2024

• Statement-I is incorrect. The atmosphere is largely transparent to incoming short wave solar radiation, which passes through and heats the earth's surface. The atmosphere is then heated chiefly from below by outgoing long wave terrestrial radiation, through absorption, conduction and convection.
• Statement-II is correct. Carbon dioxide, water vapour, methane and other greenhouse gases absorb strongly in the infrared and are therefore good absorbers of long wave radiation, which is precisely the mechanism by which terrestrial radiation heats the atmosphere. Since Statement-I is false and Statement-II is true, (d) is correct.
• Options (a) and (b) both require Statement-I to be true and fail immediately.
• Option (c) inverts the truth values and fails on both counts. Note that Statement-II, correctly read, is the reason Statement-I is wrong.

• Statement-I is correct. The troposphere extends to roughly 18 km at the equator against roughly 8 km at the poles.
• Statement-II is correct. Intense insolation at the equator drives strong convection which carries heat, moisture and turbulence to great heights, pushing the tropopause upward.
• Statement-II is the causal explanation for Statement-I, so (a) is correct.
• Option (b) fails because the explanatory link is genuine and is the standard textbook reason.
• Options (c) and (d) fail because both statements are true.

• Statement 1 is correct. In January, the northern hemisphere winter, oceans retain heat while continents cool rapidly. Isotherms therefore bend poleward, that is northward, over the warmer oceans and equatorward, that is southward, over the colder land masses.
• Statement 2 is incorrect and internally contradictory. The Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift are warm currents, not cold, and they make the North Atlantic warmer rather than colder. Describing them as cold currents that produce cooling is a factual error, even though the concluding clause about isotherms bending north is itself true. A statement containing a false premise cannot be accepted. Hence (a).
• Options (b) and (c) require statement 2 to be true, and (d) wrongly rejects statement 1.

Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana are the world's two largest cocoa producers, together accounting for roughly sixty per cent of global output. Both lie in the humid tropical belt of West Africa with high rainfall, uniform high temperature and forest soils suited to the cocoa tree.

• Option (a) is wrong because Algeria and Morocco are North African Mediterranean and desert economies where cocoa cannot grow.
• Option (b) is wrong because Botswana and Namibia are arid to semi arid southern African states dominated by the Kalahari and Namib.
• Option (d) is wrong because Madagascar and Mozambique produce cocoa only marginally, and are better known for vanilla and cashew respectively.

Moving downstream from Prayagraj, that is west to east, the confluences occur in this order. The Gomati joins the Ganga near Saidpur in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh. The Ghaghara joins further east near Chhapra in Bihar. The Gandak joins at Patna. The Kosi joins furthest east near Kursela in Katihar district. Hence Gomati, Ghaghara, Gandak, Kosi, which is (b).

• Options (a) and (c) place the Ghaghara before the Gomati, which reverses the true order since the Gomati confluence lies upstream.
• Options (c) and (d) place the Kosi before the Gandak, which is wrong because the Kosi is the easternmost of the four. Note that the Gomati is strictly a Himalayan foothill river rising from the Fulhaar jheel, which the question treats as Himalayan.

• Statement-II is correct. Atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in rain water to form carbonic acid, which drives carbonation, the chemical weathering process that dissolves limestone and decomposes feldspar.
• Statement-III is correct. Rain water carries dissolved atmospheric oxygen, which drives oxidation, the weathering process that converts ferrous minerals to ferric oxides and produces the reddish crusts and crumbling seen in iron rich rocks. Both processes are recognised forms of chemical weathering, so both statements explain Statement-I, giving (a).
• Option (b) fails because there is no basis for excluding either process.
• Option (c) fails because both statements are true, not one.
• Option (d) fails because both statements are factually correct.

Donyi Polo Airport at Hollongi near Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh is a greenfield airport built on a fresh site and commissioned in 2022. Kushinagar International Airport in Uttar Pradesh was also developed as a greenfield project and commissioned in 2021, serving the Buddhist circuit. Vijayawada International Airport is not greenfield. It is the upgraded and expanded existing airport at Gannavaram, which has operated since well before the recent expansion, making it a brownfield development. Hence 1 and 2 only, which is (a).

• Option (b) wrongly includes Vijayawada and drops Donyi Polo.
• Option (c) makes the same Vijayawada error.
• Option (d) treats all three as greenfield and ignores the brownfield character of Gannavaram.

• Statement 1 is correct. Water vapour is concentrated in the lower troposphere and its quantity falls sharply with height, with about half of all atmospheric water vapour lying below roughly 2 km and almost none above 12 km.
• Statement 2 is incorrect. Water vapour content is maximum over the warm humid equatorial and tropical oceans, where it can reach about four per cent of air by volume, and minimum over the cold polar regions, where it falls to a fraction of one per cent. The saturation capacity of air rises with temperature, so cold polar air simply cannot hold much vapour. Hence (a).
• Options (b) and (c) require the false polar claim, and (d) wrongly rejects the correct altitude relationship.

The Cuvette Centrale peatland complex in the central Congo Basin, straddling the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's largest tropical peatland at roughly 145000 square kilometres, storing about 30 billion tonnes of carbon, comparable to three years of global fossil fuel emissions. Its exposure to oil and gas licensing and drainage is the reason it is described as a climate risk.

• Option (a) is wrong because the Amazon Basin, although the largest tropical forest carbon store, holds its carbon chiefly in above ground biomass rather than in peat, and its peatlands such as the Pastaza Maranon complex are far smaller.
• Option (c) is wrong because the Kikori Basin in Papua New Guinea has peatlands of only regional significance.
• Option (d) is wrong because the Rio de la Plata Basin is dominated by grassland, wetland and agricultural landscapes rather than tropical peat.

