recruitment to the all-India and central services; the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions is the nodal ministry for recruitment, training and service matters, so this pair is correctly matched. The Attorney General of India (Article 76) is the government's chief law officer and is serviced by the Ministry of Law and Justice, not the Ministry of Home Affairs. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (Article 338) works under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the nodal ministry for the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (Article 338A) - and the Inter-State Council (Article 263) comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs, not Finance.

Right to Education Correct option: (a) 86th Amendment. The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21A, which makes free and compulsory education of every child from 6 to 14 years a fundamental right. The same amendment recast Article 45 of the Directive Principles, which now asks the state to provide early-childhood care and education below the age of six, and added Article 51A(k), the fundamental duty of a parent to give his child educational opportunities. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act that gives effect to Article 21A came into force on 1 April 2010. The other amendments deal with quite different subjects: the 42nd (1976) added 'socialist', 'secular' and 'integrity' to the Preamble, the 73rd (1992) gave constitutional status to panchayati raj, and the 61st (1988) lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

Apollo 11 Moon landing Correct option: (c) Edwin Aldrin. NASA's Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969. Neil Armstrong stepped on to the surface first and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin followed about twenty minutes later, while the third crew member, Michael Collins, stayed in the command module in lunar orbit. The other names are firsts of a different kind: Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space (1961), Alan Shepard the first American in space (1961) and John Glenn the first American to orbit the earth (1962). Shepard did walk on the Moon later, but on Apollo 14 in 1971 - not with Armstrong - so he cannot be the answer.

Sectors of the economy Correct option: (b) Service. As an economy develops, the weight of output shifts from the primary sector to the secondary and finally to the tertiary or service sector. At higher levels of development it is services - banking, insurance, IT, trade, transport, health, education, tourism - that contribute the largest share of GDP. India shows the same pattern: the service sector now accounts for more than half of the country's GDP, industry for about a quarter and agriculture for less than a fifth, even though agriculture still employs the largest number of workers. 'Foreign' is not a sector of the economy at all, so it is ruled out at once, and agriculture and industry dominate only at the earlier stages of development.

Badminton court terms Correct option: (c) Badminton. The short service line is a badminton term. It is drawn 1.98 m (6.5 ft) from the net on each side of the court, and a service must cross this line to be legal. A badminton court is 13.4 m long and 6.1 m wide for doubles (5.18 m for singles), and the net is 1.55 m high at the posts and 1.524 m at the centre. Tennis does have a service line, but it lies 6.4 m from the net and is not called 'short'; table tennis and squash have no line of this name at all.

Tribal festivals Correct option: (a) Jharkhand. Sarhul is the spring festival of the Oraon, Munda and Ho tribes of Jharkhand. It falls in the month of Chaitra, when the sal tree (Shorea robusta) comes into flower. The village priest, the pahan, offers the first sal blossoms to Sarna Mata, the deity believed to dwell in the sacred sal grove; until that worship is done nobody in the village may use the new flowers or fruit. Karma, Jawa, Rohini and Tusu Parab are the other well-known festivals of Jharkhand, so the state is easy to fix once Sarhul is tied to the sal tree.