UPSC Prelims 2026 Question Paper (GS Paper I) with Answers

Hindustani Bilawal thaat uses all seven pure (shuddha) notes and is the equivalent of the Western major scale. Its Carnatic counterpart is Dheera Shankarabharanam, the 29th melakarta, which has the same set of notes (S R2 G3 M1 P D2 N3). Nat Bhairavi corresponds to Asavari thaat, Hanumatodi to Bhairavi thaat and Kamavardhini (Pantuvarali) to Purvi thaat.

The Hilton-Young Commission (Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance) fixed the rupee at 1s 6d instead of the pre-war 1s 4d. A higher rupee meant that fewer rupees were needed to pay the 'Home Charges', pensions, interest and other remittances that India sent to Britain, and it protected India's ability to service its sterling debt. Indian business, led by Purshottamdas Thakurdas, opposed it because the overvalued rupee hurt Indian exporters and producers while making British imports cheaper. It was not meant to help Indian importers or cotton exports, and it was a sterling rate, not a measure against depreciation in terms of gold.

Both. Pali Buddhist texts give the first clear literary references to coins such as kahapana (karshapana), nikkha, kamsa and kakanika, and the many silver punch-marked coins found across north India confirm them. Together they show that money had become a regular medium of exchange around the 6th–4th centuries BCE, the age of the 'second urbanisation', when trade, crafts and cities (Rajagriha, Shravasti, Kaushambi and others) grew. Coins are therefore evidence of both the transition to a money economy and the emergence of urban life.

The Dashavatara Temple at Deogarh (Gupta period, c. 6th century) is one of the earliest temples with a Nagara (curvilinear) shikhara, and the Huchimalligudi Temple at Aihole (early Chalukya) has an early rekha-nagara superstructure over its sanctum. The Malegitti Shivalaya at Badami and the Virupaksha Temple at Pattadakal are classic Dravida-style vimanas with stepped, pyramidal towers. Pattadakal has both Nagara and Dravida temples, but Virupaksha belongs to the Dravida group.

Jainism recognises four gatis (states of existence) through which a soul transmigrates: Deva (heavenly beings), Manushya (humans), Tiryancha (animals, plants and other lower beings) and Naraki (hell beings). Yakshas (demi-gods) are not a separate gati; in Jain cosmology they are a class of lesser divine beings (vyantara devas) within the Deva category, and in art they appear as attendant deities of the Tirthankaras.

Hallisaka (hallisalasya) was a circular group dance. In the Bagh Caves (Madhya Pradesh, c. 5th–6th century CE, contemporary with Ajanta) the famous painting in Cave 4 shows a male dancer surrounded by women musicians and dancers in a lively, joyous performance, a rare secular scene in Buddhist cave art. It does not depict the Buddha in meditation, Shiva-Parvati on Kailasha (a theme of Ellora sculpture) or the churning of the ocean.

All three statements follow the standard account of Indian numerals (as summarised by Upinder Singh). The earliest epigraphic use of the decimal place-value system in India is in a copper-plate grant from Mankani in Gujarat dated Kalachuri era 346 (AD 595–596). By the 9th century place-value numerals had become general in inscriptions across India, and Sanskrit inscriptions of South-east Asia (Cambodia, Sumatra and Bangka) use place-value numerals as early as the late 7th century. Note: this question is among eight challenged before the CAT in 2026; the answer here follows UPSC's key.

Spindle-whorls in many houses but no spinning wheels show that thread was spun by hand at home, a slow and laborious task, so inference 1 holds. Standardised cubical chert weights (binary, then decimal) and graduated scales such as the shell scale from Mohenjodaro and the ivory scale from Lothal show considerable practical mathematics and measurement, so inference 2 holds. Large baked-brick houses around courtyards, with private wells and bathing platforms, point to private ownership and social differentiation rather than a common property system, so inference 3 does not follow.

Bardoli Satyagraha (1928, Surat district, Gujarat) was a no-revenue campaign led by Vallabhbhai Patel against a 22% (originally about 30%) enhancement of land revenue. The Eka (unity) Movement of 1921–22 arose in the Hardoi, Bahraich and Sitapur districts of Awadh against high rents (often 50% above the recorded rent), oppression by thikedars and illegal exactions. Eka began with Congress/Khilafat support but soon came under local low-caste leaders like Madari Pasi and moved away from Congress; it was a movement of tenants against taluqdars, not led by them. Bardoli was a movement of peasant proprietors in Gujarat, not in Saurashtra.

The two statements are about wells and the use of animal power to lift water. The Rigveda refers to wells (avata) from which water was drawn with a stone pulley-wheel (ashma-chakra) and strapped wooden buckets (ahava), which directly supports both statements. The long history of the ox, used for ploughing and pulling carts even before the Rigvedic period (Harappan terracotta ploughs and bullock-cart models), supports the use of draught-animal power at wells. Information 2, on axes and sickles, concerns clearing land and harvesting, not irrigation from wells, so it does not support the statements.

UPSC's key treats only item 3 as the basis. The Ganges river dolphin and the Indus river dolphin are so closely related that they were long treated as one species (Platanista gangetica); their presence in both the Indus and Ganga systems, which are not connected today, is taken as evidence that in the Pleistocene the two systems were once linked through a shift of the Yamuna or Sutlej (or a major tributary). The Nadi-Sukta of the Rigveda only lists rivers in their Vedic-age order and cannot speak about the Pleistocene, and Robert Bruce Foote was a geologist-archaeologist of south Indian prehistory, not an explorer of the Sutlej and Yamuna. Note: this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026.

