SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 18 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 was the chief coordinator for the G20 summit hosted by India?

(a)S Jaishankar
(b)Vijay Gokhale
(c)Vinay Kwatra
(d)Harsh Vardhan Shringla

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Harsh Vardhan Shringla was appointed Chief Coordinator for India's G20 Presidency — the post that organised the presidency's meetings and the New Delhi Leaders' Summit itself.

He came to it straight from being Foreign Secretary, which he was from January 2020 to April 2022, so the job went to a career diplomat who had just retired from the service.

Chief Coordinator is a different post from Sherpa, who leads the negotiating track. Confusing the two is what this question is testing → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
S Jaishankar — S Jaishankar is the External Affairs Minister and was one of the ministers fronting the presidency. The Chief Coordinator was an official appointment, not a ministerial role.
(b)
Vijay Gokhale — Vijay Gokhale was Foreign Secretary from January 2018 to January 2020 — Shringla's predecessor in that office — and had left the service well before India's presidency began.
(c)
Vinay Kwatra — Vinay Mohan Kwatra was the serving Foreign Secretary through the presidency, from May 2022. That is a standing office in the ministry, not the summit's coordination post.

Concept

India held the G20 Presidency from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023 and hosted the Leaders' Summit in New Delhi in September 2023.

Two appointments run a presidency, and this question turns on the distinction. The Sherpa leads the substantive negotiating track and represents the leader in the run-up — Amitabh Kant for India. The Chief Coordinator runs the machinery: meetings, venues, sequencing and inter-ministerial coordination.

Alongside the Sherpa track sits the Finance Track, carried by the finance ministry and the central bank rather than by the Sherpa.

The stem writes chief coordinator in lower case, which makes it read like a description rather than a title. It is a title, and mistaking it for the Sherpa's job is the slip to avoid.

Key facts

Harsh Vardhan Shringla was Chief Coordinator for India's G20 Presidency.
He served as India's Foreign Secretary from 29 January 2020 to 30 April 2022.
Amitabh Kant was India's G20 Sherpa.
India held the G20 Presidency from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023 and hosted the Leaders' Summit at New Delhi in September 2023.

Study next

The G20 Sherpa Track and Finance Track and what each negotiatesThe New Delhi Leaders' Declaration and the African Union's admission to the G20The G20 troika of previous, current and incoming presidencies

Common traps

Marking S Jaishankar because he is the most visible face of Indian diplomacy. The question wants an appointed coordinator.
Marking the Foreign Secretary who was in office at the time. Kwatra held that post during the presidency and it is not the coordinator's.
Swapping Sherpa and Chief Coordinator. Amitabh Kant held the Sherpa's post.

G20 is also asked as who-held-which-post and where-was-which-meeting. The Sherpa is asked at 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.21 (answer: Amitabh Kant), and the first Employment Working Group meeting at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.7 (answer: Jodhpur).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Current events — all 116 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.