• Statement-I is correct. Discarded chewing gum is a recognised litter and microplastic problem, difficult to remove from pavements and non biodegradable in the environment.
• Statement-II is correct. Modern gum base is largely synthetic, using polymers such as polyisobutylene, polyvinyl acetate and styrene butadiene rubber in place of the natural chicle formerly used.
• Statement-II supplies exactly the reason for Statement-I, since it is the synthetic polymer content that makes discarded gum persistent and pollutant. Hence (a).
• Option (b) fails because the explanatory relationship is direct, not incidental.
• Options (c) and (d) fail because both statements are factually sound.

• Statement 1 is incorrect. The World Toilet Organization is a non governmental, non profit body founded in Singapore in 2001 by Jack Sim. It is not a United Nations agency, although the United Nations General Assembly did adopt 19 November as World Toilet Day in 2013, which is the likely source of the confusion.
• Statement 2 is correct. The World Toilet Summit, World Toilet Day and the World Toilet College are all its initiatives, the last providing training in sanitation systems and toilet design.
• Statement 3 is incorrect. The organisation works through advocacy, awareness and capacity building rather than as a grant making or funding agency. Only statement 2 survives, giving (a).
• Options (c) and (d) each retain one false statement, and (b) retains only the false one.

• Statement 1 is correct. Lions are aseasonal breeders and cubs may be born in any month, with breeding often synchronised within a pride rather than by season.
• Statement 2 is correct. Roaring depends on a specialised larynx with an incompletely ossified hyoid apparatus, present in the genus Panthera, that is lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar. The cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, lies outside Panthera, has a fully ossified hyoid, and purrs, chirps and growls but cannot roar.
• Statement 3 is incorrect. Male leopards mark territory extensively by spraying urine, scraping and rubbing scent on vegetation, exactly as male lions do. Hence 1 and 2 only, which is (a).
• Options (b), (c) and (d) all retain the false claim about leopard scent marking.

100 Million Farmers is a multistakeholder platform convened by the World Economic Forum to shift food and water systems towards net zero emissions and nature positive outcomes while building farmer resilience, which is exactly option (a).

• Option (b) describes the profile of an organic animal husbandry network such as the IFOAM family of bodies, which is a different domain altogether and has no connection to the net zero food systems agenda.
• Option (c) describes a blockchain based fertilizer trading marketplace, a commercial supply chain product rather than a food systems transition platform.
• Option (d) describes the mandate of farmer producer organisation promotion programmes such as those run by SFAC and NABARD in India, which concern collectivisation and market access rather than climate aligned food systems. The decisive phrases in option (a) are net zero and nature positive, which are the signature vocabulary of this initiative.

The fig, genus Ficus, has an obligate mutualism with fig wasps of the family Agaonidae, in which each fig species is typically pollinated by its own specific wasp species. The wasp enters the enclosed inflorescence, the syconium, through the ostiole, pollinates the flowers and lays eggs, and the fig in turn provides the only site where the wasp can complete its life cycle. Neither partner can reproduce without the other, which is the textbook case of coevolved obligate pollination.

• Option (b) is wrong because Mahua, Madhuca longifolia, is pollinated by a range of generalist visitors including bats and insects.
• Option (c) is wrong because Sandalwood, Santalum album, is a hemiparasitic tree pollinated by various generalist insects.
• Option (d) is wrong because Silk cotton, Bombax ceiba, is chiefly bird pollinated, notably by sunbirds and mynas, and is not dependent on any single insect.

• Statement 1 is incorrect. An RTG is not a reactor of any size. It contains no chain reaction, no criticality and no control mechanism. It converts the heat of spontaneous radioactive decay directly into electricity through thermocouples using the Seebeck effect.
• Statement 2 is correct. RTGs power onboard systems on missions where sunlight is too weak or intermittent for photovoltaics, as on Voyager, Cassini, New Horizons, Curiosity and Perseverance.
• Statement 3 is correct. Plutonium-238 is produced by neutron irradiation of neptunium-237, itself a by product of the reactor operations and reprocessing associated with weapons programmes, and its 87.7 year half life and alpha emission make it well suited to RTGs. Hence 2 and 3 only, which is (b).
• Options (a), (c) and (d) all retain the fission reactor error.

• Statement-I is incorrect. Massive giant stars live far shorter lives than low mass dwarfs. A massive O or B type star may last only a few million years, whereas a red dwarf can burn for hundreds of billions of years, longer than the present age of the universe.
• Statement-II is correct. Higher mass means higher core temperature and pressure, and since the CNO cycle rate scales very steeply with temperature, giant stars consume their hydrogen at an enormously greater rate. The two statements together illustrate that the correct inference runs opposite to Statement-I. Greater fuel consumption per unit time, despite the larger fuel reserve, gives a shorter main sequence lifetime, since lifetime scales roughly as mass divided by luminosity and luminosity rises as a high power of mass. Hence (d).
• Options (a) and (b) require Statement-I to be true, and (c) inverts both truth values.

Nitric oxide is synthesised in the vascular endothelium from L arginine by nitric oxide synthase. It diffuses into adjacent smooth muscle, activates guanylate cyclase, raises cyclic GMP and produces relaxation, that is vasodilation and increased blood flow. Its identification as the endothelium derived relaxing factor won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and it is the mechanism through which nitroglycerine relieves angina.

• Option (b) is wrong because nitrous oxide is an inhaled anaesthetic and laughing gas, administered externally and not synthesised as a signalling molecule in the body.
• Option (c) is wrong because nitrogen dioxide is a reddish brown atmospheric pollutant from combustion, an irritant rather than a physiological messenger.
• Option (d) is wrong because nitrogen pentoxide is an unstable laboratory oxidising agent with no biological role.

In a proton exchange membrane fuel cell, hydrogen is oxidised at the anode to protons and electrons, the protons cross the membrane, the electrons do external electrical work, and at the cathode oxygen combines with protons and electrons to form water. The only tailpipe product is therefore water, emitted chiefly as vapour along with warm air, which is why these vehicles are described as zero emission at the point of use.

