SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 19 of 95

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 10 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.

Which Ghazal singer was conferred with the prestigious Deenanath Mangeshkar Award in April 2023?

(a)Ghazal Srinivas
(b)Pankaj Udhas
(c)Bhupinder Singh
(d)Talat Aziz

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The key marks Pankaj Udhas, which is option (b).

Udhas was the ghazal singer who carried the form into mainstream Hindi cinema. Chitthi Aayi Hai, recorded for the 1986 film Naam, is the song that made him a household name, and he was given the Padma Shri in 2006 for his contribution to ghazal singing.

The Deenanath Mangeshkar awards are presented in April by the Mangeshkar family's Pratishthan in Mumbai, around the anniversary of Deenanath Mangeshkar's death in 1942. More than one honour is given at that ceremony.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Ghazal Srinivas — Ghazal Srinivas is a Telugu singer who carries the word ghazal in his name, which is exactly what makes him a plausible-looking option. The conferment in the stem went to Pankaj Udhas.
(c)
Bhupinder Singh — Bhupinder Singh, the ghazal singer and guitarist remembered for Dil Dhoondta Hai, died in 2022 — before this April 2023 conferment. The award named in the stem is not his.
(d)
Talat Aziz — Talat Aziz is a ghazal singer of the same generation and a genuine possibility on genre alone. The question turns on who actually received the award, not on who sings ghazals.

Concept

Every name in this option set is associated with the ghazal, so genre eliminates nothing. The question is pure recall of a conferment.

The ghazal is a lyric form of couplets in a fixed rhyme and refrain, carried into India in Persian and then Urdu. Its twentieth-century Indian popularisers include Begum Akhtar, Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh and Pankaj Udhas.

For an item of this shape the useful unit of memory is artist plus award plus year, not the artist alone.

The paper says only the prestigious Deenanath Mangeshkar Award, without a category. This card does not attach a category name to the conferment, because the paper does not and the Pratishthan gives several awards at the same ceremony.

Key facts

Pankaj Udhas received the Padma Shri in 2006 for his contribution to ghazal singing.
Chitthi Aayi Hai, from the 1986 film Naam, is the recording that made his name.
Pankaj Udhas was born on 17 May 1951 and died on 26 February 2024.
He was awarded the Padma Bhushan posthumously in 2025.

Study next

Ghazal singers of the twentieth century and the films that carried their workPadma awards in music and the years attached to major namesAwards instituted in memory of musicians and the bodies that give them

Common traps

Picking Ghazal Srinivas because the genre is inside his name.
Confusing the family Pratishthan's Deenanath Mangeshkar award with the National Lata Mangeshkar Award, a separate honour asked on 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.7.

Artist-and-award recall recurs in this series. Compare 18 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.17 on the musician from Maharashtra given the Padma Vibhushan 2023, and GA Q.16 of that same paper on where Girija Devi was born.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.