Current Affairs 30 September 2026: Today's GK & MCQs

The correct answer is A, 297. The Constitution (Fortieth Amendment) Act, 1976 rewrote Article 297 so that all lands, minerals and other things of value lying in the territorial waters, the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone of India vest in the Union and are held for the purposes of the Union. The same amendment empowered Parliament to fix the limits of these maritime zones from time to time, and it also added a large number of state land-ceiling laws to the Ninth Schedule to protect them from court challenge. B is wrong because Article 248 deals with the residuary powers of legislation, which rest with Parliament. C is wrong because Article 245 sets out the extent of the laws made by Parliament and by State legislatures. D is wrong because Article 226 gives every High Court the power to issue writs. Exam tip: Article 297 – things of value in the territorial waters and the exclusive economic zone vest in the Union; widened by the 40th Amendment, 1976.

The correct answer is C, Grammy. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt won the Grammy Award in 1994 for the album A Meeting by the River, which he recorded with the American slide guitarist Ry Cooder in the world music category. Bhatt, a musician of the Jaipur gharana and a disciple of Pandit Ravi Shankar, is best known for building the Mohan Veena, a Hawaiian guitar rebuilt with about twenty strings so that it can carry the sliding notes and drone of Indian classical music. He was later honoured with the Padma Shri. A is wrong because Sangita Kalanidhi is the highest award of the Madras Music Academy, given for Carnatic music. B is wrong because the Oscar, or Academy Award, is given for films, not for a music album of this kind. D is wrong because the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award is a national honour for music, dance and drama given in India, and it is not the 1994 award named in the question. Exam tip: Vishwa Mohan Bhatt – Mohan Veena, Grammy 1994 for A Meeting by the River with Ry Cooder.

The correct answer is C, Kakrapar. The Kakrapar Atomic Power Station stands in Surat district of Gujarat, on the bank of the Tapi, and is run by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India. It uses pressurised heavy water reactors, and its third unit is the first 700 MWe reactor of Indian design to be built, a bigger version of the 220 MWe units used earlier. India's other nuclear stations include Tarapur in Maharashtra, the oldest, Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, Narora in Uttar Pradesh, Kaiga in Karnataka and Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. A is wrong because Hirakud, on the Mahanadi in Odisha, is a large dam with a hydroelectric station, not an atomic one. B is wrong because Naharkatiya in Assam is an oilfield. D is wrong because Tatipaka in Andhra Pradesh has a small oil refinery. Exam tip: Kakrapar – Gujarat, on the Tapi, home of India's first 700 MWe indigenous reactor.

The correct answer is C, Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO). IISCO has its works at Burnpur, near Asansol in West Bengal, on the Kolkata-Asansol railway line, and it became a subsidiary of the Steel Authority of India and was later merged into it, the plant now being run as the IISCO Steel Plant. The site suited iron and steel making because coal came from the Raniganj and Jharia fields close by, iron ore from Singhbhum and Odisha, and water from the Damodar, while the railway carried the finished steel to the port of Kolkata. A is wrong because ESL Steel Limited is a plant at Bokaro in Jharkhand owned by the Vedanta group, not by SAIL. B is wrong because Jindal Steel and Power is a private company of the Jindal group, with its main works at Raigarh in Chhattisgarh. D is wrong because TISCO, now Tata Steel, is a private company with its plant at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. Exam tip: SAIL plants – Bhilai, Durgapur, Rourkela, Bokaro, Burnpur (IISCO) and Salem.

The correct answer is A, Jharkhand. In the Census of 2011 Jharkhand recorded a density of about 414 persons per square kilometre, the highest among the four states named. Density of population means the number of persons living on one square kilometre of land, and it is found by dividing the population of an area by its area. For India as a whole the figure was 382 persons per square kilometre in 2011. Among the states Bihar stood first with about 1,106 persons and Arunachal Pradesh last with only 17, while among all units the National Capital Territory of Delhi was the most crowded. B is wrong because Goa had about 394 persons per square kilometre, a little below Jharkhand. C is wrong because Gujarat had about 308. D is wrong because Maharashtra had about 365, in spite of its large cities, since it is a very large state by area. Exam tip: Census 2011 density – India 382, Bihar highest state, Arunachal Pradesh lowest, Delhi highest among all units.

The correct answer is B, Drosera. Drosera, known as the sundew, is an insect-eating plant whose leaves are covered with stalked glands tipped with a shining drop of sticky fluid. An insect that lands on it is held fast, the tentacles curl over the catch, and enzymes digest the soft parts so that the plant can absorb nitrogen. Carnivorous plants grow in marshy or sandy soils that are poor in nitrogen, and they still make their own food by photosynthesis; the insect only makes up for the missing mineral. The pitcher plant Nepenthes, the bladderwort Utricularia and the Venus flytrap trap their prey in the same way but with different leaf traps. A is wrong because Clarkia is an ordinary garden flower of the evening primrose family. C is wrong because Alyssum is a small ornamental plant of the mustard family. D is wrong because hollyhock is a tall garden plant of the mallow family. Exam tip: insect-eating plants – Drosera (sundew), Nepenthes (pitcher plant), Utricularia, Venus flytrap; they need nitrogen, not food.

