IndQA Explained: OpenAI’s First Indian-Languages Cultural Benchmark

IndQA is a new benchmark from OpenAI to test how well AI understands and answers questions based on Indian languages and culture.

IndQA Explained: OpenAI’s First Indian-Languages Cultural Benchmark

• When was it released?
  OpenAI announced IndQA in early November 2025 (blog post / press coverage around Nov 3–4, 2025). OpenAI+1
• Size and languages:
  The benchmark includes 2,278 questions and covers Indian languages such as Hindi, Hinglish, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Odia, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, and Telugu (some sources list English or show 11–12 languages depending on counts). OpenAI+1
• Cultural domains:
  Questions cover 10 cultural areas like Law & Ethics, Food, Everyday Life, Religion, Sports, Literature, Media & Entertainment, Arts & Culture, Architecture & Design, and History. OpenAI
• Who helped build it?
  The dataset was created with help from 261 domain experts (scholars, journalists, linguists, artists, and specialists). OpenAI
• How it is graded:
  IndQA uses rubric-based grading: experts wrote criteria for each question and a model-based grader scores answers against those criteria. Each criterion has weighted points and the final score sums those points. OpenAI
• Key early results (benchmark performance):
  Early results show low-to-moderate scores for all models, meaning the task is hard. For example, GPT-5 (Thinking High) scored around 34.9%, while other models like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Grok 4 scored slightly lower. This shows there is still a lot of room to improve AI understanding of Indian languages and cultural context. Analytics India Magazine+1
• Language-wise observations:
  Models performed better in Hindi and Hinglish, and worse in Bengali and Telugu — pointing to gaps in models for some scripts and languages. OpenAI also said IndQA is meant for tracking within-model progress (not a cross-language leaderboard) because questions differ by language. Lapaas Voice+1
• Why this matters for exams / students:
  • Tests like IndQA show which languages and cultural areas AI still struggles with.
  • For competitive exams, expect more questions about AI, language technology, and policy as these topics become important in current affairs sections.
  • Remember the facts: release date (Nov 2025), number of questions (2,278), expert count (261), and the headline result (GPT-5 ≈ 34.9%) — these are useful for quick revision.

Question & Answer

Q1. IndQA is a benchmark by OpenAI that focuses on questions in which of the following areas?
(a) Only English literature
(b) Indian languages and cultural domains
(c) Medical exam questions only
(d) Mathematics problem solving only
Answer: Indian languages and cultural domains
Explanation: IndQA was created to test AI understanding of Indian languages and cultural topics, not just English or a single academic subject. OpenAI

Q2. How many questions does IndQA contain according to OpenAI?
(a) 1,000
(b) 2,278
(c) 10,000
(d) 500
Answer: 2,278
Explanation: OpenAI states the benchmark has 2,278 expert-written questions covering multiple languages and domains. OpenAI

Q3. Which of the following describes how IndQA answers are graded?
(a) Simple right/wrong multiple choice only
(b) Rubric-based criteria with weighted points
(c) Graded by number of words in the answer
(d) Based on user votes online
Answer: Rubric-based criteria with weighted points
Explanation: Each question has expert-written criteria; answers are scored by checking which criteria the answer meets, with weights for importance.

Q4. About how many domain experts helped make IndQA?
(a) 50
(b) 1000
(c) 261
(d) 10
Answer: 261
Explanation: OpenAI worked with 261 Indian experts (journalists, linguists, scholars, artists, etc.) to author and review the questions.

Q5. Which one of these is not one of the 10 cultural domains in IndQA?
(a) Food and Cuisine
(b) Law and Ethics
(c) Sports and Recreation
(d) Quantum Physics
Answer: Quantum Physics
Explanation: IndQA covers cultural and everyday domains like food, law, sports, history, arts, etc. Quantum Physics is not listed among the 10 cultural domains.

Q6. Why does OpenAI say IndQA should not be used as a cross-language leaderboard?
(a) Because the questions are identical across languages
(b) Because questions differ by language and are not directly comparable
(c) Because only one language is included
(d) Because scores are random
Answer: Because questions differ by language and are not directly comparable
Explanation: OpenAI warns that question sets are not the same across languages, so comparing scores between languages can be misleading; IndQA is meant to measure improvement within a model over time.

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