Current Affairs & General Knowledge: previous-year questions

Answer: (A) Chelsea

Chelsea won the first expanded, 32-team FIFA Club World Cup, beating Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final at MetLife Stadium, New Jersey (USA) on 13 July 2025; Cole Palmer scored twice and won the Golden Ball. The new tournament replaced the old annual seven-club competition and is to be held every four years. Of the other options, Real Madrid lost to PSG in the semi-final, Manchester City (winner of the last old-format edition in 2023) went out in the round of 16, and Barcelona did not qualify. Chelsea thus hold the title under both formats, having also won the 2021 edition.

Answer: (B) Local Communities and the Forest Department.

Joint Forest Management (JFM) is a partnership in which village communities, organised as Forest Protection Committees, protect and regenerate forest land together with the State Forest Department and in return get a share of the produce. It grew out of the National Forest Policy, 1988 and the Government of India circular of 1 June 1990. West Bengal link: the model was pioneered at Arabari in Paschim Medinipur in the early 1970s by forest officer Ajit Kumar Banerjee, where villagers protecting degraded sal forest were given 25% of the timber revenue. The other options name partners that are not part of the JFM design; the community-and-department pairing is its defining feature.

Answer: (B) digital, paperless census using electronic data collection methods.

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

Census 2027, India's 16th census and the 8th since Independence, is the first to be conducted by digital means: enumerators record data on a mobile app and households can self-enumerate through an online portal. It has two phases, the Houselisting and Housing Census (April to September 2026) and Population Enumeration (February 2027), with the reference date 00:00 hours of 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand). It will also record caste for the first time since 1931. The census is taken under the Census Act, 1948 by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner (Ministry of Home Affairs); the last one was in 2011, the 2021 round having been postponed. Options A, C and D describe methods that are not being used, since enumerators still visit households but with phones instead of paper schedules.

Answer: (C) International year of Women Farmers

The UN General Assembly has declared 2026 the International Year of the Woman Farmer, to highlight the role of women in agrifood systems and the gaps they face in land rights, credit and technology; FAO is the lead agency. 2026 is also the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists and the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development, but those titles are not among the options, and options A, B and D are not UN observances for this year. Recent international years asked in exams: 2023 Millets (on India's proposal), 2024 Camelids, and 2025 Cooperatives, Quantum Science and Technology, and Glaciers' Preservation.

Answer: (A) It is near the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant on the west coast of Finland

Finland's ONKALO repository (the name means 'cavity' in Finnish) is on Olkiluoto island in Eurajoki municipality on the west coast, beside the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant, and is built by Posiva Oy, a company owned by power producers TVO and Fortum. Spent fuel is sealed in copper and cast-iron canisters, packed in bentonite clay and placed about 400 to 450 m deep in ancient bedrock. It is the world's first deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel to reach the operating-licence stage: the Finnish regulator STUK cleared its safety case in August 2026 and Posiva aims to begin disposal by the end of 2026. Option B mixes it up with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway), and Suomenlinna (C) is a UNESCO-listed sea fortress off Helsinki.

Answer: (D) Tomahawk

Israel's multi-layered air and missile defence consists of Iron Dome (short-range rockets and shells), David's Sling (medium-range rockets and cruise missiles) and Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 (long-range ballistic missiles, the latter intercepting outside the atmosphere), with the Iron Beam laser being added. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) is an American system, but a US battery has been deployed in Israel since October 2024, so it does operate within Israel's defensive shield. Tomahawk is entirely different: it is a US long-range, subsonic land-attack cruise missile launched from ships and submarines, an offensive weapon and not an interceptor. India's comparable systems are the S-400 (from Russia), Akash and the indigenous ballistic missile defence programme.

Answer: (A) National Highway Development Project

The Golden Quadrilateral is the roughly 5,846 km network of four- and six-lane national highways linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. It formed Phase I of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), launched under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee around 1999-2001 and executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Phase II was the North-South Corridor (Srinagar to Kanyakumari) and the East-West Corridor (Silchar to Porbandar), which cross at Jhansi. Do not confuse it with the Diamond Quadrilateral (proposed high-speed rail network), National Waterway 1 (Prayagraj to Haldia on the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly), Sagarmala (ports) or UDAN (regional air connectivity).