The correct answer is C, Champaran. Gandhi's first satyagraha in India was fought in 1917 at Champaran in Bihar, where indigo planters forced tenants to grow indigo on a fixed part of their holding under the tinkathia system. The peasant Rajkumar Shukla persuaded Gandhi to come and see their condition; Gandhi arrived, was ordered to leave, refused, and the government instead set up an enquiry committee with him as a member. Its report ended the tinkathia system and won the peasants part of their money back. A is wrong because the Kheda satyagraha in Gujarat came in 1918, when Gandhi asked for remission of land revenue after crops failed. B is wrong because the Ahmedabad mill workers' struggle, in which Gandhi used a hunger strike for higher wages, also belongs to 1918. D is wrong because the Bardoli satyagraha of 1928 was a no-tax movement led by Vallabhbhai Patel, who earned the title Sardar there. Exam tip: 1917 Champaran, 1918 Ahmedabad and Kheda, 1928 Bardoli.

The correct answer is C, neonatal mortality rate. The neonatal period is the first 28 completed days after birth, and the neonatal mortality rate counts the deaths in that period for every 1,000 live births in a year. It is watched closely because most of these deaths come from a few causes that good care can prevent, such as birth asphyxia, low birth weight, early infection and preterm birth. Within it, deaths in the first seven days are counted separately as early neonatal deaths. A is wrong because the infant mortality rate covers deaths of children below one year of age per 1,000 live births, a wider group. B is wrong because the crude death rate counts all deaths in a year per 1,000 of the whole population, without regard to age. D is wrong because an age-specific mortality rate counts deaths in one chosen age group per 1,000 people of that group. Exam tip: neonatal – within 28 days; infant – within one year; under-five – within five years, all per 1,000 live births.

The correct answer is D, We Command. Mandamus is a Latin word meaning we command, and the writ is an order from a court to a public official, a public body, a corporation or a lower court to perform a public duty it has refused to do. It cannot be issued against a private person, against the President or a Governor, or against a chief justice of a High Court acting in a judicial capacity. The Supreme Court issues writs under Article 32 and the High Courts under Article 226, which is the wider power. A is wrong because you may have the body is the meaning of habeas corpus, the writ used to produce a detained person before a court and test whether the detention is lawful. B is wrong because to be certified is the meaning of certiorari, by which a higher court moves a pending case to itself or quashes an order of a lower body. C is wrong because by what warrant is the meaning of quo warranto, an enquiry into a person's claim to a public office. Exam tip: habeas corpus – produce the body; mandamus – we command; prohibition – stop; certiorari – to be certified; quo warranto – by what authority.

The correct answer is D, Acoustics. Acoustics is the branch of physics that deals with how sound is produced, how it travels and how it is heard or absorbed. The word comes from a Greek root meaning to hear. Sound is a mechanical wave, so it needs a material medium and cannot pass through a vacuum; it travels at about 343 metres per second in air at room temperature and much faster in water and in steel. Acoustics is put to work in designing halls and studios so that echo and noise are controlled, and in sonar, ultrasound scanning and hearing aids. A is wrong because optics is the study of light, its reflection, refraction and the working of lenses and mirrors. B is wrong because photonics deals with the making, control and detection of photons, as in lasers and optical fibres. C is wrong because astrophysics studies the physics of stars, galaxies and the universe. Exam tip: acoustics – sound; optics – light; photonics – photons; seismology – earthquake waves.

The correct answer is B, increase the repo rate. The repo rate is the rate at which the Reserve Bank lends short-term money to banks against government securities. When inflation keeps rising, the Reserve Bank raises this rate, so banks borrow less and charge more on their own loans, spending and demand cool down and prices rise more slowly. Such a step is called a dear money or tight monetary policy, and the decision is taken by the six-member Monetary Policy Committee, which has to keep retail inflation at four per cent within a band of two percentage points on either side. A is wrong because cutting the repo rate makes money cheaper and adds to demand, which is done to lift growth when inflation is low. C is wrong because a lower reverse repo rate makes it less attractive for banks to park money with the Reserve Bank, so more money stays in the market and inflation gets worse. D is wrong because leaving the rate unchanged does nothing about rising prices. Exam tip: inflation high – repo rate up; growth slow – repo rate down.

The correct answer is D, Tropical deciduous forests. Sandalwood is a tree of the tropical deciduous or monsoon forests, and in India it grows best on the dry eastern slopes of the Western Ghats in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Tropical deciduous forests are the most widespread forests of India, found where the yearly rainfall is roughly between 70 and 200 centimetres, and their trees shed their leaves for about six to eight weeks in the dry season to save water. Teak, sal, shisham, sandalwood, khair, mahua and amla belong to them, and they are the most useful of Indian forests for timber. A is wrong because savanna is a tropical grassland with scattered trees, not a forest belt of sandalwood. B and C are wrong because equatorial evergreen forests and tropical rainforests get very heavy rain through the year, are thick and dark, and carry trees such as rosewood, ebony and mahogany instead. Exam tip: tropical deciduous – teak, sal, sandalwood, shisham; evergreen – rosewood, ebony, mahogany.

