Who was the first woman to be awarded the Ashoka Chakra?

The correct answer is B, Param Vir Chakra. It is given for the most conspicuous act of bravery or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy, on land, at sea or in the air, and its name means the wheel of the ultimate brave. It stands first in the order of precedence of all gallantry decorations.

Option A, the Ashoka Chakra, is the highest peacetime gallantry award and stands second in the order of precedence, so it is correct only when the question says peacetime. Option C, the Maha Vir Chakra, is the second wartime award, below the Param Vir Chakra. Option D, the Kirti Chakra, is the second peacetime award and the counterpart of the Maha Vir Chakra. The word wartime in the stem is what settles this question, so read it before marking.

The correct answer is C, Ashoka Chakra. It is awarded for the most conspicuous bravery or an act of daring or self-sacrifice of the highest order away from the field of battle, and it may be given to civilians as well as to members of the armed forces.

Option A, the Shaurya Chakra, is the third peacetime award, the counterpart of the Vir Chakra. Option B, the Kirti Chakra, is the second peacetime award, the counterpart of the Maha Vir Chakra. Option D, the Vir Chakra, belongs to the wartime family altogether, which makes it wrong on two counts here. The three peacetime awards in descending order are Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, and remembering them as one line saves time when the options mix the families.

The correct answer is A, Major Somnath Sharma, of the 4th Battalion of the Kumaon Regiment, who received the award posthumously for the action at Badgam near Srinagar in November 1947. His company held off a much larger body of raiders and kept them from reaching the airfield, which allowed reinforcements to continue arriving in Kashmir.

Option B, Captain Vikram Batra, and option C, Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey, both received the Param Vir Chakra posthumously for the Kargil conflict of 1999, more than fifty years later. Option D, Subedar Joginder Singh, was awarded it for an action of the 1962 conflict. All four are genuine recipients, so the question turns purely on the word first, and the answer is fixed by the year 1947. Note also that the award was instituted only in 1950 but takes effect from 15 August 1947, which is precisely why an action of November 1947 could be honoured with it at all.

The correct answer is B, Savitri Khanolkar. Born in Switzerland to a Swiss father and a Hungarian mother, she married an officer of the Indian Army, took Indian citizenship and made a deep study of Indian languages and tradition, which she drew on for the design of the medal and its vajra motif.

Option A, Nandalal Bose, was the artist who illustrated the manuscript of the Constitution of India, a related but different piece of work. Option C, Pingali Venkayya, designed the flag on which the national flag of India was based. Option D, Deenanath Bhargava, drew the state emblem for the illustrated Constitution. All four names belong to the making of India's national symbols, which is why they are placed together, and the medal belongs to Savitri Khanolkar.

The correct answer is C, 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force and the Republic came into being. The three wartime awards were instituted on that date but were given effect from 15 August 1947, so that acts of bravery in the fighting in Kashmir could be recognised.

Option A, 15 August 1947, is the date from which the awards take effect, not the date of institution, and this fine distinction is the whole point of the question. Option B, 26 November 1949, is the date on which the Constitution was adopted, which belongs to the polity paper. Option D, January 1952, is when the peacetime awards, the Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, were instituted. Hold the pair together: 1950 for the wartime family and 1952 for the peacetime one.