UPSC 2015 Prelims-GS-I — Previous Year Questions with Answers

Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was launched on 28 August 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a national mission for financial inclusion. It aimed to ensure access to financial services such as basic savings bank accounts, need-based credit, remittances, insurance and pension to the unbanked population in an affordable manner. Account holders received a RuPay debit card with built-in accident insurance cover and an overdraft facility after satisfactory operation. The scheme covered both urban and rural households and was not limited to women, marginalised groups or housing finance, making financial inclusion the defining objective.

The Fourteenth Finance Commission, headed by Y.V. Reddy, recommended raising the share of states in the net proceeds of the central divisible pool from 32 percent to 42 percent, the largest ever increase, so statement 1 is correct. However, departing from earlier commissions, it deliberately did not recommend any sector-specific or state-specific grants, leaving such fiscal transfers to the central government and Planning bodies. It limited itself to tax devolution, revenue deficit grants, local body grants and disaster relief grants, so statement 2 is incorrect. Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Fortaleza Declaration was issued at the conclusion of the Sixth BRICS Summit held in Fortaleza, Brazil in July 2014. The declaration announced the creation of the New Development Bank with an initial authorised capital of one hundred billion United States dollars and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, a currency-swap pool of similar size. It also covered cooperation among Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa on global governance, sustainable development and political coordination. It is therefore associated exclusively with BRICS, not ASEAN, OECD or the World Trade Organization.

The tax to GDP ratio measures total tax revenue collected by the government as a fraction of national income. A persistent fall in this ratio typically signals a slowing economy, since taxes on incomes, profits, production and consumption shrink relative to output, making statement 1 correct. However, the ratio itself says nothing about how the income is distributed across households; equity is determined by the structure of taxation, transfers and the progressivity of rates rather than the aggregate ratio. Therefore statement 2 is not implied, and only statement 1 is correct.

Tropical cyclones require sea surface temperatures above twenty-six degrees Celsius, sufficient Coriolis force away from the equator, low vertical wind shear and a pre-existing zone of convergence such as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone. In the South Atlantic and the South-Eastern Pacific, the ITCZ rarely migrates south of the equator because of cool ocean currents like the Benguela and Humboldt and persistent high-pressure systems. The absence of this convergence zone deprives the region of the organised low-pressure disturbances needed for cyclogenesis, even though land or temperature alone do not fully explain the rarity of cyclones there.

Among Indian states, Arunachal Pradesh contains the easternmost point of the country at Kibithu near the McMahon Line, lying close to longitude ninety-seven degrees twenty-five minutes east. The westernmost point of the Indian mainland lies in the Kachchh district of Gujarat at Guhar Moti, near sixty-eight degrees seven minutes east. Assam lies entirely west of Arunachal Pradesh, while Rajasthan, though far west, is east of Gujarat's coastal extremity. Therefore the pair indicating the easternmost and westernmost states is Arunachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The Directive Principles of State Policy in Part IV of the Constitution articulate the social and economic goals of the polity, including securing a living wage, equal pay, free legal aid, a uniform civil code and protection of the environment. They are widely seen as embodying the ideal of social and economic democracy that complements the political democracy guaranteed by the Fundamental Rights, so statement 1 is correct. Article 37 expressly states that these provisions shall not be enforceable by any court, though they remain fundamental in governance, making statement 2 also correct. Hence both statements are correct.

The Index of Eight Core Industries measures the production performance of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity, which together account for roughly forty percent of the weight in the Index of Industrial Production. Within the core index itself, electricity generation carries the largest weight at about nineteen point eight five percent, followed by steel and refinery products. Coal, fertilisers and the others have smaller weights. Therefore among the options provided, electricity generation is given the highest weight in the Index of Eight Core Industries.

Keibul Lamjao National Park, situated in the south-eastern part of Loktak Lake in Manipur, is the only floating national park in the world. Its terrain consists of phumdis, which are heterogeneous masses of soil, vegetation and organic matter that float on the lake's surface. These swampy phumdis support the last natural habitat of the endangered Eld's deer, locally known as the sangai. Bhitarkanika is mangrove and crocodile habitat, Keoladeo is a freshwater wetland in Bharatpur and Sultanpur is a shallow lake; none of them is a floating swamp, making Keibul Lamjao the unique answer.

The National Innovation Foundation-India was established in March 2000 in Ahmedabad and became an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, in 2014. Its mandate is to scout, document, recognise and reward unaided technological innovations and traditional knowledge developed by grassroots inventors and farmers, helping convert them into viable enterprises. It does not deal with frontier scientific research collaborations between premier Indian institutes and foreign laboratories, which is the work of bodies like SERB or international cooperation programmes. Therefore statement 1 is correct while statement 2 is incorrect.

Excessive use of nitrogenous fertilisers actually inhibits free-living and symbiotic nitrogen-fixing organisms because abundant mineral nitrogen suppresses nitrogenase activity and the formation of root nodules; therefore statement 1 is incorrect. Repeated application of ammonium-based fertilisers releases hydrogen ions during nitrification, which lowers soil pH and increases acidity, so statement 2 is correct. Excess nitrate is highly soluble and is not retained by negatively charged soil colloids, so it leaches into groundwater and contributes to nitrate pollution and eutrophication, making statement 3 correct. Hence only statements 2 and 3 are correct.

The IUCN is not an organ of the United Nations; it is an international membership union of governments and non-governmental bodies founded in 1948, although it holds observer status at the UN, so statement 1 is incorrect. The IUCN runs and supports thousands of field projects globally to manage natural ecosystems and conserve species, making statement 2 correct. CITES, signed in 1973, is legally binding on member parties but does not itself replace national legislation; each party must adopt domestic laws to implement it, so statement 3 is correct. Hence statements 2 and 3 are correct.

The Fair and Remunerative Price for sugarcane is the minimum price at which sugar mills are required to purchase cane from farmers under the Sugarcane (Control) Order, 1966. The price is recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices on the basis of cost of production, returns from alternative crops and the recovery of sugar from cane. The recommendation is then placed before and approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister, before being notified by the central government. Hence the approving authority is the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

Near the equator the prevailing trade winds blow east to west and drive surface waters westward, forming the North Equatorial and South Equatorial currents. Between these two westward streams a narrow band of water piles up against the eastern shores of continents and flows back eastward as the Equatorial Counter Current. This eastward flow is essentially a return current arising from the convergence of the two equatorial currents and the resulting build-up of water. Earth's rotation, salinity differences and the equatorial belt of calm influence general circulation but do not specifically produce this counter-flow.

Srisailam, with the famous Mallikarjuna Jyotirlinga in Andhra Pradesh, is correctly located in the Nallamala Hills of the Eastern Ghats, so pair 1 is correct. Omkareshwar, another Jyotirlinga, lies on Mandhata island in the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh and is associated with the Vindhya range, not the Satmala Hills which lie in Maharashtra, so pair 2 is wrong. Pushkar, with its Brahma temple, is located near the Aravalli range in Rajasthan; the Mahadeo Hills are part of the Satpura system in Madhya Pradesh, so pair 3 is wrong. Only pair 1 is correctly matched.

The Rowlatt Act of 1919 was based on the recommendations of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, so statement 1 is correct. During the Rowlatt Satyagraha, Gandhi mobilised the Satyagraha Sabha he founded for this campaign, not the Home Rule Leagues of Tilak and Annie Besant, which were largely independent organisations; therefore statement 2 is incorrect. The Simon Commission arrived in India only in 1928, almost a decade after the Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919, so the two protests could not have coincided, making statement 3 incorrect. Hence only statement 1 is correct.

The Ebola virus outbreak that drew global attention from 2013 to 2016 was concentrated in West Africa, with the worst affected countries being Guinea, where the outbreak began, Sierra Leone and Liberia. These three countries together accounted for the overwhelming majority of cases and deaths, prompting a coordinated international response and the declaration of a public health emergency by the World Health Organization. Syria and Jordan are in the Middle East, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea are in South-East Asia and Oceania, and Jamaica, Haiti and Suriname are in the Americas; none was associated with the recent Ebola outbreak.

Fly ash from coal-fired power plants is a fine, glassy, pozzolanic material rich in silica and alumina. It is widely used in manufacturing fly ash bricks and blocks, making statement 1 correct. Because of its pozzolanic properties, fly ash can replace a portion of Portland cement in concrete, improving workability and durability while reducing emissions, so statement 2 is correct. However, fly ash is not made up of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide alone; it also contains alumina, iron oxide and traces of toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury and chromium, so statement 3 is incorrect. Only statements 1 and 2 are correct.

The dugong, Dugong dugon, is a strictly herbivorous marine mammal that grazes on seagrass meadows, so statement 1 is correct. In Indian waters it is restricted to specific seagrass habitats in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay off Tamil Nadu, the Gulf of Kachchh in Gujarat and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; it is not found along the entire Indian coast, so statement 2 is incorrect. The species is listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, granting it the highest level of legal protection in India, making statement 3 correct. Hence statements 1 and 3 are correct.

Dadabhai Naoroji, through works like Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, developed the drain of wealth theory criticising colonial economic exploitation. G. Subramania Iyer, founder of The Hindu and Swadesamitran, wrote extensively against British economic policy, the burden of land revenue and discriminatory tariffs. Romesh Chunder Dutt, in the two-volume Economic History of India, documented the deindustrialisation of handicrafts and the impoverishment of agriculture under British rule. All three were leading economic critics of colonialism within the early Indian National Congress, so all three are correct.

The Global Economic Prospects is a flagship report published by the World Bank Group, usually twice a year in January and June. It analyses the outlook for the world economy, growth and investment trends in advanced and emerging market and developing economies, and risks to the outlook from financial conditions, trade and policy uncertainty. Each issue typically includes special analytical chapters on themes such as commodity markets, debt, productivity or the effects of crises. The Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the United States Federal Reserve do not produce this particular report.

The Statutory Liquidity Ratio is the proportion of net demand and time liabilities that scheduled commercial banks must maintain in safe and liquid assets such as government securities, gold and cash. A reduction of fifty basis points releases additional funds that banks would otherwise have parked in such assets, making more resources available for commercial lending. With improved liquidity and lower cost of funds, banks are likely to reduce their lending rates. The change does not directly determine GDP growth, foreign institutional investor flows or aggregate banking liquidity in the dramatic ways suggested by the other options.

Gene therapy involves introducing, altering, or replacing genetic material within a person's cells to treat or prevent disease, including replacing a defective gene with a functional copy.

Wholesale markets for agricultural produce in India are regulated through Agricultural Produce Market Committee Acts enacted by individual state legislatures under the State List entry on markets and fairs. These acts establish notified market yards, regulate the buying and selling of notified commodities, license traders and commission agents and levy market fees. The Essential Commodities Act controls supply, distribution and price of essential goods, the AGMARK Act of 1937 governs grading and marking of farm produce, and the Food Products and Meat Products Orders deal with food processing standards, none of which directly regulate primary agricultural markets.

The Gangetic dolphin, Platanista gangetica, was declared the National Aquatic Animal of India in October 2009 by the National Ganga River Basin Authority. It inhabits the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna river systems and is recognised as an indicator species of river health. The species is listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and is critically threatened by habitat fragmentation, pollution and bycatch. The saltwater crocodile, olive ridley turtle and gharial are protected reptiles but were not designated as the national aquatic animal of India.

