The President of which country attended the first Republic Day celebrations of India as its chief guest?

The correct answer is A, Sucheta Kriplani. Sucheta Kripalani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in October 1963 and served till March 1967, making her the first woman to head a state government in India. A freedom fighter who worked closely with Gandhi during the Quit India movement, she was a member of the Constituent Assembly and sang Vande Mataram in the Assembly on the night of 14 August 1947. She was married to the socialist leader Acharya J.B. Kripalani. B is wrong because Mamata Banerjee became the first woman Chief Minister of West Bengal only in 2011. C is wrong because Indira Gandhi was India's first woman Prime Minister, in 1966, and never a Chief Minister. D is wrong because Sarojini Naidu was the first woman Governor of an Indian state, Uttar Pradesh, in 1947, and the first Indian woman to preside over the Congress, but never a Chief Minister. Exam tip: first woman CM Sucheta Kripalani (UP, 1963); first woman Governor Sarojini Naidu (UP, 1947); first woman PM Indira Gandhi (1966).

The correct answer is C, Vini Mahajan. Vini Mahajan, an IAS officer of the 1987 batch of the Punjab cadre, was appointed Chief Secretary of Punjab in June 2020, the first woman to hold the state's top civil service post since Punjab was formed in 1966. The Chief Secretary is the senior-most IAS officer of a state and heads its entire administration. She had earlier served in the Prime Minister's Office and as Punjab's Additional Chief Secretary for Investment Promotion, and after her state tenure she moved to the Centre as Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation. A is wrong because Akanksha Juneja is a television actress, not a civil servant. B is wrong because Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu is a doctor and politician who was a member of the Punjab assembly. D is wrong because Kiran Bedi was India's first woman IPS officer (1972) and later Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry, but she was a police officer, never a Chief Secretary. Exam tip: first woman Chief Secretary of Punjab, Vini Mahajan, June 2020; first woman IPS officer, Kiran Bedi, 1972.

The correct answer is D, Uttar Pradesh. Prathama Bank, the first Regional Rural Bank of India, opened on 2 October 1975 with its head office at Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, sponsored by Syndicate Bank. It was one of the first five RRBs set up that day under an ordinance that became the Regional Rural Banks Act 1976, following the recommendation of the Narasimham working group of 1975. Their capital is shared 50 per cent by the Central Government, 15 per cent by the State Government and 35 per cent by the sponsor bank; they are regulated by the RBI and supervised by NABARD. Option A is wrong because Prathama Bank never sat in Rajasthan; that state's first RRB was the Jaipur-Nagaur Anchalik Gramin Bank, another of the first five. Option B is wrong because none of the first five RRBs was in Madhya Pradesh. Option C is wrong because Punjab was not in the first batch either; the other first-day banks were in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal and Rajasthan. Exam tip: first RRB = Prathama Bank, Moradabad (UP), 2 October 1975, sponsor Syndicate Bank; shareholding 50:15:35.

The correct answer is D, Chennai. The All India Chess Federation, the national body for chess, was founded in 1951 and has its headquarters at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai. It is affiliated to FIDE, the world chess federation founded in Paris in 1924 and now based in Lausanne, and to the Indian Olympic Association. Chennai is called the chess capital of India: Viswanathan Anand, the first Indian Grandmaster (1988) and five-time world champion, is from the city, D Gukesh, who became world champion in December 2024, grew up there, and the 44th Chess Olympiad of 2022 was held at nearby Mamallapuram. Option A is wrong because Bengaluru houses no national chess body; it is known for the National Cricket Academy. Option B is wrong because Hyderabad is linked with badminton through the Gopichand academy, not with the AICF. Option C is wrong because Mumbai is the home of the BCCI, the cricket board. Exam tip: AICF = Chennai (1951), BCCI = Mumbai, Hockey India and AIFF = New Delhi, FIDE = Lausanne.

The correct answer is A, Roman. The rupee sign blends the Devanagari letter "र" (Ra) with the Roman capital "R" with its vertical stem removed, so that it reads as an Indian letter and an international one at the same time. It was designed by D. Udaya Kumar, then a student at IIT Bombay and later a professor at IIT Guwahati, who won a nationwide open competition; the Union Cabinet approved it on 15 July 2010. The two parallel horizontal lines across the top stand for the tricolour and for the equality sign, a nod to a balanced economy. With this sign the rupee joined the dollar, pound, euro and yen as currencies with their own symbol. B, Ol Chiki, is the script created for the Santali language and has no part in the design. C, Brahmi, is the ancient script of Ashoka's edicts, not used here. D, Cyrillic, is the script of Russian and other Slavic languages. Exam tip: rupee symbol = Devanagari Ra + Roman R, designed by Udaya Kumar, adopted 15 July 2010.