The Dronacharya Award is given to:

The correct answer is B, the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. Instituted in 1991 and 1992 and renamed in August 2021, it is given for the most spectacular and outstanding performance by a sportsperson over the four preceding years and stands at the top of the national sports awards. Option A is wrong because the Arjuna Award, though the oldest of the group and highly regarded, recognises consistently outstanding performance and ranks below the Khel Ratna. Option C is wrong because the Dronacharya Award is not a player's award at all; it honours coaches whose trainees have won international honours. Option D is wrong because the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award belongs to adventure activity on land, at sea and in the air, not to competitive sport. The order worth memorising is Khel Ratna, then Arjuna, with Dronacharya for coaches alongside them.

The correct answer is A, Viswanathan Anand, the chess grandmaster, who received the award in its very first year, 1991 and 1992, when it was still called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Option B is wrong because Leander Paes, the tennis player, won the honour a few years later, after his Olympic bronze at Atlanta in 1996. Option C is wrong because Kapil Dev led India to the cricket World Cup in 1983, well before the award existed, and the honour is given for performance in the four years preceding it. Option D is wrong because Karnam Malleswari, the weightlifter who became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal, at Sydney in 2000, received her Khel Ratna much later. The examination pairing to remember is Anand, chess, and the first year of the award.

The correct answer is B, 1961. The Arjuna Award is the oldest of the individual national sports awards and is given for consistently outstanding performance over four years, together with qualities of leadership, discipline and sportsmanship; the awardee receives a bronze statuette of Arjuna, a scroll and a cash prize. Option A is wrong because 1951 is the year of the first Asian Games at Delhi, a date often confused with this one. Option C is wrong because 1985 belongs to the Dronacharya Award for coaches, which came nearly a quarter of a century later. Option D is wrong because 1991, more precisely 1991 and 1992, is when the Khel Ratna was instituted as the highest sporting honour. Fix the sequence in order: Arjuna 1961, Dronacharya 1985, Khel Ratna 1991, Dhyan Chand 2002.

The correct answer is A, 29 August, the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, the hockey player who won Olympic gold with India in 1928, 1932 and 1936 and is remembered as the wizard of the game. The national sports awards are conferred by the President at Rashtrapati Bhavan on this day. Option B is wrong because 14 November is Children's Day, the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru. Option C is wrong because 23 January is the birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose, observed as Parakram Diwas. Option D is wrong because 5 September is Teachers' Day, the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan; because the Dronacharya Award honours teachers of sport, this option is placed here to mislead. Tie the day to the man: Dhyan Chand, 29 August, hockey, National Sports Day.

The correct answer is B, lifetime achievement in sports. The Dhyan Chand Award goes to a sportsperson who performed with distinction in the past and has continued to serve the game after retiring, whether by coaching, organising or promoting it. Option A is wrong because no national sports award of India is based on a single season; the Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award both look at performance across four years. Option C is wrong because excellence in coaching is the province of the Dronacharya Award of 1985. Option D is wrong because an institution or a company that promotes sport is recognised by the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar of 2009. Note the trap created in 2021: after the renaming, the Khel Ratna also bears the name of Dhyan Chand, but the lifetime award is the plain Dhyan Chand Award.