UPSC Prelims 2024 Question Paper (GS Paper I) with Answers

None of the three is a fifth-generation fighter. Fifth-generation aircraft (such as the F-22, F-35, Su-57 and J-20) combine all-aspect stealth, supercruise, sensor fusion and networked avionics. Rafale is a 4.5-generation multirole fighter, the MiG-29 is a fourth-generation fighter and Tejas Mk-1 is a 4.5-generation light combat aircraft. India's own fifth-generation project is the AMCA, still under development.

Prohibition means 'to forbid'. The writ is issued by the Supreme Court (Article 32) or a High Court (Article 226) to a lower court or tribunal to stop it from continuing proceedings in which it is exceeding its jurisdiction. Unlike certiorari, which quashes an order already passed, prohibition is preventive and lies only against judicial or quasi-judicial bodies, not against administrative or legislative authorities.

CBLO (Collateralised Borrowing and Lending Obligation) was a money-market instrument run by the Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) for short-term, collateralised borrowing and lending, mainly against government securities. It has since been replaced by the Tri-party Repo system. Money-market instruments are short-term (up to one year), which distinguishes them from bond and stock markets.

Both statements are correct and the second explains the first. US Treasury bonds are backed only by the 'full faith and credit' of the US government, not by gold or other hard assets; if the government defaulted, bondholders would have no asset to seize and could not realise their claims. This is why debt-ceiling stand-offs in the US rattle world markets.

Statement 1 is correct: the Act proposed an All-India Federation of British provinces and princely states (it never came into being because enough states did not join). Statement 2 is incorrect: defence, external affairs, ecclesiastical affairs and tribal areas were 'reserved' subjects administered by the Governor-General on his own responsibility, outside the control of the federal legislature.

All three can trade. Insurance companies and pension funds are among the largest institutional holders of government securities and corporate bonds. Retail investors can buy government securities directly through the RBI Retail Direct scheme (2021) and trade listed corporate bonds on stock-exchange debt segments and through the NDS-OM odd-lot market.

At its first sitting on 9 December 1946, the Constituent Assembly elected its oldest member, Dr Sachchidananda Sinha, as temporary (provisional) President, following the French practice. Dr Rajendra Prasad was elected permanent President on 11 December 1946. H.C. Mukherjee and V.T. Krishnamachari were later elected Vice-Presidents.

The 71st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali to the Eighth Schedule, raising the number of languages to 18. Maithili was added later by the 92nd Amendment Act, 2003 along with Bodo, Dogri and Santhali, taking the total to the present 22.

Article 368(1) states that Parliament may, in exercise of its constituent power, amend 'by way of addition, variation or repeal' any provision of the Constitution. The Kesavananda Bharati judgment (1973) limited this power by holding that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be destroyed.

All three groups contain poisonous species. Monarch butterflies store cardiac glycosides from milkweed and are toxic to predators; pufferfish carry tetrodotoxin; and poison-dart frogs secrete potent skin alkaloids. 'Poisonous' animals harm when eaten or touched, unlike 'venomous' ones, which inject toxins.

Only one row is correct. Dhuandhar Falls is on the Narmada at Bhedaghat near Jabalpur, in the Mahakoshal region, not Malwa. Hundru Falls on the Subarnarekha near Ranchi in the Chota Nagpur plateau is correctly matched. Gersoppa (Jog) Falls in the Western Ghats is on the Sharavati river, not the Netravati.

Statement-I is incorrect: India does import apples from the USA (Washington apples), and the retaliatory duty imposed in 2019 was withdrawn in 2023. Statement-II is correct: under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Environment (Protection) Act rules, genetically modified food cannot be imported without approval of the FSSAI and the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee.

Both statements are incorrect. The RBI's 2013 scheme for wholly owned subsidiaries of foreign banks prescribes a minimum paid-up voting equity capital of Rs 500 crore. Its board norms are also different from the statement: a majority of directors must be non-executive, at least one-third must be independent, and at least one-third must be Indian nationals resident in India (not a flat 50 per cent).

