MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 89 of 100

Correct — option (4), Digital media company for investigative journalism. Rappler is an online news organisation based in the Philippines. It began as a Facebook page called MovePH in August 2011 and became a full website on 1 January 2012, established by Maria Ressa together with three other women founders and a starting team of about a dozen journalists and developers. It exists only on the internet — there is no newspaper and no broadcast channel behind it — and its reputation rests on investigative reporting, which is precisely the work the Nobel committee had in view. Ressa's own background explains the emphasis: she holds Filipino and American citizenship, ran CNN's Jakarta bureau from 1995 to 2005, and spent close to two decades as the network's lead investigative reporter in Asia specialising in the study of terrorist networks. The prize the stem refers to was announced on 8 October 2021. Ressa shared the Nobel Peace Prize for that year with the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta, and the citation was 'for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace'. They were the first journalists to receive the Peace Prize since 1935. The pairing is the point of the award and worth carrying: the committee honoured two editors working under governments hostile to independent reporting, one in South-East Asia and one in Russia, and framed press freedom as a condition of peace rather than as a separate liberal value. For the purposes of this question the fill-in-the-blank has only one defensible completion, because Rappler is a news website and nothing else, and the option that says so is option (4). Note the paper's Marathi column spells the fourth option's first word डीजिटल; it is reproduced as printed.

• (1)Music company — Nothing in Rappler's history has anything to do with music; the option works purely on the sound of the name, which an English-speaking candidate reads as though it were connected with rap. Guessing from what a proper noun sounds like is a habit worth breaking, because examiners exploit it deliberately and it fails in both directions — a name that sounds Indian may belong to a foreign body and a name that sounds technical may belong to a cultural one. The reliable route here is the one the stem itself offers: it tells you that the person concerned won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the Peace Prize is not given for music. Reading the stem's own clues before the options is the general defence against a question of this construction.
• (2)Literary organisation — This confuses two different Nobel Prizes. The Peace Prize, which Maria Ressa shared with Dmitry Muratov in 2021, is awarded in Oslo by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and goes to work for fraternity between nations, the reduction of standing armies and the holding of peace congresses; the Nobel Prize in Literature is a separate award, announced in Stockholm, and in the same year of 2021 it went to Abdulrazak Gurnah. A candidate who registers only that a writer of some kind won a Nobel Prize can slide from the Peace Prize to the Literature Prize without noticing, and end up describing a news website as a literary body. The two prizes are announced in the same week each October, which makes the confusion easier and the distinction more worth learning.
• (3)Feminist organisation — This is the most plausible of the three wrong options and the most instructive. Rappler was in fact founded by four women, and the Peace Prize has gone to campaigners for women's and children's rights before — Malala Yousafzai shared it with Kailash Satyarthi in 2014, and Nadia Murad shared it with Denis Mukwege in 2018 for work against sexual violence in war — so a candidate reasoning from the laureate's sex towards the nature of her organisation is following a pattern that has sometimes been right. It is wrong here. The 2021 citation names freedom of expression as the ground of the award, and Rappler is a news site, not an advocacy body for women. The lesson is to answer from the citation rather than from the profile of the person: the Nobel committee states in one sentence what it is rewarding, and that sentence is usually the whole answer to any question about the prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize is the only one of the Nobel awards decided outside Sweden: under Alfred Nobel's will the committee is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and the prize is presented in Oslo, while the prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and literature are awarded in Stockholm, as is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which was established later and is not one of the original prizes. The Peace Prize may go to individuals or to organisations, which is why bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and the World Food Programme appear among its laureates. In 2021 it went to two working journalists, Maria Ressa of Rappler in the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta in Russia, and the committee's citation tied their work directly to democracy: freedom of expression, it said, is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace. They were the first journalists honoured since 1935, and the award was widely read as a statement about the pressure on independent media in many countries rather than about the two recipients alone. Rappler itself is a product of that environment. It was built for the internet from the beginning, it grew out of a Facebook page, and its investigative reporting on the conduct of government in the Philippines has repeatedly brought it into conflict with the authorities.