The Congress Socialist Party, founded in 1934 within the Indian National Congress under leaders such as Acharya Narendra Dev and Jayaprakash Narayan, advocated socialism within the Congress and worked through the Congress programme rather than separately calling for a boycott of British goods or non-payment of taxes, so statement 1 is wrong. It rejected the Marxist concept of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of democratic socialism, so statement 2 is wrong. It also opposed separate electorates for minorities and oppressed classes, supporting joint electorates instead, so statement 3 is wrong. None of the three statements is correct.

Under Article 109, the Rajya Sabha can neither reject nor amend a Money Bill; it can only make recommendations within fourteen days, and the Lok Sabha may accept or reject them, so statement 1 is correct. Demands for Grants are voted only by the Lok Sabha under Article 113, and the Rajya Sabha has no power to vote on them, so statement 2 is correct. The Annual Financial Statement under Article 112 is laid before both Houses, and the Rajya Sabha can discuss it though it cannot vote on the demands, so statement 3 is incorrect. Hence statements 1 and 2 are correct.

The Government of India Act of 1919, embodying the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, introduced dyarchy in the provinces and, for the first time, drew a clear demarcation between the legislative and administrative subjects of the central and provincial governments. Subjects of all-India importance such as defence, foreign affairs, communications and currency were placed under the centre, while matters such as local self-government, public health, education and agriculture were transferred to the provinces. The Act did not formally establish separation of powers between the judiciary and legislature or precisely demarcate powers between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in this manner.

The Consumer Price Index Number for Industrial Workers is compiled and released by the Labour Bureau, an attached office of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, headquartered at Shimla and Chandigarh. The index measures the change over time in the retail prices of a fixed basket of goods and services consumed by industrial workers in selected centres across the country and is widely used to compute dearness allowance for government and industrial employees and to revise minimum wages. The Reserve Bank of India, the Department of Economic Affairs and the Department of Personnel and Training do not compile this index.

IceCube is a neutrino observatory located at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, and it instruments roughly one cubic kilometre of clear Antarctic ice with thousands of optical sensors, making it the world's largest neutrino detector, so statement 1 is correct. By detecting high-energy neutrinos, the facility also functions as a tool to search for indirect signatures of dark matter and astrophysical sources, so statement 2 is correct. The strings of detectors are buried at depths between roughly fifteen hundred and twenty-five hundred metres in the ice, so statement 3 is correct. Hence all three statements are correct.

The Agreement on Agriculture and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures are core agreements administered by the World Trade Organization, both arising out of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994. The Peace Clause refers to special protection given by WTO members to certain public stockholding programmes for food security in developing countries, especially after the Bali Ministerial Conference in 2013. The Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Environment Programme do not negotiate these specific instruments.

Near Field Communication is a short-range, contactless wireless technology that uses electromagnetic radio fields rather than radio waves transmitted over distance, so statement 1 is correct. NFC is designed to work over very short distances, typically only a few centimetres, not as much as a metre, so statement 2 is incorrect. NFC supports encryption and secure channels and is widely used in payments, ticketing and identification where sensitive information must be protected, so statement 3 is correct. Hence only statements 1 and 3 are correct, while the maximum-range claim in statement 2 is wrong.

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau in south-western Syria overlooking the upper Jordan valley and the Sea of Galilee. Israel captured most of the area from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and effectively annexed it in 1981, a move not recognised by the United Nations. The region remains a flashpoint in the wider Arab-Israeli and Syrian conflict and is associated with disputes over water resources, security and sovereignty in the Middle East. It is therefore linked to events in the Middle East rather than Central Asia, South-East Asia or Central Africa.

Convertibility of a currency, including the Indian rupee, refers to the freedom to convert it into other currencies and vice versa at market-determined exchange rates. Full convertibility implies no restrictions on conversions for trade in goods and services or for capital account transactions such as investments and loans. India has full current account convertibility but only partial capital account convertibility. The other options describe gold backing, free floating of the exchange rate or development of an international currency market, which are related ideas but do not capture the precise meaning of rupee convertibility.

Champaka was an early medieval kingdom in the Chamba region of present-day Himachal Pradesh in the western Himalayas, not central India, so pair 1 is wrong. Durgara, mentioned in inscriptions and chronicles, lay in the Jammu region and is regarded as the historic root of the name Dogra, so pair 2 is correctly matched. Kuluta corresponds to the Kullu valley in modern Himachal Pradesh, not the Malabar coast in Kerala, so pair 3 is wrong. Therefore only pair 2 is correctly matched, and the answer is option b.

The Vamsadhara is an independent east-flowing river that rises in Odisha and discharges into the Bay of Bengal near Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh; it is not a tributary of the Godavari, so 1 is wrong. The Indravati, rising in Odisha and flowing through Chhattisgarh, joins the Godavari and is one of its major tributaries, so 2 is correct. The Pranahita, formed by the confluence of the Wardha and the Wainganga in central India, is the largest tributary of the Godavari, so 3 is correct. The Pennar is an independent peninsular river, so 4 is wrong. Hence only 2 and 3 are correct.