The correct answer is D, Comptroller and Auditor-General. Article 148 of the Constitution creates the office of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, who audits all receipts and expenditure of the Union and the States and of bodies largely financed from public funds. The President appoints the CAG, who holds office for six years or till the age of 65, whichever comes first, and can be removed only in the manner laid down for a judge of the Supreme Court. The reports go to the President or the Governor, who lays them before Parliament or the State legislature, where the Public Accounts Committee examines them, which is why the CAG is called the guardian of the public purse. A is wrong because the Attorney General, under Article 76, is the highest law officer and advises the government on legal matters. B is wrong because the Advocate General, under Article 165, does the same work for a State. C is wrong because the Union Public Service Commission conducts examinations and advises on recruitment. Exam tip: Article 148 CAG, 76 Attorney General, 165 Advocate General, 315 Public Service Commissions.

The correct answer is B, Nagpur Road Plan. The Nagpur Plan, drawn up at a conference of chief engineers of the provinces and states held at Nagpur in 1943, was the first attempt at planned road development in India and covered the twenty years from 1943 to 1963. It sorted roads into four classes, national highways, state highways, district roads and village roads, laid them out in a star and grid pattern, and set the target of about 16 kilometres of road for every 100 square kilometres of country. A is wrong because there is no Poona Road Plan among India's road development plans. C is wrong because the Bombay Plan, from 1961 to 1981, was the second twenty-year plan and aimed at roughly double that road length. D is wrong because the Lucknow Plan, from 1981 to 2001, was the third such plan, the first prepared after independence by Indian engineers alone, and it brought in the idea of expressways. Exam tip: Nagpur 1943-63 first, Bombay 1961-81 second, Lucknow 1981-2001 third.

The correct answer is D, Brazil – Campos. Campos are the tropical grasslands of the Brazilian Highlands, so this is the only pair in the list that names a tropical grassland. Grasslands are grouped by the climate in which they grow. Tropical grasslands lie near the equator, have a hot climate with a clear wet and dry season, and carry tall coarse grass with scattered trees: the Savanna of Africa, the Llanos of Venezuela and the Campos of Brazil. Temperate grasslands lie in the middle latitudes, have cold winters and shorter grass, and are the world's great wheat and cattle lands. A is wrong because the Steppe of Central Asia is a temperate grassland. B is wrong because the Veld of South Africa is also temperate, spread over a high plateau. C is wrong because the Pampas of Argentina is the temperate grassland famous for wheat farming and cattle ranching. Every pair here names its region correctly; only Campos is tropical. Exam tip: tropical – Savanna, Llanos, Campos; temperate – Steppe, Prairies, Pampas, Veld, Downs.

The correct answer is D, It is upright and smaller than the object. A concave lens is a diverging lens, so for every position of a real object it forms an image that is virtual, erect and diminished. Rays that pass through a concave lens spread out; when they are extended backwards they appear to meet on the same side as the object, between the optical centre and the focus. Such an image cannot be caught on a screen. Because the image is always small and the field of view is wide, a concave lens is used in spectacles for myopia and in the peephole viewer of a door. A and B are wrong because an inverted image is always a real image, and a concave lens never forms one. C is wrong because a concave lens cannot magnify; an erect and enlarged image comes from a convex lens when the object lies between its optical centre and focus. Exam tip: concave lens – virtual, erect and diminished image, always.

The correct answer is C, To increase friction. The grooves cut into a sole grip the ground, so the foot does not slip while walking or running. Friction is the force that acts between two surfaces in contact and opposes motion between them. It becomes larger when the surfaces are rough, which is why the tread of a sole, the grooves of a tyre and the ridges of a bicycle handle are all made rough on purpose. A smooth sole on a wet floor has very little friction, and that is why people slip there. The same rubbing slowly wears the tread away, so an old shoe or tyre grips poorly and has to be replaced. A is wrong because a sole protects the foot by its thickness and material, not by its pattern. B is wrong because less friction would make walking unsafe; oil and ball bearings are used where friction has to be reduced. D is wrong because treading does not lengthen the life of a shoe. Exam tip: rough surface means more friction – treads, grooves and studs are all made to grip.

The correct answer is A, B, D and E, that is landslide, tsunami and floods. An earthquake is the shaking of the ground when energy stored along a fault is suddenly released, and that shaking sets off further hazards. On a steep slope the tremor loosens soil and rock and brings down a landslide. Under the sea, a sudden movement of the ocean floor lifts a huge column of water and sends out a tsunami, as in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. Floods follow when the shaking cracks a dam or an embankment, or when a landslide dams a river and the water later bursts through. Option B is wrong because lightning and thundering are weather events born in tall cumulonimbus clouds and have nothing to do with movement inside the earth. Option C is wrong because it keeps only the landslide and leaves out the tsunami. Option D is wrong because it adds floods but still misses the tsunami. Exam tip: earthquake – landslide, tsunami and dam-burst floods; lightning and thunder belong to a thunderstorm.