Answer: (A) AIIMS, New Delhi

AIIMS, New Delhi launched 'Never Alone', an AI-based mental health and wellness programme for students, on World Suicide Prevention Day (10 September 2025). It works through a web and WhatsApp based platform that offers round-the-clock screening and links to counsellors at very low cost, and it was rolled out at the same time at AIIMS Bhubaneswar and IHBAS, Delhi. Other government mental-health initiatives worth remembering are Tele-MANAS (the national tele-counselling helpline 14416, run with NIMHANS) and Manodarpan of the Ministry of Education. DRDO (defence research), IIT Madras and NITI Aayog (policy think tank) had no role in this app.

Answer: (C) Olchiki

Ol Chiki (Ol Chemet) is the script of the Santhali language, devised in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu of Mayurbhanj (Odisha); it has 30 letters. Santhali, an Austroasiatic language of the Munda family spoken in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Assam, was added to the Eighth Schedule by the 92nd Amendment Act, 2003 together with Bodo, Dogri and Maithili, and West Bengal recognises it as an additional official language. Tirhuta (Mithilakshar) is the traditional script of Maithili and Devanagari is used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and others. Other tribal scripts: Warang Citi (Ho) and Tolong Siki (Kurukh, the language of the Oraons).

Answer: (A) Russia and China

On 7 April 2026 Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution, sponsored by Bahrain with Gulf backing, that encouraged states to coordinate defensive efforts for safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had largely closed during the 2026 conflict. The vote was 11 in favour and 2 against, with Pakistan and Colombia abstaining. Elimination trick: only the five permanent members (USA, UK, France, Russia, China) have a veto, so any option naming the Netherlands, Ukraine, Pakistan or Colombia is impossible. A Security Council resolution needs 9 of 15 votes and no permanent-member veto (Article 27 of the UN Charter). The Strait links the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, between Iran and Oman/UAE, and carries about one-fifth of the world's oil trade.

Answer: (C) California

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

California became the third US state to make Diwali an official state holiday when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 268 in October 2025, effective 1 January 2026; Pennsylvania (2024) and Connecticut (2025) had done so earlier, and neither is among the options. In New York, Diwali is a school holiday in New York City's public schools, not a statewide state holiday; Texas has no such holiday; and Boston is a city (capital of Massachusetts), not a state. The question's word 'Province' is loose usage, since the USA has states. Related current affairs: in December 2025 UNESCO inscribed Deepavali on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Answer: (B) Sailor

Sailor is a Japanese fountain-pen maker founded in 1911 in Hiroshima prefecture; with Pilot and Platinum it forms Japan's 'big three'. Other famous fountain-pen brands are Parker, Sheaffer and Waterman (Lewis Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884), Montblanc, Pelikan and Lamy of Germany, and in India Camlin and the Swadeshi-era Sulekha ink of Kolkata. The distractors are well-known companies in other fields: Voltas (Tata group, air-conditioners), Hyundai (South Korean cars, misspelt in the booklet) and Kirloskar (pumps and engines, Pune). Graham Greene was the English novelist of 'The Power and the Glory' and 'The Quiet American'.

Answer: (A) Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger

On 22 September 2025 the military-led governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which form the Alliance of Sahel States and had already left ECOWAS in January 2025, jointly announced their withdrawal from the Rome Statute, calling the International Criminal Court an instrument of neo-colonial repression. Under Article 127 a withdrawal takes effect one year after it is notified to the UN Secretary-General. ICC basics: created by the Rome Statute (1998), in force from 2002, seated at The Hague; it tries individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression; India, the USA, China and Russia are not members. Do not confuse it with the International Court of Justice, the UN court that settles disputes between states. Earlier exits: Burundi (2017) and the Philippines (2019).

Answer: (B) Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act, 2025

The SHANTI Act, 2025, the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, was passed by Parliament in the Winter Session and received the President's assent in December 2025. It replaces the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 with a single law, opens nuclear power generation to private companies for the first time, and gives statutory status to the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board; sensitive activities such as enrichment and reprocessing stay with the Government. It supports the target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 and the Nuclear Energy Mission for small modular reactors announced in the 2025-26 Budget. Options A and C are invented expansions of the acronym.

Answer: (A) Thiruvalluvar was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He wrote Tirukkural, a classical Tamil text of 1,330 short couplets (kurals).