When there is a deadlock between the two Houses on a non-money, non-constitutional bill, the President under Article 108 may summon a joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, presided over by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. At the joint sitting, the bill is deemed to be passed if it is supported by a simple majority of the total number of members of both Houses present and voting. There is no requirement of a two-thirds, three-fourths or absolute majority of the total membership of the Houses for such a sitting under Article 108.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands display a remarkable range of forest types within a small archipelago. The coasts and creeks support extensive mangrove forests, the interior of the larger islands carries tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen rainforests, and there are also patches of moist deciduous and littoral forests. North Coastal Andhra Pradesh has tropical dry deciduous forests with limited mangroves, South-West Bengal is dominated by deciduous forests, and Southern Saurashtra is largely dry scrub with small mangrove pockets near the Gulf of Kachchh, but none of these has the full combination of mangrove, evergreen and deciduous forests.

Buddha's life was closely associated with the great kingdoms of the middle Ganga plain, especially Kosala, with its capital at Shravasti where he frequently resided, and Magadha, ruled by Bimbisara and later Ajatashatru, who were among his prominent royal patrons. Avanti in central India and Gandhara in the north-west were among the sixteen mahajanapadas of the period but were not the principal centres of Buddha's missionary activity nor closely linked to the events of his life as recorded in the canonical texts. Therefore Kosala and Magadha alone are correctly associated with the life of the Buddha.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1987 under the Vienna Convention and is dedicated specifically to controlling and phasing out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons, halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. The Bretton Woods Conference established the IMF and World Bank, the Kyoto Protocol deals with greenhouse gas emissions under the climate convention, and the Nagoya Protocol governs access and benefit sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Hence Montreal Protocol is the correct association with ozone-depleting substances.

Babur's victories at Panipat in 1526 and Khanwa in 1527 demonstrated the decisive use of field artillery and matchlock firearms, accelerating the wider adoption of gunpowder weaponry in northern India, so statement 1 is correct. The arch and dome had already been introduced in Indian architecture by the Delhi Sultanate from the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries onwards, well before Babur, so statement 2 is incorrect. Babur was a descendant of Timur and his arrival established the Timurid line in India, the dynasty later known as the Mughals, so statement 3 is correct. Hence only 1 and 3 are correct.

The National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog, was established by a Cabinet resolution on 1 January 2015 to replace the Planning Commission, which had been set up in 1950 and had functioned for over six decades. NITI Aayog is intended to act as a policy think-tank and to foster cooperative federalism through structured engagement with the states. The Human Rights Commission, Finance Commission and Law Commission are independent statutory or constitutional bodies with their own mandates and were not abolished or replaced by NITI Aayog. Hence the body replaced is the Planning Commission.

Rio+20 refers to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012. The conference marked twenty years since the 1992 Earth Summit, also held in Rio, and assessed progress on sustainable development. Its outcome document, titled The Future We Want, set in motion the process that led to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015. It was not a WTO ministerial meeting, an IPCC plenary or a Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, even though all those forums also address related global issues.

Under Article 53 of the Constitution, the executive power of the Union is vested in the President of India and is exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him, in accordance with the Constitution. It is not vested in the Prime Minister, although the Prime Minister, as head of the Council of Ministers, exercises real executive authority. There is no constitutional or statutory provision making the Prime Minister the ex officio Chairman of the Civil Services Board. Therefore both statements 1 and 2 are incorrect, and the answer is neither 1 nor 2.

In astronomy and astrobiology the term Goldilocks Zone, also called the circumstellar habitable zone, refers to the range of orbital distances around a star within which a rocky planet could maintain liquid water on its surface, given a suitable atmosphere. The zone is neither too hot nor too cold, hence the name borrowed from the children's tale. It is widely used in the search for Earth-like exoplanets by missions such as Kepler. It does not refer to a habitable zone above the Earth, shale gas reserves inside the Earth, or regions where meteorites bearing precious metals are concentrated.

In April 1930, while Gandhi led the famous Dandi March in Gujarat, C. Rajagopalachari organised a parallel salt satyagraha along the Tanjore coast in present-day Tamil Nadu. He led a march from Tiruchirappalli to Vedaranyam, a coastal village, where volunteers broke the salt law by collecting and making salt from sea water. The campaign drew large crowds and significant arrests and helped extend the Civil Disobedience Movement into the Madras Presidency. V.O. Chidambaram Pillai was associated with the earlier Swadeshi steam navigation, K. Kamaraj rose later, and Annie Besant was not involved in the Tanjore salt march.

Harihara I, along with his brother Bukka, founded the city of Vijayanagara in 1336 on the southern bank of the Tungabhadra, a tributary of the Krishna. According to tradition recorded in chronicles, the brothers were inspired by the sage Vidyaranya and consecrated the kingdom in the name of the deity Virupaksha, ruling as the agent of the god to whom all the territory south of the Krishna was dedicated. Amoghavarsha I was a Rashtrakuta ruler, Ballala II was a Hoysala king and Prataparudra II ruled the Kakatiyas; none of them founded Vijayanagara in this manner.

Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (W.C. Bonnerjee) was the first president of the Indian National Congress at its first session in Bombay in 1885.

The Green Climate Fund was set up in 2010 within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the main multilateral channel for climate finance to support developing countries in adaptation and mitigation actions, so statement 1 is correct. The Fund operates as an entity of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC and is governed by its own Board; it was not founded under the joint aegis of UNEP, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, although the World Bank serves as its interim trustee. Therefore only statement 1 is correct.

The Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2014 was conferred on the Indian Space Research Organisation in recognition of its contributions to advancing science and technology, particularly the success of the Mars Orbiter Mission, the development of indigenous launch vehicles and the use of space-based applications for development, communication, navigation and disaster management. The prize is awarded annually by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust to individuals or organisations whose work has significantly advanced these themes. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the Indian Institute of Science and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research were not the recipients in that year.

