Identify the incorrect pair :

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), 'January 25, 1950 - Adoption of National Calendar by the Government.' Read the stem first: the word 'incorrect' is printed in bold, so the question asks for the one pair that is wrong, and every pair a candidate can vouch for must be left out of the answer rather than put into it. Each of the four options is itself a complete date-and-event pair, so they have to be tested one at a time. The National Flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, a few weeks before independence, in the form we know — the tricolour of saffron, white and green with the Ashoka Chakra of twenty-four spokes in navy blue at the centre, replacing the spinning wheel of the earlier Swaraj flag. The National Anthem was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 24 January 1950, the last working day of that body, when Jana Gana Mana, composed by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted as the national anthem and Vande Mataram was given equal status as the national song. The State Emblem, adapted from the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath and carrying the words Satyameva Jayate below it, was adopted by the Government of India on 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force. Those three pairs are all correct, and the remaining one is not. The National Calendar was not adopted in January 1950 at all: the Saka calendar was recommended by the Calendar Reform Committee under Meghnad Saha and was adopted for official use with effect from 22 March 1957, alongside the Gregorian calendar, its first month being Chaitra and its era counting from the year corresponding to 78 of the Christian era. Since the date printed against it is wrong, option (3) is the incorrect pair and therefore the answer.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This pair is correct, so it cannot be the answer to a question asking for the incorrect one. The Constituent Assembly adopted the national flag on 22 July 1947, on a resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru, in the design prepared by a committee under Rajendra Prasad: the horizontal tricolour of deep saffron, white and dark green in equal proportion with the Ashoka Chakra in the centre of the white band. Candidates sometimes doubt the date because it falls before 15 August 1947 and assume the flag must have been adopted at independence itself, but the Assembly settled the design in advance precisely so that it could be flown on the day.  (b) This pair is correct as well. On 24 January 1950 the Constituent Assembly, at its final sitting, adopted Jana Gana Mana as the national anthem, and the President of the Assembly announced that Vande Mataram would be honoured equally with it as the national song. The anthem is the first stanza of a song written by Rabindranath Tagore and first sung at the Calcutta session of the Congress in December 1911. The 24th and the 26th of January 1950 sit two days apart and are easily transposed, which is why both dates are printed in this question — but transposing them would be a different error from the one the question is actually testing.  (d) This pair is also correct. The State Emblem of India, adopted on 26 January 1950, is an adaptation of the Lion Capital erected by Ashoka at Sarnath: three of its four lions are visible, the wheel appears in relief in the centre of the abacus with a bull on the right and a horse on the left, and the words Satyameva Jayate, taken from the Mundaka Upanishad, are inscribed below in Devanagari. Its adoption on the day the Constitution came into force is easy to remember once the connection is made, and the pair belongs among the true ones that this negative question requires the candidate to set aside.

Concept: India's national identity symbols were settled at different moments and by different authorities, and the questions set on them turn on keeping those moments apart. The Constituent Assembly adopted the national flag on 22 July 1947 and the national anthem on 24 January 1950. The Government of India adopted the State Emblem on 26 January 1950, when the Constitution came into force. The national calendar came much later: a Calendar Reform Committee under the physicist Meghnad Saha examined the many calendars in use in India and recommended the Saka era, which the Government adopted with effect from 22 March 1957 for the Gazette of India, All India Radio news broadcasts, government calendars and communications addressed to the public, to be used alongside the Gregorian calendar. Other symbols were fixed later still and by executive decision — the tiger as national animal, the peacock as national bird, the banyan as national tree, the mango as national fruit, the lotus as national flower — and none of these carries constitutional status. Two further points are worth holding: the flag's Ashoka Chakra has twenty-four spokes and replaced the charkha of the earlier Swaraj flag, and the anthem's prescribed playing time is about fifty-two seconds for the full version.

State PCS 2024 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q76 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer