Minimalist IAS
International relations & current affairs

Prelims · International relations & current affairs · 20 questions

Persons, awards & miscellany

Every UPSC Prelims question on this topic, 2016–2026, newest first. Tap an option to check yourself; the answer and explanation open below it.

Persons, awards & miscellany questions per year: 2016: 1, 2017: 0, 2018: 1, 2019: 0, 2020: 0, 2021: 5, 2022: 0, 2023: 2, 2024: 1, 2025: 3, 2026: 4 Asked in 7 of 11 years · most in 2021 (5)

Practising International relations & current affairs? Take it as timed sets of 25 →

UPSC syllabus: “Current events of national and international importance.” Sub-topics in the detailed syllabus →

बिलकुल हाल में, निम्नलिखित में से किन देशों में लाखों लोग या तो भयंकर अकाल एवं कुपोषण से प्रभावित हुए, या उनकी युद्ध/संजातीय संघर्ष के चलते उत्पन्न भुखमरी के कारण मृत्यु हुई ?

Read this question in English

Very recently, in which of the following countries have lakhs of people either suffered from severe famine/acute malnutrition or died due to starvation caused by war/ethnic conflicts?

(a) Angola and Zambia · (b) Morocco and Tunisia · (c) Venezuela and Colombia · (d) Yemen and South Sudan

उत्तर और व्याख्या · explanation in English

Answer: (d) यमन और दक्षिण सूडान

In 2017 the UN formally declared famine in parts of South Sudan, where civil war had wrecked food supply, and warned that war-torn Yemen had more than 17 million people facing severe food insecurity. Both crises were driven by armed conflict.

  • ✓ (d) Famine was declared in parts of South Sudan's Unity region on 20 February 2017, and in March 2017 the UN counted 2.2 million acutely malnourished children in conflict-ridden Yemen.
  • ✗ (c) Venezuela's shortages of food and medicine at the time grew out of an economic collapse rather than a war or ethnic conflict, and neighbouring Colombia saw no famine.
  • ✗ (a) Angola's civil war ended in 2002 and Zambia has had no recent war; neither saw conflict-driven famine around 2017.

Remember · 2017: UN declared famine in South Sudan (Leer and Mayendit, Unity region); Yemen called one of the world's worst hunger crises, 17 million food-insecure.

Sources

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

निम्नलिखित युग्मों पर विचार कीजिए :

क्षेत्र जो कभी-कभी समाचारों में उल्लिखित होते हैंदेश
1.केटालोनियास्पेन
2.क्रीमियाहंगरी
3.मिंडानाओफिलीपींस
4.ओरोमियानाइजीरिया

उपर्युक्त युग्मों में से कौन-से सही सुमेलित हैं ?

Read this question in English

Consider the following pairs:

1. Catalonia — Spain

2. Crimea — Hungary

3. Mindanao — Philippines

4. Oromia — Nigeria

Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

(a) 1, 2 and 3 · (b) 3 and 4 only · (c) 1 and 3 only · (d) 2 and 4 only

उत्तर और व्याख्या · explanation in English

Answer: (c) केवल 1 और 3

Catalonia is in Spain and Mindanao is in the Philippines, so pairs 1 and 3 are right. Crimea is a Black Sea peninsula that belongs to Ukraine, not Hungary, and Oromia is a region of Ethiopia, not Nigeria.

  • ✓ 1. Catalonia is an autonomous community of north-eastern Spain. In October 2017 the Spanish Government announced it would suspend the region's autonomy and impose direct rule, as a UN human-rights expert's statement records; its independence movement kept it in the news.
  • ✗ 2. Crimea, with the port of Sevastopol, is part of Ukraine. Russia took control of it in 2014, and the UN General Assembly called on states not to recognise any change in its status.
  • ✓ 3. Mindanao is the southern island group of the Philippines. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was created there after a 2019 plebiscite under the Bangsamoro Organic Law.
  • ✗ 4. Oromia is a region of Ethiopia; UN experts wrote about protests in the Oromia region of Ethiopia in 2015-16. It is not in Nigeria.

Remember · Catalonia: Spain. Crimea: Ukraine (annexed by Russia in 2014, not recognised by the UN General Assembly). Mindanao: Philippines. Oromia: Ethiopia.

Sources

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). Permalink ·

The Syllabus X-Ray of this topic

1 of its 4 sub-topics is Core

1 Core · 2 High · 0 Steady · 1 Rare

  • Core #19Sports, events & miscellany · 10 questions
  • HighAwards & honours · 5 questions
  • HighPersons & places in the news · 3 questions

The X-Ray ranks all 928 sub-topics of the UPSC syllabus by what UPSC has asked since 2016. The 60 Prelims Core sub-topics are behind 51% of Prelims questions.

See the whole X-Ray →