Statements 1 and 2 are correct: lionesses can breed in any season, and cheetahs, which lack the specialised larynx of the Panthera genus, chirp and purr but cannot roar. Statement 3 is incorrect: male leopards, like lions, mark and advertise their territories with urine and scent marks.

Statement-I is incorrect: the atmosphere is largely transparent to incoming short-wave solar radiation and is heated mainly from below by long-wave terrestrial radiation. Statement-II is correct: carbon dioxide, water vapour and other greenhouse gases absorb this long-wave radiation, which is the greenhouse effect. Since Statement-I is wrong, the answer is (d).

On 21 June (summer solstice in the northern hemisphere) the Sun is overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, every place north of the Equator has more than 12 hours of daylight and the Arctic Circle has 24 hours. The Equator always has about 12 hours, and the Tropic of Capricorn, in the southern hemisphere, has less than 12 hours.

In January the northern continents are colder than the oceans, so isotherms bend north (poleward) over the oceans and south (equatorward) over the land: statement 1 is correct. Statement 2 is incorrect because the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift are warm currents; they make the North Atlantic warmer, and it is this warmth that bends the isotherms north.

Under Article 342, it is the President who, after consulting the Governor, notifies the tribes or tribal communities deemed Scheduled Tribes 'in relation to that State or Union Territory'; only Parliament can later alter the list. So statement 1 is incorrect. Statement 2 is correct: the ST list is state-specific, and a community recognised in one state may not be recognised in another.

Garba of Gujarat was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2023, becoming India's 15th element. Kumbh Mela was inscribed in 2017, Durga Puja of Kolkata in 2021 and Chhau dance in 2010.

After the 2002 amendment the North Eastern Council consists of the Governors and Chief Ministers of the eight constituent states and three members nominated by the President. The Union Home Minister is not a member under the Act, although the government decided in 2018 that the Home Minister would be the ex-officio Chairman. Hence 1, 2 and 3 only.

Both books are by Dr S. Jaishankar, India's External Affairs Minister. 'The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World' (2020) sets out his view of India's foreign-policy choices, and 'Why Bharat Matters' (2024) continues that argument.

Statement 1 is correct: under the Companies (CSR Policy) Rules, activities benefiting only the company's employees or the normal course of business do not count as CSR. Statement 2 is incorrect: Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 requires qualifying companies to spend at least 2 per cent of their average net profit of the preceding three years on CSR.

The Constitution (106th Amendment) Act, 2023 reserves one-third of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and the Delhi assembly. Statement 1 is incorrect because the reservation takes effect only after a delimitation based on the first census held after the Act commenced, not from the 18th Lok Sabha. It lasts 15 years (statement 2) and includes reservation for SC and ST women within the SC/ST quota (statement 3).

Italy, Japan and South Korea are the standard examples of countries with very low fertility (South Korea's total fertility rate fell below 0.8) and rapidly ageing or shrinking populations. Nigeria and South Africa, in contrast, have young, growing populations; Nigeria has one of the highest birth rates in the world.

A membrane bioreactor combines biological treatment of sewage by micro-organisms (the activated-sludge process) with membrane filtration (micro- or ultrafiltration) that separates the treated water from the sludge. It produces high-quality effluent in a smaller footprint than conventional settling tanks, so it is used in wastewater treatment and water reuse.

Fixed capital consists of durable assets used repeatedly over years (a plough, a computer); working capital is used up in a single production cycle (yarn, petrol). So pair 2 (computer, fixed) and pair 4 (petrol, working) are correct, while pair 1 (plough as working capital) and pair 3 (yarn as fixed capital) are wrong: only two pairs match.

The International Grains Council is an intergovernmental body (London) that promotes cooperation and transparency in the grain, rice and oilseed trade, and India is a member. Membership is not a condition for trading: any country can export or import rice and wheat, subject to WTO rules and its own domestic regulations. Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Nitric oxide (NO) is produced in the lining of blood vessels by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase from the amino acid arginine. It relaxes the smooth muscle of vessel walls (vasodilation), increasing blood flow and lowering blood pressure; drugs like nitroglycerin act by releasing it. Nitrous oxide is an anaesthetic gas, and the nitrogen oxides in options (c) and (d) are pollutants.