• Option (a) is wrong because hydrogen peroxide can appear only as a transient and undesirable intermediate from incomplete oxygen reduction, and it is a degradation problem for the membrane rather than an emission.
• Option (b) is wrong because the hydronium ion exists within the hydrated membrane as the proton carrier and is not emitted.
• Option (c) is wrong because oxygen is consumed as the oxidant at the cathode, not produced.

Pumped storage hydropower uses surplus off peak or surplus renewable electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir, and releases it through turbines when demand or price is high. It is the dominant form of grid scale long duration energy storage worldwide, offering discharge over many hours and a service life measured in decades, which is why it is central to integrating variable solar and wind generation.

• Option (a) is wrong because terraced field irrigation is a soil and water conservation practice with no storage and generation cycle.
• Option (b) is wrong because lift irrigation pumps water for agricultural use and does not recover the energy, so it is a consumer rather than a store of electricity.
• Option (d) is wrong because rainwater harvesting captures precipitation for water supply and recharge, with no energy dimension at all. The distinguishing feature of pumped storage is that the pumping energy is deliberately recovered.

A membrane bioreactor combines the biological degradation of the activated sludge process with membrane filtration, usually microfiltration or ultrafiltration, in place of the conventional secondary clarifier. The membrane retains biomass completely, allowing much higher mixed liquor concentrations, a far smaller footprint and an effluent of high quality suitable for reuse, which is why the technology is expanding in urban sewage treatment and in industrial effluent management.

• Option (a) is wrong because assisted reproductive technologies involve in vitro fertilisation and embryo culture systems, not membrane filtration bioreactors.
• Option (b) is wrong because drug delivery nanotechnology concerns carriers such as liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles.
• Option (c) is wrong because vaccine production uses stirred tank and single use bioreactors for cell culture, and although membranes appear in downstream purification, the term membrane bioreactor is not used for that.

Collateralised Borrowing and Lending Obligation is a money market instrument developed by the Clearing Corporation of India Limited, permitting short term borrowing and lending against government securities placed with CCIL, with tenors from one day up to one year. It was created to give entities without access to the uncollateralised call money market a secured route to short term funds.

• Option (a) is wrong because bond market instruments are long term debt securities such as government dated securities and corporate bonds, whereas CBLO is short term by construction.
• Option (b) is wrong because forex market instruments involve currency spot, forward and swap contracts.
• Option (d) is wrong because stock market instruments represent ownership claims. The one year outer maturity is the decisive marker of a money market instrument.

Total fertility rate is the average number of live births a woman would have if she survived through and experienced the prevailing age specific fertility rates across her entire reproductive span, conventionally ages fifteen to forty nine. This is precisely option (d).

• Option (a) defines the crude birth rate, which is expressed per thousand population and not per woman.
• Option (b) is close but wrong on two counts. It refers to a couple rather than a woman and describes actual completed family size rather than the synthetic cohort measure that TFR is, since TFR is computed from current age specific rates rather than observed lifetime outcomes.
• Option (c) defines the rate of natural increase. The replacement level TFR of about 2.1 and India's decline to 2.0 in NFHS-5 rest on definition (d).

• Statement 2 is correct. Foreign Portfolio Investors, formerly Foreign Institutional Investors, may hold government securities subject to investment limits, and the Fully Accessible Route introduced in 2020 opened specified G-Sec securities to non residents without ceiling, which underpinned India's inclusion in global bond indices.
• Statement 3 is correct. SEBI permits recognised stock exchanges to operate separate debt segments, and both BSE and NSE run dedicated debt trading platforms including the request for quote platform.
• Statement 1 is the difficulty. The official key treats it as correct, giving (c).

• Pair 2 is correct. A dairy farm involves the direct extraction of a product from nature through animal husbandry, which is primary sector activity.
• Pair 4 is correct. Weaving cloth transforms yarn into a different product through manufacturing, which is secondary sector activity.
• Pair 1 is incorrect. Storage of agricultural produce is a service that supports production and distribution without transforming the good, and is therefore tertiary, not secondary.
• Pair 3 is incorrect. Mineral exploration is directed at extracting resources from nature and is classified with primary sector activity, not tertiary. The question is built so that pairs 1 and 3 have effectively been swapped between the tertiary and primary categories. Two pairs are correct, giving (b).

Fixed capital consists of durable assets used repeatedly across many production cycles, while working capital consists of raw materials and money in hand that are used up in a single cycle.

• Pair 2 is correct, since a computer is a durable tool used repeatedly and is therefore fixed capital.
• Pair 4 is correct, since petrol is consumed entirely in use and must be repurchased, making it working capital.
• Pair 1 is incorrect, since a plough is a durable implement used season after season and is the standard textbook example of fixed capital, not working capital.
• Pair 3 is incorrect, since yarn is the raw material transformed into cloth and is used up in one production cycle, making it working capital, not fixed. The question mirrors the NCERT Class 9 treatment in the Palampur chapter and effectively swaps the categories of pairs 1 and 3. Two pairs are correct, giving (b).

The metaverse denotes an interoperable network of persistent three dimensional virtual environments accessed simultaneously by large numbers of users, in which digital ownership of virtual land, avatars and items can be asserted, frequently through blockchain based tokens. Every element of the stem, interoperability, three dimensionality, simultaneous mass access and property rights over virtual items, is part of the standard definition.

• Option (a) is wrong because big data analytics refers to techniques for extracting patterns from very large datasets and has no spatial or ownership dimension.
• Option (b) is wrong because cryptography is the science of securing information, and while it underpins the token systems used for virtual property, it is not the environment itself.
• Option (d) is wrong because virtual matrix is not an established technical term and functions here purely as a distractor.

• Statement 1 is clearly incorrect. The RBI scheme for setting up of wholly owned subsidiaries by foreign banks in India prescribes a minimum initial paid up voting equity capital or net worth of five hundred crore rupees, so the claim that there is no minimum capital requirement fails.
• Statement 2 is treated as incorrect by the official key, which therefore gives (d).
• Options (a) and (c) are excluded by the capital requirement in statement 1, so the whole question turns on statement 2.