In early (aniconic) Buddhist art of Bharhut, Sanchi and Amaravati the Buddha was not shown in human form; events of his life were indicated by symbols. As the NCERT text on Sanchi explains, an empty seat was meant to indicate the meditation of the Buddha (his seat of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree), the wheel stood for the First Sermon at Sarnath, the stupa for the Mahaparinibbana, and a riderless horse for the Mahabhinishkramana (great departure).

The Rigvedic names of the Punjab rivers are: Vitasta = Jhelum, Asikni = Chenab, Parushni = Ravi, Vipas = Beas and Shutudri = Sutlej. So pairs 1 and 2 are swapped and only pair 3 is correct. Yavyavati is a Rigvedic river usually identified with the Zhob in the north-west (present Pakistan), not the Beas.

Amaravati (Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh) lies in the lower Krishna valley, and its limestone reliefs (c. 2nd century BCE–3rd century CE, Satavahana and Ikshvaku periods) form the Amaravati school. Its narrative style, slender figures and lively compositions influenced later sculpture of south India, and Amaravati-style images and reliefs travelled to Sri Lanka and South-east Asia. Statement 2 is not correct: the Amaravati stupa was itself one of the largest stupas of ancient India and is not described as 'next only to Sanchi' in size.

Senguttuvan (the 'Red Chera'), hero of the Silappadikaram legend who brought stone from the Himalayas for the Kannagi (Pattini) temple, was a Chera king, so pair 1 is correct. Nedunjeliyan, victor of the battle of Talaiyalanganam, was a Pandya king, so pair 3 is correct. Udiyanjeral (Udiyan Cheralathan), praised in the Padirruppattu as the earliest known Chera ruler, was a Chera, not a Chola, so only pair 2 is not correctly matched.

After Bose was re-elected Congress President at Tripuri (1939) defeating Gandhi's nominee Pattabhi Sitaramayya, Gandhi and the Working Committee members withheld cooperation and Bose could not win Gandhi's confidence (1). The Congress Left proved disunited: the Congress Socialists under Jayaprakash Narayan and the Royists chose to stay neutral and preferred Congress unity under Gandhi to backing Bose (2 and 4). Isolated, Bose resigned and formed the Forward Bloc in May 1939. UPSC's key (b) does not count statement 3 as a factor.

After annexing Awadh in February 1856, the British made a Summary Settlement of land revenue in 1856 that treated the taluqdars as outsiders or usurpers with no real right to the land and settled directly with the village proprietors and cultivators, removing the taluqdars wherever possible (2 and 3). The taluqdars were not allowed to keep their power base: they were disarmed and their forts were demolished, and many lost large parts of their estates. This is why the dispossessed taluqdars joined the revolt of 1857 in large numbers.

The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (Government of India Act, 1919) retained separate electorates for Muslims and extended them to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans (1). The British saw communal representation as a way to divide and counter the growing national movement (2). Because seats and favours were distributed by community, various groups, including the depressed classes who were given nominated representation, organised to claim the benefits attached to separate representation (3). All three statements therefore explain why political alliances began to form along community lines.

Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur (1910–1992) of Dharwad, Karnataka, was one of the foremost Khayal singers of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana founded by Alladiya Khan; he trained under Manji Khan and Burji Khan, sons of Alladiya Khan, and was known for rare and complex ragas. He received the Padma Vibhushan. Dharwad's other great vocalists, Bhimsen Joshi and Gangubai Hangal, belonged to the Kirana gharana.

UPSC's key gives the Atharvaveda. The Atharvaveda contains many agricultural charms and personifies the field; the feminine 'kshetra-patni', the mistress or goddess of the field, is traced to it. The Rigveda (Book IV) praises Kshetrapati, the masculine 'lord of the field', but not a 'mistress of the field'. The Ashtadhyayi is Panini's grammar and the Arthashastra is Kautilya's treatise on statecraft; neither is the source of the term.

India's LT-LEDS, submitted to the UNFCCC at COP27 (2022), sets out the low-carbon development path towards net-zero by 2070. India's Fourth Biennial Update Report (BUR-4, December 2024) reported that total GHG emissions (excluding LULUCF) in 2020 fell by about 7.93% compared with 2019, which empirically supports the trajectory in statement I (relationship 1 is correct). Statement III is wrong in itself: climate-resilient development is a long-term, gradual process and does not depend on quick, short-term targets; this contradicts the long-term approach of LT-LEDS (relationship 2 is correct), so I and III cannot together establish long-term sustainability (relationship 3 is wrong).

The western hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock), India's only ape, is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List; the Hollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary in Jorhat, Assam is named after it (1). Like all gibbons it moves by brachiation, swinging arm-over-arm through the canopy with long arms and hook-like hands (2). Gibbons are 'lesser apes': small and light (about 6–9 kg), not heavily built like gorillas (3 is wrong).

Mangroves dissipate wave and storm-surge energy, stabilise shorelines and act as natural bio-shields (as seen in the 1999 Odisha super cyclone and the 2004 tsunami); they also provide fish nurseries, honey, fuelwood, fodder and other biomass that support coastal livelihoods (3). Statements 1 and 2 are wrong: mangroves are salt-tolerant (halophytic) plants of saline intertidal zones; they do not store freshwater for paddy, and their roots do not turn seawater into freshwater for aquaculture. Converting mangrove land into paddy fields or aquaculture ponds is in fact a major cause of mangrove loss.