Groundnut, horse-gram and soybean are all legumes of the pea family (Fabaceae or Leguminosae), the family whose members bear seeds in pods and fix atmospheric nitrogen through Rhizobium bacteria in root nodules. All three therefore belong to the pea family.

Pairs 1 and 3 are correct: Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951, and Jagjivan Ram founded the Congress for Democracy in 1977. The Socialist Party was led by Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia, not C. Rajagopalachari, who founded the Swatantra Party in 1959. So only two pairs match.

Only pair 3 is correct: a Major in the Army ranks with a Squadron Leader and a Lieutenant Commander. A Brigadier equals an Air Commodore and a Commodore (not Commander); a Major General equals an Air Vice Marshal and a Rear Admiral (not Vice Admiral); and a Lieutenant Colonel equals a Wing Commander and a Commander (a Group Captain and a naval Captain rank with a Colonel).

Water vapour is a variable gas whose concentration falls sharply with altitude because cooler air at height holds less moisture; statement 1 is correct. Its share of the air is highest in the warm, humid tropics (up to about 4 per cent) and lowest in the cold, dry polar regions, so statement 2 is incorrect.

Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana together produce well over half of the world's cocoa beans, with Cote d'Ivoire alone contributing about 40 per cent. The humid West African climate suits the cocoa tree, which grows in the shade of taller trees within about 20 degrees of the Equator.

None of the pairs is correct. The indri, the largest living lemur, is found only in Madagascar; the elk (moose) lives in the cold forests of North America and northern Eurasia, not tropical Indonesia; and the bonobo is an ape of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not Madagascar.

Statement 1 is incorrect: an RTG has no chain reaction; it converts the heat of natural radioactive decay into electricity through thermocouples. Statement 2 is correct: RTGs have powered the Voyager, Cassini, Curiosity and Perseverance missions where sunlight is too weak for solar panels. Statement 3 is correct: plutonium-238 is made from neptunium-237, a by-product of the nuclear-weapons fuel cycle.

Distributed energy resources are small-scale generation or storage units located near the point of use rather than at a central power station: rooftop solar PV, battery storage, fuel cells and small biomass generators all qualify, as do electric-vehicle chargers and demand-response. All four are therefore distributed energy resources.

In Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21, and also flows from the freedoms in Part III as a whole.

Statement 1 is incorrect: Mitra Shakti is the joint military exercise between India and Sri Lanka; its ninth edition (November 2023) was held at Aundh, Pune (statement 2). It practised joint sub-conventional and counter-terrorism operations under the UN Charter (statement 3), and for the first time the Indian Air Force and Sri Lanka Air Force took part alongside the armies (statement 4). Hence 2, 3 and 4.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the largest source of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, by power plants and other industrial facilities. Smaller sources include metal smelting, locomotives, ships and heavy equipment that burn high-sulphur fuel.

Statement 1 is incorrect: the President prorogues a House on the advice of the Council of Ministers, as with other executive functions under Article 74. Statement 2 is correct: prorogation normally follows adjournment sine die, but the Constitution does not bar the President from proroguing a House that is in session. Statement 3 is correct: dissolution of the Lok Sabha is ordered by the President, ordinarily on ministerial advice. Hence 2 and 3.

A parasitoid lives on or in a single host and eventually kills it. Parasitoid species occur among wasps (ichneumon and braconid wasps), flies (tachinid flies) and some carabid (ground) beetles whose larvae parasitise other insects. Centipedes are free-living predators and termites are social wood-feeders, so neither includes parasitoids. Hence only three.

PFAS, the 'forever chemicals' used in non-stick cookware, water-repellent fabrics, fire-fighting foams and food packaging, have carbon-fluorine bonds that resist natural breakdown (statement 2). They are widely detected in drinking water, food and packaging (statement 1) and build up in the tissues of animals and humans with continued exposure (statement 3). All three statements are correct.

