MPSC 2023 Prelims Paper-I · Question 94 of 100

Correct — option (1), Shri Anurag Singh Thakur. The 2023 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships, the thirteenth edition of the event, were held in New Delhi from 15 to 26 March 2023 at the K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall in the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex, and were inaugurated on 15 March by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports. The reasoning that gets a candidate there without recalling the ceremony is worth spelling out, because it applies to a whole family of questions: the inauguration of a sporting championship is a function of the sports ministry, so the person who performs it is normally the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, unless the event is of such scale that the Prime Minister or the President is invited. A world championship in a single discipline sits at the level where the sports minister presides. The opening ceremony was attended by the Union Minister Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, by the President of the International Boxing Association Umar Kremlev, by the President of the Boxing Federation of India Ajay Singh, and by the Russian sports minister Oleg Matytsin, with the six-time world champion M. C. Mary Kom as the tournament's brand ambassador. Three hundred and twenty-four boxers from sixty-five countries competed in twelve weight categories, and India topped the medal tally for the first time since 2006, with gold medals for Nitu Ghanghas in the minimumweight class, Nikhat Zareen in the light flyweight, Lovlina Borgohain in the middleweight and Saweety Boora in the light heavyweight. Option (1) is the answer.

• (2)Shri Narendra Modi — The Prime Minister inaugurates sporting events of the highest order — an Olympic or Commonwealth Games hosted in India, a cricket World Cup, or the launch of a national programme such as Khelo India — but a single-discipline world championship is ordinarily opened by the sports minister. This option is offered because a candidate who cannot recall the ceremony will reason that a prestigious international event in the national capital must have drawn the Prime Minister, and because his name is the first that comes to mind for any inauguration. The useful correction is to think in terms of the ministry whose subject the event is, and then of the level of the event within that subject. Applied to sport, that rule assigns world championships and national games to the sports minister and reserves the Prime Minister for the events that are national occasions in their own right.
• (3)Shri Amit Shah — Shri Amit Shah holds the Home portfolio, which has no connection with the conduct of a boxing championship. His name appears in the option set for the same reason as the Prime Minister's — as a senior and instantly recognisable figure who might plausibly be invited to a large public function — rather than because of any association with sport. This is the standard construction of a 'who inaugurated' question: one correct name and two or three prominent names from outside the relevant ministry. The discipline that defeats it is to identify the subject of the event first and the ministry that owns that subject second, and only then to ask who held the portfolio at the time. A candidate who works in that order will rarely be misled by the seniority of a name, which is what these options trade on.
• (4)Smt. Jayashree Banerjee — This is the only option printed with the honorific 'Smt.', and that is precisely what makes it work as a distractor in a question about a women's championship: a candidate who is guessing will feel that a women's world event ought to have been opened by a woman. No person of this name is associated with the inauguration of the 2023 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships, and no account of the opening ceremony names her; the identity behind the name could not be established from any source consulted, so nothing further is asserted about her here. What the option teaches is that the form of an option can be a lure. A name that fits the theme of the event, or an honorific that matches its subject, carries no evidential weight at all, and treating such a fit as a reason to choose is how guesses are engineered by an examiner.

The world championships of amateur boxing are run by the International Boxing Association, which the paper's option set and the event's own branding abbreviate to IBA. The women's world championships began in 2001 and have been held at intervals since, the 2023 edition in New Delhi being the thirteenth; India had hosted the event before, at New Delhi in 2006 and at Guwahati earlier, and Indian boxers have a long record in it, M. C. Mary Kom's six world titles being the most celebrated. The 2023 championships mattered domestically for two reasons beyond the medals. They came in the year before an Olympic Games, so they served as a marker of form for the boxers building towards Paris; and they were held while the International Boxing Association's own standing was under challenge from the International Olympic Committee over governance and finance, a dispute that eventually removed the association from the running of Olympic boxing. For an examination the relevant facts are the simpler ones: the edition, the host city, the dates, the minister who opened it, the scale of participation and the Indian medallists, of whom there were four gold winners in 2023 and whose names have recurred in current affairs papers since.

