19 February 2025 · Shift 3

Halogens - chlorine Chlorine is the group 17 (halogen) element whose name itself comes from the Greek word 'chloros', meaning pale yellowish-green - exactly the colour of the dense, choking gas it forms. One line fixes it in memory: chlorine is the gas used to disinfect drinking water and swimming pools, and it was the first poison gas used in warfare, at Ypres in 1915. Argon, helium and krypton all belong to group 18, the noble gases - colourless, odourless and chemically inert - so none of them can be a coloured, choking gas. Hence the correct option is (a).

Paragliding World Cup, Bir Bir, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, hosted the Paragliding World Cup in October 2015 - the first time this event was held anywhere in India. The geography explains it: pilots take off from Billing on the Dhauladhar ridge at about 2,400 m and land at Bir, which is why Bir-Billing is rated among the best paragliding sites in Asia. The other three are water and stadium sports - jet ski and rowing need a large water body and rugby sevens needs a ground - so none of them could be staged on a Himalayan take-off ridge. Hence the correct option is (b).

Union Ministry of Steel In the Union Council of Ministers sworn in in June 2024, H. D. Kumaraswamy holds the Ministry of Steel, together with the Ministry of Heavy Industries. The link that makes it stick: Kumaraswamy is the JD(S) leader and a former Chief Minister of Karnataka, one of the NDA allies given a Cabinet berth in 2024. The other three hold well-known portfolios of their own - Home and Cooperation, Power with Housing and Urban Affairs, and Road Transport and Highways - none of which is Steel. Hence the correct option is (b).

Playback singer Neeti Mohan 'Ishq Wala Love' is from the 2012 film Student of the Year, composed by Vishal-Shekhar, and Neeti Mohan sang it along with Shekhar Ravjiani and Salim Merchant. It was her breakthrough: the song won her the Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent, after which she became a regular playback voice in Hindi cinema. Alka Yagnik and Sunidhi Chauhan were already established stars decades and years before 2012, and Jasleen Royal rose later with songs such as 'Din Shagna Da' - so none of them fits a 2012 breakthrough. Hence the correct option is (b).

Census 2011 - Jain population Among the Union Territories, Delhi records the largest Jain population in Census 2011 - about 1.66 lakh Jains, close to 1 per cent of Delhi's own population. That is easy to accept once you remember why: Delhi is by far the most populous Union Territory and has an old, prosperous trading community, whereas the other three are very small territories. Lakshadweep is over 96 per cent Muslim and returns almost no Jains, and the entire population of Daman and Diu or Puducherry is only a small fraction of Delhi's, so neither can top the list. Among States, incidentally, Maharashtra has the largest Jain population. Hence the correct option is (b).

Original jurisdiction - Article 131 Article 131 gives the Supreme Court its original jurisdiction: a dispute between the Centre and one or more States, or between States themselves, can be filed only in the Supreme Court and nowhere else. 'Original' is the key word - the suit begins in the Supreme Court instead of reaching it on appeal - and the dispute must involve a question of legal right, not a merely political complaint. Article 130 only fixes the seat of the Court at Delhi, Article 134 gives it appellate jurisdiction in criminal matters, and Article 135 lets it exercise the jurisdiction of the old Federal Court - none of these is an original jurisdiction over federal disputes. Hence the correct option is (c).

Five-Year Plans - family planning The Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969-74) is the plan in which family planning was written in as a significant objective of national planning, given high priority and a large outlay of its own. The context makes it memorable: the Fourth Plan followed the plan holiday of 1966-69 and took 'growth with stability and self-reliance' as its theme, and slowing population growth was treated as essential to raising income per head. The First Plan tempts, because a state-sponsored family planning programme was indeed started in 1952; but there it was only a small clinic-based scheme with a token allocation, not a significant objective of the plan. Hence the correct option is (d).