The correct answer is C, Satyashodak Samaj – Maharashtra. Jyotirao Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, the Truth Seekers' Society, at Pune in 1873 to fight caste rank and priestly control in Maharashtra. Phule, helped by his wife Savitribai, had already opened schools for girls and for children of the castes then called low, and in his book Gulamgiri he compared the state of the Shudras with that of slaves. The Samaj arranged marriages without Brahmin priests and spoke for peasants, workers and women. A is wrong because the Satnami movement was led by Guru Ghasidas among the leather-working castes of Chhattisgarh, not in Punjab. B is wrong because the Matua sect was started by Harichand Thakur among the Namasudras of Bengal, not in Tamil Nadu. D is wrong because the Arya Samaj was founded by Dayanand Saraswati in 1875 and was strongest in Punjab and north India, not Kerala. Exam tip: Phule – Satyashodhak Samaj, Pune 1873, Gulamgiri; Ghasidas – Satnami, Chhattisgarh.

The correct answer is C, Yeast, amoeba, bacteria. All three are unicellular, which means a single cell carries out every job of life. In a unicellular organism that one cell manages nutrition, respiration, movement and reproduction, while a multicellular body shares the work among tissues and organs. Yeast is a single-celled fungus used in baking and brewing, amoeba is a single-celled protozoan that moves and feeds with pseudopodia, and bacteria are single-celled organisms whose cells have no true nucleus. A is wrong because hydra, though a simple animal, is multicellular, with a body wall and tentacles made of many cells. B is wrong for the same reason, as sea anemone is a multicellular animal of the phylum Cnidaria, even though paramecium and bacteria are single-celled. D is wrong because only paramecium in that group is unicellular; hydra and sea anemone are both multicellular. Exam tip: unicellular – bacteria, amoeba, paramecium, yeast, chlamydomonas; multicellular – hydra, sea anemone, spirogyra.

The correct answer is B, both statements are true, but B is not the correct explanation of A. Chola temples such as the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, built by Rajaraja I, were far more than places of worship. They held land and villages, employed priests, garland makers, cooks, dancers and musicians, ran schools and craft workshops, and even lent money, so the religious, social and cultural life of the region gathered around them. Chola bronzes were cast by the lost wax method and mostly show deities such as Nataraja, Vishnu and Parvati, while a few portray donors and devotees, including saints and members of the royal family. Both statements are correct facts, but the subject matter of the bronzes does not explain why the temples were social centres; their land, wealth and grants do. So option A is wrong. Option C is wrong because Statement B is true, and option D is wrong because Statement A is true. Exam tip: Brihadisvara temple, Thanjavur, Rajaraja I; Chola bronzes by the lost wax method, Nataraja the most famous.

The correct answer is D, Charter Act – 1833. This Act ended the last trading rights of the East India Company, its monopoly of trade with China and of the tea trade, and turned the Company into a purely administrative body holding India in trust for the British Crown. The same Act made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India, with William Bentinck the first to hold that title, gave him alone the power to legislate for the whole of British India, and added a Law Member to his council, a post first held by Macaulay, who led the work on a common code of law. A is wrong because the Regulating Act of 1773 was only the first step towards control, setting up a Supreme Court at Calcutta. B is wrong because Pitt's India Act of 1784 created the Board of Control and the system of dual government. C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1813 opened Indian trade to all British merchants but kept the Company's monopoly of trade with China and in tea. Exam tip: 1813 – Indian trade opened except tea and China; 1833 – that exception also removed.

The correct answer is C, Carbohydrates. The buccal cavity is the mouth, and the saliva poured into it begins the digestion of starch, a carbohydrate. Three pairs of salivary glands supply saliva, which carries the enzyme salivary amylase, also called ptyalin. It works best in a slightly alkaline medium and breaks the long starch chains into the sugar maltose, which is why a piece of bread kept in the mouth slowly tastes sweet. The teeth and tongue help by grinding the food and rolling it into a bolus. A is wrong because protein digestion begins in the stomach, where pepsin works in the acid of hydrochloric acid. B is wrong because the digestion of fat takes place chiefly in the small intestine, where bile from the liver breaks fat into small droplets and pancreatic lipase acts on them. D is wrong because starch digestion clearly does begin in the mouth. Exam tip: mouth – starch by amylase; stomach – protein by pepsin; small intestine – fat by bile and lipase.

The correct answer is A, 1856. The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act was passed in July 1856 and made the remarriage of a Hindu widow lawful, so that the children of such a marriage were treated as legitimate. It came after a long campaign by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, the Sanskrit scholar of Bengal, who argued from the shastras themselves that remarriage was allowed, and who gathered thousands of signatures in its support. The reformer also had to accept a condition in the Act by which a widow who remarried gave up the property she held from her first husband. B is wrong because 1858 is the year of Queen Victoria's Proclamation, which passed the rule of India to the Crown. C is wrong because 1859 is remembered for the Bengal Rent Act and the Indigo revolt, not for this law. D is wrong because 1862 is the year the High Courts were set up at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Exam tip: 1829 sati banned, 1856 widow remarriage allowed, 1891 Age of Consent Act.

The correct answer is B, Geitonogamy. Geitonogamy is pollination between two different flowers borne on the same plant. It is an odd halfway case: because the pollen has to travel from one flower to another it needs an agent such as an insect or the wind, so in working it looks like cross-pollination, yet the pollen comes from the same plant, so genetically it is self-pollination and brings no new variation. A is wrong because autogamy is pollination within the same flower, where pollen falls on the stigma of that very flower, as in pea and wheat. C is wrong because xenogamy is the transfer of pollen to the stigma of a flower on a different plant, and it is the only one of the three that brings genetically different pollen and so gives rise to variation. D is wrong because option B already names the process correctly. Exam tip: autogamy – same flower; geitonogamy – same plant, another flower; xenogamy – another plant.

