India Quiz Prelims Answers

Dhanraj B.Tauseef Warsi

1. The supposed origin of which word

• According to legend, the name of this place is derived from a word that means land or three lingas, or simply from a word that meant three lingas.

• It is believed that Lord Shiva descended on the three mountains – Kaleshwaram, Srisailam, and Draksharama – in the linga form. The land between the three temples where these lingas were became known as the land of three lingas, from which the modern name follows.

• Give the modern name.

Answer

• Telangana

2. Who is the person

• He was originally called "Namgyal Wangdi", but as a child his name was changed on the advice of the head lama of the Rongbuk Monastery to X translated as "wealthy-fortunate-follower-of-religion.

• But religion was probably the last thing that interested him. Having run away from home twice, he left the Tengboche Monastery where he was sent to be a monk and then went on to create history.

• Easy one. Identify

Answer

• Tenzing Norgay

3. Just the name of the book

• Mirza Hadi Ruswa is credited with having written this book which was first published in 1899, often considered the first novel in Urdu.

• The story is of a real-life poetess and courtesan who the author happened to meet in Lucknow and moved by her story, convinced her to share it with the rest of the world.

• The book has been adapted by Bollywood twice, with the female protagonists being associated with a father-son duo from Bollywood itself.

Answer

• Umrao Jaan• The title of the book is Umrao Jaan Ada

4. A very specific term

• The X was a political reform movement in the early 20th century, favoring replacement of the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire with a constitutional monarchy.

• How can you connect X with the likes of Chandra Shekhar, Krishan Kant, Mohan Dharia and Ram Dhan ?

Answer

• Young Turks of Congress

5. The sportsman

• Often thought to be one of the best in the country in his sport, he was an eight-time national champion.

• His career was cut short after he was shot dead in Lucknow. Murder charges were filed against his wife Ameeta and her future husband Raja Sanjay Singh of Amethi, who was also a politician.

Answer

• Syed Modi

6. The event • An Antonov AN 26 Latvian Aircraft carrying Peter Bleach, Kim

Peter Davy, a five-member Latvian crew and a still-at-large South African - Daya M. Anand alias Deepak, flies into India from Karachi . The plane lands at Varanasi airport and refuels and stays parked at Varanasi Airport for over seven hours. The plane digresses from an approved flight path on the early hours of December 18, 1995. The Plane then rejoins the approved flight path and lands for refueling at Calcutta Airport. The flight goes on to Phuket in Thailand. What happened during this flight? Full marks if you can give the name of the organization founded by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar that is supposedly involved.

Answer

• Purulia Arms Drop• Anand Marg

7. Who is X? Blanks are not the same.

• “_____ _____ was by far the most calamitous exercise undertaken during the Emergency. The IMF and World Bank had periodically shared their fears with New Delhi about the uncontrolled rise in _____ _____. India’s democracy was a hurdle: no government could possibly enact laws limiting the number of _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ without incurring punishment at the ballot box. But with democracy suspended, the IMF and World Bank encouraged Indira to pursue the programme with renewed vigour. Indira and X, the self-styled socialists, inflicting on Indians the humiliation of _____ _____ in order to appease western loan sharks: the irony was lost on them. Socialism, like much else, had been reduced to a slogan.”

• David Frum, reviewing The X Story by Vinod Mehta

Answer

• Sanjay Gandhi

8. Just name the person • One of the few public figures to be known by a mononym (he

dropped his surname), he was governor of Jammu & Kashmir between 1984 and 1989 and again in 1990. He was the governor of Delhi between 1980-1981 and also the Implementation Commissioner and later Vice Chairman, Delhi Development Authority He was also Union minister in the Vajpayee government. Rebuilding Shahjahanabad, the Walled City of Delhi, Island of Truth (1978) and My frozen turbulence in Kashmir are his books

• In the news now, who am I talking about?

Answer

• Jagmohan

9. Who?

• A very famous painter, this is her self-portrait. Identify.

Answer

• Amrita Sher Gil

10. Identify

• An IAS Officer of 1980 batch (Kerala Cadre)• Force behind Kerala’s God’s Own Country, and

Incredible India campaigns• Author of “Branding India – An Incredible Story”• Currently the CEO of _____ _____• Give me the person and the blank

Answer

• Amitabh Kant

11. Name the organisation

• In 1992, the editor of the Times of India telephoned one of Mumbai’s most prominent businessmen, Y X. The editor asked X, “as a Muslim leader” his opinion on communal riots that were taking place in the city. X replied: “Why aren’t you asking me as an Indian Jew? Because my name is X? My mother was Jewish!” His maternal grandparents had perished in the Holocaust. Y X was born to Luba Derczanska and Khwaja Abdul X.

• Y X is the chairman of _____ that was founded by his father in 1935 in Mumbai.

Answer

• Yusuf Hamied of Cipla

12. What is being fought over?• West Bengal and Odisha been fighting over this for some

time. The bone of contention has been to get GI tags for this.

• The Bengal Science and Technology Department earlier started the process to approach its central counterpart for a GI authentication. Odisha responded by setting up 3 panels with 3 distinct goals for this.

• The first panel will look into evidence regarding its origin in Odisha, the second will study the grounds for West Bengal staking claim to it, the third will collect necessary documents to validate Odisha’s stand.