Cell organelles and functions The mismatched pair is 'Mitochondria - Lipid metabolism'. The mitochondrion is the site of aerobic respiration: it oxidises food to release energy and stores it as ATP, which is why it is called the powerhouse of the cell. The organelle that is actually matched with lipid metabolism - the making of fats and steroids - is the smooth endoplasmic reticulum, so the pairing in that option belongs to a different organelle altogether. The other three pairs are correct: the nucleus holds the DNA and so stores the genetic information, ribosomes are the site of protein synthesis, and lysosomes, packed with digestive enzymes, are called 'suicide bags' because they can burst and digest their own cell. Hence the correct option is (d).

ST Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024 The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024 amends the 1950 Order for Andhra Pradesh and adds exactly three names: Bondo Porja and Khond Porja to entry 25, and Konda Savaras to entry 28. Of the four options only Khond Porja is one of those three, so it is the only possible answer. Why a Bill at all is worth remembering: under Article 342(2) the list of Scheduled Tribes fixed by the President's notification can be altered only by a law made by Parliament, never by a fresh executive order. Lalbegi, Malkana and Rukhi do not figure anywhere in the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Tribes list, so none of them can be the community the Bill inserts. Hence the correct option is (c).

Indus Valley site - Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro, on the bank of the Indus in the Sindh province of present-day Pakistan, is one of the two great cities of the Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation; it was brought to light by R. D. Banerji in 1922. Its name in Sindhi means 'mound of the dead', and it is remembered for the Great Bath, the granary, the bronze Dancing Girl and the so-called Priest-King, all marks of a planned brick city with covered drains. The other three sites belong to completely different ages: Bhimbetka has prehistoric rock shelters and paintings, Sanchi a Buddhist stupa of the Mauryan age, and Ajanta Buddhist rock-cut caves of the Satavahana-Vakataka period. Hence the correct option is (b).

Abhinaya Darpana - Bharatanatyam Nandikesvara's 'Abhinaya Darpana' (the Mirror of Gesture) is the standard manual of angika abhinaya - expression through the body - and it is the chief textual source for the technique and grammar of Bharatanatyam. Bharatanatyam, the classical dance of Tamil Nadu, rests on two texts: Bharata's Natya Shastra and the Abhinaya Darpana, from which its single-hand and joined-hand mudras (asamyuta and samyuta hastas) are taken. The other three forms are governed by traditions and texts of their own - Odissi, for instance, follows the Abhinaya Chandrika - so none of them is the form whose grammar the Abhinaya Darpana lays down. Hence the correct option is (d).

Green Revolution in India M. S. Swaminathan is called the Father of the Green Revolution in India because he brought in and adapted the high-yielding dwarf varieties of wheat and rice in the mid-1960s, which turned a food-importing country into a self-sufficient one. The working details are worth holding on to: he used Norman Borlaug's Mexican dwarf wheat, worked with Agriculture Minister C. Subramaniam, and Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh formed the first Green Revolution belt. Norman Borlaug is the father of the Green Revolution worldwide, not in India, and Verghese Kurien is the father of the White Revolution - Operation Flood in milk - so neither answers the question as asked. Hence the correct option is (d).

Delhi Conspiracy Case, 1912 The bomb thrown at Viceroy Lord Hardinge during his ceremonial entry into the new capital, Delhi, on 23 December 1912 was planned by Rash Behari Bose; this is the Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy Case, and Basanta Kumar Biswas actually threw the bomb. Hardinge was injured but survived. Rash Behari Bose escaped arrest, reached Japan in 1915, and it was he who later handed over the Indian National Army to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943. The three other names belong to different events - Khudiram Bose to the Muzaffarpur bomb of 1908 aimed at Magistrate Kingsford, Bhagat Singh to the Saunders killing and the Lahore Conspiracy Case, and Chandra Shekhar Azad to the shoot-out at Alfred Park in 1931. Hence the correct option is (d).