The correct answer is B, Article 315. Article 315 provides for a Public Service Commission for the Union and a Public Service Commission for each State, and allows two or more States to ask Parliament for a Joint Public Service Commission. It opens Part XIV of the Constitution, which runs from Article 315 to Article 323 and deals with services under the Union and the States. Article 316 covers appointment and tenure, a chairman or member of the UPSC serving six years or till the age of 65 and of a State Commission till 62; Article 317 allows removal only by the President on a report of the Supreme Court; Article 320 lists the functions, mainly conducting examinations and advising on recruitment and discipline. A is wrong because Article 340 lets the President appoint a commission to look into the conditions of backward classes. C is wrong because Article 328 deals with a State legislature's power to make laws on elections to that legislature. D is wrong because Article 238 applied to the old Part B States and was repealed by the Seventh Amendment in 1956. Exam tip: 315 Public Service Commissions, 317 removal, 320 functions, 324 Election Commission.

The correct answer is B, dyne-sec/cm². The poise is the CGS unit of dynamic or absolute viscosity, named after the French physician Jean Poiseuille, and one poise equals one dyne-second per square centimetre, which is the same as one gram per centimetre per second. Dynamic viscosity measures the internal friction of a fluid, the shearing stress needed for a unit rate of shear, so its unit is a stress multiplied by time. In SI the unit is the pascal-second, and one poise equals 0.1 pascal-second. Water at room temperature has a viscosity of about one centipoise, while honey is thousands of times thicker. A is wrong because dyne/cm² is a unit of stress or pressure, with no time in it. C is wrong because gram is a unit of mass, and g-sec/cm² does not reduce to the dimensions of viscosity. D is wrong because gm-cm/sec² is the dyne itself, a unit of force. Exam tip: 1 poise = 1 dyne-s/cm² = 0.1 Pa-s; water is about 1 centipoise.

The correct answer is A, National Green Tribunal. The National Green Tribunal was set up under the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010 to settle cases on the environment, forests, water, air and biodiversity quickly, and India thus became one of the first countries in the world to create a special court of this kind. Its principal bench sits at New Delhi, with other benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai, and it is expected to dispose of a case within six months of filing. The Tribunal is not bound by the Code of Civil Procedure and follows the principles of natural justice, applying the polluter pays principle, the precautionary principle and the idea of sustainable development. It can order compensation, restoration of the environment and the closing of a polluting unit. B, C and D are wrong because they are invented expansions; no body of any of those names exists, and the word in the title is Tribunal, a court-like body, not Tribe. Exam tip: NGT Act 2010, principal bench New Delhi, cases to be decided in six months.

The correct answer is D, Ninety days. Section 22 of the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 allows a person aggrieved by an award, order or decision of the Tribunal to appeal to the Supreme Court within ninety days of the day it is communicated, and the Court may admit a later appeal if it is satisfied that there was sufficient cause for the delay. The Tribunal itself was created in 2010 to hear environmental cases quickly, with its principal bench at New Delhi, and it is expected to decide a case within six months. A is wrong because thirty days is the period within which a person may go to the Tribunal against an order of a body such as a State Pollution Control Board, not the period for an appeal to the Supreme Court. B and C are wrong because the Act fixes no limit of forty-five or sixty days for such an appeal. Exam tip: NGT Act 2010 – thirty days to appeal to the Tribunal, ninety days to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The correct answer is D, Pigou. A.C. Pigou belongs to the welfare group of definitions, not the wealth group. In his book The Economics of Welfare he treated economics as the study of that part of social welfare which can be brought into relation with money, carrying forward the line taken by Alfred Marshall, who called economics a study of people in the ordinary business of life. The wealth definitions came earlier. A is wrong because Adam Smith, in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, called economics the science of wealth and is the father of the wealth definition. B is wrong because J.B. Say described economics as the science which deals with wealth. C is wrong because Francis Walker held that economics is that body of knowledge which relates to wealth. Later Lionel Robbins gave the scarcity definition, treating economics as the study of human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means. Exam tip: wealth – Smith, Say, Walker; welfare – Marshall, Pigou; scarcity – Robbins.

The correct answer is A, Marble. Marble is a non-metallic mineral: no metal can be drawn out of it, and it is used as a building and sculpting stone, the Makrana marble of Rajasthan being the stone of the Taj Mahal. Minerals are first divided into metallic and non-metallic. A metallic mineral yields a metal when smelted and is either ferrous, containing iron, or non-ferrous. A non-metallic mineral has no metal content of that kind, and limestone, mica, gypsum, dolomite, marble and rock salt are the common examples; marble itself is limestone changed by heat and pressure. B is wrong because manganese is a ferrous metallic mineral, used to harden steel and to make dry cells and paints. C is wrong because silver is a non-ferrous metallic mineral, used in jewellery, coins and electrical contacts. D is wrong because lead too is a non-ferrous metal, used in batteries and sheeting. Exam tip: metallic – ferrous such as iron and manganese, non-ferrous such as copper, lead, zinc and silver; non-metallic – limestone, mica, gypsum, marble.