The Canada-United States border, about 8,890 km long including the Alaska-Yukon stretch, is the longest international border between two countries. The Kazakhstan-Russia border, roughly 7,600 km, is the longest continuous land border; the Argentina-Chile and India-China borders are much shorter.

Weather radars measure precipitation by the echo returned from raindrops and hail, and ornithologists use radar to track flocks of migrating birds and insects; so activities 2 and 3 use radar. Narcotics on passengers are detected by X-ray and millimetre-wave body scanners, sniffer dogs and ion-mobility spectrometry, not by radar. Hence only two.

The total fertility rate is the average number of live births a woman would have over her reproductive span (15-49 years) if she experienced the current age-specific fertility rates. A TFR of about 2.1 is the replacement level; India's TFR fell to 2.0 in NFHS-5 (2019-21). Option (a) describes the crude birth rate and option (c) the natural growth rate.

Rows 2 and 3 are correct: Inamgaon in Maharashtra is a Chalcolithic (Jorwe culture) site, and Mangadu in Kerala is a megalithic site. Chandraketugarh, an ancient trading port town, is in West Bengal, not Odisha, and Salihundam in Andhra Pradesh is a Buddhist site of stupas and monasteries, not rock-cut cave shrines.

Germany and Norway have coastlines on the North Sea. Finland's coast is on the Baltic Sea (Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland), and Russia borders the Baltic, Black, Caspian and Arctic seas but not the North Sea. Hence only two.

Under Article 96, while a resolution for the Speaker's removal is under consideration the Speaker shall not preside (statement 1), but is entitled to speak in and take part in the proceedings of the House and to vote in the first instance, though not in the case of an equality of votes. So statements 2 and 3 are incorrect and only 1 is correct.

The SUMED (Suez-Mediterranean) pipeline runs from Ain Sukhna on the Gulf of Suez (Red Sea) to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean near Alexandria. It lets Persian Gulf crude reach Europe without passing through the Suez Canal, so both statements are correct and Statement-II explains why it is a strategic route.

All three statements are correct. Part IX-A (Articles 243P-243ZG), inserted by the 74th Amendment Act, 1992, deals with municipalities; Part XVIII (Articles 352-360) contains the emergency provisions; and Part XX, consisting of Article 368, deals with amendment of the Constitution.

The CDS, created in 2019, is the Permanent Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Principal Military Adviser to the Defence Minister on all tri-service matters, besides heading the Department of Military Affairs. The CDS does not exercise military command over the three Service Chiefs or their forces; each Chief continues to command his own service. Hence 1 and 3 only.

Sanghabhuti (Sanghabhadra) travelled from India to China around 381 AD and worked there as a translator. He is credited with a commentary on the Vinaya (monastic rules) of the Sarvastivada school, one of the major early Buddhist schools whose texts were widely translated into Chinese.

Two pairs are correct. A dairy farm is a primary activity (it draws directly on nature) and weaving cloth is a secondary (manufacturing) activity. Storage of agricultural produce is a service and therefore tertiary, not secondary; mineral exploration and extraction is a primary activity, not tertiary.

The Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha was first set up as an ad hoc committee in 2000 and made a permanent standing committee in 2015 (statement 1). Any person, not only an MP, may complain against a member's unethical conduct, though the complaint must be forwarded through a member (statement 2 incorrect). The Committee does not take up matters that are sub judice (statement 3). Hence 1 and 3.

Donyi Polo Airport at Itanagar (2022) and Kushinagar International Airport in Uttar Pradesh (2021) were built as greenfield airports on fresh sites. Vijayawada Airport at Gannavaram is an old airport that was upgraded and given international status in 2017, not a greenfield project. Hence 1 and 2 only.

