National Events, Governance & Law: previous-year questions

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: (D) Jammu & Kashmir

In February 2023 the Geological Survey of India reported inferred lithium resources of about 5.9 million tonnes at Salal-Haimana in Reasi district, Jammu & Kashmir. Ladakh, Punjab and Gujarat were not the site of that find.

Answer: (A) Ministry of Home Affairs

The National Disaster Response Force, set up under the Disaster Management Act 2005, works under the Ministry of Home Affairs and is made up of battalions drawn from the central armed police forces. The other ministries do not control it.

Answer: (B) Ease of doing business

The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 22 December 2022 by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and, after scrutiny by a Joint Parliamentary Committee, became an Act in 2023. It amends 42 Central Acts administered by 19 ministries and decriminalises 183 provisions, replacing imprisonment for minor, technical and procedural defaults with monetary penalties. Its declared aim is to promote ease of living and ease of doing business through "trust-based governance". It has nothing to do with terrorism, malnutrition or police reforms.

Answer: (C) Srilanka

Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) became independent of Britain on 4 February 1948 and celebrated its 75th Independence Day on 4 February 2023; it became a republic and took the name Sri Lanka in 1972. Nepal and Bhutan were never colonised, so they have no independence day (Bhutan's National Day is 17 December), and Bangladesh marks Independence Day on 26 March (1971) and Victory Day on 16 December. Other neighbours: Myanmar, 4 January 1948; Pakistan, 14 August 1947; Maldives, 26 July 1965.

Answer: (C) First

Answer as of 2023 — this may have changed since.

India Post runs the largest postal network in the world, with over 1.5 lakh post offices, about 90% of them in rural areas, so India ranks first. The modern postal system dates from 1854 under Lord Dalhousie; the six-digit PIN code was introduced in 1972, Speed Post in 1986 and the India Post Payments Bank in 2018. The world's highest post office is at Hikkim in Himachal Pradesh. The Post Office Act, 2023 has replaced the Indian Post Office Act of 1898. The Universal Postal Union has its headquarters at Bern.

Answer: (A) Justice G. Rohini

The Commission to examine sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes in the Central list was constituted under Article 340 on 2 October 2017 and headed by Justice (Retd.) G. Rohini, the first woman Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court. After several extensions it submitted its report to the President on 31 July 2023. Its job was to see whether the benefits of the 27% OBC reservation are unevenly distributed among castes. Justice U. U. Lalit was the 49th and Justice D. Y. Chandrachud the 50th Chief Justice of India. Earlier backward-class commissions were those of Kaka Kalelkar (1953) and B. P. Mandal (1979).

Answer: (A) Feminist Movement

The Chipko ('hug the trees') movement began in 1973 at Mandal in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand (then in Uttar Pradesh), led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt and later Sunderlal Bahuguna; in 1974 Gaura Devi and the women of Reni village hugged trees to stop the contractors. Because village women were its backbone, it is often described as an eco-feminist movement, which is why PSC's key gives 'Feminist Movement'. It was not a tribal, party-political or caste movement. It inspired the Appiko movement in Karnataka (1983); its forerunner was the Bishnoi sacrifice at Khejarli (1730) led by Amrita Devi. Chipko is most commonly classified as an environmental (forest conservation) movement, which is not among the options; PSC's final key confirms (A) 'Feminist Movement', evidently on the strength of its women-led, eco-feminist character.

Answer: (D) None of them

There was no chief guest at the 2021 Republic Day parade: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had accepted the invitation but cancelled because of the COVID-19 surge in Britain - the first Republic Day without a chief guest since 1966. A 122-member contingent of the Bangladesh armed forces marched in the parade to mark 50 years of the 1971 Liberation War, which makes option (B) tempting. Chief guests around it: 2020 - Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil); 2022 - none; 2023 - Abdel Fattah El-Sisi (Egypt); 2024 - Emmanuel Macron (France); 2025 - Prabowo Subianto (Indonesia).

Answer: (B) Morarji Desai

The Janata Party government formed in 1977 under Morarji Desai was independent India's first non-Congress government at the Centre.

Answer: (A) Prohibition of Child Marriage Act

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA) replaced the earlier Child Marriage Restraint Act to more effectively curb child marriage.

Answer: (A) 31 December 2020

Answer as of 2020 — this may have changed since.

As of when this paper was compiled, the government's stated target for NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid) becoming operational was end-2020; in practice, the project's rollout was repeatedly delayed beyond this date.

Answer: (B) find, assess, create and target

Answer as of 2020 — this may have changed since.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's FACT Check Module (announced in 2019) works on the four principles of Find, Assess, Create and Target.

Answer: (D) protect the Indian Government from fake news

Answer as of 2020 — this may have changed since.

The FACT Check Module was set up to monitor and counter fake news and misinformation targeting the government and its agencies.

Answer: (B) Asaduddin Owaisi

Answer as of 2019 — this may have changed since.

Asaduddin Owaisi has led the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), based in Hyderabad, since 2008, succeeding his father Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi.

Answer: (D) Justice Indu Malhotra

In the Supreme Court's September 2018 Sabarimala verdict, which permitted women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala temple, Justice Indu Malhotra was the sole dissenting judge on the five-judge bench, arguing that the matter involved deep religious questions best left undisturbed by courts.

Answer: (D) Tamil Nadu

According to the Ministry of Tourism's statistics for 2016, Tamil Nadu ranked first in both domestic tourist visits and foreign tourist visits. Uttar Pradesh was second in domestic visits and Maharashtra second in foreign visits. Tamil Nadu's attractions include the temple towns of Madurai, Thanjavur and Rameswaram, Mahabalipuram, Kanyakumari and the hill station of Ooty.

Answer: (A) Kerala

The 77th session of the Indian History Congress was held at the University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, in December 2016 and was inaugurated by the then President Pranab Mukherjee; the question says '(Ex.)' because he had left office by the time of the exam. The Indian History Congress, the largest body of professional historians in India, was founded in 1935 and held its first session at Pune.

Answer: (A) Supreme Court of India

The Supreme Court of India issued a 2016 order mandating the playing of the National Anthem before film screenings in cinemas (an order later modified and eventually withdrawn in 2018).

Answer: (A) Arnab Goswami

Arnab Goswami resigned as Editor-in-Chief of Times Now in November 2016, shortly before launching his own channel, Republic TV.