• Statement 1 is correct. The Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules exclude from CSR any activity that benefits only the employees of the company and their families, and activities undertaken in the normal course of business, precisely so that CSR spending is directed outward to society rather than recovered internally.
• Statement 2 is incorrect. Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013 requires qualifying companies, those meeting the thresholds on net worth, turnover or net profit, to spend at least two per cent of the average net profits of the three immediately preceding financial years on CSR, and the 2021 amendments made this enforceable with penalty and transfer of unspent amounts to specified funds. Hence 1 only, which is (a).
• Options (b) and (c) require the false claim that no minimum is specified, and (d) wrongly rejects the true exclusion rule.

• Statement-II is correct and is the settled characterisation of sovereign fiat debt. US Treasury securities are unsecured obligations backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government, that is by its taxing power and willingness to pay, and not by any pledged gold, land or other hard asset.
• Statement-I follows from this in the sense the examiner intends. Because no collateral has been pledged and a sovereign cannot be brought before an ordinary court by its bondholders to seize assets, holders have no enforceable claim to compel payment in the event of default, unlike a secured creditor who can proceed against specific security.
• Statement-II therefore supplies the reason for Statement-I, giving (a).
• Option (b) fails because the explanatory link is direct rather than incidental.
• Options (c) and (d) fail because both statements are accepted as correct.

• Statement 1 is correct. The digital rupee is central bank digital currency, sovereign money issued by the RBI itself and not by any private issuer, and its issuance sits within the monetary policy framework.
• Statement 2 is correct. Like physical currency in circulation, CBDC is a liability of the issuing central bank and appears as such on the RBI balance sheet, which is exactly what distinguishes it from a bank deposit, a liability of a commercial bank.
• Statement 4 is correct. The RBI has designed the digital rupee to be exchangeable at par and freely with cash and with commercial bank deposits, since fungibility with existing money is essential to its acceptance.
• Statement 3 is incorrect and is the discriminator. A CBDC is denominated in rupees and carries exactly the same inflation risk as any other rupee holding. Nothing in its design indexes it to prices or insulates its purchasing power. Hence 1, 2 and 4, which is (d).
• Options (a) and (c) drop true statements, and (b) admits the false inflation claim.

Krishnadevaraya of the Tuluva dynasty of Vijayanagara, ruling from 1509 to 1529, permitted the Portuguese to build a fort at Bhatkal on the Kanara coast. The alliance served both sides. Vijayanagara needed a secure supply of Arabian war horses, which the Portuguese now controlled by sea after displacing Arab traders, while the Portuguese needed coastal footholds and a counterweight to Bijapur. The treaty with Albuquerque is part of the same arrangement.

• Option (b) is wrong because Narasimha Saluva ruled in the late fifteenth century, before the Portuguese arrival in 1498 and well before they were in a position to seek forts.
• Option (c) is wrong because Muhammad Shah III was a Bahmani sultan of the fifteenth century, again predating Portuguese fort building on this coast.
• Option (d) is wrong because Yusuf Adil Shah of Bijapur was the ruler from whom the Portuguese took Goa by force in 1510, an adversary rather than a grantor of permission.

This question was dropped by the Commission and carries no marks.

• Statement 2 is correct and is the well known Sunset Clause of the Permanent Settlement of 1793. If the fixed revenue was not paid by sunset on the appointed day, the zamindari was liable to be auctioned, a provision that produced large scale transfers of estates in the early decades.
• Statement 1 is where the question breaks down. The Ryotwari Settlement, associated with Thomas Munro and Alexander Read in Madras and with Elphinstone in Bombay, was not introduced by Cornwallis at all, so a question stem anchored to revenue collection by Cornwallis cannot coherently ask about it. On content, the Ryotwari system did provide for remission of revenue in years of bad harvest, unlike the rigid Permanent Settlement, so the statement is arguably correct in substance while being misattributed in framing. That contradiction between an accurate statement and an incoherent stem is the most probable ground for the drop.

• Statement 1 is incorrect. The Upanishads are rich in parable, dialogue and analogy, which is their characteristic method of teaching. The Chandogya Upanishad contains the instruction of Svetaketu by Uddalaka Aruni with the salt in water and the seed of the banyan, the Katha Upanishad frames its teaching as the dialogue of Nachiketa with Yama, and the Brihadaranyaka contains the parable of the gods, humans and demons receiving the syllable da.
• Statement 2 is correct. The principal Upanishads belong to the late Vedic period, roughly the eighth to fifth centuries BCE, forming the concluding portion of the Vedic corpus and hence the name Vedanta. The Puranas in their extant form are far later, compiled and expanded largely in the Gupta and post Gupta centuries. Hence 2 only, which is (b).
• Options (a) and (c) require accepting the false claim about parables, and (d) wrongly rejects the chronology.

• Statement 1 is correct. India is a member of the International Grains Council, an intergovernmental body established under the Grains Trade Convention with its secretariat in London, which monitors grain and oilseed markets and publishes supply, demand and trade estimates.
• Statement 2 is incorrect and is a general reasoning trap rather than a factual one. The Council is an information sharing and cooperation forum, not a licensing or gatekeeping authority, and it has no power to condition access to world grain trade on membership. Many countries trade rice and wheat without being members. Any body that claims to make its membership a precondition for ordinary commercial trade should immediately invite suspicion, since that function belongs to trade agreements and national regulators, not to a market monitoring council. Hence (a).
• Options (b) and (c) accept the false gatekeeping claim, and (d) wrongly denies India's membership.

Garba of Gujarat was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2023, at the eighteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee held in Kasane, Botswana, making it India's fifteenth element and the most recent at the time of the examination.

