Which Union ministry runs the Ashtalakshmi Darshan Programme?

The correct answer is more than 590. That is the participation figure the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region gave for the Ashtalakshmi Darshan Programme over the past year, and it is the number an examiner is most likely to lift from this news. The students travel from states across the country; the batch Union Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia met at Mizoram University had come from Goa and Chandigarh. Options A and B understate the count, and option D overstates it, so all three miss the figure the ministry actually reported. Candidates should pair the number with the three other memorisable details of the programme: the ministry behind it, the idea of the region's eight states as the nation's Ashtalakshmi, and the link the ministry draws to the goal of a developed India by 2047.

The correct answer is the eight states of the region. The North East is described as the country's Ashtalakshmi, the eightfold form of prosperity, with each of its eight states standing for one form of that wealth. It is the framing Prime Minister Narendra Modi uses for the region, and it is the idea on which the Ashtalakshmi Darshan Programme of the DoNER ministry rests: the tours are meant to show visiting students that the region is a source of national prosperity rather than a distant periphery. Option B is wrong because the expression counts states, not border districts. Option C is wrong because it has nothing to do with the region's river systems, however important they are to it. Option D is wrong because autonomous tribal councils are a feature of the constitutional arrangements for some of these states and are not what the eight in Ashtalakshmi counts.

The correct answer is 840 yards. A hank is the unit in which a khadi spinner's work is measured, and one hank equals 840 yards of yarn in length and one pound by weight. The unit matters because artisan remuneration is paid on it: pay has gone up from Rs 4 per hank in 2013-14 to Rs 15 per hank at present, an increase of about 275 per cent. Option A of 640 yards, option C of 1,000 yards and option D of 1,200 yards are not the measure used for a hank, and a candidate who remembers only the round thousand will get the sum wrong. Women make up more than 80 per cent of the nearly five lakh artisans in the khadi sector, so this wage unit decides the earnings of a largely female workforce. Remember the pair together: 840 yards by length and one pound by weight.

The correct answer is 1956. KVIC is a statutory body established under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act of that year, and the Act is what gives the commission its mandate to plan, promote, facilitate, organise and assist village industries. The same mandate covers training, raw material supply, marketing, research and quality improvement, along with skill development and technical information for khadi and village industries. The other years do not carry this Act. Option A of 1948 belongs to the early years after independence and to the first industrial policy statement, not to this commission. Option B of 1951 is associated with the start of planned development in the country and not with khadi legislation. Option D of 1962 is later than the commission's creation and has no link with its founding law. Candidates should also recall that the commission now works under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

The correct answer is Rs 1.87 lakh crore. Sales of khadi and village industry products in 2025-26 reached this level, the highest ever recorded for the sector, with the count taken up to May 2026. Compared with 2013-14 the sales figure is 501 per cent higher, so the year marks a record rather than an ordinary increase. Option B of Rs 1.25 lakh crore confuses sales with production, because output stood at Rs 1,25,296 crore after growing 380 per cent. Option C of Rs 2.04 lakh crore borrows the employment number, since jobs in the sector rose 56 per cent to 2.04 crore people, which is a count of workers and not money. Option D of Rs 1.45 lakh crore mixes in the 1,45,484 artisans who gained from assistance released to khadi institutions in 2024-25, again a count of people. Only the first option gives the sales value for the year.