Under PMSMA (2016), government doctors and volunteer private doctors provide free, assured antenatal check-ups on the 9th of every month to women in their second and third trimesters; it does not cover six months of post-delivery care, so statement 1 is incorrect. Statement 2 is correct: private obstetricians, physicians and radiologists can volunteer to serve at nearby government facilities.

'100 Million Farmers' is a multi-stakeholder platform launched by the World Economic Forum to speed up the transition to food and water systems that are net-zero in carbon and nature-positive, while raising farmers' incomes and resilience. Option (b) describes an organic-livestock alliance, (c) a fertiliser-trading platform and (d) an FPO-promotion effort.

The World Toilet Organization is a Singapore-based non-profit, not a UN agency, so statement 1 is incorrect. It founded the World Toilet Summit, World Toilet Day (19 November, later adopted by the UN) and the World Toilet College, so statement 2 is correct. It advocates and builds capacity rather than granting funds to governments, so statement 3 is incorrect. Hence 2 only.

The Coriolis force, which deflects moving air to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern, is proportional to the speed of the wind and to the sine of the latitude. It is therefore zero at the Equator and greatest at the poles, which is why tropical cyclones do not form within about 5 degrees of the Equator. Both statements are correct.

Article 112 requires the President to cause the Annual Financial Statement to be laid before both Houses; in practice the Finance Minister presents it on the President's behalf (statement 1). Article 113(3) provides that no demand for a grant can be made except on the recommendation of the President (statement 2). Both statements are correct.

The Cuvette Centrale peatlands of the Congo Basin, straddling the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are the world's largest tropical peatland complex, storing roughly 30 billion tonnes of carbon, about three years of global fossil-fuel emissions. Drainage, logging or oil exploration there would release this carbon.

Pumped-storage hydropower pumps water from a lower to an upper reservoir when electricity is cheap or surplus (for example from solar at midday) and releases it through turbines when demand is high. It is the most widely used form of long-duration grid energy storage and is being promoted in India to balance renewable power.

The troposphere is about 16-18 km thick at the Equator but only about 8 km at the poles. The difference arises because intense heating at the Equator drives strong convection currents that carry heat and air to great heights, pushing the tropopause upward. Both statements are correct and Statement-II explains Statement-I.

The e-rupee (CBDC) is legal tender issued by the RBI in line with its monetary policy (statement 1), is shown as a liability on the RBI's balance sheet like currency notes (statement 2) and is exchangeable at par with bank deposits and cash (statement 4). It carries no interest or inflation protection; its purchasing power falls with inflation like cash, so statement 3 is incorrect. Hence 1, 2 and 4.

The Upanishads use dialogues and parables to teach philosophy, for instance the stories of Satyakama Jabala, Nachiketa and Uddalaka's lesson with the banyan seed in the Chandogya Upanishad, so statement 1 is incorrect. The principal Upanishads (c. 800-500 BC) are older than the Puranas, which were compiled mostly in the Gupta period and later, so statement 2 is correct.

The Red Sea lies between the Sahara and Arabian deserts and receives very little rainfall (statement 1). No permanent river flows into it, so inflow comes only from the Indian Ocean through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait; this, with high evaporation, makes it one of the saltiest seas in the world (statement 2). Both statements are correct.

The Sahel, the semi-arid belt south of the Sahara, has seen jihadist insurgencies, ethnic violence and a collapse of security, and this instability has been driven by, and has in turn produced, military coups in Mali (2020, 2021), Chad (2021), Burkina Faso (2022) and Niger (2023). Both statements are correct and the coups explain the worsening security situation.

Hydrogels are three-dimensional networks of hydrophilic polymers that hold large amounts of water. Their biocompatibility and tunable release make them useful for controlled drug delivery, wound dressings, contact lenses and tissue engineering. They are not used in mobile air-conditioning or as industrial lubricants. Hence 1 only.

Moving east from Prayagraj, the left-bank (Himalayan and plains) tributaries join the Ganga in the order Gomati (near Ghazipur), Ghaghara (near Chhapra), Gandak (near Patna) and Kosi (near Kursela in Bihar). Gomati is strictly a plains-fed river, but the sequence asked for is Gomati-Ghaghara-Gandak-Kosi.

