What was the primary objective of the ‘Poshan Pakhwada’ event observed in April, 2025?
- (a)To promote yoga and physical fitness
- (b)To improve nutrition across India, especially for women and children
- (c)To launch new healthcare infrastructure projects
- (d)To conduct nationwide vaccination drive
Correct — B, To improve nutrition across India, especially for women and children.
The name settles it. 'Poshan' means nutrition and 'pakhwada' means a fortnight, so this is a fifteen-day nutrition drive rather than a health-infrastructure or immunisation exercise. The 2025 edition ran from 8 to 22 April under the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The fortnight is a community-mobilisation push to improve nutrition across India, especially for women and children — the group POSHAN Abhiyaan works for: children under six, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
The month is not fixed. Earlier editions of the fortnight began in March, and the 2025 edition was the one held in April, which is the date the stem gives you.
Carry away one habit: decode the name of an observance before you look at the options. Here the name fixes both the subject and the length.
- (a)To promote yoga and physical fitness — What Poshan Pakhwada actually delivers is diet counselling, growth monitoring and anganwadi outreach. Fitness is a different subject from the one this fortnight is built around.
Yoga and physical fitness are the business of the International Day of Yoga, observed on 21 June, and of campaigns such as Fit India run by the sports ministry.
- (c)To launch new healthcare infrastructure projects — Poshan Pakhwada is an awareness and mobilisation drive delivered through anganwadi centres and community events, so its output is outreach and counselling; creating health facilities is a separate mission's job.
Building and upgrading health facilities is the work of the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM), launched in 2021 to strengthen health infrastructure and disease surveillance.
- (d)To conduct nationwide vaccination drive — Immunisation campaigns are run by the health ministry, while Poshan Pakhwada is a Women and Child Development activity aimed at nutrition behaviour and nutrition services.
A nationwide vaccination push describes Mission Indradhanush, begun in 2014 to raise full-immunisation coverage among children and pregnant women.
Poshan Pakhwada is a fortnight-long national nutrition campaign run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development under POSHAN Abhiyaan and Mission Poshan 2.0.
It works through anganwadi workers and community events, carrying nutrition messages and services to children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
India's nutrition programming is delivered largely through the anganwadi network. The calendar observances are how a continuous scheme is turned into a visible, time-bound push with measurable activity on the ground.
Poshan Pakhwada is a fortnight-long drive usually held in March; the 2025 edition ran from 8 to 22 April. Its counterpart, Rashtriya Poshan Maah, runs through September. They are two surfaces of the same mission, not separate schemes.
- Poshan Pakhwada 2025 was observed from 8 to 22 April 2025.
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal ministry for Poshan Pakhwada.
- 'Pakhwada' means fortnight, which is why the drive runs about fifteen days rather than a full month.
- Rashtriya Poshan Maah, the month-long counterpart of the fortnight, is observed in September.
- Earlier editions of Poshan Pakhwada began in March, so April is specific to 2025 rather than the drive's usual slot.
- POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission, was launched on 8 March 2018 at Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan.
- Poshan Tracker is the ICT application used to record and monitor anganwadi services and beneficiaries.
- POSHAN Abhiyaan works for children under six, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
The name carries the answer: nutrition, for a fortnight, under the Women and Child Development ministry.
- Reading 'Poshan' as health care in general and drifting towards hospitals or vaccination — the fortnight sits with Women and Child Development, and its subject is nutrition.
- Swapping the fortnight with the month: the April 2025 event is Poshan Pakhwada, while the September observance is Rashtriya Poshan Maah.
- Rejecting the keyed option because 'especially for women and children' sounds too narrow — that narrowing is exactly right, since POSHAN Abhiyaan works for children under six, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
- Answering from the month alone: April carries other observances too, so the date in the stem does not identify the campaign — the name does.
This shape hands you a named observance with a month and a year and asks what it was for. The name is the lever: decode the Hindi word and the subject falls out of it.
Be ready to say which ministry runs it, how long a pakhwada is against a maah, and what the year's announced themes were.
CDS_GK_2023_I_Q262023Same parent programme: that item asks about the strategies used to implement POSHAN Abhiyaan — inter-sectoral convergence and ICT-based real-time monitoring — and POSHAN Abhiyaan is the mission Poshan Pakhwada mobilises for. The difference is level: it tests how the scheme is delivered, while ours tests the purpose of one dated observance held under it.
CDS_GK_2025_I_Q682025Shares the vocabulary of named 'Poshan' initiatives. That item asks which programme 'Poshan bhi Padhai bhi' was launched under, so it tests where an initiative sits in the scheme hierarchy; ours asks what a fortnight-long observance was for, so it tests purpose rather than placement.
UPPSC_2023_PRE_GSI_Q1492023Shares the word 'Poshan' but points at a different object: it asks in which year the Mid-Day Meal Scheme was renamed PM POSHAN, a school-feeding scheme run through the education system, whereas ours is a Women and Child Development awareness fortnight delivered through anganwadis. Useful as a reminder that 'Poshan' labels several distinct things.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Poshan Pakhwada is an initiative of which Union Ministry?
- (a)Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
- (b)Ministry of Women and Child Development
- (c)Ministry of Education
- (d)Ministry of Rural Development
Answerb — Poshan Pakhwada, like Rashtriya Poshan Maah and the wider POSHAN Abhiyaan, is run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which owns the anganwadi network the drive works through.Health and Family Welfare handles immunisation and hospital programmes. Education administers PM POSHAN, the school meal scheme. Rural Development handles rural livelihood and employment work, not nutrition observances.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Rashtriya Poshan Maah is observed every year in which month?
- (a)March
- (b)April
- (c)June
- (d)September
Answerd — Rashtriya Poshan Maah is the month-long nutrition observance held in September.March is when POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched, on 8 March 2018. April is when Poshan Pakhwada, the fortnight-long observance, was held in 2025. June carries the International Day of Yoga on 21 June, which is a fitness observance rather than a nutrition one.
- practice — not a real PYQ
POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) was launched by the Prime Minister on 8 March 2018 from which place?
- (a)Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan
- (b)Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
- (c)Ranchi, Jharkhand
- (d)Gandhinagar, Gujarat
Answera — POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan on 8 March 2018.Varanasi is where the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission was launched in 2021. Ranchi is where Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY was launched in September 2018. Gandhinagar is not the venue for the nutrition mission's launch.
- practice — not a real PYQ
As its name indicates, Poshan Pakhwada is observed over a period of:
- (a)One week
- (b)One fortnight
- (c)One month
- (d)Three months
Answerb — 'Pakhwada' is the Hindi word for a fortnight, and the 2025 edition accordingly ran from 8 to 22 April, about fifteen days.One week is shorter than the observance as held. One month describes Rashtriya Poshan Maah in September, which is the maah and not the pakhwada. Three months matches neither observance.