UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 116 of 150

Correct — A, Both 1 and 2. The commission's key marks both statements true, so option (a) carries the marks. Statement 2 is on firm ground: Lata Mangeshkar sang at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1974, and that concert was her first performance outside India — her debut on the international stage. Statement 1 is the one that must be reported honestly, because the record does not support it. The claim that she was the first Indian artist ever to perform live at the Royal Albert Hall is contradicted by the venue's own archive, which credits Ravi Shankar, who played there on 21 October 1969, five years earlier. The commission's key nonetheless treats statement 1 as true and awards the mark for (a); a student who reasoned from the Hall's records to 'Only 2' would have marked (d) and lost the mark. Author's note on this paper's code, since it is scrambled and every letter has moved: in UPPSC 2022 Paper-I's eleven two-statement items, (a) is 'Both 1 and 2', (b) is 'Only 1', (c) is 'Neither 1 nor 2' and (d) is 'Only 2'. 'Only 1' sits at (b) in this paper, never at (a) and never at (d).

• (b)Only 1 — This is where 'Only 1' sits in this paper, and it would be right only if the second statement failed. It does not: the 1974 Royal Albert Hall concert genuinely was Lata Mangeshkar's first appearance outside India, so statement 2 stands whatever one makes of statement 1.
• (c)Neither 1 nor 2 — Too strong. Even on the sceptical reading, statement 2 survives — the Royal Albert Hall concert of 1974 was her international debut — so both statements cannot fail together.
• (d)Only 2 — This is the answer a well-read candidate would defend, and it deserves to be named rather than dismissed. If statement 1 is judged against the Royal Albert Hall's own archive, which records Ravi Shankar's concert of 21 October 1969 as the first there by an Indian artist, then only statement 2 holds and (d) follows. The commission's key, however, marks (a), and the key decides the marks. Author to the key in the exam hall; carry the archive's record away with you as the fact.

Lata Mangeshkar was the dominant playback voice of Hindi cinema from the late 1940s until the turn of the century, recording in Hindi and in a long list of Indian languages, and she became the standard reference point for questions on Indian popular music. She was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 2001, the third musician to receive it — after M. S. Subbulakshmi in 1998 and Ravi Shankar in 1999 — and Ustad Bismillah Khan was honoured alongside her the same year. She died on 6 February 2022, four months before this paper was set, which is why a current-affairs slot in the 2022 UPPSC prelims went to her career. The Royal Albert Hall detail comes from the flood of tribute writing that followed: she performed there in 1974, and much of that writing described the concert as the first by an Indian at the venue. The Hall's own archive does not agree — it credits Ravi Shankar's concert of 21 October 1969 — and the distinction that survives scrutiny is the narrower one, that the 1974 concert was HER first outside India.

This is a current-affairs question in the strict sense: it exists because of a death in February 2022, and it is best read as of the June 2022 exam. Two lessons come out of it. The first is about the code, and it costs marks in this paper more often than any fact does — the four options in UPPSC 2022's two-statement items are (a) Both 1 and 2, (b) Only 1, (c) Neither 1 nor 2, (d) Only 2, so the layout a candidate carries in from other papers will mislead. The second is about superlatives. 'First ever', 'only', 'largest' are the words examiners lean on and also the words that most often turn out to be loose in obituary and press writing. Where a superlative is contested, as it is here, the exam-hall rule is to answer the paper and the study rule is to record what the primary source says. In this instance the venue's own archive is the primary source, and it names Ravi Shankar.

• Lata Mangeshkar performed at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1974, and that concert was her first outside India — which is what makes statement 2 true.
• The claim in statement 1 is disputed: the Royal Albert Hall's own archive credits Ravi Shankar, who performed there on 21 October 1969, as the first Indian artist to appear at the venue.
• The commission's official key marks both statements true and awards the mark for option (a); the card is written to the key, and the archive's record is reported alongside it.
• She received the Bharat Ratna in 2001 and died on 6 February 2022 — four months before this paper was set, which is why she appears in it.
• In UPPSC 2022 Paper-I's two-statement items the code reads (a) Both 1 and 2, (b) Only 1, (c) Neither 1 nor 2, (d) Only 2 — 'Only 1' is at (b) in all eleven such questions.

• Reading the two-statement code from habit — in this paper (a) is 'Both 1 and 2', (b) is 'Only 1', (c) is 'Neither 1 nor 2' and (d) is 'Only 2'
• Treating a widely repeated press superlative as settled fact; the Royal Albert Hall's own archive credits Ravi Shankar in 1969, not Lata Mangeshkar in 1974
• Confusing 'her first international performance' with 'the first performance there by any Indian' — statement 2 makes the first claim and survives, statement 1 makes the second and does not

UPPSC devotes a large block of Paper-I to current affairs of the preceding twelve months, and the death of a national figure reliably generates a question built around a superlative or an award. The safe preparation is to learn each such figure with two or three checkable anchors — the year of the Bharat Ratna, the year of death, the single best-known achievement — rather than the flourishes that circulate in tribute coverage.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Lata Mangeshkar was conferred the Bharat Ratna in which year?

  • (a)1998
  • (b)2001
  • (c)2009
  • (d)2015

  Answer(b) 2001 — she received the Bharat Ratna in 2001, three years after M. S. Subbulakshmi became the first musician to be honoured with it in 1998.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  According to the Royal Albert Hall's own archive, which Indian musician gave the first performance by an Indian artist at that venue?

  • (a)Ravi Shankar, in 1969
  • (b)Lata Mangeshkar, in 1974
  • (c)Bismillah Khan, in 1966
  • (d)M. S. Subbulakshmi, in 1966

  Answer(a) Ravi Shankar, in 1969 — the Hall's archive records his concert of 21 October 1969, which is why the 'first Indian at the Royal Albert Hall' claim attached to the 1974 concert does not survive checking.