Vizhinjam International Seaport near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, commissioned in 2025, is India's first dedicated deep-water container trans-shipment port. Its natural depth of about 18–20 m close to the coast and its position only about 10 nautical miles from the main east–west shipping route let it handle mega container ships. It aims to capture Indian cargo now trans-shipped at Colombo, Singapore and Dubai, saving costs and foreign exchange and keeping port revenue in India (3). It is an international trans-shipment hub built as a PPP with Adani Ports, not an exclusively domestic or cruise-tourism port (1 and 2 are wrong).

The Sutlej rises near Lake Rakshastal in the Tibetan Plateau, cuts across the Himalaya through a deep gorge near Shipki La (an antecedent river), and flows through China (Tibet), India and Pakistan. It feeds the Bhakra-Nangal system and the Indira Gandhi Canal, so it is vital for irrigation. It ends by joining the Chenab (Panjnad) and does not form a delta or distributaries. The Indus and the Brahmaputra are also antecedent and cross three countries, but both form deltas with many distributaries; the Teesta rises in Sikkim, not on the Tibetan Plateau.

Statement 1 is correct: Uttar Pradesh touches eight States (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar) plus Delhi, the highest of any State. Statement 2 is not correct: West Bengal has the longest international border (about 2,217 km with Bangladesh, plus borders with Nepal and Bhutan), while Rajasthan's border with Pakistan is about 1,070 km. Statement 3 is not correct: Sikkim borders only West Bengal, but Meghalaya also borders only one State (Assam), so Sikkim is not the only such State.

Amur falcons breed in Mongolia, north-east China and south-east Russia and stop over in very large numbers around Doyang reservoir (Wokha district, Nagaland) every October–November before flying non-stop over the Arabian Sea to southern Africa. Until 2012 thousands were trapped there; community resolutions, awareness drives and patrolling by villages such as Pangti turned former hunters into protectors, which is the lesson in statement 1. Satellite tagging is used only to study their routes; it does not guide the birds (2 is wrong). They are passage migrants that stay a few weeks and do not reside permanently in India (3 is wrong).

Rainfed Area Development (RAD) is a component of the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA). It promotes an area-based Integrated Farming System approach, combining crops with horticulture, livestock, fisheries, agroforestry and apiculture, together with soil and water conservation, to raise productivity and reduce the risk of crop failure from climate variability (3). It discourages monoculture rather than encouraging it, and it targets rainfed areas, not rice expansion in irrigated regions (1 and 2 are wrong).

OEKO-TEX certification (for example STANDARD 100) is an international label showing that a textile has been tested for harmful substances and meets safety standards; related OEKO-TEX labels also cover environmentally responsible production. In 2025 Eri silk, the 'peace' or 'ahimsa' silk of Assam and the North-east, obtained OEKO-TEX certification. This assures buyers that the product is free of harmful chemicals and meets international safety, environmental and quality norms, letting Indian exporters compete in premium, eco-conscious markets in Europe, the USA and Japan. Both statements are therefore correct.

The Strait of Hormuz is the only sea outlet of the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Bahrain and Qatar lie entirely on the Persian Gulf, so their ships must pass through Hormuz to reach the Indian Ocean. Syria's coast is on the Mediterranean, and Egypt reaches the Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea (Bab-el-Mandeb), so neither needs Hormuz.

Tungurahua, an active stratovolcano in the Andes of central Ecuador near the town of Baños, gives its name to the Tungurahua Volcano UNESCO Global Geopark, designated in 2025. Ecuador already had the Imbabura Global Geopark. Peru, Bolivia and Colombia are also Andean countries, but Tungurahua is not in any of them.

Madhav National Park in Shivpuri district, Madhya Pradesh, was notified as India's 58th tiger reserve and Madhya Pradesh's ninth in March 2025 (1). Sakhya Sagar lake inside the park was designated a Ramsar site in 2022 (2). The park lies wholly in Madhya Pradesh; it is not shared with Rajasthan (3 is wrong). Tigers reintroduced from other reserves helped its upgrade.

Lying close to the equator and surrounded by sea, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have a hot, humid, tropical maritime (coastal) climate with little seasonal change in temperature (1). They receive rain from the south-west monsoon (May–September) and also from the north-east monsoon and cyclonic disturbances (October–December), giving roughly 3,000 mm a year (2). The wettest months fall between May and December; January to April is the comparatively dry season, so statement 3 is wrong.

The Peninsular Block is an old, stable landmass of Archaean rocks. Its western margin was faulted, and parts of the western coast subsided and were submerged, producing a narrow coast and features such as the drowned Konkan and Malabar coasts (1). Long erosion has reduced its old mountains to residual hills such as the Aravalli, Nallamala, Javadi, Veliconda, Palkonda and Mahendragiri hills (2). Deep, V-shaped valleys cut by fast-flowing young rivers are typical of the Himalaya, not of the Peninsula, whose mature rivers flow in broad, shallow valleys (3 is wrong).

Sagarmala (2015) pursues port-led development by modernising ports, improving port connectivity, building coastal industrial clusters and promoting coastal and inland water transport to cut logistics costs (statement I). Growth in coastal shipping and inland waterway cargo and the better global ranking of Indian ports (for example in the World Bank's Container Port Performance Index) show these strategies working, so II validates I (relationship 1 is correct). Sagarmala 2.0 builds on the same goals and adds shipbuilding, innovation and technology in line with Atmanirbhar Bharat and Viksit Bharat 2047, so III extends I (relationship 2 is correct). I and III are complementary, not contradictory (relationship 3 is wrong).

Rhynchostylis retusa, the foxtail orchid (kopou phool in Assam), grows on the trunks and branches of trees, so it is an epiphytic orchid (1). It is the State flower of Arunachal Pradesh and of Assam, where it is worn in Bihu dances (3). It is not endemic to North-east India: it occurs widely across tropical Asia, from India and Sri Lanka to South-east Asia, China and the Philippines (2 is wrong).