The correct answer is B, Monthly channel. India Post moves its mail through six named channels, and there is no 'Monthly channel' among them. Under the Mail Network Optimisation Project the department separated its traffic so that each kind of article travels on a route with its own time norms. The six are the Metro channel, for mail between the big metro cities; the Rajdhani channel, linking the state capitals; the Green channel, for local mail inside a city; the Business channel, for corporate and bulk business mail; the Periodical channel, for newspapers and magazines; and the Bulk mail channel, for very large mailings. Because of this split, a letter addressed to a metro city does not travel with local city mail. A is wrong because the Metro channel is one of the six. C is wrong because the Rajdhani channel, which joins the capitals, is also one of them. D is wrong because the Business channel handles corporate and bulk mail and is on the list. Exam tip: the six mail channels are Metro, Rajdhani, Green, Business, Periodical and Bulk.

The correct answer is D, land gifted to temples. Chola inscriptions use a separate term for every kind of land grant, and tirunamattukkani is the land whose produce was set apart for a temple. The Cholas ruled the Kaveri delta from the ninth to the thirteenth century and had their land settlements cut into temple walls in Tamil, which is why historians can still name each category. In the same lists, brahmadeya was land given to Brahmanas, vellanvagai was the land of ordinary non-Brahmana peasant owners who paid tax to the state, shalabhoga was land whose income ran a school, and pallichchhandam was land given to Jaina establishments. A is wrong because land gifted to Brahmanas was called brahmadeya. B is wrong because the holdings of non-Brahmana peasant proprietors were vellanvagai. C is wrong because a grant to Jaina institutions was pallichchhandam. Exam tip: brahmadeya to Brahmanas, vellanvagai to peasants, shalabhoga to a school, pallichchhandam to Jainas, tirunamattukkani to a temple.

The correct answer is A, 1905. Lord Curzon announced the partition of Bengal on 19 July 1905 and it came into effect on 16 October 1905, splitting the province into a Muslim-majority eastern half and the rest of Bengal. The reason given in public was that Bengal had grown too large to administer, but the real aim was to weaken the nationalist movement there by dividing Hindus and Muslims. The protest against it began the Swadeshi and boycott movement, in which foreign cloth was burnt and Indian goods, schools and banks were promoted, and Rabindranath Tagore's song Amar Sonar Bangla belongs to those days. The anger was so wide that the partition was finally cancelled in 1911, when the capital was also moved from Calcutta to Delhi. B is wrong because 1901 is the year Queen Victoria died. C is wrong because 1907 is the year of the Surat split in the Congress. D is wrong because 1911 is the year the partition was revoked, not made. Exam tip: announced in 1905 by Curzon, revoked in 1911 under Hardinge.

The correct answer is D, Vernacular Press Act. The Vernacular Press Act was enacted in 1878 by Lord Lytton to silence Indian-language newspapers, which had begun to criticise British rule sharply, especially over the famine and the cost of the Delhi Durbar. It allowed a magistrate to demand a bond and a deposit from the printer of any Indian-language paper and to seize the press if the paper printed anything judged seditious, while English papers were left untouched. Because of this open discrimination it was nicknamed the Gagging Act, and Lord Ripon repealed it in 1882. A is wrong because the Indian Contract Act was passed in 1872. B is wrong because the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act belongs to 1873, when the Company's stock was wound up. C is wrong because the Transfer of Property Act came in 1882, the same year the Vernacular Press Act was withdrawn. Exam tip: Lytton brought the Vernacular Press Act in 1878 and Ripon repealed it in 1882.

The correct answer is D, 100. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 promises every rural household at least 100 days of unskilled manual wage work in a financial year. The scheme began in 200 districts in February 2006, covered the whole country by 2008, and was renamed after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009. Any adult member of a rural household can demand work; the job must be given within fifteen days of the demand and within five kilometres of the village, and if it is not given the state must pay an unemployment allowance. At least one third of the workers are to be women, wages are paid into bank or post office accounts, and the works taken up are mostly water conservation, ponds, roads and land development. A is wrong because 45 days is not the guarantee. B is wrong because 365 days would mean work all year, which the Act never promised. C is wrong because 250 days is not the figure in the law. Exam tip: MGNREGA 2005, 100 days a year, work within 15 days or an unemployment allowance.

The correct answer is B, Tropical monsoon. India's climate is usually called a tropical monsoon type, because the Tropic of Cancer runs across the middle of the country and the seasonal reversal of winds brings almost all of its rain. From June to September the south-west monsoon blows from the sea towards the land and gives about three quarters of the year's rainfall; in winter the north-east monsoon blows from land to sea and leaves most of India dry, although it does water the Tamil Nadu coast. Regional differences are wide, from the wet slopes of Meghalaya to the sands of Rajasthan, yet this rhythm of one wet and one dry season is what gives the whole country its label. A is wrong because a polar climate has long freezing winters and is found near the poles. C is wrong because a desert climate fits only western Rajasthan and not the country. D is wrong because an arid climate again describes a few dry pockets alone. Exam tip: India is tropical monsoon, and the south-west monsoon brings about 75 per cent of the annual rain.

