Article 343 of the Indian Constitution is about:

The correct answer is B, Part XVII. Part XVII is titled Official Language and runs from Article 343 to Article 351, in four chapters: the language of the Union, regional languages, the language of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, and special directives. Option A is wrong because Part XVI carries the special provisions relating to certain classes, Articles 330 to 342, which include reservation of seats for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the Anglo-Indian provisions. Option C is wrong because Part XVIII, Articles 352 to 360, deals with emergency provisions. Option D is wrong because Part XIX, Articles 361 to 367, contains miscellaneous provisions such as the protection of the President and Governors from legal proceedings. Remembering the order of these four Parts answers many questions by itself.

The correct answer is B, the Twenty-first Amendment Act, 1967. Sindhi was the first language added to the Eighth Schedule after the Constitution came into force, taking the list from the original fourteen languages to fifteen. Option A is wrong because the Fifteenth Amendment of 1963 dealt with High Court judges, raising their retirement age from sixty to sixty-two. Option C is wrong because the Seventy-first Amendment of 1992 added three languages, Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali, taking the Schedule to eighteen. Option D is wrong because the Ninety-second Amendment of 2003 added the last four languages, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, taking the Schedule to its present twenty-two. The sequence fourteen, fifteen, eighteen and twenty-two is worth memorising, because papers often ask the number of languages at a given stage rather than the amendment itself.

The correct answer is C, the Ninety-second Amendment Act, 2003. It added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali and brought the Eighth Schedule to twenty-two languages, where it still stands. Option A is wrong because the Seventy-first Amendment of 1992 added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali. Option B is wrong because the Eighty-sixth Amendment of 2002 inserted Article 21A, making free and compulsory education for children between six and fourteen years a fundamental right, and also added Article 51A(k) and amended Article 45. Option D is wrong because the Hundredth Amendment of 2015 gave effect to the land boundary agreement with Bangladesh by amending the First Schedule. Note that Maithili is a language of Bihar, Dogri of Jammu, Bodo and Santhali tribal languages, so a question may name the state instead of the language.

The correct answer is C, Articles 350A and 350B. Both were inserted by the Seventh Amendment Act, 1956, which carried out the reorganisation of states on the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission. Article 350A requires a state to provide instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage to children of linguistic minorities, and Article 350B provides for a Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities appointed by the President. Option A is wrong because Articles 343 and 344 are part of the original Constitution. Option B is wrong for the same reason; Articles 345 to 347 on the languages of states were there from the start. Option D is wrong because Article 351 is original and Article 352, on the proclamation of a national emergency, belongs to Part XVIII and was not inserted in 1956, though it was later amended.

The correct answer is B, thirty members, twenty from the Lok Sabha and ten from the Rajya Sabha. Article 344(4) provides for this committee to examine the recommendations of the Official Language Commission constituted under Article 344(1) and to report its opinion to the President. The two to one ratio between the Houses follows the pattern the Constitution uses elsewhere for joint bodies. Option A understates the strength and is a made-up figure. Option C gives the right total but the wrong split, and this is the commonest trap in the question. Option D, twenty-one members with fourteen and seven, is the composition of a parliamentary standing committee pattern and does not appear in Article 344. The first such committee, set up in 1957, was chaired by Govind Ballabh Pant, while the Commission of 1955 was chaired by B. G. Kher.