SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 4 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.

Hariprasad Chaurasia, an Indian flutist in the Hindustani classical tradition, was awarded with which of the following awards in 2000?

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

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Hariprasad Chaurasia received the Padma Vibhushan in 2000.

He had already taken the Padma Bhushan in 1992, and the Padma Vibhushan is the rank immediately above it, so the award of 2000 is a promotion up the same ladder rather than a first national honour.

Of the four honours listed, only the Padma Vibhushan carries the year 2000 for him → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Padma Bhushan — He does hold the Padma Bhushan, but from 1992 — eight years before the year the question fixes. By 2000 he had moved a rank higher.
(c)
Padma Shri — Padma Shri is the lowest of the three Padma ranks. A recipient who already held the Padma Bhushan since 1992 could only be moved upward, never back down to it.
(d)
Bharat Ratna — Chaurasia has not received the Bharat Ratna. Among instrumentalists that honour went to Ravi Shankar in 1999 and Ustad Bismillah Khan in 2001.

Concept

The Padma awards rank Padma Vibhushan above Padma Bhushan above Padma Shri, with the Bharat Ratna standing apart and above all three.

A long career in the performing arts usually climbs this ladder over decades, which is why the year matters more than the name. The same musician can supply three different questions with three different awards, and only the date separates them.

Chaurasia plays the bansuri, the bamboo transverse flute of Hindustani music. With santoor player Shivkumar Sharma he formed the composing duo Shiv-Hari, which wrote film scores.

The question gives you the year and asks for the award, which is the harder direction. Fix a performer's awards as a dated sequence rather than as a set of labels and both directions become answerable.

Key facts

Hariprasad Chaurasia received the Padma Bhushan in 1992 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2000.
He plays the bansuri, the bamboo transverse flute of Hindustani classical music.
With santoor player Shivkumar Sharma he formed the composing duo known as Shiv-Hari.
In descending order the Padma ranks are Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.

Study next

Padma ranks and award years of major Hindustani musiciansInstruments and their leading exponents in Hindustani classical musicBharat Ratna recipients drawn from music

Common traps

Choosing Padma Bhushan because he genuinely holds it, without checking the year the question names.
Treating the Padma Vibhushan as the highest civilian award when the Bharat Ratna is.

SSC asks the same performer from the other side: 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.10 asks who is the world renowned exponent of the bamboo flute and keys Hariprasad Chaurasia.

Award-and-year items on musicians recur at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1 (Zakir Hussain, Padma Vibhushan 2023) and 10 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.22 (Ravi Shankar, Bharat Ratna 1999).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.