International awards are a fixed component of MPSC's current-affairs block, and the Nobel Prizes are its most predictable element because they are announced every October in the same order and reported everywhere. A candidate preparing for the paper written in January 2022 needed the October 2021 announcements, and this question is drawn from exactly that batch. What distinguishes a well-prepared answer here from a lucky one is knowing the citation rather than only the name: the question does not ask who won the prize, which is comparatively easy, but what the winner's organisation is, which can only be answered by someone who read past the headline. That is a common escalation in current-affairs questions, and it is worth anticipating in the way notes are made — for each award, write the laureate, the country, the organisation or work concerned, and the committee's stated reason. It is also worth keeping the six Nobel categories and their two cities straight, because a question that names a Peace laureate and then offers a literary or scientific description of their work depends entirely on the candidate failing to make that distinction.

• Rappler is a Philippines-based online news organisation. It began as the Facebook page MovePH in August 2011 and became a full website on 1 January 2012, founded by Maria Ressa with three other women and a starting team of about a dozen journalists and developers; its reputation rests on investigative reporting.
• Maria Ressa holds Filipino and American citizenship and ran CNN's Jakarta bureau from 1995 to 2005, working for close to twenty years as the network's lead investigative reporter in Asia with a specialisation in terrorist networks.
• The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, announced on 8 October 2021, was shared by Maria Ressa and the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta, 'for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace'.
• They were the first journalists to receive the Nobel Peace Prize since 1935, and the award was read as a comment on the pressure faced by independent media in many countries.
• The Peace Prize is the only Nobel award decided and presented outside Sweden — the committee is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and the ceremony is held in Oslo — and unlike the other prizes it may be given to organisations as well as to individuals.

• Sliding from the Peace Prize to the Literature Prize because both were announced in the same week; the 2021 literature award went to Abdulrazak Gurnah and has nothing to do with this question
• Inferring the nature of an organisation from the sex or profile of the laureate rather than from the citation. Rappler was founded by four women and is still a news site, not a women's rights body
• Guessing at a proper noun from what it sounds like in English. 'Rappler' suggests music to an unprepared ear and the option set is built to collect that guess
• Learning only the names of the year's laureates. The harder version of the question asks what the laureate's organisation does, which requires reading one line beyond the headline

Award questions in MPSC papers run along a ladder of difficulty and it is worth knowing which rung a question is on. The lowest asks who won a named prize in a named year. The next asks the field, the country or the organisation of the laureate, as this question does. The highest asks the citation, the shared nature of the award or a fact about the prize itself — where it is presented, who selects the recipients, whether an organisation may receive it. Preparing only for the first rung leaves a candidate helpless on the other two, and the marginal effort is small, because a single line of notes for each of the year's awards covers all three. Expect the Nobel Prizes every year without fail, and expect at least one question drawn from the Booker, the Oscars, the Magsaysay, the Padma awards or the Jnanpith, all of which appear in this very paper within a few questions of each other.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Maria Ressa and which of the following ?

  • (a)Abdulrazak Gurnah
  • (b)Dmitry Muratov
  • (c)Alexei Navalny
  • (d)Denis Mukwege

  Answer(b) Dmitry Muratov. The award was announced on 8 October 2021 and went to Ressa, of the Philippine news site Rappler, and Muratov, of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, 'for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace'; they were the first journalists to receive the prize since 1935. Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the same year, which is the confusion this question is built on, and Denis Mukwege shared the Peace Prize of 2018 with Nadia Murad.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following statements about the Nobel Peace Prize is correct ?

  • (a)It is awarded in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
  • (b)It is decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and presented in Oslo, and may be awarded to organisations
  • (c)It may be awarded only to individuals, never to organisations
  • (d)It was instituted by Sveriges Riksbank in memory of Alfred Nobel

  Answer(b) It is decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and presented in Oslo, and may be awarded to organisations. This is the only Nobel award decided outside Sweden, and its list of laureates includes bodies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and the World Food Programme alongside individuals. The prize instituted by Sveriges Riksbank in memory of Alfred Nobel is the economics award, which was created long after the original prizes and is not one of them.