Sports questions in MPSC papers are set from a narrow and predictable base — who won, where it was held, which edition it was, and who inaugurated it — and the inauguration variant is the one most often treated as unanswerable by candidates who have not memorised the ceremony. It is in fact the most reasonable of the four, because it can be derived rather than recalled: identify the subject, identify the ministry, and name the minister who held that portfolio at the time. The list of Union ministers by portfolio is short, stable within a government's term and worth learning once, since it answers inauguration questions across sport, tourism, culture, railways and education alike. This particular option set also illustrates a lure worth naming: three options carry the honorific 'Shri' and one carries 'Smt.', in a question about a women's championship. The formatting of an option is never evidence about its truth, and an examiner who arranges a thematic fit of this kind is inviting exactly the association a candidate should refuse. Note finally that the Marathi column's punctuation after the championship's name is faint in the scan; nothing turns on it.

• The 2023 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships, the thirteenth edition, were held in New Delhi from 15 to 26 March 2023 at the K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall in the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex.
• They were inaugurated on 15 March 2023 by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, at a ceremony attended by the Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, the IBA President Umar Kremlev and the Boxing Federation of India President Ajay Singh.
• Three hundred and twenty-four boxers from sixty-five countries competed in twelve weight categories, and the six-time world champion M. C. Mary Kom was the tournament's brand ambassador.
• India topped the medal tally for the first time since 2006, winning four gold medals.
• The Indian gold medallists were Nitu Ghanghas in the minimumweight class, Nikhat Zareen in the light flyweight, Lovlina Borgohain in the middleweight and Saweety Boora in the light heavyweight.

• Assuming that a prestigious international event must have been inaugurated by the Prime Minister, when a single-discipline world championship is ordinarily opened by the sports minister
• Choosing an option because it fits the theme of the event, such as a woman's name in a women's championship, which is a formatting lure and not evidence
• Treating inauguration questions as pure memory, when the ministry that owns the subject usually identifies the person — working from event to ministry to minister answers most of them without any recollection of the ceremony
• Remembering the medallists but not the edition number or the host city, when the question can be set on any of the three

Sport reaches MPSC papers in four shapes: the winner of a tournament, the venue and edition of a championship, the recipient of a national sports award, and the person who inaugurated an event. The first three are recall questions and can only be prepared by keeping a list through the year. The fourth is different, because it is usually derivable: identify the ministry whose subject the event is and the minister who held that portfolio, and the answer follows. The same logic answers inauguration questions about conferences, exhibitions, expressways and institutions, which makes the ministry list one of the highest-return things a candidate can memorise. Expect option sets in this family to contain two or three senior names from unrelated ministries, since seniority rather than relevance is what the wrong options trade on, and expect at least one option shaped to fit the theme of the event.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  How many gold medals did India win at the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships held in New Delhi in March 2023 ?

  • (a)Two
  • (b)Three
  • (c)Four
  • (d)Five

  Answer(c) Four — Nitu Ghanghas in the minimumweight class, Nikhat Zareen in the light flyweight, Lovlina Borgohain in the middleweight and Saweety Boora in the light heavyweight, a haul that took India to the top of the medal tally for the first time since 2006. Three hundred and twenty-four boxers from sixty-five countries competed across twelve weight categories in the thirteenth edition of the championships.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Union Minister who inaugurated the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships in New Delhi in 2023 held which portfolio ?

  • (a)Youth Affairs and Sports
  • (b)Home Affairs
  • (c)Culture
  • (d)Education

  Answer(a) Youth Affairs and Sports — the championships were inaugurated by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, who held that portfolio, and this is the general rule for sporting events of this scale. Working from the subject of an event to the ministry that owns it, and only then to the minister, answers most inauguration questions without any recollection of the ceremony itself.