UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 45 of 150

Correct — C, Only 3. Pair 3 is the single mismatch in the list. World Wildlife Day is observed on 3 March, the date on which the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed in 1973; the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the day in December 2013. The 22 March printed against it belongs to World Water Day, which grew out of Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit — so the examiner has swapped one March date for another. The other two pairs are correct as printed. The International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer falls on 16 September because the Montreal Protocol was signed on that date in 1987, and World Environment Day falls on 5 June because that was the opening day of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972. With only pair 3 failing, the answer is 'Only 3'.

• (a)1 and 3 — Pair 3 is indeed wrong, but pair 1 is not. 16 September is the correct date for the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer — commonly called International Ozone Day — and it was chosen as the anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol on 16 September 1987. Adding pair 1 to the answer converts a correct pair into an error.
• (b)2 and 3 — Pair 3 fails, but 5 June is right for World Environment Day. The date marks the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment on 5 June 1972, the conference that led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme; India has hosted the global observance twice, in 2011 and again in 2018.
• (d)Only 1 — This names the one pair that is certainly right and lets the actual error through. Ozone Day is 16 September, exactly as printed. The pair that breaks is World Wildlife Day, which falls on 3 March, not 22 March.

The environmental observance days are not arbitrary dates: each is pinned to the founding document or founding conference of a regime, which is why they are far easier to hold as a set than as isolated numbers. 5 June commemorates the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, out of which UNEP was created. 16 September commemorates the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987. 3 March commemorates the signing of CITES in 1973 and was proclaimed World Wildlife Day by the UN General Assembly in December 2013. 22 March, World Water Day, comes out of Agenda 21 of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. Two more from the same family are worth adding: 2 February, World Wetlands Day, for the Ramsar Convention signed in 1971, and 22 May, the International Day for Biological Diversity.

A 'NOT correctly matched' question rewards checking every pair rather than stopping at the first one that looks off. Here two of the three pairs are among the best-known dates in the environment syllabus, so the whole item turns on World Wildlife Day, and specifically on the 3 March versus 22 March confusion — 22 March belongs to water, not to wildlife, and the examiner has planted it precisely because both dates fall in March. The useful habit is to keep the March cluster straight in your head and to read the code carefully: because the question asks which pairs are wrong, any option that names a correct pair is automatically disqualified, and that alone kills (a), (b) and (d).

• World Wildlife Day is 3 March — the date CITES was signed in 1973; the UN General Assembly proclaimed the day in December 2013
• 22 March is World Water Day, which comes from Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit — this is the date the question wrongly attaches to wildlife
• The International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer is 16 September, the anniversary of the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987
• World Environment Day is 5 June, marking the opening of the UN Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm on 5 June 1972; India hosted the global observance in 2011 and in 2018
• Neighbouring dates worth fixing at the same time: 2 February World Wetlands Day (Ramsar Convention, 1971), 22 April Earth Day, 22 May International Day for Biological Diversity

• 3 March (Wildlife) versus 22 March (Water) — the exact substitution the examiner has used here
• Answering the question that was not asked: this item wants the pairs that are NOT correctly matched, so an option naming a correct pair must be rejected
• Assuming International Ozone Day marks the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985 rather than the signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987

Both commissions ask observance days, but UPPSC asks them far more often and almost always as a match-list or a 'not correctly matched' pair — this same 2025 paper carries a second such item at Q127. UPSC, when it asks, prefers to tie the day to the body that declared it or the convention behind it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  World Water Day is observed every year on:

  • (a)22 March
  • (b)3 March
  • (c)5 June
  • (d)16 September

  Answer(a) 22 March — 3 March is World Wildlife Day, 5 June is World Environment Day and 16 September is International Ozone Day.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  World Wildlife Day, observed on 3 March, marks the anniversary of the signing of which convention?

  • (a)CITES
  • (b)The Ramsar Convention
  • (c)The Convention on Biological Diversity
  • (d)The Convention on Migratory Species

  Answer(a) CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora was signed on 3 March 1973, and the UN General Assembly proclaimed World Wildlife Day in December 2013.