Which of the following statements is/are correct? 1. Moidam-The Mound-Burial system of the Ahom dynasty was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list. 2. The Government of India conferred the status of classical language to Pali, Assamese, Bengali and Maithili. 3. Project PARI is an initiative of Ministry of Education. Select the answer using the code given below:

Correct — B, 1 only. Statement 1 is the one that holds. Moidams, the mound burials of the Ahom kings and queens at Charaideo in Assam, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 26 July 2024 at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, held that year in New Delhi; it is India's 43rd World Heritage property and the first cultural site inscribed from the North-East. Statement 2 fails on one name. The Cabinet decision of 3 October 2024 conferred classical-language status on five languages — Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali — taking the total to eleven. Maithili was not among them. Maithili has been in the Eighth Schedule since the 92nd Amendment of 2003, and swapping a scheduled language for a classical one is exactly the substitution the statement makes; note also that Pali and Prakrit run the other way, classical but not scheduled. Statement 3 fails on the ministry. Project PARI, for Public Art of India, was launched by the Ministry of CULTURE in July 2024 to coincide with that same World Heritage Committee meeting, and executed through the Lalit Kala Akademi and the National Gallery of Modern Art, with more than 150 artists installing public art around Delhi. With statement 1 alone correct, the code is (b).

• (a)2 only — Takes the false statement and rejects the true one. The classical-language list of October 2024 was Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali; Maithili is scheduled but not classical.
• (c)2 and 3 only — Both of these statements fail — one on Maithili, the other on the ministry, since Project PARI belongs to Culture and not Education.
• (d)1, 2 and 3 — The all-of-them code. It is right about the Moidams and wrong twice over about the other two.

Moidams are hollow vaults built of brick or stone under a hemispherical earth mound, in which the Ahom kings and queens of Assam were buried with their possessions, a practice the dynasty carried from its Tai origins and kept for some six hundred years from the thirteenth century. Charaideo was the first Ahom capital and its royal necropolis. More than 150 moidams survive there; about 30 are protected. Their inscription in July 2024 made them India's 43rd World Heritage property and the first cultural site from the North-East to be listed.

Three separate July-to-October 2024 facts are folded into one item, and each has a decoy built into it. Statement 2 substitutes one language in an otherwise correct list, which is far harder to catch than an outright false claim — the fix is to learn the October 2024 round as a block of five: Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, Bengali. Statement 3 moves an initiative one ministry sideways, a move worth suspecting whenever art, heritage or monuments are involved, since those belong to Culture. Keep the two 2024 lists apart from the Eighth Schedule of 22 languages, which is a constitutional list and a different thing altogether; classical status is an executive recognition notified by the Ministry of Culture on the advice of a Linguistic Experts Committee. On the printing: the booklet runs 'Moidam' and 'The Mound-Burial system' together with a bare hyphen, where UNESCO's own title reads 'Moidams – the Mound-Burial system of the Ahom Dynasty'. The paper's punctuation is reproduced here as printed and changes nothing about what is asked.

• Moidams, the mound burials of the Ahom dynasty at Charaideo in Assam, were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 26 July 2024.
• The inscription came at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, held in New Delhi; it is India's 43rd World Heritage property and the first cultural site from the North-East.
• Classical-language status was conferred on Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali on 3 October 2024, taking the total to eleven.
• Maithili is in the Eighth Schedule (92nd Amendment, 2003) but is not a classical language; Pali and Prakrit are classical but not scheduled.
• Project PARI (Public Art of India) is a Ministry of Culture initiative of July 2024, executed by the Lalit Kala Akademi and the National Gallery of Modern Art.
• Classical-language status is an executive recognition notified by the Ministry of Culture on the advice of a Linguistic Experts Committee, not a constitutional listing.

• Accepting a list of languages because most of the names are right; statement 2 fails on Maithili alone.
• Confusing Eighth Schedule membership with classical-language status — Maithili has one and not the other, Pali and Prakrit the reverse.
• Assigning a public-art initiative to the Ministry of Education; art, heritage and monuments sit with the Ministry of Culture.

As a multi-statement current-affairs item mixing heritage, language and scheme facts, or as a single question on which languages were declared classical in 2024.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following languages was NOT granted classical-language status in the round announced in October 2024?

  • (a)Marathi
  • (b)Prakrit
  • (c)Maithili
  • (d)Bengali

  Answer(c) Maithili — the five languages recognised on 3 October 2024 were Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali. Maithili is in the Eighth Schedule but is not a classical language.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Moidams inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2024 are associated with which dynasty and which state?

  • (a)The Ahom dynasty, Assam
  • (b)The Kachari dynasty, Nagaland
  • (c)The Manikya dynasty, Tripura
  • (d)The Chutiya dynasty, Arunachal Pradesh

  Answer(a) The Ahom dynasty, Assam — the royal mound burials at Charaideo, the first Ahom capital.