Aims of microfinance institutions A microfinance institution exists to raise the income of a poor household, not to reduce it: it supplies small collateral-free loans, savings and insurance to people whom ordinary banks will not serve. So 'decreasing the household income' states the exact opposite of the purpose, and it is the one option that is not an aim. The other three are its stated aims - women's empowerment, because most self-help-group borrowers are women; financial self-sufficiency of the borrower and of the institution; and broader socio-economic development. The model comes from Muhammad Yunus's Grameen Bank in Bangladesh; in India it runs mainly through the SHG-Bank linkage programme supported by NABARD. Hence the correct option is (b).

Birju Maharaj - Padma Vibhushan Pandit Birju Maharaj, the doyen of the Lucknow (Kalka-Bindadin) gharana of Kathak, received the Padma Vibhushan - India's second highest civilian honour - in 1986. Placing it in his career makes the year easy to hold: the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award came to him as early as 1964, the Padma Vibhushan in the middle of his career in 1986, and the National Film Award for Best Choreography much later, in 2012, for Vishwaroopam. Hence the correct option is (c).

Kullu Dussehra of Himachal In Himachal Pradesh, Dussehra is celebrated as the Kullu Dussehra, held on the Dhalpur maidan in the Kullu valley. One feature separates it from every other Dussehra: it begins on Vijayadashami - the very day the festival ends in the rest of India - and runs for seven days around the chariot procession of Lord Raghunath, joined by hundreds of village deities carried in from the surrounding hills. The other three names belong to other states - Bastar Dussehra to Chhattisgarh, Madikeri Dussehra to Kodagu in Karnataka and Kota Dussehra to Rajasthan - so none of them is the Himachali form. Hence the correct option is (d).

Article 15(3) - women and children Article 15(3) is the enabling exception written into the anti-discrimination guarantee: 'Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children.' This clause is what makes protective discrimination lawful - reservation of seats for women in local bodies, maternity benefit, special labour protection - even though Article 15(1) forbids discrimination on the ground of sex. Article 14 only guarantees equality before the law, Article 19 the six freedoms, and Article 21 protection of life and personal liberty; none of them carries an enabling clause for women and children, and there is in fact no clause numbered 21(5) in the Constitution. Hence the correct option is (c).

Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan The Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan was launched on 20 June 2020 by the Prime Minister of India, from Telihar village of Khagaria district in Bihar, through video conference. It was a 125-day mission-mode campaign with an outlay of about ₹50,000 crore, covering 116 districts in six states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha - to give immediate work to migrant labourers who had returned home in the COVID-19 lockdown. Because it was a nationwide campaign run jointly by twelve ministries, it was launched at the level of the Prime Minister; the RBI Governor deals with monetary policy, not employment schemes, and no single Minister headed it. Hence the correct option is (b).

Asthenosphere and lithosphere The asthenosphere is the weak, partly molten layer of the upper mantle lying directly below the lithosphere - the rigid outer shell made of the crust plus the uppermost mantle. Because it behaves plastically, the lithospheric plates ride and drift on it; seismic waves slow down and lose energy while passing through it, which is why it is also called the low-velocity zone. The exosphere, ionosphere and troposphere are layers of the atmosphere, not of the solid Earth, so no layer of the mantle can lie beneath any of them. Hence the correct option is (c).

Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy Tamil Nadu has won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, India's domestic Twenty20 championship, more often than any other side - three titles, in 2006-07, 2020-21 and 2021-22. The tournament is named after the Indore batsman Syed Mushtaq Ali, the first Indian to score a Test century abroad; it is the T20 counterpart of the Ranji Trophy (first-class) and the Vijay Hazare Trophy (one-day). It was played once in 2006-07 and then revived only in 2009-10, so there is no 2007-08 or 2008-09 champion. No one else has more than two: Baroda, Gujarat and Karnataka have two each and Bengal one. Punjab had not won it at all up to 2023 - their first title came in 2023-24 - and Jharkhand and Vidarbha have never won it. Hence the correct option is (b).