BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 115 of 142

Correct — B, Giorgia Meloni. Meloni, born 15 January 1977, has been Prime Minister of Italy since October 2022 and was in office throughout 2024 and on the date of this paper. She is the first woman to hold the office, and she leads Fratelli d'Italia, the Brothers of Italy, at the head of a right-wing coalition. Two things make her the answer a candidate should have been able to reach even without following Italian domestic politics. First, Italy held the presidency of the G7 in 2024 and hosted the fiftieth summit at Borgo Egnazia in Apulia in June 2024, where India's Prime Minister attended as an outreach invitee — so the Italian head of government was in the Indian news through that year. Second, the option set is unusually well built: all four names are Italian women who have held high public office, so the question cannot be solved by eliminating implausible names and rewards knowing which office each actually held. The distinction the paper is testing is between holding a high office and heading the government, and only one of the four has ever been Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri.

• (a)Laura Boldrini — Laura Boldrini, born in 1961, is a former United Nations official who served as President of the Chamber of Deputies — the presiding officer of the lower house of the Italian Parliament, an office comparable to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha. A presiding officer is not the head of government, which is exactly the confusion this option is built on.
• (c)Rosy Bindi — Maria Rosaria 'Rosy' Bindi, born in 1951, came out of Christian Democracy, was named Minister of Health after the centre-left victory in the 1996 election, and later presided over Italy's Antimafia Commission until March 2018. A senior minister and a commission chair, but never Prime Minister.
• (d)Emma Bonino — Emma Bonino, born in 1948, is one of Italy's best-known liberal politicians: European Commissioner for consumer policy, fisheries and humanitarian aid from 1994 to 1999, and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2014. Her international profile makes her the most recognisable name on this list to a foreign reader, which is precisely why she is offered.

Italy is a parliamentary republic, and the split of functions at the top is what this question is really about. The President of the Republic is the head of state, elected for seven years by Parliament together with regional delegates, and appoints the head of government. The President of the Council of Ministers — the Prime Minister — heads the government and must retain the confidence of both houses of a bicameral Parliament: the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, each with its own presiding officer. Italian governments have historically been short-lived, which is why the identity of the Prime Minister changes more often than in most large democracies and why a question of this kind is dated. Meloni's coalition took office after the general election of September 2022. India's relations with Italy have a specific hook worth remembering alongside the name: the two countries elevated their ties to a strategic partnership and Italy's 2024 G7 presidency brought the two prime ministers together at the Apulia summit.

Treat 'as of 2024' the way you would treat 'current' — the question is dated to the paper, and this paper was taken on 4 January 2025. The working method for international office-holders is a maintained one-page list covering the countries that appear most often in Indian current affairs — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, China and the immediate neighbourhood — with the office named exactly, because several of these countries separate the head of state from the head of government and examiners exploit that. Here the discriminator is not nationality or gender, since all four options share both; it is the specific post each woman held. Build the habit of storing a name with its office and its dates — 'Boldrini, President of the Chamber of Deputies', 'Bonino, Foreign Minister 2013-14' — and option sets of this design stop being difficult.

• Giorgia Meloni, born 15 January 1977, has been Prime Minister of Italy since October 2022 and is the first woman to hold the office
• She leads Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) and heads a right-wing coalition formed after the general election of September 2022
• Italy held the G7 presidency in 2024 and hosted the fiftieth G7 summit at Borgo Egnazia in Apulia in June 2024
• Laura Boldrini served as President of the Chamber of Deputies, the presiding officer of the lower house — not as head of government
• Emma Bonino was European Commissioner from 1994 to 1999 and Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2014; Rosy Bindi was Minister of Health after the 1996 election and later presided over the Antimafia Commission until March 2018

• Treating any senior woman politician of a country as its head of government; a presiding officer, a foreign minister and a health minister are all different offices
• Answering a dated question from today's holder rather than from the office-holder on the examination date
• Confusing Italy's President of the Republic, the head of state, with the President of the Council of Ministers, the head of government

BPSC asks the office-holder plainly and dates it, so the answer must come from a list revised close to the examination. UPSC does not ask who leads a foreign country; it asks about the institution or the grouping — what the G7 is, which countries belong to which bloc — so international current affairs has to be prepared as names for the state paper and as structures for the central one.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The head of government in Italy is formally designated as

  • (a)President of the Republic
  • (b)President of the Council of Ministers
  • (c)Chancellor
  • (d)President of the Chamber of Deputies

  Answer(b) President of the Council of Ministers — the office commonly translated as Prime Minister; the President of the Republic is the head of state and the President of the Chamber of Deputies presides over the lower house.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The fiftieth G7 summit, held in June 2024, took place in which country ?

  • (a)Japan
  • (b)Germany
  • (c)Italy
  • (d)Canada

  Answer(c) Italy — hosted at Borgo Egnazia in Apulia during Italy's 2024 presidency of the group.