19 February 2025 · Shift 1

Directive Principles Article 41, a Directive Principle in Part IV, directs the State - within the limits of its economic capacity - to secure the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement. The give-away in the stem is 'in specific circumstances': only Article 41 ties its guarantee to named contingencies, while the other three Articles lay down duties that run all the time. Article 47 covers nutrition, standard of living and public health; Article 48 the organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry on modern scientific lines; Article 45 early childhood care and education for children below six years. Hence the correct option is (d).

Rolling Plan The Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974-79) was cut short in 1978 by the Janata Party government under Morarji Desai, a full year before its scheduled close. In its place a Rolling Plan was adopted for 1978-80: a plan whose targets are reviewed every year, one fresh year being added as the year just completed is dropped. The idea came from the Gunnar Myrdal school of flexible planning; the Congress government that returned in 1980 discarded it and started the Sixth Plan afresh, so the Rolling Plan sits squarely between the fifth and the sixth plan. Hence the correct option is (b).

Mahajanapada land tax The land revenue of the Mahajanapada age was called bhaga, literally 'a share', and the share the king took was normally $\frac{1}{6}$ of the standing crop. Because of that fixed one-sixth the king carried the title shadbhagin, 'the taker of the sixth part' - the surest way to remember the fraction. It was collected in kind by officers called bhagadugha and paid for the army, the roads and the administration of the janapada; the same $\frac{1}{6}$ share is later prescribed by Manu and by the Arthashastra as the fair norm. Hence the correct option is (d).

Union Budget 2023-24 Statement i is correct: the Budget of 2023-24 raised the outlay of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana by 66%, to over ₹79,000 crore. Statement ii is correct: the agriculture credit target was raised to ₹20 lakh crore, with the focus placed on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries. Statement iii fails on its figure alone. The central assistance announced for the Upper Bhadra Project in the drought-prone central region of Karnataka was ₹5,300 crore, not ₹10,000 crore. So exactly two statements survive, i and ii, and any option containing iii is ruled out. Hence the correct option is (b).

Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi took over as the 26th Chief of the Naval Staff on 30 April 2024, succeeding Admiral R. Hari Kumar. He held the post of Vice Chief of the Naval Staff immediately before this, and is a communications and electronic-warfare specialist of the Navy. Hence the correct option is (c).

Raja Parba festival Raja Parba is the three-day Odia festival that celebrates womanhood and the belief that Bhudevi, Mother Earth, menstruates in these days; it is popular right across Odisha. The three days are Pahili Raja, Mithuna Sankranti and Bhu Daha or Basi Raja, and on the fourth morning the Earth is ceremonially bathed as Vasumati Snana. It falls where the summer ends and the monsoon begins: the soil is left unploughed for these days, which is exactly the rest the festival is honouring. Hence the correct option is (a).

Cabinet Secretary of India Rajiv Gauba, an IAS officer of the 1982 batch, retired as Cabinet Secretary of India on 30 August 2024 after an extended tenure of five years that began on 30 August 2019. T.V. Somanathan in option (c) is the officer who took over from him, so he is the successor, not the retiring incumbent - that is the trap the question is built on. The Cabinet Secretary is the senior-most civil servant of the Union, head of the Civil Services Board and ex-officio chairman of the Committee of Secretaries. Hence the correct option is (d).

Double displacement reaction In a double displacement reaction two compounds exchange their ions, $AB+CD\to AD+CB$, and the exchange is driven by the removal of one product as a precipitate, a gas or water. Option (d) is exactly that exchange: $N{a}_{2}S{O}_4\left(aq\right)+BaC{l}_2\left(aq\right)\to BaS{O}_4\left(s\right)\downarrow +2NaCl\left(aq\right)$, where $B{a}^{2+}$ pairs with $SO42-$ and $N{a}^{+}$ with $C{l}^{-}$, and the insoluble white $BaS{O}_4$ drops out as a precipitate. Option (c) has a single element, Fe, pushing Cu out of its salt, so it is a single displacement. Option (b) is a redox reaction in which $Mn{O}_2$ oxidises HCl to $C{l}_2$. Option (a) does swap ions too, but an acid with a base giving salt and water is classified by its own name, neutralisation; the reaction 'best described' as double displacement is therefore the precipitation reaction of (d). Hence the correct option is (d).

Census 2011 sex ratio Sex ratio in the Census is the number of females per 1000 males. For the four states offered, the 2011 figures are Tamil Nadu 996, Andhra Pradesh 993, Manipur 985 and Nagaland 931. Tamil Nadu is therefore the highest of the four; note that it is second in the country as a whole, behind Kerala at 1084, while the all-India figure is 943. Hence the correct option is (a).

Para-sports personalities Pramod Bhagat is a para-badminton player from Odisha who won India's first Paralympic gold in badminton, in the men's singles SL3 class at Tokyo 2020. The other three names all belong to para-athletics: Devendra Jhajharia and Sumit Antil are javelin throwers, and Amit Kumar Saroha competes in club throw and discus. Hence the correct option is (c).

Oath of the Governor Article 159 requires the Governor to make and subscribe the oath of office before the Chief Justice of the High Court of that State, or, in his absence, before the senior-most Judge of that Court available. The trap is that the President appoints the Governor under Article 155 but does not swear him in - appointment and oath rest with different authorities. For contrast: the President's own oath is administered by the Chief Justice of India, a State minister's by the Governor, and a Union minister's by the President. Hence the correct option is (b).