The Moidams of Charaideo, Assam, inscribed as India's 43rd UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024 (the first cultural site from the North-east), are mound burials of the Tai-Ahom royalty and nobility built over some 600 years. Each moidam is a vaulted chamber covered by an earthen mound, where the dead were buried with goods for the afterlife. They were never army fortresses, recreation centres or battle-drill grounds.

FAO's Strategic Framework 2022–31 aims at the 'Four Betters': better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life, leaving no one behind. FAO's Blue Transformation roadmap applies these to aquatic food systems, sustainably expanding aquaculture, managing fisheries effectively and upgrading value chains, and FAO promoted it at the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France (June 2025). 'Better ocean', 'better coral reefs', 'better estuaries' and 'better mangrove vegetation' are not part of the Four Betters.

Lake Turkana in the Eastern (Gregory) Rift Valley of northern Kenya, with its northern tip in Ethiopia, is the world's largest permanent desert lake and largest alkaline lake (1). It is not in South Sudan and is not on the fringe of the Sahara (2 is wrong). Its striking blue-green colour gives it the name 'Jade Sea', and the Lake Turkana National Parks (Sibiloi, Central Island and South Island) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, now on the 'in danger' list (3).

The Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Project around Mawphlang in Meghalaya, run by a federation of traditional Khasi governments (hima) with the NGO Community Forestry International, was India's first REDD+ project certified under the Plan Vivo standard (2016); it restores and protects community forests and sells carbon credits whose income goes to the villages. The other options are not the first Plan Vivo certified REDD+ project in India.

Genetic medicines (gene therapy, gene editing, mRNA and antisense therapies) act at the level of genes: they replace, repair, silence or supplement a faulty gene, or supply the missing protein's instructions, to treat the disease (1). They are delivered into cells by carriers such as engineered (disarmed) viruses like AAV and lentivirus, or non-viral lipid nanoparticles, as used in mRNA vaccines (2). They target specific genes or sequences; they do not rewrite a person's entire DNA sequence (3 is wrong).

An LLM is trained to predict the next token: for each position it computes a probability distribution over possible next words and then selects a word from it (greedy decoding picks the most probable one) (1). Training is an optimisation process in which the model's parameters are adjusted, by gradient descent, to minimise prediction error (loss) on huge text datasets (2). Because they learn from human-written data, LLMs can reproduce social, cultural and other biases; their outputs are not guaranteed to be unbiased (3 is wrong).

Stealth aircraft and ships are shaped to deflect radar energy away from the source and are coated with radar-absorbing materials, giving them a very small radar cross-section (1). Stealth is optimised for particular radar bands (mainly X and other high-frequency bands), so low-frequency (VHF/UHF) radars, passive and multistatic radars and infrared sensors can still detect them (2). Metamaterials are being developed to cloak objects by bending or absorbing electromagnetic waves, i.e. to reduce scattering back to the radar, not to increase it (3 is wrong).

An aircraft's 'black boxes' (painted bright orange) are the Cockpit Voice Recorder and the Flight Data Recorder, often combined in one unit, so they record both cockpit audio and flight parameters (2). Their crash-survivable memory units are encased in heavily insulated stainless steel or titanium housings to withstand impact, fire and deep-sea pressure (3). The underwater locator beacon fitted to them emits ultrasonic acoustic pings (about 37.5 kHz) for about 30–90 days, not red light pulses (1 is wrong).

Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind (2). Hydrogen from natural-gas reforming with carbon capture and storage is called 'blue' hydrogen, and without CCS it is 'grey' hydrogen, so statement 1 does not describe green hydrogen. The National Green Hydrogen Mission (2023, outlay ₹19,744 crore) targets 5 MMT of green hydrogen production a year by 2030, about 125 GW of added renewable capacity and abatement of nearly 50 MMT of annual greenhouse gas emissions (3). Note: this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026; the answer follows UPSC's key.

IN-SPACe, set up in 2020 under the Department of Space, is an autonomous single-window agency that promotes, authorises and supervises space activities of non-government entities (1). Chennai-based Agnikul Cosmos launched Agnibaan SOrTeD from Sriharikota in May 2024, the world's first flight of a rocket powered by a single-piece 3D-printed semi-cryogenic engine (2). Skyroot Aerospace builds its own Vikram series of launch vehicles (Vikram-S flew in 2022); it has not developed liquid fuel for ISRO's GSLV (3 is wrong).

A drone swarm is a group of drones that coordinate as a networked unit: individual drones exchange data with one another (mesh networking and swarm algorithms) so the swarm can act together even with limited control from the ground (2). Common counter-swarm measures include jamming and GPS spoofing, which feed false navigation signals to mislead or ground the drones, besides lasers, microwaves and guns (3). Swarms communicate over ordinary radio bands (such as 2.4/5.8 GHz and other RF links), not the terahertz band, which is still experimental (1 is wrong).

GenomeIndia, launched in 2020 and funded by the Department of Biotechnology (2), sequenced the whole genomes of about 10,000 healthy individuals from some 83–99 population groups across India and released the data in 2025 through the Indian Biological Data Centre. Its main aim is to build a reference catalogue of genetic variation of the Indian population for research, diagnostics and precision medicine (3). It is an Indian national project led by IISc's Centre for Brain Research and about 20 institutions; it is not part of the international Human Genome Project, which was completed in 2003 (1 is wrong).

