CDS (II) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 119 of 120

Correct — D, Suriname. The Honorary Order of the Yellow Star has been the highest state decoration of the Republic of Suriname since 1975, the year the country became independent of the Netherlands, and the Grand Order Chain is its topmost grade — the collar worn by the President of Suriname as Grand Master of the order. Below it come the Grand Cordon, Grand Officer, Commander, Officer and Knight grades, along with gold and silver honorary medals. The award reached Indian newspapers in June 2023, when President Droupadi Murmu was conferred it during her state visit to Paramaribo; other recipients include members of the Dutch royal family and the footballer Clarence Seedorf. The star of the name is the same yellow five-pointed star that stands at the centre of Suriname's flag.

• (a)Fiji — Fiji's own honours system is headed by the Order of Fiji, whose senior grade is Companion of the Order of Fiji. Nothing in it is called the Yellow Star.
• (b)Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea's national honour is the Order of Logohu, headed by the grade of Grand Companion. Logohu is the Motu word for the bird of paradise on the national flag.
• (c)Egypt — Egypt's highest honour is the Order of the Nile, which was conferred on the Prime Minister of India in the same month of the same year — which is exactly why it makes a tempting distractor here.

Suriname is a small republic on the north-eastern shoulder of South America, independent from the Netherlands since 1975, and it has one of the largest Indian-origin populations in the Americas — descendants of indentured labourers taken there from the nineteenth century onwards, who make up a very large share of the country's people. That history is the reason a Surinamese honour matters in Indian current affairs at all, and the reason Indian heads of state and government are received there with the country's senior decoration.

Three of the four options are small states whose honours a candidate is unlikely to have learned individually, so this looks like an impossible recall question. It is not, if you use the name. A yellow star is the emblem at the centre of the Surinamese flag, and it is the only flag among the four countries offered that carries one — Fiji's carries a shield on a blue field, Papua New Guinea's a bird of paradise and the Southern Cross, and Egypt's the eagle of Saladin. Reading a decoration's name off the national flag is a reliable trick with honours questions. The news hook was President Murmu's state visit of June 2023, three months before this paper.

• The Honorary Order of the Yellow Star has been Suriname's highest state decoration since 1975.
• Its grades run Grand Cordon, Grand Officer, Commander, Officer and Knight, with the Grand Order Chain as the top distinction worn by the President as Grand Master.
• President Droupadi Murmu was conferred the honour during her state visit to Suriname in June 2023.
• The yellow five-pointed star of the name is the emblem at the centre of the Surinamese flag.
• Fiji's senior honour is the Order of Fiji, Papua New Guinea's is the Order of Logohu, and Egypt's is the Order of the Nile.

• Choosing Egypt because the Order of the Nile was in the news in the same month — different country, different honour.
• Assuming an obscure honour cannot be reasoned out; the flag emblem usually gives it away.
• Confusing the order itself with its top grade — the order is the Honorary Order of the Yellow Star, the grade is the Grand Order Chain.

As an honour-to-country identification following a state visit, often with a second recently reported honour offered as the decoy.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Suriname, whose highest honour is the Order of the Yellow Star, is located in

  • (a)Central America
  • (b)the north-east of South America
  • (c)West Africa
  • (d)the South Pacific

  Answer(b) The north-east of South America, on the Atlantic coast between Guyana and French Guiana.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Order of the Nile is the highest civilian honour of which country?

  • (a)Sudan
  • (b)Egypt
  • (c)Ethiopia
  • (d)Uganda

  Answer(b) Egypt — it was conferred on the Prime Minister of India during his state visit in June 2023.