Two Indian Serviceman were posthumously conferred with the Dag Hammarskjöld medal in the year 2025 by which one of the following international organisations ?
- (a)United Nations Organization (UNO)
- (b)Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
- (c)Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO)
- (d)Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Answer
Why
Correct — A, (a) United Nations Organization (UNO). The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is a United Nations award, and the two Indian soldiers honoured posthumously in 2025 received it from the UN.
The medal was established by Security Council resolution 1121 of 1997 and is named after Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, who was killed in an air crash at Ndola in September 1961 while on a peace mission to the Congo. It is awarded posthumously to military personnel, police and civilians who lose their lives while serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and it is presented each year at a ceremony at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 29 May, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.
The two Indians honoured in 2025 were Brigadier Amitabh Jha, who was serving with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights, and Havildar Sanjay Singh, who was serving with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The medals were presented at the New York ceremony on 29 May 2025.
The award carries a particular significance for India because of the scale of India's contribution to United Nations peacekeeping. India has been among the largest troop-contributing countries since the first missions of the 1950s, has served in dozens of operations across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, has lost more peacekeepers than any other contributing country, and deployed the first all-women Formed Police Unit, to Liberia in 2007.
The three wrong options are each a real international body with a security or peace-related mandate — which is what makes them plausible — but none of them awards this medal, and the notes below identify each.
Why the others are wrong
- (b)Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) — The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest regional security organisation, with participating States across Europe, Central Asia and North America. It traces its origin to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and took its present name in 1995. Its work covers arms control, confidence-building measures, human rights, election observation through the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and field operations such as the special monitoring mission it ran in Ukraine. It runs its own field missions and honours its own personnel, but it has nothing to do with the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal, which is a United Nations award for United Nations peacekeepers. India is not a participating State of the OSCE.
- (c)Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) — Nordic Defence Cooperation is a defence collaboration between Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, established in 2009 by merging three earlier Nordic arrangements. Its purposes are practical and regional — joint procurement, shared training and exercises, cooperation in capability development and in international operations — and it is a cooperation framework rather than an awarding authority with a global reach. It has no jurisdiction over Indian servicemen and confers no medal on the personnel of non-member states. Its inclusion here rests on the Scandinavian association carried by Dag Hammarskjöld's own name; Hammarskjöld was Swedish, but the medal named after him is the United Nations', not the Nordic countries'.
- (d)Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) — The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute is an independent research institute founded in 1966, on the occasion of Sweden's 150 years of unbroken peace, and based in Stockholm. It studies conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament, and it is best known for the SIPRI Yearbook and for its widely cited databases on world military expenditure and on international arms transfers. It is a research body, not an operational or awarding organisation, and it confers no medals on servicemen at all. Like the previous option it derives its plausibility from the Swedish connection with Hammarskjöld's name, which is exactly the association the option set is designed to exploit.
Concept
United Nations peacekeeping operations are authorised by the Security Council, directed by the Department of Peace Operations and supported by the Department of Operational Support, and staffed by military, police and civilian personnel contributed by member states. Their traditional principles are three: the consent of the parties, impartiality, and the non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate. The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal, created by Security Council resolution 1121 of 1997, is the United Nations' posthumous honour for those who die in service on such operations, presented on 29 May each year, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers, at United Nations Headquarters. Dag Hammarskjöld, after whom it is named, was Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in an air crash near Ndola in September 1961 during the Congo crisis, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously that year. India's involvement with peacekeeping is deep and long: participation in the Korea medical mission and in operations in the Congo, Cyprus, Cambodia, Somalia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, South Sudan and elsewhere; a consistent place among the largest troop contributors; the highest number of fatalities among contributing countries; and the deployment of the first all-women Formed Police Unit in 2007. Two acronym-heavy missions are worth carrying by name because they recur — UNDOF in the Golan Heights, established in 1974 after the disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, and MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the successor since 2010 to MONUC.
This is an organisation-identification item, and the option set is put together to punish a candidate who associates the medal's Scandinavian name with a Scandinavian body. Two of the four options are Nordic or European institutions with no connection to it, and one of them is a research institute rather than an operational organisation at all. The habit rewarded is to fix an award's AWARDING BODY as part of the fact, not just its name and its purpose. It is also worth reading the stem's own words, which record that the servicemen were conferred the medal 'in the year 2025' and that the awarding body is an international organisation — the answer follows from knowing that peacekeeping honours come from the United Nations.
Key facts
- The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is awarded by the United Nations, having been established by Security Council resolution 1121 of 1997.
- It is a posthumous award for military personnel, police and civilians who lose their lives serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation.
- It is presented each year at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 29 May, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.
- In 2025 it was conferred posthumously on two Indians — Brigadier Amitabh Jha, serving with UNDOF in the Golan Heights, and Havildar Sanjay Singh, serving with MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- Dag Hammarskjöld was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations and died in an air crash near Ndola in September 1961 while on a mission connected with the Congo crisis; he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.
- India is among the largest troop-contributing countries to United Nations peacekeeping and has lost more peacekeepers than any other contributing country.
- India deployed the first all-women Formed Police Unit in United Nations peacekeeping, to Liberia in 2007.
- The three traditional principles of United Nations peacekeeping are consent of the parties, impartiality, and non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.
- The OSCE is a regional security organisation descended from the Helsinki process; NORDEFCO is a defence cooperation of five Nordic states; SIPRI is an independent research institute in Stockholm.
Study next
Common traps
- Associating the medal's Swedish name with a Nordic or Swedish institution. It is a United Nations award.
- Mistaking a research institute for an awarding or operational body.
- Confusing UNDOF in the Golan Heights with UNIFIL in Lebanon, or MONUSCO with the earlier MONUC.
- Assuming the award is made on the date of death. It is presented annually on 29 May for those lost in the preceding year.
International-organisation items in these papers are usually about the mandate or the awarding body. Keep a list of the major awards a candidate is expected to know with the body that confers each, and a second list of the main United Nations missions India has served in. Together they answer most peacekeeping questions, whichever direction they are asked from.
Related PYQs
EPFO_APFC_2016_Q26Which of the following is one of the Millennium Development Goals fixed by the UNO ?
- (a) Halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS
- (b) Develop a new variety of foodgrains which can ensure bumper crops
- (c) To ensure that population does not increase in the least developed countries
- (d) Develop procedures towards adequate and timely forewarning on hurricanes and tsunamis
Answer(a) Halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS
The APFC 2016 item on the Millennium Development Goals fixed by the UNO — the other face of the United Nations these papers test, its development agenda rather than its peace operations.
Practice
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is presented each year on which date, marking the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers ?
- (a)24 October
- (b)29 May
- (c)10 December
- (d)26 June
Answer(b) 29 May
- practice — not a real PYQ
Dag Hammarskjöld, after whom the medal is named, was :
- (a)The first Secretary-General of the United Nations
- (b)The second Secretary-General of the United Nations
- (c)The first President of the United Nations General Assembly
- (d)A Force Commander of the United Nations operation in the Congo
Answer(b) The second Secretary-General of the United Nations