The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy is awarded to

The correct answer is B, 29 August. The day marks the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, the hockey player who was part of the Indian sides that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, and it is the day on which the national sports awards are conferred at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Fit India Movement was also launched on this date in 2019. Option A, 14 August, has no connection with sport in the Indian calendar. Option C, 5 September, is Teachers Day, observed on the birth anniversary of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and it is a common distractor because both are commemorative days built on a birth anniversary. Option D, 19 November, is National Integration Day. Candidates should link 29 August, Major Dhyan Chand, the sports awards and the Fit India Movement together as one cluster.

The correct answer is C, 2018. Khelo India was launched in 2018 by merging earlier grassroots sports programmes into a single national scheme, and its first competition, the Khelo India School Games, was held at New Delhi in January of that year. From the following year the event was renamed the Khelo India Youth Games. Option A, 2014, is the year the Target Olympic Podium Scheme was launched, which is the commonest confusion in this question since both are flagship sports schemes. Option B, 2016, matches no landmark in the scheme history. Option D, 2020, is the year the first Khelo India University Games and the first Khelo India Winter Games were held, but the parent scheme was already two years old by then. Keep 2014 for TOPS and 2018 for Khelo India.

The correct answer is B, Target Olympic Podium Scheme. TOPS was launched in 2014 under the National Sports Development Fund and was thoroughly revamped in 2018. It identifies a small group of athletes judged capable of reaching the podium at the Olympic and Paralympic Games and funds each of them individually, covering a customised training plan, a foreign coach where required, international competition, equipment, sports science support and a monthly out-of-pocket allowance. Option A, Total Olympic Preparation Scheme, sounds plausible but is not the name of any scheme. Option C, Training of Professional Sportspersons, is invented and misses the Olympic focus that gives the scheme its name. Option D, Talent Oriented Promotion Scheme, describes the work of Khelo India rather than TOPS, since talent identification is a Khelo India vertical and TOPS begins where that search ends.

The correct answer is B, 1961. The Arjuna Award was instituted in 1961 to recognise consistently outstanding performance by a sportsperson over a period of years, and it remains the standard recognition for a leading active athlete who has not won the country highest sporting honour. Option A, 1951, is the year of the first Asian Games, held at New Delhi, and is a frequent distractor in sports chronology questions. Option C, 1985, is the year the Dronacharya Award for coaches was instituted, so the two years are often swapped by candidates. Option D, 1991, is when the Khel Ratna, then called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, was instituted as the highest honour. Remember the sequence: Arjuna in 1961, Dronacharya in 1985, Khel Ratna in the early 1990s and the Dhyan Chand lifetime award in 2002.

The correct answer is B, coaches of sportspersons. The Dronacharya Award was instituted in 1985 and honours coaches who have consistently produced outstanding athletes, the name being taken from the teacher of archery in the Mahabharata. Option A is wrong because active sportspersons are recognised by the Arjuna Award for sustained performance and by the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for the most outstanding performance overall. Option C is wrong because there is no national sports award dedicated to journalists in this group of honours. Option D is wrong because corporates and other organisations that promote sport are recognised by the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar, instituted in 2009. The clean way to remember the set is players to Arjuna, coaches to Dronacharya, retired players to the Dhyan Chand Award and organisations to the Protsahan Puraskar.