The Cabinet Mission of 1946, comprising Pethick-Lawrence, Stafford Cripps and A.V. Alexander, proposed a three-tier federal structure for India consisting of the Union, groups of provinces and the provinces themselves, with limited powers for the centre, so statement 1 is correct. The mission's plan dealt mainly with constitutional arrangements, the formation of an interim government and a Constituent Assembly, but did not deal with enlarging the powers of Indian courts, so statement 2 is incorrect. It also did not specifically provide for greater Indian representation in the ICS, so statement 3 is incorrect. Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim covers an exceptional altitudinal range, from about sixteen hundred metres in the lower valleys to over eighty-five hundred metres at the summit of Khangchendzonga. As a result, its climate ranges from tropical and subtropical conditions in the foothill forests to temperate broadleaf and conifer forests at intermediate elevations and to alpine and arctic conditions on the high glaciers and peaks. Nanda Devi, Neora Valley and Namdapha are biodiversity-rich parks but do not display this entire tropical-to-arctic gradient within their boundaries, making Khangchendzonga the unique answer.

Amnesty International is a non-governmental, global human rights movement founded in London in 1961 by the British lawyer Peter Benenson. Its mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of human rights, including freedom of expression, fair trials, abolition of the death penalty and protection from torture. It is funded primarily by individual members and donors, not by governments. It is not a United Nations refugee agency, a charity for the very poor, or an inter-governmental medical relief organisation, distinguishing it clearly from agencies like UNHCR or Médecins Sans Frontières.

The rock-cut elephant at Dhauli in Odisha is associated with Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan period in the third century BCE and stands near the Dhauli edicts overlooking the Daya river, marking the site of the Kalinga War. The Varaha image at Udayagiri caves dates to the early Gupta period in the fifth century CE, the rock-cut monuments at Mahabalipuram were created by the Pallavas in the seventh century CE, and the Lingaraja temple at Bhubaneswar belongs to the early eleventh century. The Dhauli elephant is therefore the earliest of the four monuments listed.

The classical Indian feudal system that historians describe for the early medieval period was characterised by a weakening, not strengthening, of central political authority and the rise of powerful provincial and local lords, so statement 1 is incorrect. It featured an administrative structure based on the assignment, control and possession of land grants, where land became the principal unit of revenue, service and patronage, so statement 2 is correct. It also gave rise to a hierarchical lord-vassal relationship between feudal lords and their overlords through obligations of military service and tribute, so statement 3 is correct. Hence only 2 and 3 are correct.

The BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes is managed by the World Bank as a multilateral fund that supports large-scale efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the land use sector, including reduced deforestation and forest degradation, smarter agriculture, and better land management. The fund pools contributions from donor governments and works with developing countries to design and pilot results-based payment programmes for sustainable land use. It is not administered by the Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund or the United Nations Environment Programme, although these institutions also support climate and forest related work.

India is not a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, since APEC has had a moratorium on new members and India's applications have not been admitted, so item 1 is wrong. India is not a member of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, although it is a Dialogue Partner and engages closely through ASEAN-led mechanisms, so item 2 is also wrong. India is, however, a founding member of the East Asia Summit, which was launched in 2005 and brings together ASEAN with eight partners including India, China, Japan and the United States, so only item 3 is correct.

India has substantial reserves of iron ore but is significantly deficient in good quality coking coal needed for blast furnaces in integrated steel plants. Most domestic coking coal has high ash content, so steel makers depend heavily on imported coking coal, primarily from Australia, the United States and Canada. Saltpetre, used in fertiliser and explosives, and rock phosphate, used in phosphatic fertilisers, are not raw materials for steel production. Therefore among the options listed, the steel industry's principal import is coking coal, making option c the correct answer rather than all of the above.

The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution provides for the administration and control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in any state other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, including Tribes Advisory Councils and special powers of the Governor. The Sixth Schedule contains provisions for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram through autonomous district and regional councils with legislative, executive and judicial powers. Both schedules are designed to safeguard the social, economic and cultural interests of Scheduled Tribes and not to fix interstate boundaries, define Panchayat powers or protect all border states.

The Union Budget is prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance, working with the Department of Expenditure and other ministries; the Department of Revenue handles tax policy and administration but does not prepare the budget, so statement 1 is incorrect. Under Article 266, no money can be appropriated out of the Consolidated Fund of India except in accordance with law and authorisation by Parliament, so statement 2 is correct. The Public Account, however, deals largely with deposits and trust money and does not require parliamentary authorisation for disbursements, so statement 3 is incorrect. Only statement 2 is correct.

The Supreme Court of India is regarded as the custodian of the Constitution because it is vested under Articles 32, 131, 132, 136 and 137 with the power of judicial review and the protection of fundamental rights. It interprets the Constitution authoritatively, strikes down laws and executive actions inconsistent with it, and ensures that the Union and states act within their constitutional limits. While the President is the formal head of state, the Prime Minister is the head of government, and the Lok Sabha Secretariat assists Parliament, none of them performs the role of guardian of the Constitution.

The Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme was launched in 1996-97 by the central government to provide financial assistance to states for completing ongoing major and medium irrigation projects, not as a loan scheme to individual poor farmers, so statement 1 is incorrect. The Command Area Development Programme was launched in 1974-75 to improve the utilisation of created irrigation potential, with emphasis on field channels, water courses, on-farm development and improving water-use efficiency in command areas of irrigation projects, so statement 2 is correct. Therefore only statement 2 is correct.

The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, formerly known as the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, functions as the apex regulatory body for activities involving large-scale use of hazardous microorganisms and recombinants in research and industrial production, including release of genetically modified organisms and products into the environment. It is constituted under the Rules for the Manufacture, Use, Import, Export and Storage of Hazardous Microorganisms and Genetically Engineered Organisms or Cells, 1989, framed under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. It is not constituted under the Food Safety and Standards Act, the Geographical Indications Act or the Wildlife Protection Act.

The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation, launched in November 2000, is an initiative of six countries: India, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Its focus is on cooperation in tourism, culture, education and transport, leveraging the civilisational links between the Ganga and Mekong basins. Bangladesh and China are not members, although both are geographically close, so among the options listed both 1 (Bangladesh) and 3 (China) are not participants. Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand are members, so they are participants. Hence the correct answer identifying non-participants is 1 and 3.

Basel III is the third in a series of international regulatory accords issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in response to the deficiencies in financial regulation revealed by the global financial crisis of 2007-09. It seeks to strengthen the banking sector's ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress by raising the quantity and quality of capital, introducing a leverage ratio, and prescribing liquidity standards and stronger risk management. It does not deal with biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions or the transfer of refrigeration technology, ruling out the other options.

Westerlies are winds that blow from the subtropical high-pressure belts towards the subpolar low-pressure belts, that is, between roughly thirty degrees and sixty degrees latitude in both hemispheres, not between thirty degrees north and sixty degrees south, so statement 1 is incorrectly worded. The winter rains in the north-western parts of India, often called western disturbances, are extra-tropical low-pressure systems embedded in the upper-level subtropical westerly jet that originate over the Mediterranean and Caspian regions and travel eastwards, so they are part of the westerlies, making statement 2 correct. Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation, now called IORA, was established in 1997, well before the recent surge in piracy or major oil spills in the region, so statement 1 is incorrect. It is a multi-sector grouping of Indian Ocean rim states focused on trade and investment facilitation, fisheries, disaster risk management, tourism, academic and scientific cooperation, and maritime safety; it is not an alliance dedicated solely to maritime security, so statement 2 is also incorrect. Therefore neither statement 1 nor statement 2 is correct.

The Swadeshi Movement, launched in response to Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal in 1905, gave rise to a sharp ideological divide within the Indian National Congress over methods of agitation and the limits of constitutional politics. The differences between the moderates led by Gopal Krishna Gokhale and the extremists led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai culminated in the famous Surat split of 1907. The Quit India, Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements came later and were not the immediate cause of the moderate-extremist division, so the correct answer is the Swadeshi Movement.

The unique living root bridges, locally known as jingkieng dieng jri, are found in the East Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, particularly in the Cherrapunji and Mawlynnong areas. The Khasi and Jaintia communities patiently train the aerial roots of Ficus elastica, the Indian rubber tree, across streams and rivers using betel-nut trunks, hollow bamboo and woven scaffolds. Over decades the roots intertwine and thicken, eventually forming durable bridges that strengthen with age. Such bridges are not characteristic of Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand or Tamil Nadu, making Meghalaya the only correct answer.

Tides are produced by the gravitational attraction of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's water bodies, with the Moon's pull being roughly twice as strong because of its proximity, even though it is much smaller. In addition, the rotation of the Earth-Moon system around their common centre of mass generates a centrifugal force on the Earth's surface, contributing to the bulge of water on the side of the Earth opposite to the Moon. The combined effects of solar gravity, lunar gravity and the centrifugal force generate tides, so all three factors are correct.

Indian Remote Sensing satellites carry multispectral and microwave sensors used for surveying natural resources and monitoring the environment. Their imagery is widely used to assess crop area, condition and productivity through programmes such as FASAL, to identify potential groundwater zones in conjunction with hydrogeological data, and to support mineral exploration through structural and lithological mapping. Telecommunications and traffic monitoring depend on dedicated communication satellites such as the INSAT and GSAT series and on terrestrial systems, not on remote sensing satellites. Hence only activities 1, 2 and 3 are part of the IRS application portfolio.

Tropical wet evergreen forests in India occur in regions with annual rainfall above two hundred centimetres and short dry seasons, mainly along the windward slopes of the Western Ghats, parts of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the eastern Himalayan and north-eastern hill region. Within the listed states, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram fall in the eastern Himalayan and north-eastern belt where wet evergreen forests occur, so 1 and 3 are correct. Himachal Pradesh, in the western Himalayas, is dominated by temperate, sub-alpine and alpine forests rather than tropical wet evergreen forests, so 2 is incorrect.

IndARC is India's first underwater moored observatory in the Arctic region, deployed in July 2014 in Kongsfjorden, a fjord on the western coast of Svalbard, Norway. The observatory was developed by the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Goa, in collaboration with the National Institute of Ocean Technology and ESSO, and carries sensors that record temperature, salinity, currents and other parameters of the water column at multiple depths. Its goal is to study Arctic processes and their influence on the Indian monsoon and climate. It is not a radar, a satellite or an Antarctic station.

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, launched at the Bali climate conference in 2007 and managed by the World Bank, is a global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society organisations and indigenous peoples working on REDD+ activities, so statement 1 is correct. The facility provides financial and technical support to participating developing countries for designing and implementing strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, so statement 3 is correct. It is not, however, designed to fund universities, individual scientists or institutions undertaking forestry research; that is not its mandate, so statement 2 is incorrect. Hence only 1 and 3 are correct.

Odia was accorded classical language status by the Government of India in 2014, following an expert committee recommendation that found it satisfied the criteria of antiquity of literary tradition, originality and a body of texts considered a heritage by generations of speakers. With this recognition, Odia became the sixth language to be designated as a classical language of India, after Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. Konkani, Bhojpuri and Assamese had not been granted classical status at the time of this examination, although there have been demands for similar recognition.

