SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 2 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 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.

Who among the following was one of the recipients of the inaugural ‘Prof CR Rao Centenary Gold Medal’ award in 2021?

(a)Amartya Sen
(b)Jagdish Bhagwati
(c)Raghuram Rajan
(d)Surjit Bhalla

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The key names Jagdish Bhagwati, the Columbia University economist known for his work on international trade, as one of the recipients of the inaugural Prof CR Rao Centenary Gold Medal in 2021.

The medal commemorates the statistician C R Rao, born on 10 September 1920, so the honour sits at the meeting point of statistics and economics.

There is nothing in the stem to reason from, and the stem's own phrase 'one of the recipients' says the first award was shared. This is recall: hold the pairing of the Rao centenary medal with Bhagwati's name.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Amartya Sen — Amartya Sen holds the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and the Bharat Ratna, but his is not the name the key carries here.
(c)
Raghuram Rajan — Raghuram Rajan was Governor of the Reserve Bank from 2013 to 2016 and Chief Economist at the IMF before that. Neither role is what the key points to.
(d)
Surjit Bhalla — Surjit Bhalla is an Indian economist and columnist — a plausible name for an economics award, and simply not the one the key records.

Concept

C R Rao, born on 10 September 1920, is the statistician the medal commemorates.

His name is attached to results every statistics course teaches: the Cramer-Rao bound on the variance of an estimator and the Rao-Blackwell theorem on improving one.

He spent much of his career in the United States and received the International Prize in Statistics in 2023, at the age of 102.

Jagdish Bhagwati, the name the key carries, is an Indian-born economist at Columbia University, best known for his work in international trade theory.

The award is recent and lightly reported, so treat it as a pairing to memorise rather than a fact to reason towards.

The question's own wording, "one of the recipients", is a hint that the first medal was shared.

Key facts

C R Rao was born on 10 September 1920, and the medal marks his centenary.
The Cramer-Rao bound and the Rao-Blackwell theorem both carry C R Rao's name.
C R Rao received the International Prize in Statistics in 2023.
Jagdish Bhagwati is an Indian-born trade economist at Columbia University.

Study next

The Cramer-Rao bound and the Rao-Blackwell theoremJagdish Bhagwati's work on international trade theoryIndian recipients of major international statistics and economics prizes

Common traps

Choosing the most famous Indian economist on the list rather than the one whose field matches the award.
Assuming a single winner when the question says "one of the recipients".

The honour is given and four plausible holders from the same profession are offered, so fame is no guide — the discriminator is the award's own subject field.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.