Identify the correct chronological order (from earliest to latest) of the…

Concept.

A State Open University (SOU) in India comes into existence on the date the concerned State legislature’s Act — or, in several cases, a State ordinance that the Act later replaces — brings it into force. So a chronology question about open universities is never answered from name recognition or from how well known an institution is; it is answered purely from each institution’s year of establishment under its own enabling State law. Note that State open universities are not a post-IGNOU development: the earliest of them, Andhra Pradesh Open University (1982, since renamed Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University), preceded the national IGNOU (1985), after which many more States set up their own SOUs through the later 1980s and the 1990s. Ordering any such set therefore means placing the statutory years on a timeline from earliest to latest.

Application to this item.

Each listed institution is a State Open University, and each has a documented year of establishment:

Sorting those years from earliest to latest:

1. 1987 — Nalanda Open University, Bihar (Bihar’s State Open University, and the oldest of the five listed here) → (E)

2. 1991 — Bhoj Open University, Madhya Pradesh → (B)

3. 1996 — Karnataka State Open University, Karnataka → (A)

4. 1997 — Netaji Subhas Open University, West Bengal → (D)

5. 1998 — Rajarshi Tandon Open University, Uttar Pradesh; established by ordinance on 2 November 1998 and given permanent statutory footing by U.P. Act No. 10 of 1999, which is why some sources date it 1999. It stays last on the timeline under either dating → (C)

The required sequence is therefore (E), (B), (A), (D), (C).

Cross-check.

• Decade grouping: exactly one of the five belongs to the 1980s (Nalanda, 1987), one to the early 1990s (Bhoj, 1991), and three to the second half of the 1990s (Karnataka 1996, Netaji Subhas 1997, Rajarshi Tandon 1998/1999). Any ordering that does not open with the single 1980s institution is inconsistent with that grouping.

• Endpoint test: the earliest slot must hold the 1987 institution and the latest slot must hold the Uttar Pradesh institution, which closes the decade whichever of its two dates is used. Checking only those two positions already fixes the sequence uniquely among the choices offered.

• Common trap: these universities are often recalled by fame or by the size of the State rather than by statute year. Nalanda Open University is comparatively less discussed than the larger States’ open universities, yet it is the oldest of the five listed — which is exactly why the item is set on years, not on prominence.

Result: (E), (B), (A), (D), (C) — Nalanda (1987), Bhoj (1991), Karnataka State (1996), Netaji Subhas (1997), Rajarshi Tandon (1998, statute 1999).