Answer

• Rasgulla

13. What is being talked about here?

• Dr. S. Radhakrishnan provides two translations for this:

• “We meditate on the effulgent glory of the divine Light; may he inspire our understanding.”

• “We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may he inspire our intelligence.”

Answer

• Gayatri Mantra

14. Give full funda

• The M48 _____ is a main battle tank (MBT) that was designed in the United States. It was the third tank to be officially named after General George S. _____, commander of the U.S. Third Army during World War II and one of the earliest American advocates for the use of tanks in battle.

• What connects Khem Karan, a nagar panchayat in Tarn Taran district of Punjab?

• I need the blank and story for full marks

Answer

• Patton, Patton Nagar

15. Identify the person• Also known as the Mother of Orphans, X is a social activist from

Maharashtra. At the early age of 10, she was married off and had 3 children by the time she was 20. She protested against the district collector for his corrupt practices, as a consequence of which she was abandoned by her husband when she was 9 months pregnant.

• She gave birth to a baby girl on 14 October 1973 in a cow shelter outside their house that night, all by herself and walked few kilometers away to her mother's place, who refused to shelter her.

• She started working for the orphans and has nurtured over 1000 orphan children. Anant Mahadevan made a movie on her life by the name of “Mee X” in Marathi in 2010.

Answer

• Sindhutai Sapkal

16. Name.

Inexhaustive list (In alphabetic order)• Gayatri Devi• K. M. Munshi• Mariadas Ruthnaswamy• Minoo Masani• N. G. Ranga• Piloo Mody• S. V. Raju• V. P. Menon

Answer

• Swatantra Party

17. Identify

• Identify the name of the book. The picture on your right should give it away

Answer

• Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy

18. What is written on the steps?

• Picture of the Public Grand Staircase, Art Institute of Chicago.

Answer

• Swami Vivekananda’s speech at the World Parliament of Religions 1893, Chicago

19. Something happening now.

• The immediate reason given was the protest movements that were taking place. The role of CIA in the movements is depicted in the work of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, United States' ambassador to India (1973–75) in his 1978 book: "A Dangerous Place". His statements are corroborated by Howard Schaffer, the biographer of Ellsworth Bunker, who was the US ambassador during 1956–61. According to Bunker, the American involvement was to prevent “additional ______s”

• The event that happened on 31 July 1959 was the first instance of what happening in India?

• Interestingly, Indira Gandhi was the Congress president then and her future reign saw multiple instances happen.

Answer

• Dissolution of Kerala Assembly

20. Give X and Y • In Pakistan’s Lahore the renaming of Fawara Chowk or

Shadman Chowk after X in 2012 resulted in extremist groups, including the Jamaat-ud-Dawah led by 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed calling it a heretical move and filed a case in Lahore High Court to prevent it

• Recently Manohar Lal Khattar suggested to the Centre that Y be christened after late Dr Mangal Sein, a former Haryana deputy chief minister and a leader of the RSS which led to protests from Punjab who wanted it to be named after X.

• Give me X and Y.

Answer

• X – Bhagat Singh• Y – Chandigarh International Airport

21. The author.

• Pinjar received the Nargis Dutt National Award for Best Feature Film on National integration. Directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the movie had Urmila Matondkar and Manoj Bajpai in lead roles and featured issues like violence against women.

• The story is on a book by the same name whose writer was a popular partition author and was also involved in a romantic relationship with Sahir Ludhiyanvi.

• The author.

Answer

• Amrita Pritam

22. Who is X?

• Akbar Khan, while making his magnum opus, Taj Mahal, said that he had considered only two people for the music director’s role. The movie turned out to be a dud and the music did not make much waves.

• One of the people who eventually gave the music was the legendary Naushad. Who was the other, perhaps a bigger legend.

Answer

• Tansen

23. We will consider Funda is no one gets the answer right

• Divehi language is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Maldives by 350,000 people. The Mahl dialect of Divehi is spoken by around 10,000 people in a certain part of India where it is the first language. Where? Be specific

Answer

• Minicoy

24. The singer.

• This female playback singer from Kerala has the distinction of being the awarded the most national awards for female playback singing – 6 in all, which is more than Lata Mangeshkar’s.

• She has won state awards of all 4 South Indian states and has sung in a variety of languages - Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil , Odia, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Badaga, Sanskrit, Tulu, Urdu, Latin, Arabic, Sinhalese and Punjabi.

Answer

• K S Chithra

25. Give me X.

• Ashvin Kumar made the documentary “Inshallah, Kashmir” that released in 2012. The documentary captured the story of contemporary Kashmir. It captured the torture stories of many ex-militants as well as the stories of Kunan Poshpora rape victims.

• He had earlier made the documentary “Inshallah, X” that released in 2010. It also was based in Kashmir and told the story of a young sportsman who was denied Visa to travel abroad and play because his father was an ex-militant.

Answer

• Inshallah Football

26.

The Sameeksha Trust is a charitable trust registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950 and its members have been academics and public personalities of eminence. The board of the trustees includes globally renowned academics like JNU Professor Deepak Nayyar, Jean Dreze, historian Romila Thapar, sociologist Andre Beteille among others. The trust was in news for a resignation of the editor C Rammanohar Reddy from their publication. Which publication?

Answer

• Economic and Political Weekly (EPW)