BirdLife International is a global partnership of national conservation organisations dedicated to protecting birds, their habitats and biodiversity, with partners in more than one hundred countries, so statement 1 is correct. The biodiversity hotspots concept was developed by the British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988 and is now associated mainly with Conservation International, not BirdLife International, so statement 2 is incorrect. BirdLife International identifies and monitors Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas around the world to guide site-based conservation, so statement 3 is correct. Hence only statements 1 and 3 are correct.

Among the south-west Asian countries listed, Syria, Lebanon and Israel all have coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea. Jordan, by contrast, is largely landlocked; its only sea outlet is on the Gulf of Aqaba, an arm of the Red Sea, near the port of Aqaba in the south. Jordan does not touch the Mediterranean at any point, despite sharing borders with countries that do. Therefore among the four options, Jordan is the south-west Asian country that does not open out to the Mediterranean Sea, making option b the correct answer.

Teak, Tectona grandis, is a hardwood species characteristic of tropical moist deciduous forests in India, which occur in regions receiving annual rainfall between one hundred and two hundred centimetres with a marked dry season. Major teak-bearing tracts are found in central India, the Western Ghats and parts of southern peninsular India, especially in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. Teak does not dominate tropical evergreen rain forests, tropical thorn scrub or temperate forests with grasslands; those forest types support different species such as ebony, acacia and oak respectively. Hence option a is correct.

The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held under the auspices of the United Nations in Beijing in September 1995. It set out a comprehensive global agenda for advancing women's rights and gender equality, identifying twelve critical areas of concern such as poverty, education, health, violence against women, armed conflict, the economy, decision-making and the girl child. It is widely regarded as a foundational framework for women's empowerment policies. It is unrelated to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum or wildlife trafficking initiatives.

The passage describes daily weather marked by uniform high temperatures, abundant convectional cloud development by afternoon, brief but intense thunderstorms with lightning, and rapid clearing, all of which are characteristic of the equatorial climate. Such regions, lying within roughly five degrees north and south of the equator, experience strong insolation, high humidity and the diurnal pattern of morning brightness, midday heat, late afternoon convective rain and evening calm. Savannah, monsoon and Mediterranean climates have pronounced seasonal contrasts and do not display this near-identical daily routine throughout the year, making the equatorial region the correct answer.

Real GDP growth in India did not increase steadily through the decade preceding 2015; growth peaked around 2007-08 at over nine percent, fell sharply during the global financial crisis, recovered briefly and then slowed again before recovering in the years immediately preceding the exam. Hence statement 1 is incorrect. Nominal GDP at market prices in rupees, on the other hand, has risen continuously year after year over the same period because of growth combined with inflation, even when real growth fluctuated. Therefore statement 2 is correct, and only statement 2 is correct.

Under Article 171 of the Constitution, the strength of a State Legislative Council shall not exceed one-third of the total number of members in the Legislative Assembly of that state and shall in no case be less than forty. Hence the Council cannot be larger than half the Assembly, and statement 1 is incorrect. The Chairman of the Legislative Council is elected by the members of the Council itself from among themselves and is not nominated by the Governor; the Governor's role is limited to nominating one-sixth of the members. Therefore statement 2 is also incorrect.

The duty to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India is enumerated as one of the Fundamental Duties of every citizen under Article 51A of the Constitution, specifically clause (c). The Fundamental Duties were inserted by the Forty-second Constitutional Amendment Act of 1976 on the recommendations of the Swaran Singh Committee, drawing on similar provisions in other constitutions. Although related ideals of unity and integrity also appear in the Preamble, the precise provision quoted in the question, framed as a duty to uphold and protect, comes from the Fundamental Duties.

An ecosystem is a functional unit of nature in which living organisms, including plants, animals and microorganisms, interact with each other and with the non-living physical and chemical components of their environment such as soil, water, air, temperature and sunlight. The interactions involve flows of energy and the cycling of nutrients between biotic and abiotic components. Option a defines a community, option b defines the biosphere and option d describes the flora and fauna of a region without including the abiotic environment. Hence the correct definition is a community of organisms together with the environment in which they live.

The fundamental object of the Panchayati Raj system, particularly after the seventy-third Constitutional Amendment of 1992, is to ensure people's participation in development by bringing decision-making closer to the village level and to realise democratic decentralisation through institutions of local self-government with constitutional status. Political accountability of elected representatives and financial mobilisation through local taxes and grants are important consequences but are means and outcomes rather than the core objectives. Therefore statements 1 and 3 are the fundamental objectives, and the correct answer is option c, with statements 2 and 4 being incidental rather than basic.

Monetary policy uses instruments controlled by the central bank to influence the supply, cost and availability of money and credit. The bank rate, that is the rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to commercial banks against approved securities, and open market operations, where the central bank buys or sells government securities to inject or absorb liquidity, are classic instruments of monetary policy, so 1 and 2 are correct. Public debt and public revenue, on the other hand, are tools of fiscal policy operated by the government through borrowing and taxation, so 3 and 4 are not part of monetary policy.

Inflation is broadly the result of an excess of aggregate demand over aggregate supply, often associated with too much money chasing too few goods. Reducing the amount of money in circulation, for example through tighter monetary policy, higher interest rates or a higher cash reserve ratio, tends to dampen demand and helps to control inflation. The other options are wrong because the responsibility for managing inflation is shared between the government and the Reserve Bank of India, the RBI plays a central role through its monetary policy framework, and increased money circulation typically aggravates rather than reduces inflation.

Under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, only those states that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967 are recognised as Nuclear Weapon States. Five countries meet this criterion: the United States, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, France and China. Among the options listed in the question, only China and France are recognised Nuclear Weapon States by the NPT. India and Pakistan, though they possess nuclear weapons, are not parties to the NPT, and Israel has neither confirmed nor signed the treaty. Hence only 1 and 2 are correct.