The National Quantum Mission (2023–24 to 2030–31, outlay about ₹6,003 crore, under the Department of Science and Technology) aims to develop intermediate-scale quantum computers with 50–1000 physical qubits in eight years on platforms such as superconducting and photonic qubits (1). It is implemented through four Thematic Hubs (T-Hubs) in top academic and R&D institutions: quantum computing (IISc Bengaluru), quantum communication (IIT Madras with C-DOT), quantum sensing and metrology (IIT Bombay) and quantum materials and devices (IIT Delhi) (2). Both statements are correct.

The Deep Ocean Mission (approved 2021) is run by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, not the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (1 is wrong). Its manned-submersible component, Samudrayaan, is developing MATSYA-6000 at NIOT Chennai, designed to carry three people to a depth of 6,000 m for deep-sea exploration (2 and 3). The mission also covers deep-sea mining technology, ocean climate advisory services, deep-sea biodiversity and ocean energy.

Mr. X held himself and the private provider answerable for the quality of a public service: he refused to bow to pressure from vested interests, reported the wrongdoing to the vigilance authority and stopped the contract in the citizens' interest. This is accountability, the principle that officials answer for the use of public resources and the outcomes of public programmes. Esprit de corps is team spirit and unity among staff; equity is fairness in treating people; delegation is the passing of authority to subordinates. None of these is the main principle shown.

Good conflict resolution starts by recognising the tribal community's cultural and sacred concerns so that they feel heard before technical options are discussed (1); it builds a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform of tribal leaders, experts and municipal representatives to rebuild trust and lower tensions (3); and it uses an independent Environmental and Social Impact Assessment shared openly with both sides so that the decision rests on evidence (4). Pushing the project through without delay and dismissing the tribal community as 'a small group' (2) ignores their rights and consent (for example under the Forest Rights Act and the PESA framework) and would escalate the conflict.

The information is serious but unproven, so the balanced course is a 'limited disclosure' to an oversight committee, which can verify it through due process while protecting confidentiality, fairness to the contractor and the integrity of the project (3). Making unverified allegations public immediately (1) could defame the contractor and breach confidentiality, and recommending removal from the shortlist on the basis of unproven allegations (2) would prejudge the matter. Keeping silent as Mr. Y advises would compromise transparency and public trust, so disclosure through the proper channel is the right step.

Article 13(3)(a) defines 'law' to include any ordinance, order, bye-law, rule, regulation, notification, custom or usage having in the territory of India the force of law. So Y is right that custom or usage having the force of law is 'law' under Article 13 and can be struck down if it violates Fundamental Rights. X's description of ordinances, orders, rules and regulations is correct as far as it goes, but X's interpretation as a whole, which rejects the inclusion of custom, is wrong. UPSC's key therefore treats only Y's view as correct.

All three statements are false. Article 393 gives the short title: 'This Constitution may be called the Constitution of India.' Article 395 repeals the Indian Independence Act, 1947 and the Government of India Act, 1935 (together with the enactments amending them, but not the Abolition of Privy Council Jurisdiction Act, 1949). Article 394 states that certain articles came into force at once and that the remaining provisions came into force on the twenty-sixth day of January, 1950, the commencement of the Constitution. So there is no correct statement.

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act was passed in December 2016 (in force from April 2017), not 2018; it does mandate 4% reservation in government jobs and 5% in higher education and places duties of accessibility and non-discrimination on governments, but the year makes statement 1 wrong. The Sugamya Bharat (Accessible India) Abhiyan (2015) targets universal accessibility in three areas: the built environment, the transport system and the information and communication ecosystem (2). NDFDC was set up in 1997 under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (now with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities) as a not-for-profit company, not by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (3 is wrong).

Statement 1 is wrong: the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are administered under the Sixth Schedule (autonomous district councils); the Fifth Schedule covers Scheduled Areas in other States. Statement 2 is correct: Section 10(26) of the Income-tax Act exempts certain income of members of Scheduled Tribes living in specified tribal areas of the North-east and Ladakh. Statement 3 is correct: Article 243D reserves not less than one-third of the seats reserved for SCs and STs in Panchayats for women of those groups. So two statements, including statement 2, are correct.

The definitions in statements 1 and 2 are reversed. A starred question (marked with an asterisk) is one to which a member wants an oral answer on the floor of the House, and supplementary questions may follow it. An unstarred question receives a written answer laid on the Table, and no supplementary question can be asked on it, so statement 3 is correct. Only one statement is correct.

All four statements are wrong. The Committee on the Welfare of SCs and STs has 30 members: 20 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha (statement 2 reverses this). Its Chairperson is appointed by the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from among the Lok Sabha members, not by the Rajya Sabha Chairman (1 is wrong). No Minister can be a member of the committee, and a member who becomes a Minister ceases to be a member (3 is wrong). Members hold office for one year, not two (4 is wrong).

Mission Sudarshan Chakra, announced by the Prime Minister on 15 August 2025, aims to build an indigenous, multi-layered national security shield integrating air defence, missile defence and the ability to strike back (1). It is meant to give rapid, precise and powerful responses to threats using domestic technology, reinforcing strategic autonomy (2). The stated goal is that by 2035 the expanded shield will protect the country's strategic, civilian and public places (3). UPSC's key accepts all three statements; this question was among those challenged before the CAT in 2026.

Maitri Setu (inaugurated 2021) crosses the Feni river and links Sabroom in South Tripura, India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh, so statement 1 reverses the two towns. The Jhulaghat suspension bridge over the Mahakali river in Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand, links India with Nepal, not Myanmar (2 is wrong). The Mechi bridge over the Mechi river, built with Indian assistance, connects the Panitanki bypass in Darjeeling district (West Bengal) with Kakarvitta in Nepal (3 is correct).