The correct answer is B, Ovum. The female egg cell, or ovum, is the largest cell in the human body. It measures about 100 to 130 micrometres across, roughly the thickness of a hair, and is the only human cell that can just be seen without a microscope. It is this big because it carries the cytoplasm, food store and machinery an embryo needs in its first days, and a girl is born with her whole stock of these cells already formed. A is wrong because the sperm is the smallest human cell, a few micrometres in the head, built only to swim and carry a nucleus. C is wrong because a nerve cell is the longest cell, since a single axon can run about a metre from the spinal cord to the toe, but it is extremely thin and not the largest in volume. D is wrong because an osteoclast, the cell that dissolves bone, is large and has many nuclei yet stays smaller than the ovum. Exam tip: ovum is the largest cell, sperm the smallest and the nerve cell the longest.

The correct answer is A, Nagaland. Moatsu is a festival of the Ao tribe of Nagaland, kept in the first week of May once the fields have been cleared, the seed sown and the seedlings planted. It marks the end of that hard stretch of work and the start of a short rest before the rains, and it runs for about three days with singing, dancing, rice beer and roasted meat. Its best-known part is Sangpangtu, when men and women in their finest dress sit around a large fire and food and drink are shared. It is one of the two chief Ao festivals, the other being Tsungremmong in August. B is wrong because Tripura is known for Garia Puja and Kharchi Puja. C is wrong because Assam is known for Bihu, tied to the harvest and the Assamese new year. D is wrong because West Bengal is known for Durga Puja and Poila Boishakh. Exam tip: Moatsu belongs to the Ao tribe of Nagaland and falls in early May; the Hornbill Festival is the state's December event.

The correct answer is A, Burma. The Reserve Bank of India, which began work on 1 April 1935 on the recommendation of the Hilton Young Commission, was also the central bank of Burma, then part of British India, and it stayed in that role until April 1947, a few months before India became independent. Burma had been separated from India administratively in 1937, yet the RBI continued to manage its currency and banking. In the same way it served as central bank for Pakistan until June 1948, while the State Bank of Pakistan was being set up. The RBI itself was nationalised on 1 January 1949. B is wrong because Nepal has had its own central bank, the Nepal Rastra Bank, since 1956. C is wrong because Bhutan's Royal Monetary Authority was set up in 1982, though the ngultrum is still pegged to the rupee. D is wrong because Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, was never under the RBI and started its own central bank in 1950. Exam tip: the RBI acted for Burma till April 1947 and for Pakistan till June 1948.

The correct answer is B, Mumbai. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has its head office in Mumbai, in the Bandra Kurla Complex. NABARD was set up on 12 July 1982 under an Act passed in 1981, on the advice of the Sivaraman Committee, and it took over the rural credit work that the Reserve Bank and the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation had been doing. It is the apex body for rural finance: it refinances cooperative banks and regional rural banks rather than lending much directly to farmers, supervises those banks, runs the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund and links self-help groups to banks under its microfinance programme. It is fully owned by the Government of India. A is wrong because Pune houses the National Insurance Academy, not NABARD. C is wrong because Chennai is the headquarters of Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. D is wrong because Kolkata is the headquarters of UCO Bank and Bandhan Bank. Exam tip: NABARD, Mumbai, set up 12 July 1982 on the Sivaraman Committee's recommendation.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Yakshagana is the folk theatre of coastal Karnataka, performed mainly in the Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts. A show once ran all night and mixes dance, music, spoken dialogue and tall painted headgear with bright face make-up, and its stories are drawn from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas. A singer called the Bhagavata leads from the side with the chande and maddale drums and a harmonium, and the actors build their dialogue around his verses as they go, so no two performances are quite the same. It is played mostly in Kannada, and a Tulu form also exists. A is wrong because Kerala's comparable temple theatre forms are Kathakali and Koodiyattam. C is wrong because Haryana is known for Dhamal, Phag and Khoria. D is wrong because Rajasthan is known for Ghoomar, Kalbelia and Chari. Exam tip: Yakshagana belongs to coastal Karnataka, while the similar-looking Kathakali belongs to Kerala.

The correct answer is D, Perfluorocarbons. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in Japan in December 1997 and in force from February 2005, set binding cuts for six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride. Perfluorocarbons come mostly from aluminium smelting and from making semiconductors; they are released in tiny amounts but survive in the atmosphere for thousands of years and trap far more heat than the same weight of carbon dioxide, which is why the Protocol counted them. Nitrogen trifluoride was added as a seventh gas later, under the Doha amendment of 2012. A is wrong because chlorine is not a greenhouse gas; chlorine released from CFCs harms the ozone layer, a matter the Montreal Protocol deals with. B is wrong because phosgene is a poisonous industrial gas and is not on the Kyoto list. C is wrong because carbon monoxide is an air pollutant that the Protocol does not cover. Exam tip: the six Kyoto gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs and sulphur hexafluoride.

