SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 22 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar was awarded which of the following awards by the Government of India in 1999?

(a)Padma Shri
(b)Bharat Ratna
(c)Padma Vibhushan
(d)Padma Bhushan

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Pandit Ravi Shankar received the Bharat Ratna in 1999, India's highest civilian honour.

He already held the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan by then, so the question is really asking you to notice the step up: the Bharat Ratna sits above every Padma award, and it came to him for carrying the sitar and Hindustani classical music to a world audience.

The 1999 list also carried the economist Amartya Sen, along with Jayaprakash Narayan and Gopinath Bordoloi, both honoured posthumously.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Padma Shri — Padma Shri is the fourth and lowest of the civilian honours. A musician of Ravi Shankar's standing was decades past that level by 1999.
(c)
Padma Vibhushan — Padma Vibhushan is the second-highest and the closest wrong answer here — but he had received it years earlier, so it cannot be the honour conferred in 1999.
(d)
Padma Bhushan — Padma Bhushan is the third rank, and again one he already held. Fix the order: Bharat Ratna, then Padma Vibhushan, then Padma Bhushan, then Padma Shri.

Concept

India's civilian honours run in a fixed order: Bharat Ratna, then Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. All were instituted in 1954 and all are conferred by the President.

The Bharat Ratna is the rarest of them — no more than three in a year, given for exceptional service in any field, and it can be conferred posthumously.

For musicians SSC's usual chain is instrument, then artist, then award. Ravi Shankar sits at the top of all three: the sitar, a global career, and the highest honour the state gives.

The year in the stem does all the work. Every option is a real honour, and he held more than one of them during his life.

So the item is not 'which award was he worthy of' but 'which one came in 1999'.

Key facts

Ravi Shankar was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1999.
The order of precedence is Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri.
The Bharat Ratna and the three Padma awards were all instituted in 1954.
Amartya Sen also received the Bharat Ratna in 1999.

Study next

Bharat Ratna awardees by year, with the musicians among themWhich instrument each major Hindustani maestro is known forThe Padma awards, their three ranks and how nominations are decided

Common traps

Assuming the grandest-sounding name, Padma Vibhushan, must be the highest award
Pairing the right artist with the wrong year when two honours fall close together
Forgetting that one person may hold a Padma award and the Bharat Ratna both

The musician-and-award pairing comes back through this cycle: 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.1 asks the year of Lata Mangeshkar's Bharat Ratna, and 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1 asks which award went to Ustad Zakir Hussain.

Ravi Shankar himself returns at 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1, as the sitar player who founded the National Orchestra of India, and the same shift asks which instrument Ustad Vilayat Ali Khan played (10 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.12).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.