Section 173(1) of the BNSS codifies the Zero FIR: information about a cognizable offence may be given at any police station irrespective of where the offence was committed, and the FIR is then transferred to the station with jurisdiction. It applies to cognizable offences, not non-cognizable ones, so statement 1 is wrong. Section 173(3) allows the officer in charge, with the prior permission of an officer not below the rank of DSP, to conduct a preliminary enquiry within 14 days for cognizable offences punishable with 3 to 7 years (2). Information may be given orally or by electronic communication (e-FIR), but electronic filing is optional, not obligatory (3 is wrong). Note: this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026.

Only row 3 is fully correct. The Central Economic Intelligence Bureau coordinates intelligence and enforcement among economic-offence agencies, but it works under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, not the Ministry of Home Affairs (row 1 is wrong). The Serious Fraud Investigation Office investigates complex corporate frauds under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, not the Ministry of Finance (row 2 is wrong). The CBI functions under the Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, and its stated mission is to uphold the Constitution, preserve values in public life and ensure the health of the national economy (row 3 is correct).

The India AI Impact Summit (New Delhi, February 2026), the first global AI summit hosted in the Global South, was framed around three Sutras: People, Planet and Progress, not 'People, Planning and Progress' (1 is wrong). The Charter for the Democratic Diffusion of AI is a voluntary, non-binding framework, so describing it as binding is wrong (2). The New Delhi Declaration was organised around seven Chakras (working pillars), including access for social empowerment, AI for science and secure and trusted AI (3 is correct).

The Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project links Kolkata to Sittwe port in Myanmar and then by river and road to Mizoram, and the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway runs from Moreh (Manipur) through Myanmar to Mae Sot in Thailand. Myanmar and Thailand are ASEAN members, so both projects are part of India's connectivity cooperation with ASEAN countries under the Act East Policy. The Agartala–Akhaura rail line links Tripura with Bangladesh, which is not an ASEAN member.

The 720 MW Mangdechhu Hydroelectric Project was built with Indian grant and loan in Bhutan (A–3). India restored the 19th-century Stor Palace in Kabul, which houses Afghanistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, inaugurated in 2016 (B–2). The 150-bed District Hospital at Dickoya in the Central Province hill-country of Sri Lanka was built with Indian assistance (C–4). The Institute of Security and Law Enforcement Studies, a training institute for the Maldives Police Service at Addu, was built with Indian support (D–1). So the code is A–3, B–2, C–4, D–1.

Su-30 MKI fighters are built under licence by HAL at Nashik, Maharashtra (1). T-90 'Bhishma' tanks, including the upgraded versions, are produced under licence at the Heavy Vehicles Factory, Avadi, Chennai (2). Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarines are built in Russia; India has only leased them (INS Chakra), so they are not manufactured in India (3 is wrong).

The Colombo Process (2003), a regional consultative process of Asian countries of origin of migrant workers (India is a member), is voluntary and non-binding; it does not take binding decisions (1 is wrong). The Abu Dhabi Dialogue (2008) brings together Asian countries of origin and Gulf/Asian countries of destination as a voluntary, non-binding forum on contractual labour mobility (2). The Global Forum on Migration and Development, which grew out of the 2006 UN High-Level Dialogue on the proposal of then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, is a voluntary, state-led, informal process whose outcomes are non-binding (3).

Only the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has won the Nobel Peace Prize twice, in 1954 and 1981. UNICEF won it once (1965), the International Labour Organization once (1969, its 50th anniversary) and the World Food Programme once (2020). (The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has won it three times, is not a UN body.)

UNMIL, the UN Mission in Liberia, ran from 2003 to 2018 (A–3). MINURCAT, the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad, ran from 2007 to 2010 (B–1). MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, ran from 2004 to 2017 (C–4). UNMISET, the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (Timor-Leste), ran from 2002 to 2005 (D–2). So the code is A–3, B–1, C–4, D–2.

BIMSTEC centres are spread across member states: the BIMSTEC Cultural Industries Observatory is in Thimphu, Bhutan (A–4); the BIMSTEC Energy Centre is in Bengaluru, India (B–2); the BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate is at NCMRWF, NOIDA, India (C–1); and the BIMSTEC Technology Transfer Facility is in Colombo, Sri Lanka (D–3). The code is A–4, B–2, C–1, D–3. The BIMSTEC Secretariat itself is in Dhaka.

3 Corps (Spear Corps) is headquartered at Rangapahar, Dimapur; 4 Corps (Gajraj Corps) at Tezpur; and 14 Corps (Fire and Fury Corps) at Leh, so these pairs are correct. 33 Corps (Trishakti Corps), responsible for Sikkim and the Siliguri corridor, is headquartered at Sukna near Siliguri, West Bengal, not Srinagar. The corps at Srinagar is 15 Corps (Chinar Corps).

The Revamped Rashtriya Gram Swaraj Abhiyan, approved in April 2022, runs from 2022–23 to 2025–26 (1 April 2022 to 31 March 2026), not from 2021 (1 is wrong). Its key objective is to build the governance capabilities of Panchayati Raj Institutions so that they can deliver on the localised Sustainable Development Goals (2). Funding is shared: the Central component is fully central, but the State component is shared 60:40 between the Centre and States, 90:10 for the North-eastern and hill States and Jammu and Kashmir, and 100% central only for Union Territories, so statement 3 is wrong.

Poland (joined 2004) and Germany (a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957) are members of the European Union. Belarus is not a member; it is in the Union State with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. Switzerland is not an EU member either; it is linked to the EU through bilateral agreements and is part of the Schengen Area and EFTA.

INTERPOL's colour-coded notices: the Silver Notice (introduced in 2025 on a pilot basis, with India among the first users) seeks to locate and trace criminal assets (A–4); the Blue Notice collects additional information about a person's identity, location or activities in relation to a crime (B–2); the Black Notice seeks information on unidentified bodies (C–1); and the Green Notice warns about a person's criminal activities where the person is considered a possible threat to public safety (D–3). Other notices include Red (arrest for extradition), Yellow (missing persons), Orange (imminent threats) and Purple (modus operandi).

NIRANTAR groups MoEFCC's scientific institutions into thematic verticals, each with a lead institute. Ecosystem survey and analysis is led by the Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata (1), and capacity development support is led by the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal (3). The Central Zoo Authority is the statutory regulator of zoos under the Wild Life (Protection) Act; it is not the lead institute for research and management of ecosystem services, so statement 2 is wrong (UPSC key: 1 and 3 only).

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made his first official visit to India in January 2026. The outcome list included a Memorandum of Understanding between Hockey India and the German Hockey Federation on youth hockey development and the establishment of a bilateral dialogue mechanism on the Indo-Pacific. An MoU between the All India Institute of Ayurveda and the University of Hamburg, and the opening of a German honorary consul in Lucknow, were not among the outcomes, so statements 1 and 4 are not correct (UPSC key).

DHRUV64, unveiled by C-DAC in December 2025 under the Microprocessor Development Programme of the Ministry of Electronics and IT, is India's first indigenous 1.0 GHz, 64-bit dual-core microprocessor (2). It is the third chip fabricated under the Digital India RISC-V (DIR-V) programme, which aims to create a self-reliant ecosystem of RISC-V-based microprocessors for India (1). Both statements are correct.

In 2025 the Bureau of Indian Standards notified IS 19445:2025, India's first national standard for testing and evaluating bomb disposal systems such as bomb blankets, suppression vessels, protective suits and containment equipment (1). A common standard lets different security agencies (police, central armed police forces, the NSG and the armed forces) buy and use equipment that meets the same performance benchmarks, improving interoperability (2). Statement 3 is not correct as per UPSC's key: the standard was formulated by BIS as an Indian national standard with domestic expert and user bodies, not developed by DRDO's TBRL jointly with Russia's 30th Central Scientific Research Institute.

The 2025 Physics Nobel went to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis for demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. John Clarke was born in Cambridge, UK, and is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, so he is 'X'. Devoret was born in Paris (France) and works at Yale and UC Santa Barbara. Richard Robson (Chemistry 2025, metal-organic frameworks) was born in the UK but is at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Joel Mokyr (Economics 2025) was born in the Netherlands and teaches at Northwestern University.

UPSC's provisional key gives (a), statements 1 and 2. The four Grand Slams (Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and US Open) are jointly governed with the ITF through the Grand Slam Board, which sets common rules, the Grand Slam rulebook and integrity programmes (1). Entry is open to professional players on the basis of their world ranking, subject to the tours' age eligibility rules for young players (UPSC accepts statement 2). There is no fixed cap on how many wild cards a player may receive over a career; each tournament awards its own wild cards (3 is wrong). Note: coaching keys (ForumIAS, ClearIAS, StudyIQ) gave (c), arguing that statement 2 ignores ranking cut-offs, and this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026; UPSC's final key may differ.

The HCL–Foxconn joint venture semiconductor (OSAT/display-driver chip) unit approved under the India Semiconductor Mission in 2025 is located near the Jewar airport in Uttar Pradesh, not Madhya Pradesh, so this pair is wrong. The other pairs are correct: the CG Power–Renesas–Stars Microelectronics OSAT unit is at Sanand, Gujarat; Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test's unit is at Jagiroad, Assam; and SiCSem's silicon-carbide compound semiconductor fab is in Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

The Bharat Forecast System, launched in May 2025, is an indigenous global weather model with a resolution of about 6 km, the finest of any operational global model, which allows forecasts down to clusters of gram panchayats and better prediction of extreme rainfall (1). It was developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, and runs on the Arka supercomputer; it was not developed by IIT Delhi (2 is wrong).

'Boong', a Manipuri-language film about a young boy in Manipur searching for his father, won the BAFTA for Best Children's and Family Film at the British Academy Film Awards (1). It is the debut feature of director Lakshmipriya Devi (2). It is the first Indian film to win a BAFTA in this category (3). All three statements are correct.

A blockchain is a distributed ledger: identical copies are kept on many nodes and synchronised through a consensus mechanism (2); records can be shared with authorised stakeholders while cryptographic hashing makes tampering evident (1); and once a block is validated and added, changing or deleting its data is practically impossible without redoing the chain (4). Statement 3 is wrong: a consortium blockchain is a permissioned blockchain run jointly by a group of organisations; a blend of public and private blockchains is a 'hybrid' blockchain. Note: this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026; the answer follows UPSC's key.

In dropshipping, the online seller lists products and sets their prices but holds no inventory; when an order arrives, it passes the order and shipping details to a third-party supplier (manufacturer or wholesaler), who ships directly to the customer, and the seller earns the margin. In the affiliate model a site earns a commission for referring buyers to another seller and does not control prices; the transaction-fee model earns a fee per transaction on a platform; and in the agency model the supplier, not the seller, sets the price and the seller acts as an agent for a commission.

RBI's Financial Inclusion Index (FI-Index), launched in 2021 and published annually for the year ending March, captures the extent of financial inclusion across banking, investments, insurance, postal and pension services on a scale of 0 to 100. It has three sub-indices: Access (35% weight), Usage (45%) and Quality (20%), the last covering financial literacy, consumer protection and inequalities. The other combinations are not the official sub-indices.