Thiruvalluvar is the Tamil poet-philosopher who wrote the Tirukkural (Kural), 1,330 couplets arranged in 133 chapters of ten couplets each and grouped into three books: Aram (virtue), Porul (wealth and statecraft) and Inbam (love). It is a secular ethical work, often called the 'Tamil Veda', and has been translated into many languages. His 133-foot statue stands on a rock off Kanyakumari beside the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and Thiruvalluvar Day is observed in Tamil Nadu in January during Pongal. The other options are fabrications: the Chola kings who conquered Sri Lanka were Rajaraja I and Rajendra I, and he had nothing to do with Assamese literature.

Answer: (B) Sonam Wangchuk & Gitanjali J. Angmo. HIAL desires to address the educational and developmental challenges unique to Ladakh's exceptional geographical and cultural context.

The Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL), at Phyang near Leh, was founded by engineer-educator Sonam Wangchuk with Gitanjali J. Angmo as an alternative university where mountain youth learn by doing and work on problems of high-altitude regions such as water, energy, farming and tourism. Wangchuk earlier founded SECMOL (1988), invented the Ice Stupa artificial glacier and won the Ramon Magsaysay Award (2018); he has lately been in the news for the movement demanding statehood and Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh. 'Phunsukh Wangdu' (C) is the fictional character played by Aamir Khan in '3 Idiots', inspired by Wangchuk. Tenzing Norgay (A) climbed Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953 and was the first Director of Field Training at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling.

Answer: (A) Nandikar, Ek Theke Baro

According to PSC's final key, the recent Bengali stage adaptation is 'Ek Theke Baro' ('One to Twelve', for the twelve jurors) by Nandikar. The story began as Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay 'Twelve Angry Men'; Sidney Lumet's 1957 film starred Henry Fonda, and Basu Chatterjee's Hindi version 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla' (1986) featured Pankaj Kapur. Nandikar, founded in Kolkata in 1960 by Ajitesh Bandopadhyay and long led by Rudraprasad Sengupta, is known for Bengali adaptations of world classics such as 'Tin Poyshar Pala' and 'Football', and for its annual National Theatre Festival. 'Rudali' (C) is a real and celebrated production of Usha Ganguli's group Rangakarmee, based on Mahasweta Devi's story; Sayak (B) is the group led by Meghnad Bhattacharya.

Answer: (D) 2070

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

At the COP26 summit in Glasgow (November 2021) Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India will reach net-zero emissions by 2070, as part of the five 'Panchamrit' pledges: 500 GW of non-fossil power capacity by 2030; half of energy requirements from renewables by 2030; a cut of one billion tonnes in projected emissions by 2030; a 45% reduction in the emissions intensity of GDP from 2005 levels by 2030; and net zero by 2070. Compare the other years: 2050 is the target of the USA, EU, UK and Japan, and 2060 that of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Indian Railways has a separate net-zero target of 2030, and Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) was launched alongside.

Answer: (C) Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa. It is an intergovernmental organization comprising of eleven countries.

Answer as of 2024 — this may have changed since.

BRICS takes its name from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The term 'BRIC' was coined by economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, the first summit was held at Yekaterinburg in 2009, and South Africa joined in 2010. With Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia (expansion effective 1 January 2024) and Indonesia (January 2025) it now has 11 full members, besides a 'partner country' category created at the Kazan summit (2024). Its bank is the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai (Fortaleza Declaration, 2014). India held the 2026 chairship, its fourth after 2012, 2016 and 2021, and hosted the 18th Summit in New Delhi in September 2026. Options A and B give invented expansions and wrong member counts.

Answer: (B) The Elephant Whisperers

'The Elephant Whisperers', directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga, won Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards (March 2023), the first Indian production to win in that category. It follows Bomman and Bellie, a tribal couple who raise orphaned elephant calves at the Theppakadu Elephant Camp in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu. At the same ceremony 'Naatu Naatu' from RRR (composer M.M. Keeravani, lyricist Chandrabose) won Best Original Song. Earlier Indian Oscar winners: Bhanu Athaiya (costume, 'Gandhi'), Satyajit Ray (Honorary Award, 1992), and A.R. Rahman, Gulzar and Resul Pookutty ('Slumdog Millionaire'). Options A and C are unrelated film titles.