One of the central motifs of the past decade of governance under Indian Prime Minister has been the embrace of policy measures that seek to apply uniform solutions to disparate policy dilemmas facing the country. These measures, often termed One Nation policies, are motivated by a desire to replace the existing patchwork of state-specific policies, regulations, and regimes with measures that are identical across the length and breadth of India.
There are numerous examples of such One Nation policies being propagated and, in several cases, implemented in the eleven years since this Government came to power. For instance, in 2016, Parliament passed a series of constitutional amendments to introduce a new Goods and Services Tax (GST), which introduced a unified value-added tax in place of state-specific levies. This reform, known informally as One Nation, One Tax, had been debated and discussed for nearly two decades and was widely touted as an important precursor to forging a common market across India’s twenty-eight states.
In a similar vein, the government rolled out a new initiative to allow Indian citizens to take advantage of subsidized food rations irrespective of their state of residence. This scheme, commonly termed One Nation, One Ration Card, was intended to increase access to welfare benefits, especially for the millions of internal migrants in India without a fixed place of residence.
Earlier this year, the government announced the launch of a new online portal that will provide students, faculty, and researchers across the country’s public higher education institutions with open access to international scholarly journals and articles under a scheme it has dubbed One Nation, One Subscription.
Most notably, the government recently signalled its intention to pursue a monumental One Nation policy that has been long discussed but only recently outlined in detail. This measure, known as One Nation, One Election, would do away with India’s current system of staggered elections for state and national assemblies, replacing it with a framework of simultaneous elections. The proposal, which has featured in many of PM’s speeches in the past, was advanced by a high-level committee (HLC) established by the government in 2023. (351 words)
The passage opens by naming its central theme directly: policy measures that apply uniform solutions to different problems facing the country, replacing the existing patchwork of state-specific rules.
Reading the passage's own opening line settles this in favour of uniform, nationwide solutions.
So the correct answer is (B) To apply uniform solutions across India, replacing state-specific variations.
Another way to check this is to see which description actually fits the four examples the passage lists: GST, the ration card scheme, the subscription portal, and simultaneous elections.
Only one description matches the pattern shown across GST, ration cards, subscriptions, and elections.
So the correct answer is (B) To apply uniform solutions across India, replacing state-specific variations.
The High-Level Committee that studied One Nation, One Election eventually led to a specific piece of draft legislation being introduced in Parliament, and that Bill is what this question is really asking about.
Tracing the Committee's recommendations forward to the actual Bill introduced in Parliament points to the 129th Amendment.
So the correct answer is (A) One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment.
Constitutional amendment numbers are assigned in the order Bills are introduced in Parliament, not just in the order they eventually get passed, since many bills lapse without becoming law. That is why this Bill carries a number well past the most recently enacted amendment.
Keeping in mind how these bills get numbered, the correct figure for this specific reform is the 129th Amendment.
So the correct answer is (A) One Hundred and Twenty-Ninth Amendment.
Each of these four bodies had a distinct, separate mandate, and matching mandate to subject settles this question quickly.
Of the four mandates, only the Law Commission's 2018 report lines up with the specific question of simultaneous elections.
So the correct answer is (B) Law Commission of India Report 2018.
These four options actually split into two groups by theme: two of them deal with Centre-State relations, one deals with criminal law, and one deals with elections specifically.
Grouped this way, only the Law Commission's report belongs to the elections theme this question is asking about.
So the correct answer is (B) Law Commission of India Report 2018.
Three of these four names can be set aside quickly just by checking their roles and, in one case, their timeline.
Once the sitting Vice-President, the sitting President, and a former President who had passed away are ruled out, the former President available for the role is Ram Nath Kovind.
So the correct answer is (A) Shri Ram Nath Kovind.
Committees like this one are often chaired by a respected former head of state who is no longer in active office, since that gives the panel a degree of neutrality.
The one name that matches both the neutral former-office-holder pattern and the actual timeline is Ram Nath Kovind.
So the correct answer is (A) Shri Ram Nath Kovind.
The whole point of this reform was to cut down the number of tax slabs and reduce disputes over which slab a given product falls into, so any option that keeps four separate rates does not fit the reform's own stated goal.
Reducing four everyday slabs to two, plus a separate special rate for a small category of goods, is exactly what the reform set out to do.
So the correct answer is (D) 5%, 18% and 40%.
It helps to separate the standard, everyday GST rates from the special rate reserved for luxury and sin goods, since the 2025 reform treats these two categories differently.
Only one option correctly separates the standard rates from the special one in the way the reform actually structured them.
So the correct answer is (D) 5%, 18% and 40%.
To work out who benefits from One Nation, One Ration Card, look at what problem the scheme solves rather than just the name of the group in each option.
The scheme was built around mobility, and migrant labourers are the group whose mobility used to cost them their ration access, so option (C) is correct.
Another way to answer this is to ask what fails without the scheme and what changes once it exists, for each group in turn.
Only one group's situation genuinely improves because of the scheme, and that is the one whose access used to break the moment they crossed a state border.
So the correct answer is (C) The migrant labourers.