• Option (a) is wrong because Chhau dance was inscribed in 2010, alongside the Kalbelia folk songs and dances of Rajasthan and Mudiyettu of Kerala.
• Option (b) is wrong because Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed in 2021, the immediately preceding Indian entry and the likely intended distractor.
• Option (d) is wrong because Kumbh Mela was inscribed in 2017. The question tests the ordering of recent inscriptions rather than mere listing, so a candidate must hold the sequence Kumbh Mela 2017, Durga Puja 2021, Garba 2023.

Dr Sachchidananda Sinha, the oldest member of the House, was elected temporary or provisional President when the Constituent Assembly first met on 9 December 1946, following the French practice of the senior most member presiding over the opening. Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected permanent President on 11 December 1946.

• Option (a) is wrong because C. Rajagopalachari was Governor of West Bengal in this period and later the last Governor General of India, and held no such office in the Assembly.
• Option (b) is wrong because Dr B.R. Ambedkar chaired the Drafting Committee, a distinct and later role constituted in August 1947.
• Option (c) is wrong because T.T. Krishnamachari was a member of the Drafting Committee, not a presiding officer of the Assembly.

• Statement 1 is correct. The Act provided for an All India Federation comprising the British Indian Provinces and those Princely States that acceded. The federation never came into being, since the required number of princely accessions was not obtained, but the provision existed in the statute, which is what the statement asserts.
• Statement 2 is incorrect and is the heart of the question. Under the scheme of dyarchy at the Centre, defence and external affairs were reserved subjects administered by the Governor General in his discretion through counsellors answerable to him, and were expressly kept outside the control of the federal legislature. Placing them under legislative control would have amounted to responsible government at the Centre, which the Act was designed to withhold. Hence (a).
• Options (b) and (c) accept the false claim about legislative control, and (d) wrongly denies the federation provision.

Madhyama vyayoga, a one act play drawn from the Mahabharata episode of Bhima and Ghatotkacha, is among the thirteen plays attributed to Bhasa, recovered in the Trivandrum manuscripts by T. Ganapati Sastri in 1912. Bhasa predates Kalidasa and is named respectfully by him in the prologue to Malavikagnimitram.

• Option (a) is wrong because Kavyalankara is a work of poetics by Bhamaha, a treatise on figures of speech rather than a play.
• Option (b) is wrong because the Natyashastra is Bharata's foundational treatise on dramaturgy, dance and music, again a theoretical text and not a drama.
• Option (d) is wrong because the Mahabhashya is Patanjali's grammatical commentary on Panini's Ashtadhyayi. The question separates a dramatist's composition from three works about literature, grammar and dramatic theory.

Sanghabhuti reached Chang'an in about 381 CE and worked there on the translation and exposition of Sarvastivada texts, being credited with a commentary on the Sarvastivada Vinaya, the monastic disciplinary code of that school. The Sarvastivada was the dominant school in the northwest and in Central Asia, precisely the corridor through which monks travelled to China, which makes the attribution coherent.

• Option (a) is wrong because the Prajnaparamita literature belongs to the Mahayana perfection of wisdom corpus and is associated with commentators such as Nagarjuna rather than with Sanghabhuti.
• Option (b) is wrong because the Visuddhimagga is Buddhaghosa's fifth century Theravada compendium composed in Sri Lanka in Pali, a different school, language and geography.
• Option (d) is wrong because the Lalitavistara is a Sanskrit biographical account of the Buddha's life, not a work Sanghabhuti is associated with. This is a difficult item resting on a single obscure name.

• Statement 1 is correct. Article 109 is headed Special procedure in respect of Money Bills and sets out the whole scheme, while Article 110 defines what a Money Bill is.
• Statement 2 is correct. A Money Bill may be introduced only in the Lok Sabha, and only on the recommendation of the President.
• Statement 3 is correct. The Rajya Sabha must return the Bill within fourteen days and may recommend amendments, but it cannot reject the Bill, and if it fails to return it within fourteen days the Bill is deemed passed by both Houses.
• Statement 4 is incorrect and is the discriminator. The Lok Sabha may accept or reject any or all of the recommendations, and if it rejects them the Bill is deemed passed in its original form. Making the recommendations binding would convert the Rajya Sabha's advisory role into a veto, which is exactly what the Money Bill procedure is designed to exclude.

Hence 1, 2 and 3, which is (c).

The 2002 amendment to the North Eastern Council Act restructured the Council so that it comprises the Governors and Chief Ministers of the constituent states along with three members nominated by the President, and it also converted the Council into a regional planning body for the North East.

• Items 1, 2 and 3 therefore all belong, giving (a).
• Item 4 is incorrect as a statement about the composition fixed by the 2002 amendment. The Union Home Minister was not made a member by that amendment.
• Options (b) and (c) each drop a genuine category while admitting the Home Minister, and (d) admits all four.

• Pair 1 is correct. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded in 1951 by Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee after he left the Nehru cabinet over the Nehru Liaquat Pact.
• Pair 3 is correct. Congress for Democracy was formed in February 1977 by Jagjivan Ram, who broke from the Congress on the eve of the post Emergency election and later merged his group with the Janata Party.
• Pairs 2 and 4 are wrong, and the question works by swapping their leaders. C. Rajagopalachari founded the Swatantra Party in 1959 in opposition to Nehruvian planning and the licence regime, so he belongs to pair 4, not pair 2. Acharya Narendra Dev was a leading figure of the Congress Socialist Party and later the Socialist Party, so he belongs to pair 2, not pair 4. Two pairs are correct, giving (b).

• Option (c) is correct. Entry 81 of the Union List covers inter State migration and inter State quarantine, placing both squarely with the Union. The logic is that any subject whose effects cross State boundaries cannot be regulated by a single State, which is the organising principle behind the whole set.
• Option (a) is wrong because trade and commerce with foreign countries and among States is Union List entry 42, while entry 26 of the State List covers trade and commerce within the State only.
• Option (b) is wrong for the same reason as (c) is right, since inter State migration is part of Union List entry 81.
• Option (d) is wrong because taxes on the income of companies, that is corporation tax, fall under Union List entry 85 and form one of the largest components of central tax revenue. The prefix inter State is the single reliable signal that the entry belongs to the Union List.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy versus Union of India in 2017, a nine judge bench unanimously held the right to privacy to be a fundamental right intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, and also traceable across Part III. The judgment overruled the contrary holdings in M.P. Sharma and Kharak Singh.