Partition of Bengal Lord Curzon, Viceroy from 1899 to 1905, carried out the Partition of Bengal on 16 October 1905, splitting the province into a Muslim-majority east (Eastern Bengal and Assam) and a Hindu-majority west. The stated ground was administrative convenience, but the real aim was to break the political weight of Bengal; the day it took effect was observed as a day of mourning and set off the Swadeshi and Boycott movement. Lord Minto is the Viceroy who came after Curzon (Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909), Lord Wellesley belongs to 1798-1805 and the Subsidiary Alliance, and Lord Mountbatten to the Partition of India in 1947. Bengal's partition was itself annulled in 1911 under Lord Hardinge. Hence the correct option is (c).

Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana Under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, launched in 2015, the Shishu category covers collateral-free loans up to ₹50,000 - the entry slab meant for a micro business that is just starting. The other three figures are the ceilings of the higher slabs: ₹5,00,000 ends Kishor, ₹10,00,000 ends Tarun, and ₹7,00,000 is not a slab limit at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Sangeet Natak Akademi Award The Sangeet Natak Akademi Award of 2015 went to Bhupinder Singh, jointly with Mitali Singh, in the category of Sugam Sangeet. Sugam Sangeet is the Akademi's own name for light and semi-classical vocal music, and it is the single category under which ghazal, bhajan, geet and thumri singers are honoured. That is the detail that separates the options: he is famous as a ghazal singer, but the Akademi maintains no separate 'Ghazal' award - the citation names Sugam Sangeet, of which the ghazal is one form. Carnatic music is the classical tradition of the south and pop is not an Akademi category at all. Hence the correct option is (c).

Industrial Policy Resolution 1956 The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 reserved the commanding heights of industry for the State and became the industrial charter of the Second Five-Year Plan (1956-61). Its three schedules are that idea in writing: Schedule A lists 17 industries kept exclusively for the State, Schedule B lists 12 in which the State would progressively take the lead, and everything else was left to the private sector. The Second Plan itself rested on the Mahalanobis model, which puts heavy and capital-goods industry first; the visible result was the public-sector steel plants at Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur. The First Plan (1951-56) was agriculture-led and had ended by the time the Resolution was passed, so it cannot be the answer. Hence the correct option is (b).

Karnataka Kalashree 2021 Dr. Padmaja Suresh was given the title 'Karnataka Kalashree' by the Karnataka Sangeetha Nrithya Academy in 2021 for her work in Bharatanatyam. She is a Bengaluru-based Bharatanatyam dancer, teacher and researcher, and the founder of the Aatmalaya Academy, which trains students in classical dance and music; her other honours include the Stri Shakti Award and the Karmaveer Chakra. The three wrong options belong to other states' traditions - Kathak to north India, Mohiniyattam to Kerala and Sattriya to Assam - none of them the form for which this Karnataka title was given. Hence the correct option is (c).

T Balasaraswati T. Balasaraswati (1918-1984) was the towering Bharatanatyam dancer of the Thanjavur devadasi tradition, honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1955, the Padma Bhushan in 1957 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1977. She is remembered above all for abhinaya, the expressive interpretation of a padam or a javali, and she took Bharatanatyam to audiences in Europe and America from the 1960s. Her lineage is itself the clue: she was the great-granddaughter of Veena Dhanammal of Thanjavur, the district that is the home of Bharatanatyam, whereas Kuchipudi belongs to Andhra, Odissi to Odisha and Kathak to the north. Hence the correct option is (b).

Bleaching powder Swimming-pool water is disinfected with bleaching powder, calcium oxychloride $CaOC{l}_2$, which slowly releases chlorine and kills bacteria, viruses and algae. It is manufactured by passing chlorine over dry slaked lime: $Ca{\left(OH\right)}_2+C{l}_2\to CaOC{l}_2+H_{2}O$, and the same released chlorine is what makes it a bleaching and sterilising agent for drinking water too. Washing soda ($N{a}_{2}C{O}_3$) is a cleaning and water-softening salt and caustic soda (NaOH) a strong alkali - neither disinfects - while Dettol (chloroxylenol) is a skin antiseptic, far too costly and unsuited to a whole pool. Hence the correct option is (d).

Artesian aquifer Water held in a permeable layer that is sealed by impermeable rock or clay both above and below is squeezed by the head of water standing higher up the same layer; such a confined aquifer under positive pressure is called an artesian aquifer. Sink a well into it and that pressure drives the water up on its own, above the top of the aquifer and sometimes above the ground - an artesian well needs no pump, and that is the feature the stem is describing. An unconfined aquifer has an open water table with no confining layer above it, a perched aquifer is only a small pocket of water held above the main water table by a lens of clay, and the unsaturated zone is the layer above the water table whose pores still hold air - none of the three is under positive pressure. Hence the correct option is (c).

First Asian Games India hosted the very first Asian Games at the National Stadium in New Delhi from 4 to 11 March 1951, with 489 athletes from 11 countries taking part. The Games were the idea of Prof. G.D. Sondhi, the flame was lit by Jawaharlal Nehru, and the motto he gave them was 'Ever Onward'. 1982 is the tempting distractor because Delhi hosted the Asian Games a second time that year - the first time an Asiad was televised in colour in India - but the question asks for the first time, which is 1951. Hence the correct option is (b).