ONDC, promoted by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, is an open, interoperable network rather than a platform. Buyer apps and seller apps that join it can transact with each other, so a small seller listed on one app becomes visible to buyers on any other app. This aims to democratise digital commerce and reduce the dominance of a few large platforms that control both buyers and sellers. It does not give the government control over transactions, does not replace private players (they can join the network) and does not mandate UPI.

Statement (d) is not correct. The Digital Rupee (e₹) is legal tender issued by the RBI in digital form, so it is a direct liability of the RBI, like banknotes; banks only distribute it through wallets. Money moved through UPI is a bank deposit, which is a liability of the bank. The other statements reflect RBI's own comparison: UPI is a real-time payment system for moving bank money, while e₹ is akin to sovereign currency (a); a UPI payment is settled between banks, whereas an e₹ payment moves the token itself from wallet to wallet with no separate inter-bank settlement (b); and e₹ wallet-to-wallet transactions do not appear in the user's bank statement (c).

Real-world asset tokenisation converts ownership rights in physical or financial assets (real estate, bonds, gold, art, invoices) into digital tokens recorded on a blockchain (1). Tokens can be traded around the clock and in small fractions, which lowers the ticket size and widens participation, promoting financial inclusion (2). Fractional ownership lets ordinary investors access high-value, high-growth assets that were earlier open only to large investors (3). All three statements are correct; in India such activity remains subject to regulation by SEBI and RBI.

Under the ICMA principles, a sustainability bond is one whose proceeds are used exclusively to finance or refinance a combination of green (environmental) and social projects. A green bond funds only projects with environmental benefits (renewable energy, clean transport), a social bond funds only projects with social outcomes (affordable housing, health, employment), and a sovereign bond is simply a bond issued by a national government, whatever the use of funds.

M1xchange is an RBI-licensed Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platform. It lets MSME sellers upload invoices and bills of exchange raised on large corporate and PSU buyers; once the buyer accepts them, banks and NBFCs bid to discount them, so the MSME gets early payment without collateral (2). M1xchange does not lend itself, let alone against collateral (1 is wrong), and it is not a credit rating agency (3 is wrong); the financing comes from the participating financiers on the strength of the buyer's credit.

Crowding out occurs when higher government borrowing to finance a deficit increases the demand for loanable funds and pushes up interest rates, making borrowing costlier for firms and so reducing private investment. Option (a) describes 'crowding in', the opposite case in which public spending (for example on infrastructure) stimulates private investment. Higher taxes usually reduce rather than raise private investment, and crowding out does not mean that government spending has no effect on aggregate demand, only that part of its effect is offset.

Rare earth elements are essential for permanent magnets, electronics, robotics, AI hardware, electric vehicles, defence and space systems (1). The Union Cabinet approved the National Critical Mineral Mission in January 2025 (outlay ₹16,300 crore plus ₹18,000 crore from PSUs) to secure self-reliance across the critical-mineral value chain (3). China dominates rare-earth mining (about 70%), but the next largest producers are the USA, Myanmar and Australia; India, despite large reserves, has a very small share (2 is wrong). Rare earths are a group of 17 elements: the 15 lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium, not 13 (4 is wrong).

Aviation hull insurance covers physical loss of or damage to the aircraft itself, including the airframe, engines and on-board equipment (1). The Montreal Convention, 1999 (to which India acceded in 2009, and which has well over 130 parties) makes airlines strictly liable for death or bodily injury of passengers up to a fixed limit (now about 151,880 SDRs): the family need not prove fault for claims up to that limit, while above it the airline can escape liability only by proving it was not negligent (2). UPSC's key accepts both statements; this question was challenged before the CAT in 2026.

Crowdfunding is raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, usually through an online platform or social media, for a specific project or venture (1). For start-ups and SMEs it can be a cheaper and quicker source of capital than bank loans or a public issue, without lengthy documentation or collateral (2). In India, equity crowdfunding is not permitted by SEBI for unlisted companies, but donation- and reward-based crowdfunding are widely used. Both statements are correct.

Row 2 and row 4 are correct. The L.C. Gupta Committee (1996–98) was set up by SEBI to develop a framework for derivatives trading, leading to index futures in 2000. The Y.H. Malegam Committee (2010) was set up by RBI's Board to study issues in the microfinance sector after the Andhra Pradesh crisis. The R.N. Malhotra Committee (1993) on insurance reforms was set up by the Government of India (Ministry of Finance); IRDA itself was created in 1999 on its recommendation, so row 1 is wrong. The Urjit R. Patel Committee (2013–14) was an RBI expert committee to revise and strengthen the monetary policy framework (recommending inflation targeting), not housing finance, so row 3 is wrong.

RBI's FAQs on NBFCs list these differences from banks: NBFCs cannot accept demand deposits (1); they are not part of the payment and settlement system and cannot issue cheques drawn on themselves (3 is wrong); and deposit insurance from DICGC is not available to depositors of NBFCs, unlike bank depositors (4). Not every NBFC registers with RBI: companies doing insurance (IRDAI), merchant banking, stock broking, venture capital and similar business (SEBI), chit funds (State governments) and Nidhi companies (Ministry of Corporate Affairs) are exempt from RBI registration, so statement 2 is wrong.

Both the global MPI (UNDP–OPHI) and NITI Aayog's National MPI use the Alkire-Foster method, which counts overlapping deprivations of each household (1). The global MPI has 10 indicators in three dimensions (health, education, standard of living), while the National MPI adds two, maternal health and bank account, making 12 indicators (2). Because maternal health and bank account are the two indicators NITI Aayog added, they are not common to the UNDP MPI (3 is wrong).