The correct answer is D, Industrial Disputes Act. The Industrial Disputes Act was passed in 1947 and governs how disputes between employers and workmen, including matters that concern trade unions as well as individual workmen, are raised and settled. It sets up works committees, conciliation officers, courts of enquiry, labour courts, industrial tribunals and a national tribunal, lays down when a strike or a lock-out is lawful, and requires larger establishments to take government permission before lay-off, retrenchment or closure. Its provisions have now been folded into the Industrial Relations Code, 2020. A is wrong because the Indian Councils Acts, of 1861, 1892 and 1909, dealt with legislative councils and not with labour. B is wrong because the Charter Acts, the last of them in 1853, renewed the East India Company's charter. C is wrong because the Rowlatt Act of 1919 allowed detention without trial and led to the protest at Jallianwala Bagh. Exam tip: Industrial Disputes Act 1947, now part of the Industrial Relations Code, 2020.

The correct answer is A, Cyclical unemployment. Cyclical unemployment is the unemployment that a slump or depression in the economy creates: when demand falls, firms sell less, cut production and let workers go, and those jobs come back once demand recovers. It is therefore tied to the trade cycle of boom and slump, and it is the kind of unemployment John Maynard Keynes wrote about after the Great Depression, when he argued that the government should spend to lift demand. It is common in industrial economies and rare in a largely agricultural one such as India, where disguised and seasonal unemployment matter more. B is wrong because frictional unemployment is the short gap while a worker changes jobs or a fresh graduate hunts for the first one. C is wrong because seasonal unemployment comes from work being available only in some months, as in farming or sugar mills. D is wrong because structural unemployment arises when the skills workers hold no longer match the jobs the economy offers. Exam tip: a depression brings cyclical unemployment, while a skills mismatch brings structural unemployment.

The correct answer is C, Sun Temple, Konark. The Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha is called the Black Pagoda, a name European sailors gave it because its dark stone tower stood out as a landmark along the coast, in contrast to the whitewashed Jagannath temple at Puri, which they called the White Pagoda. It was built in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty in the Kalinga style, and the whole structure is shaped as the chariot of the sun god, with twelve pairs of carved stone wheels and seven horses drawing it. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. A is wrong because Omkareshwar is a Jyotirlinga on an island in the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh, not at Puri. B is wrong because the Somnath temple in Gujarat is a Jyotirlinga rebuilt many times after raids. D is wrong because the Jagannath temple stands at Puri in Odisha and is the White Pagoda. Exam tip: Konark is the Black Pagoda and Puri's Jagannath temple the White Pagoda.

The correct answer is B, Article 17. Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form. It sits in Part III among the Fundamental Rights, under the right to equality, and it is one of the few rights that works against ordinary citizens as well as against the State. Parliament backed it with the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976, and later with the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The Constitution nowhere defines untouchability; the courts read it as the social practice tied to caste, not as a general insult. A is wrong because Article 14 gives equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. C is wrong because Article 19 lists the six freedoms such as speech and movement. D is wrong because Article 32 lets a citizen move the Supreme Court for a writ. Exam tip: the equality rights run from Article 14 to 18 — 15 discrimination, 16 public employment, 17 untouchability, 18 titles.

The correct answer is D, 1950. The Planning Commission was set up in March 1950 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, not by the Constitution and not by an Act of Parliament, which made it an extra-constitutional advisory body. The Prime Minister was its chairman; Jawaharlal Nehru was the first chairman and Gulzarilal Nanda the first deputy chairman. Its work was to assess the country's resources and draw up five-year plans. The First Five Year Plan ran from 1951 to 1956, was based on the Harrod-Domar model and put agriculture and irrigation first. The Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, which advises rather than allocates funds. A is wrong because 2019 is decades after the Commission was created. B is wrong because no such body was founded in 2000. C is wrong because 1947 is the year of independence, three years before the Commission came into being. Exam tip: Planning Commission March 1950, First Five Year Plan 1951-56, NITI Aayog 1 January 2015.

The correct answer is C, Russian revolution. The call ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ closes the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, and it became the rallying cry of the socialist movement that carried the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917. Lenin's party used it to bind industrial workers behind the party, and the words were later carved on Marx's tomb in London and printed on Soviet emblems. The February revolution of 1917 ended tsarist rule and the October revolution brought the Bolsheviks in. A is wrong because the French revolution of 1789 raised liberty, equality and fraternity. B is wrong because the American revolution of 1776 was fought over taxation without representation. D is wrong because Japan had the Meiji Restoration of 1868, a drive to modernise from above rather than a workers' revolution. Exam tip: Communist Manifesto 1848 by Marx and Engels; Russian revolution 1917 under Lenin, slogan of the working class.

The correct answer is A, disguised unemployment. Disguised unemployment is the situation in which more people work at a job than it actually needs, so taking some of them away would not reduce output at all. Indian agriculture is the standard example: a family holding of two hectares may keep five or six members busy when two could finish the same work, and the extra hands live on a share of the produce without adding to it. Their marginal productivity is close to zero, which is why the unemployment is called hidden or disguised. NCERT's Class 9 economics chapter on people as resource uses this very example. B is wrong because seasonal unemployment means being idle only in certain months, such as between sowing and harvest. C is wrong because structural unemployment comes from a mismatch between the skills workers have and the jobs the economy creates. D is wrong because marginal unemployment is not a standard category of this kind. Exam tip: disguised unemployment means surplus workers with nearly zero marginal productivity.