The concept of the welfare state in the Indian Constitution is enshrined primarily in Part IV, the Directive Principles of State Policy, drawn from the Irish Constitution. Articles such as 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45 and 47 direct the state to secure a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, prevails; to minimise inequalities of income, status and opportunity; and to provide work, education, public assistance, decent conditions of work and adequate nutrition. The Preamble articulates the broad aspiration, but the specific welfare-state directives are found in the Directive Principles. Hence option b is correct.

Replacing wooden ploughs with steel ploughs increases the productivity and effectiveness of capital, the plough, used in agricultural production while leaving the labour input largely unchanged. In growth theory this is described as capital-augmenting technological progress because the same unit of capital now embodies a higher level of productive efficiency. It is not labour-augmenting, since labour productivity rises only indirectly through better tools, nor capital-reducing, because capital is still required and is in fact made more effective rather than diminished. Hence the substitution illustrates capital-augmenting technological progress.

A parliamentary system is defined by the principle of collective responsibility of the executive to the popularly elected lower house of the legislature. In India, under Article 75(3), the Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha and stays in office only as long as it enjoys the confidence of that House. Direct election of the Lok Sabha, parliamentary power to amend the Constitution and the non-dissolution of the Rajya Sabha are features of Indian parliamentary democracy but are not the defining elements of a parliamentary system as opposed to a presidential one.

The H1N1 virus is a subtype of influenza A virus that was responsible for the 2009 swine flu pandemic. The strain combined genetic material from human, avian and swine influenza viruses and spread rapidly across the world, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic. In India, recurrent outbreaks of swine flu have been reported in subsequent years, leading to seasonal advisories and vaccination drives. AIDS is caused by HIV, bird flu by H5N1 and related avian strains, and dengue by a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, so H1N1 is specifically associated with swine flu.

The bio-toilets installed in Indian Railways coaches use a consortium of anaerobic bacteria, not a fungal inoculum, to break down human waste in stainless-steel tanks beneath the toilets, so statement 1 is incorrect. The decomposition produces methane and carbon dioxide as gases, along with water; ammonia and water vapour are not the only end products and the system is designed to release relatively odourless gases and treated water rather than ammonia, so statement 2 is also incorrect. Therefore neither statement is correct, and the correct answer is option d.

International liquidity refers to the stock of internationally accepted means of payment available to countries to settle their balance of payments deficits and meet their external obligations. These reserves take the form of hard currencies such as the United States dollar, the euro, the pound sterling and the yen, along with gold and Special Drawing Rights at the International Monetary Fund. A problem of international liquidity therefore arises when countries lack adequate access to such hard currencies. Goods and services, gold and silver alone, or exportable surplus do not by themselves constitute international liquidity in the strict sense.

A fuel cell generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction between a fuel, typically hydrogen, and an oxidant such as oxygen. When pure hydrogen is used, the only by-products are water and heat, so statement 1 is correct. Fuel cells of various sizes can power not only buildings and vehicles but also small portable devices including laptops and mobile chargers, so statement 2 is incorrect. The output of a fuel cell is direct current, which is then converted to alternating current using inverters when needed; fuel cells themselves do not produce alternating current, so statement 3 is also incorrect.

Kalamkari is a traditional form of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile produced mainly in Andhra Pradesh, particularly at Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam. The name is derived from the Persian words kalam, meaning pen, and kari, meaning craftsmanship, reflecting the use of a tamarind-twig pen for outlining. Designs typically depict episodes from the epics, deities and floral motifs, using natural dyes obtained from plants and minerals. It is not a bamboo handicraft of the north-east, a block-printed woollen cloth of the western Himalayas, or a silk painting of north-western India, all of which are distinct traditions.

The Seed Village Programme, implemented by the central government through state agencies, aims to upgrade the quality of farmer-saved seeds, which still account for the bulk of seed used in many crops. Selected farmers in identified villages are trained in scientific seed production techniques, supplied with certified foundation seed, and supported with critical inputs and processing infrastructure. The seed produced is then made available within the village and to nearby farmers at appropriate times and at affordable prices, raising the use of quality seed and crop productivity. The other options misstate the objective of the programme.

A persistent budget deficit can be reduced by either lowering expenditure or raising revenue. Reducing wasteful revenue expenditure, especially non-merit subsidies and routine spending that does not create assets, brings down the deficit, so action 1 is appropriate. Rationalising subsidies through better targeting, eliminating leakages and shifting to direct benefit transfers also reduces the fiscal burden, so action 3 is appropriate. Introducing new welfare schemes generally increases expenditure rather than reducing the deficit, and merely expanding industries does not directly reduce the deficit and may require additional public investment. Hence only actions 1 and 3 are correct.

Banaras brocades and sarees, the renowned silk weaving tradition of Varanasi, were granted Geographical Indication status in 2009, so item 1 is correct. Tirupathi Laddu, the prasadam offered at the Sri Venkateswara temple at Tirumala, was registered as a Geographical Indication in 2009, recognising its unique recipe and exclusive preparation by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, so item 3 is correct. Rajasthani Daal-Baati-Churma, despite being a celebrated regional cuisine, has not been accorded Geographical Indication status, so item 2 is incorrect. Therefore only items 1 and 3 have been granted GI tags.

The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited, IREDA, was incorporated in 1987 as a Public Limited Government Company under the Companies Act, fully owned by the Government of India and administered under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, so statement 1 is correct. It is also registered with the Reserve Bank of India as a Non-Banking Financial Company, with its primary mandate being to promote, develop and finance new and renewable sources of energy and energy-efficiency projects, so statement 2 is correct. Hence both statements about IREDA are correct.