A financial instrument is a tradable contract that represents a monetary claim: exchange-traded funds (units of a fund traded on an exchange) and currency swaps (derivative contracts exchanging cash flows in two currencies) both qualify. A motor vehicle is a physical, real asset, not a financial instrument. Hence 1 and 3 only.

Shantiniketan (West Bengal) and the Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas (Belur, Halebidu and Somanathapura in Karnataka) were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in September 2023. Rani-ki-Vav at Patan was inscribed in 2014 and the Mahabodhi Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya in 2002. Hence only two.

The metaverse is the term for a persistent, interoperable network of 3D virtual worlds used simultaneously by many people, with ownership of virtual goods often recorded through NFTs and blockchains. Big-data analytics and cryptography are techniques, not virtual worlds, and 'virtual matrix' is not a recognised term.

Massive giant stars burn their hydrogen far faster because the greater gravitational pressure raises core temperatures and the rate of nuclear fusion, so they live only millions of years, whereas small dwarf stars live for billions. Statement-I is therefore incorrect and Statement-II is correct.

Most commercial chewing gums use a synthetic 'gum base' of petroleum-derived polymers such as polyvinyl acetate and polyisobutylene, in effect plastic, which does not biodegrade; discarded gum therefore persists as litter and microplastic. Both statements are correct and Statement-II explains Statement-I.

In a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, hydrogen from the tank combines with oxygen from the air in the fuel cell to generate electricity for the motor; the only by-product is water, which leaves the tailpipe as water vapour. There are no carbon dioxide or nitrogen-oxide emissions at the vehicle.

PM-SYM (2019) is a voluntary pension scheme for unorganised workers earning up to Rs 15,000 a month. The entry age is 18 to 40 years (statement 1 incorrect); the subscriber pays an age-specific monthly contribution matched by the government (statement 2 correct); and a pension of Rs 3,000 a month is assured after age 60 (statement 3 correct). Family pension of 50 per cent goes only to the spouse, not to daughters (statement 4 incorrect). Hence 2 and 3 only.

Delimitation Commissions have been constituted four times, under the Delimitation Commission Acts of 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002, following the censuses of 1951, 1961, 1971 and 2001. The 42nd Amendment froze constituency numbers until the 2001 census and the 84th Amendment extended the freeze until the first census after 2026.

In 1510 Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara, who valued the Portuguese as suppliers of horses and firearms, permitted Afonso de Albuquerque to build a fort at Bhatkal on the Kanara coast. The Portuguese took Goa from the Bijapur sultan Yusuf Adil Shah in the same year.

Inter-State quarantine is entry 29 of the Union List, so option (c) is correct. Inter-State trade and commerce (entry 42) and inter-State migration (entry 81) are also Union subjects, and corporation tax (entry 85) is a Union tax, so the other three options are wrong.

Only rows 3 and 4 are correct: the Appalachians of North America and the Andes of South America are fold mountains. The Vosges are block mountains in eastern France, not Central Asia, and the Alps are young fold mountains, not block mountains. Hence only two.

DILRMP has been a central sector scheme with 100 per cent central funding since 2016 (statement 1). Its components include computerisation of land records and digitisation of cadastral maps (statement 2). Since 2022 the records of rights are being transliterated from local languages into any of the 22 scheduled languages using the Bhashini platform (statement 3). All three are correct.

Operation Sadbhavana is the Indian Army's civic-action programme in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh and the North-East that runs schools, medical camps, infrastructure and skill projects to meet the basic needs of people in remote areas. Operation Maitri was the 2015 Nepal earthquake relief, Operation Madad the 2018 Kerala flood relief and Operation Sankalp the naval mission in the Gulf.

Madhyama-vyayoga, a one-act play based on an episode of the Mahabharata involving Bhima and Ghatotkacha, is one of the thirteen Sanskrit plays attributed to Bhasa, the dramatist who preceded Kalidasa. The Natyashastra is Bharata's treatise on drama, the Mahabhashya is Patanjali's grammar commentary and Kavyalankara is Bhamaha's work on poetics.

