Hard Level – GK Questions

Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is the most recently constructed of all the New Seven Wonders. It was built over nine years from 1922 to 1931 and was inaugurated on 12 October 1931. The statue is 30 metres tall (not counting its 8-metre pedestal), with arms spanning 28 metres. It was designed by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa and sculpted by French sculptor Paul Landowski. It stands atop Mount Corcovado at 710 metres in the Tijuca Forest above Rio de Janeiro.

Indian Bank's domestic CASA ratio increased to 39.73% in June 2026 from 38.97% in the previous year. CASA ratio is an important banking metric indicating the proportion of low-cost deposits, which is crucial for a bank's profitability and is frequently asked in banking exams.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee of TIFR Mumbai was recognised twice in 2025 for his work in complex dynamics and connections between Mandelbrot sets and Kleinian groups. The Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar 2025 was announced on 26 October 2025 by the Ministry of Science and Technology (PIB PRID:2182615). The Infosys Prize 2025 was announced on 12 November 2025. Both recognitions cover the same body of mathematical research, from two entirely different institutions.

In 2024 the Infosys Science Foundation announced a new direction: restricting the Infosys Prize to researchers under the age of forty, shifting the award from a mid/senior career recognition to an early-career recognition. They also introduced a new condition for winners based outside India: they are required to spend thirty days at an Indian institution of their choice and give a public lecture there within the award year.

No cricketer featured in the 2025 National Sports Awards nominations for any category. The most recent cricketer to receive the Arjuna Award was pacer Mohammed Shami in 2023. India's women's team won the T20 World Cup and reached the ICC Women's World Cup final in the 2025 cycle, but no women's or men's cricketer was included in the panel's recommendations.

The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, which recognises the best-performing university in inter-university sports competitions, was shared jointly by Chandigarh University, Lovely Professional University, and Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar. The MAKA Trophy was instituted in 1956–57, making it the oldest award in the National Sports Awards system.

Gulzar received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2013 at the 61st National Film Awards and the Jnanpith Award in 2023 (jointly with Jagadguru Rambhadracharya). The Jnanpith is India's highest literary honour given by Bharatiya Jnanpith. No other person has received both India's highest cinema honour and India's highest literary honour.

From 1965 to 1981 (the first 17 awards), the Jnanpith was given for a specific outstanding work — similar to the Nobel Prize's association with a particular book or play. The rules were revised from the 18th award (1982) to recognise a writer's overall contribution to literature across their career, making it a true lifetime achievement award. This distinction appears in UPSC questions about the selection criteria and rule changes.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said of Oman (2019) and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh (2020) were both awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize posthumously. Qaboos had died in January 2020; Mujibur Rahman had been assassinated in 1975. The jury met on 19 March 2021 and selected both recipients in one session — the 2019 and 2020 awards were announced together. This was the first time the prize had been given posthumously in its twenty-six-year history.

Kiran Bedi received the 1994 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service for the reforms she introduced at Tihar Jail in New Delhi during her tenure as Inspector General of Prisons. Tihar housed over 8,000 prisoners and was known for violence and corruption. Bedi introduced literacy classes, yoga and meditation sessions, vocational training, and addiction rehabilitation programmes — transforming a punitive institution into one that attempted rehabilitation. She was also the first woman officer of the Indian Police Service.

Midnight's Children won the regular Booker Prize in 1981. In 1993, on the prize's 25th anniversary, a special panel selected it as the Booker of Bookers — the best novel to have won in the first quarter century. In 2008, on the 40th anniversary, a public vote chose it again as the Best of the Booker. It is the only novel to have won both retrospective prizes. A third special award — the Golden Booker (50th anniversary, 2018) — went to The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

P.V. Narasimha Rao served as India's ninth Prime Minister (1991–1996). He took office when India's foreign exchange reserves had fallen to barely two weeks of import cover. His government, working with Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, initiated the landmark 1991 liberalisation — abolishing industrial licensing, reducing import tariffs, allowing FDI, and devaluing the rupee. He steered these reforms through a minority government without losing the floor of the House. Beyond economics, he was a scholar who read and wrote in several languages.

The three economists used colonial history as a natural experiment to show that institutional quality — not geography or culture — is the main driver of national wealth. Where colonisers settled in large numbers and built inclusive institutions, countries tended to prosper; where extractive institutions were established to concentrate wealth, those patterns persisted for generations after independence. Their book Why Nations Fail (2012) brought these ideas to a general audience.

Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, and 1948. He was assassinated on 30 January 1948 — just days before the prize committee met. The committee chose not to award the Peace Prize that year, citing lack of a suitable living candidate. In later years, the Nobel Committee published a reflection stating that Gandhi's exclusion was an omission they regretted.

Cassandra Kulukundis won the inaugural Best Casting Oscar for One Battle After Another. The Academy had first announced this category in February 2024. It is the first new competitive Oscar category since Best Animated Feature was introduced in 2001.

Devabrat Das won for his Assamese novel Karhi Khelar Sadhu. His win represents the novel category among the four novels recognised in the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Awards.

Admiral Swaminathan commanded the Western Fleet, which holds the strategic designation as the Sword Arm of the Indian Navy. This was one of his key operational appointments during his career.

Shri Yumnam Jatra Singh from Manipur was posthumously awarded Padma Shri 2026 in the field of Art.

Shri Vladimer Mestvirishvili from Georgia was posthumously awarded Padma Shri 2026 in the field of Sports.

Shri Vempaty Kutumba Sastry from Andhra Pradesh was awarded Padma Shri 2026 in the field of Literature and Education.