SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 11 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.

Indira PP Bora is a Padma Shri Awardee 2020 for her contribution to which Indian classical dance?

(a)Bharatanatyam
(b)Kathak
(c)Kuchipudi
(d)Sattriya

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Indira PP Bora is a Sattriya exponent from Assam, and her Padma Shri in 2020 was awarded for that dance.

Sattriya grew inside the sattras, the Vaishnava monasteries of Assam founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva, where monks performed it as devotional practice rather than as stage art.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised it as a classical dance in 2000, the eighth and most recent form on the classical list.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Bharatanatyam — Bharatanatyam is Tamil Nadu's classical form, grown out of the temple dance tradition of the south. A different region and a different repertoire.
(b)
Kathak — Kathak belongs to north India and developed through both temple storytelling and the Mughal courts. Its gharanas are Lucknow, Jaipur and Banaras.
(c)
Kuchipudi — Kuchipudi takes its name from a village in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, where its dance-drama tradition is rooted.

Concept

The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognises eight classical dance forms, and questions of this kind are answered by knowing which state each belongs to.

Bharatanatyam from Tamil Nadu, Kathak from north India, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam from Kerala, Kuchipudi from Andhra Pradesh, Odissi from Odisha, Manipuri from Manipur and Sattriya from Assam.

Sattriya is the outlier in origin: it comes from a monastic order rather than a temple or a court, and its repertoire includes the ankiya nat plays written by Sankardeva.

An award-plus-artist question is really a state-and-form question. Bora is an Assamese surname, and Assam on the classical list means Sattriya — a nudge worth taking when the artist is unfamiliar, not a rule to lean on.

Key facts

Sattriya is the classical dance of Assam, performed traditionally by monks in sattras.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised Sattriya as a classical dance form in 2000.
Srimanta Sankardeva founded the Vaishnava tradition from which Sattriya comes.
The Padma Shri is the fourth-highest civilian award of India.

Study next

The eight classical dance forms with their states and best-known exponentsSrimanta Sankardeva, the Bhakti movement in Assam and the ankiya natOrder of the civilian awards: Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri

Common traps

Reaching for the most familiar form on the list when the artist is unfamiliar.
Forgetting that Sattriya joined the classical list only in 2000, which is why older lists name seven forms.

SSC asks this pairing from both directions. The award-to-dance form is used on 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.17, for Ranjana Gauhar and Odissi, and the dancer-to-dance form on 23 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.1, for Vempati Chinna Satyam and Kuchipudi.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.