• Option (a) is wrong because Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
• Option (b) is wrong because Article 16 concerns equality of opportunity in public employment.
• Option (c) is wrong because Article 19 guarantees the six freedoms including speech and movement, and while informational privacy has an Article 19 dimension, the Court anchored the right principally in Article 21. The reasoning is that privacy is a necessary condition for a life of dignity, which Article 21 protects.

• Statement 1 is correct. The CDS is the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, a post previously rotated among the senior most service chief.
• Statement 3 is correct. The CDS is the Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister on all tri service matters, while each Service Chief continues to advise on matters exclusive to his own service.
• Statement 2 is incorrect and is the discriminator. The CDS explicitly does not exercise military command over the three Service Chiefs or over any military forces, a limitation written into the charter precisely to prevent the concentration of operational command in one officer and to preserve civilian control. The CDS role is coordinating, advisory and administrative, covering jointness in procurement, training and staffing. Hence 1 and 3 only, which is (d).
• Options (a), (b) and (c) all admit the command claim.

Operation Sadbhavana, meaning goodwill, is the Indian Army's civic action programme in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, running schools including the Army Goodwill Schools, health camps, vocational training, infrastructure works and national integration tours for young people in remote and disturbed areas. Its purpose is winning local confidence alongside conventional security operations.

• Option (a) is wrong because Operation Sankalp is the Indian Navy's maritime security deployment in the Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf to protect Indian flagged shipping.
• Option (b) is wrong because Operation Maitri was the disaster relief and rescue mission mounted in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake, an external humanitarian deployment rather than a sustained domestic development programme.
• Option (d) is wrong because Operation Madad refers to flood relief assistance, notably in Kerala in 2018, again episodic disaster response rather than continuous civic action.

The Canada United States border is the longest international boundary in the world at roughly 8891 kilometres, including the Alaska Yukon and Alaska British Columbia sections, and it is also the longest undefended border.

• Option (d) is the closest competitor and the intended trap, since the Kazakhstan Russia border at about 7644 kilometres is the longest continuous land border without a maritime interruption, but it is still shorter overall.
• Option (b) is wrong because the Chile Argentina border along the Andes runs to about 5300 kilometres, long but well short of the leaders.
• Option (c) is wrong because the disputed China India boundary is roughly 3488 kilometres by the Indian reckoning, not remotely in contention. A candidate who recalls only that the answer is a very long northern hemisphere boundary must still separate Canada United States from Kazakhstan Russia, which is what the question is testing.

• Statement 1 is correct. The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha was constituted as an ad hoc committee in 2000 and became a permanent standing committee only in 2015.
• Statement 3 is correct. The Committee does not take up matters that are sub judice, so as to avoid interference with judicial proceedings.
• Statement 2 is incorrect. Any person may make a complaint against a member, not only a fellow member. Where the complainant is not a member, the complaint is routed through a member, but the right to complain is not confined to members, which is what the statement asserts. Hence 1 and 3 only, which is (c).
• Options (a) and (d) admit the false restriction on complainants, and (b) drops the correct point about the Committee's ad hoc origins.

• Statement 2 is correct. The reservation is to remain in force for fifteen years from commencement, extendable by Parliament by law.
• Statement 3 is correct. Seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes carry a one third reservation for women within that quota, a nested rather than parallel reservation.
• Statement 1 is incorrect and is the discriminator. The Act does not commence with the 18th Lok Sabha. It takes effect only after the first census conducted after commencement and the delimitation exercise undertaken on the basis of that census, which necessarily pushes implementation beyond the 18th Lok Sabha elected in 2024. Many candidates assumed the next general election would trigger it, which is exactly the error the question exploits.

Hence 2 and 3 only, which is (c).

• Statement 1 is incorrect and is the single discriminator. Mitra Shakti is the annual India Sri Lanka joint military exercise, not an exercise with Bangladesh. The India Bangladesh equivalent is Sampriti.
• Statement 2 is correct. The 2023 edition was held at the Foreign Training Node at Aundh in Pune.
• Statement 3 is correct. Joint response in counter terrorism and counter insurgency operations under the United Nations mandate was among its stated objectives.
• Statement 4 is correct. The Indian Air Force participated alongside the Army, and the Sri Lanka Air Force likewise, making it more than a purely land exercise. Hence 2, 3 and 4, which is (d).
• Options (a), (b) and (c) all retain the Bangladesh error, so a candidate who knows only the correct partner country can eliminate three options at once.

Prohibition is a judicial writ issued by a superior court to an inferior court or tribunal, forbidding it from continuing proceedings in a matter over which it has no jurisdiction or in which it is exceeding its jurisdiction. It lies only against judicial and quasi judicial bodies, and it is preventive, issued while proceedings are pending, which distinguishes it from certiorari, which quashes an order already made.

• Option (a) is wrong because a direction restraining an executive officer would ordinarily be sought by injunction or under Article 226 generally, not by prohibition, which does not lie against administrative authorities acting administratively.
• Option (b) is wrong because the writ has nothing to do with prohibition in the sense of liquor policy, and courts cannot direct a legislature to enact a law.
• Option (d) is wrong because a challenge to an unconstitutional policy proceeds by declaration or by mandamus and certiorari, not by prohibition.

• Statement 1 is incorrect. Under Article 342, it is the President who, by public notification and after consultation with the Governor in the case of a State, specifies the tribes or tribal communities deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State. Thereafter only Parliament may by law include or exclude any community from that list, and no subsequent notification can vary it. The Governor is consulted but does not recognise or declare.
• Statement 2 is correct. Scheduled Tribe status is notified in relation to a particular State or Union Territory, and often in relation to specified districts within it, so a community recognised in one State need not be recognised in another. This is why migration across State lines can result in loss of ST entitlements. Hence (b).
• Options (a) and (c) accept the false attribution to the Governor, and (d) wrongly rejects the State specific character of the list.

• Statement 2 is correct and is a straightforward reading of Article 113, under which no demand for a grant shall be made except on the recommendation of the President.
• Statement 1 is treated as correct by the official key, which gives (c) and excludes options (a), (b) and (d).

Both books are by Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the External Affairs Minister. The India Way, subtitled Strategies for an Uncertain World, appeared in 2020, and Why Bharat Matters followed in January 2024, shortly before the examination.

• Option (a) is wrong because Bhupender Yadav, then Environment Minister, co authored The Rise of the BJP with Ila Patnaik.
• Option (b) is wrong because Nalin Mehta wrote The New BJP and India on Television, works of political and media analysis rather than foreign policy memoir.
• Option (c) is wrong because Shashi Tharoor, though a prolific author on India's international position with titles such as Pax Indica and An Era of Darkness, wrote neither of these. The pairing of an older and a very recent title by the same author is the standard construction for this kind of question.

• Pair 1 is correct. Argentina was in the news through 2023 for inflation above two hundred per cent, currency collapse and debt distress, culminating in the election of Javier Milei on a radical stabilisation platform.
• Pair 2 is correct. Fighting broke out in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces under General Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces under Hemedti, precisely a war between the regular army and a paramilitary force, and it prompted India's evacuation mission Operation Kaveri.
• Pair 3 is incorrect. Turkey has not rescinded its NATO membership and remains a member with the alliance's second largest armed forces. Turkey was in the news for the opposite reason, namely its leverage over the accession of Finland and Sweden, which it eventually ratified. Two pairs are correct, giving (b).

• Statement-II is correct. The Suez Mediterranean pipeline runs from Ain Sukhna on the Gulf of Suez, an arm of the Red Sea, to Sidi Kerir near Alexandria on the Mediterranean.
• Statement-I is correct in the sense intended. The pipeline is a strategic alternative and complement to the Suez Canal, allowing cargo to be offloaded, piped across Egypt and reloaded, which both bypasses draught limits on the largest tankers and provides redundancy if the canal is blocked.
• Statement-II supplies the reason for Statement-I, since it is exactly the Red Sea to Mediterranean connection that makes the pipeline a route from the Gulf to Europe, so (a) follows.
• Option (b) fails because the explanatory link is direct.
• Options (c) and (d) fail because both statements are accepted as correct.

Both statements are correct and together explain why the Red Sea is among the most saline open seas in the world, with salinity around 40 parts per thousand.

• Statement 1 holds because the Red Sea lies within the subtropical high pressure belt, flanked by the Sahara and the Arabian deserts, and receives negligible rainfall, of the order of a few centimetres a year.
• Statement 2 holds because no perennial river drains into the Red Sea. Its catchment is desert, and such wadis as exist flow only briefly after rare storms. With high evaporation under intense insolation, no riverine inflow and almost no precipitation, the water balance is maintained chiefly by inflow from the Gulf of Aden through the Bab el Mandeb, and the deficit drives the high salinity.

Hence (c), and options (a), (b) and (d) each reject a correct statement.

Fossil fuel combustion at power plants, above all coal fired generation, is by far the largest source of sulphur dioxide emissions in the EPA's inventory, accounting for the majority of the total. Coal contains sulphur as pyrite and organic sulphur, which oxidises to sulphur dioxide on combustion, and the sheer scale of power generation dwarfs other sources.

• Option (c) is the strongest distractor, since smelting of sulphide ores such as copper, lead and zinc concentrates is a genuinely large industrial source, but it is second rather than first.
• Options (a) and (b) are wrong on magnitude. Locomotives and ships do emit sulphur dioxide, and marine bunker fuel was historically high in sulphur until the IMO 2020 cap, but neither approaches stationary power generation. In the Indian context the same logic explains why flue gas desulphurisation retrofits were mandated for thermal power stations.

• Statement-I is correct. The Sahel, the semi arid belt south of the Sahara running through Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and neighbouring states, has seen worsening insecurity from jihadist insurgency, communal conflict, displacement and the withdrawal of French and United Nations forces.
• Statement-II is correct. Mali saw coups in 2020 and 2021, Burkina Faso twice in 2022, Niger in 2023, alongside earlier seizures of power in Chad and Guinea.
• Statement-II explains Statement-I, since repeated military takeovers hollow out state capacity, disrupt counter insurgency cooperation and trigger the withdrawal of external partners and the imposition of sanctions, each of which deepens instability. Hence (a).
• Option (b) fails because the causal link is direct and widely documented.
• Options (c) and (d) fail because both statements are factually correct.

• Statement-I is incorrect. India does import apples from the United States. India had imposed retaliatory tariffs on American apples in 2019 in response to the withdrawal of GSP benefits and the steel and aluminium tariffs, but these additional duties were removed in September 2023 as part of the settlement of outstanding WTO disputes, and imports have continued.
• Statement-II is correct. Under the Food Safety and Standards Act and the rules made under it, the import of genetically modified food requires prior approval from the competent authority, and FSSAI requires a non GM cum GM free certificate for specified imported food consignments. The two statements are unconnected. Even if Statement-I were true, GM regulation would not be the reason, since apples traded to India are not GM varieties. Hence (d).
• Options (a) and (b) require Statement-I to be true, and (c) inverts both truth values.

