International Affairs Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The 2020 Human Development Report of the UNDP is titled The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene. It argues that progress in human development must now take account of the pressure that people put on the planet.

Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today was the theme of the 2019 report on inequalities, and Work for Human Development was the theme of the 2015 report. The report on human development indices and indicators is a statistical update and not the theme of a year's report.

Answer: B

The report points to income, gender and racial inequalities. Oxfam International published ‘The Inequality Virus’ in January 2021, showing how the Covid-19 pandemic widened the gap between the richest and the rest: billionaires recovered their wealth quickly while many people lost work, and the report discusses how the effects fell unevenly by gender and race.

Caste discrimination, regional diversities and inequality in sex ratio are real Indian concerns but are not the headline findings of this global report, so options A, C and D are not the issues it reports.

Answer: A

The contingent was from Bangladesh.

At the Republic Day Parade of 26 January 2021 a contingent of the Bangladesh Armed Forces marched down Rajpath, together with their band. It marked fifty years of the 1971 Liberation War, in which Indian forces fought alongside the Mukti Bahini, and it was only the third time a foreign military contingent had marched in the parade, after France in 2016 and the UAE in 2017.

No contingent from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan or Myanmar took part that year.

Answer: A

The new Prime Minister was Mario Draghi.

Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Italy on 13 February 2021 at the head of a national unity government, after Giuseppe Conte resigned.

The other three were ministers, not prime ministers. Giancarlo Giorgetti (spelt 'Giancario' in the paper) became Minister of Economic Development, Andrea Orlando ('Oriando' in the paper) Minister of Labour, and Luigi Di Maio continued as Foreign Minister in Draghi's cabinet.

Answer: D

The new members were India and Pakistan, so the answer is 1 and 4.

India and Pakistan were admitted as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at the Astana summit in June 2017, raising its membership from six to eight. Both had been observers since 2005.

Afghanistan was only an observer state, and Turkey a dialogue partner, so any option including 2 or 3 is wrong.

Answer: D

The nation not in the Quad is Indonesia.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) has four members: India, the United States, Japan and Australia. It works on issues such as maritime security, vaccines, critical technology and infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific.

India, the USA and Japan are three of the four members. Indonesia, though a major Indo-Pacific nation, is not part of it.

Answer: D

The country not in the Quad is the United Kingdom.

The Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) consists of India, the USA, Japan and Australia.

The UK works with the USA and Australia in a separate security pact, AUKUS (2021), which may explain the confusion, but it is not a member of the Quad.

Answer: C

The operation was named Operation Midnight Hammer.

On 22 June 2025 (Iran time) the United States struck the Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan with B-2 bombers and cruise missiles in Operation Midnight Hammer.

Operation Desert Storm was the 1991 Gulf War, Freedom Shield is a US-South Korea exercise, and 'Enduring Peace' is not the name of this operation.

The strikes came during the brief Israel-Iran war of June 2025 and were followed within days by a ceasefire.

Answer: D

The emergency was declared by Ecuador.

The Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean belong to Ecuador. In January 2020 Ecuador declared an emergency on the islands after a barge carrying diesel sank off San Cristobal island, threatening their unique wildlife.

Finland, Sweden and the Bahamas have no sovereignty over the Galapagos, so they could not declare an emergency there.

Answer: A

She was in the news because she won the Right Livelihood Award.

In September 2019 Greta Thunberg was named one of the winners of the Right Livelihood Award, often called the alternative Nobel Prize, for inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2019 went to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and she did not win the Ramon Magsaysay Award, so the other options are wrong.