MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 96 of 100

Correct — option (4), '(a), (c) & (d)'. One statement in this set carries a wrong year, and because it appears in three of the four options, spotting it answers the question outright. Statement (b) is the false one. The National Institutional Ranking Framework was launched in 2015 by what was then the Ministry of Human Resource Development, and the first rankings under it were released the following year. The 2025 edition was accordingly the tenth. A candidate who knows only that NIRF predates 2020 — and anyone who has seen a college advertise an NIRF rank from the late 2010s knows that much — can strike out option (1), option (2) and option (3) in a single stroke, since all three contain statement (b). Only option (4) remains. The other three statements hold. Statement (a) states the framework's purpose accurately: NIRF sets out a published methodology by which higher educational institutions across the country are ranked, category by category, on data the institutions themselves submit and that is then verified. Statement (c) is correct: the ranking rests on five broad parameters — teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception. Each is built from sub-parameters with published weights, and the weights differ between categories, but the five headings are constant, which is what makes this a safe statement for an examiner to set. Statement (d) is correct for the 2025 edition. NIRF 2025 introduced a new Sustainable Development Goals category, and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras ranked first in it, with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi second and Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi third. IIT Madras also retained the top position in the Overall category that year. The pattern to internalise is this: in a four-statement set where each option carries three statements, a single false statement usually eliminates three options, because it can only be absent from one of them. Find the falsifiable element — almost always a year, a number or a proper noun — before you attempt to verify the rest.

• (1)(a), (b) & (c) — Statements (a) and (c) are both sound, but the option carries the false launch year in statement (b). It also drops statement (d), the correct claim that IIT Madras topped the newly introduced Sustainable Development Goals category in 2025. This is the option for a candidate confident about what NIRF is and how it ranks, but with no recollection of the current edition's results and no reason to doubt a date.
• (2)(a), (b) & (d) — Again the false year in statement (b) sinks it, and it additionally rejects statement (c), the five-parameter structure, which is the most stable feature of the whole framework — teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception. Rejecting the methodology while accepting a wrong launch date reverses the reliability of the two claims.
• (3)(b), (c) & (d) — This is the only option that rejects statement (a), the plainest and least deniable proposition on the page — that NIRF provides a methodology to rank educational institutions across the country. That is simply what the framework is. Combined with the false launch year it retains, the option is wrong twice over, and a candidate who reaches it has probably read statement (a) as too obvious to be intended as true.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework was set up to replace reliance on foreign ranking systems, whose criteria fit Indian institutions poorly, with a published Indian methodology using data institutions supply and that is then verified. Its five parameters are teaching, learning and resources, which covers student strength, faculty-student ratio, faculty qualifications and financial resources; research and professional practice, which covers publications, citations, patents and sponsored projects; graduation outcomes, which covers completion, placement, higher study and university examination results; outreach and inclusivity, which covers regional and gender diversity, students from disadvantaged groups and facilities for the differently abled; and perception, drawn from surveys of employers, academics and the public. Each parameter carries sub-parameters with published weights, and the weights are adjusted between categories so that a medical college and a management institute are not judged on identical criteria. Rankings are issued category-wise — overall, university, engineering, management, medical, pharmacy, law, architecture, dental, research and others — which is why an institution can hold several different ranks in the same year.

The 2025 edition, released in September 2025, was the tenth. It evaluated institutions across seventeen categories, and its new addition was a Sustainable Development Goals category, extending the framework beyond academic performance into the social and environmental contribution of an institution. The Indian Institute of Technology Madras topped that new category and also retained first place in the Overall category, with the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru second overall. For a candidate, the framework's exam value lies in three fixed points that do not change from year to year — the launch year, the ministry responsible, and the five parameters — plus a small number of current results that do change and must be refreshed each year.

• NIRF was launched in 2015 by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development, with the first rankings released the following year; the 2025 edition was the tenth
• It ranks on five broad parameters: teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception
• Rankings are issued category-wise, and NIRF 2025 covered seventeen categories, including a newly introduced Sustainable Development Goals category
• In the 2025 Sustainable Development Goals category, IIT Madras ranked first, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi second and Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi third
• IIT Madras also retained the top position in the Overall category in NIRF 2025, with the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru in second place

• Attaching a recent-sounding year to a programme you associate with recent news. NIRF has been running since 2015; the launch year is the single most falsified element in questions about it
• Confusing ranking with accreditation. NIRF ranks institutions on relative performance; NAAC and NBA accredit them against thresholds, and the two processes are separate
• Reporting a single NIRF rank for an institution. Ranks are category-wise, so the same institute can be first in one category and unplaced in another — an option that says an institution 'tops NIRF' without naming a category is usually imprecise

NIRF appears in two guises. The stable version asks about the framework itself — the launch year, the ministry, the number of parameters — and is answerable from a single line of notes that never changes. The volatile version asks who topped which category in the most recent edition, and requires the current year's results. This question mixes both, which is the commonest MPSC pattern: three durable statements and one current-results statement, with the falsification planted in the durable part where candidates are least alert.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranks institutions on how many broad parameters ?

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

  Answer(c) Five — teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practice; graduation outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception. Each has published sub-parameters and weights, and the weights vary between ranking categories.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which new category was introduced in the NIRF rankings released in 2025 ?

  • (a)Sustainable Development Goals
  • (b)Open Universities
  • (c)Skill Universities
  • (d)Innovation

  Answer(a) Sustainable Development Goals — the 2025 edition added an SDG category, in which IIT Madras ranked first, followed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.