• Statement 1 is correct. Under Article 96, the Speaker shall not preside while a resolution for his removal is under consideration, the Deputy Speaker or another member taking the chair.
• Statement 2 is incorrect. The Speaker retains the right to speak in and otherwise take part in the proceedings, and indeed to be heard in his own defence, which is a basic requirement of natural justice.
• Statement 3 is incorrect and is the harder point. The Speaker is entitled to vote on the resolution in the first instance, that is as an ordinary member. What he loses is the casting vote in the event of an equality of votes, which he would exercise as presiding officer but cannot exercise here.
• Statement 3 asserts precisely the opposite of the constitutional position. Hence 1 only, which is (a).
• Options (b), (c) and (d) each admit at least one of the two false statements, and the distinction between an ordinary vote in the first instance and a casting vote on a tie is what the question is built on.

• Statement 1 is correct. A bill pending in the Lok Sabha, whether originating there or transmitted from the Rajya Sabha, lapses on dissolution.
• Statement 2 is correct. A bill passed by the Lok Sabha but still pending in the Rajya Sabha also lapses, because the House that passed it has ceased to exist.
• Statement 3 is incorrect and is the exception the question tests. Where the President has notified an intention to summon a joint sitting under Article 108, the bill does not lapse on dissolution, since the joint sitting mechanism must be allowed to run its course. Hence 1 and 2, which is (b). The general principle is that a bill dies with the House that is dissolved, and the exceptions are bills pending only in the Rajya Sabha and not passed by the Lok Sabha, bills already passed by both Houses and awaiting assent, and bills for which a joint sitting has been notified.

• Statement 1 is incorrect. Prorogation is effected by the President under Article 85, and like almost all presidential functions it is exercised on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers under Article 74. Treating it as a discretionary power is the error the question is built around.
• Statement 2 is correct. In practice prorogation follows adjournment sine die by the presiding officer, but there is no constitutional bar on prorogating a House while it is in session, and this has occurred.
• Statement 3 is correct. Dissolution of the Lok Sabha is likewise a presidential act on ministerial advice, with the qualification that in exceptional situations, such as where the Prime Minister has lost majority support, the President may exercise a measure of discretion. Hence 2 and 3, which is (c).
• Options (a) and (b) require the false claim of unadvised prorogation, and (d) drops the correct point on prorogation practice.

• Statement-I is correct. The European Parliament approved the Net Zero Industry Act, which sets a benchmark of meeting at least forty per cent of the Union's annual deployment needs for strategic net zero technologies from domestic manufacturing by 2030, and forms part of the Green Deal Industrial Plan responding to the United States Inflation Reduction Act.
• Statement-II is incorrect on two counts. The European Union's legally binding climate neutrality target under the European Climate Law is 2050, not 2040, the 2040 figure being an interim emissions reduction milestone rather than the neutrality date. Further, the Act aims at a forty per cent domestic manufacturing benchmark, not at developing all of its own clean technology. Since Statement-I is true and Statement-II is false, (c) is correct.
• Options (a) and (b) require Statement-II to be true, and (d) wrongly rejects Statement-I.

• Statement-I is incorrect. Venezuela has not achieved a rapid recovery. Following years of hyperinflation, contraction of output and collapse of oil production under sanctions and mismanagement, more than seven million Venezuelans have left the country, constituting one of the largest displacement crises in the world and placing heavy burdens on Colombia, Peru and Brazil.
• Statement-II is correct. Venezuela holds the world's largest proven crude oil reserves, of the order of three hundred billion barrels, concentrated in the extra heavy crude of the Orinoco Belt, ahead of Saudi Arabia. The juxtaposition is the point of the question. Vast resource endowment has coexisted with economic collapse, a textbook illustration of the resource curse, since heavy crude is costly to extract and refine and the economy became dangerously undiversified. Hence (d).
• Options (a) and (b) require the false claim of recovery, and (c) inverts both truth values.

• Statement 1 is correct. The programme, launched in 2008 as the National Land Records Modernisation Programme and revamped as a central sector scheme from April 2016, is funded entirely by the Central Government, unlike the earlier centrally sponsored arrangement with State cost sharing.
• Statement 2 is correct. Digitisation of cadastral maps, that is the survey maps showing plot boundaries, is a core component alongside computerisation of the Records of Rights and of the registration process.
• Statement 3 is correct. A transliteration initiative has been undertaken to render Records of Rights from the local language into the other languages recognised in the Eighth Schedule, using automated tools, so as to serve citizens across linguistic regions. Since none can be excluded, (d) is correct and options (a), (b) and (c) each drop a true component.
• Statement 3 is the least familiar and is the reason the question is not trivially easy.

• Statement 2 is correct. The scheme rests substantially on voluntarism, inviting private sector obstetricians, gynaecologists and radiologists to donate services one day a month at nearby government facilities, and it recognises such volunteers formally.
• Statement 1 is incorrect. The scheme provides a fixed day assured, comprehensive and quality antenatal check up on the ninth of every month to pregnant women in their second and third trimesters at government health facilities, but it does not extend to six months of post delivery health care. Post natal care is delivered through other components of the reproductive and child health programme, notably Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram and the LaQshya and SUMAN initiatives. The addition of the post delivery clause is what makes statement 1 fail. Hence (b).
• Options (a) and (c) accept the false post delivery guarantee, and (d) wrongly rejects the volunteer provision.

• Statement 2 is correct. Contributions are age specific, ranging from about fifty five rupees a month for a subscriber joining at eighteen to about two hundred rupees for one joining at forty, with the Central Government making a matching contribution.
• Statement 3 is correct. Subscribers receive an assured minimum pension of three thousand rupees a month on attaining sixty.
• Statement 1 is incorrect. The entry age band is eighteen to forty years, not twenty one to forty, and the scheme is open to unorganised sector workers with monthly income up to fifteen thousand rupees.
• Statement 4 is incorrect. On the death of the subscriber, the spouse is entitled to a family pension of fifty per cent of the pension. The benefit does not extend to unmarried daughters. Hence 2 and 3 only, which is (b).
• Options (a) and (d) both admit the wrong entry age, and (c) drops the correct pension amount.