Only red sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus), confined to the Seshachalam hills of Andhra Pradesh, is native to India. Cashew and papaya are both native to tropical America and were introduced to India by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. Hence only one.

Each fig species is pollinated by its own species of tiny fig wasp, which enters the enclosed inflorescence (syconium) to lay eggs and pollinates the flowers inside; the wasp can breed nowhere else. This obligate mutualism, evolved over tens of millions of years, is a classic example of coevolution.

Argentina suffered one of its worst economic crises in 2023, with inflation above 200 per cent (pair 1 correct). Sudan has been at war since April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (pair 2 correct). Turkey remains a NATO member and has not withdrawn (pair 3 incorrect). Hence only two pairs.

Standalone primary dealers, which are NBFCs registered with the RBI, are eligible participants in the Liquidity Adjustment Facility, so statement 1 is correct. Foreign portfolio investors may hold government securities within prescribed limits and freely under the Fully Accessible Route (statement 2), and the NSE and BSE run separate debt-trading platforms (statement 3). Hence 1, 2 and 3.

Volcanic eruptions eject pyroclastic debris (volcanic bombs, lapilli, pumice), fine ash and dust, and gases including water vapour, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, and nitrogen and its compounds. All four are therefore products of eruptions.

The cicada (known for its loud call), the froghopper or spittlebug (whose nymphs live in froth on plant stems) and the pond skater or water strider (which walks on the water surface) are all insects of the order Hemiptera.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves (Statement-II correct), yet it has not recovered: years of hyperinflation, collapsing oil output, sanctions and political crisis have driven more than seven million Venezuelans to emigrate, so Statement-I is incorrect.

Article 109 lays down the special procedure for Money Bills (statement 1). Such a Bill can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha, not in the Rajya Sabha (statement 2). The Rajya Sabha can only recommend amendments within 14 days and cannot reject or amend the Bill (statement 3). The Lok Sabha is free to accept or reject those recommendations, so statement 4 is incorrect. Hence 1, 2 and 3.

Sustainable aviation fuel can be produced from a wide range of feedstocks: agricultural and forestry residues, wood-mill waste, municipal and sewage sludge, used cooking oil, and sugars or starches such as corn grain through the alcohol-to-jet route. All four listed materials are recognised SAF feedstocks.

On dissolution of the Lok Sabha, a Bill pending in the Lok Sabha lapses (statement 1), and a Bill passed by the Lok Sabha but pending in the Rajya Sabha also lapses (statement 2). A Bill for which the President has notified a joint sitting does not lapse (Article 108), so statement 3 is incorrect. Hence 1 and 2.

Shakyamuni ('sage of the Shakyas') and Tathagata ('one who has thus gone', the Buddha's own usual self-reference) are epithets of Gautama Buddha. Nayaputta or Nataputta ('son of the Nata clan') is the title used for Mahavira, the Jain tirthankara. Hence 2 and 3 only.

The European Parliament approved the Net-Zero Industry Act in April 2024 to expand Europe's manufacturing of clean technologies, so Statement-I is correct. The EU's legal target is climate neutrality by 2050 (with a proposed 90 per cent cut by 2040), and the Act aims at making 40 per cent of the EU's clean-technology needs domestically, not all of it, so Statement-II is incorrect.

A small annual and daily temperature range, rain in every month and totals of 50-250 cm describe the marine west-coast (Cfb) climate of western Europe, British Columbia and New Zealand, which is moderated by westerly winds off warm oceans. Equatorial climates are wetter and hotter, while China-type and humid subtropical climates have a marked summer rainfall maximum.

Rainwater weathers rocks chemically: carbon dioxide dissolved in rain forms weak carbonic acid that dissolves limestone (carbonation), and dissolved oxygen oxidises minerals such as iron (oxidation). Both Statement-II and Statement-III are correct and both explain why rainfall causes weathering.