Defence 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is D, V D Savarkar. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar founded Abhinav Bharat at Nashik in 1904, together with his brother Ganesh. It grew out of an earlier group called Mitra Mela and took its name from Mazzini’s Young Italy, whose biography Savarkar translated into Marathi. The society trained young men in arms, spread revolutionary literature and had branches in Maharashtra and later in London, where Savarkar went on a scholarship and wrote The Indian War of Independence 1857. It was finally disbanded in 1952. Option A is wrong because Khudiram Bose was a young Anushilan Samiti revolutionary hanged in 1908 for the Muzaffarpur bomb case. Option B is wrong because Shyamji Krishna Verma founded the India House and the Indian Home Rule Society in London in 1905. Option C is wrong because Lala Har Dayal led the Ghadar Party, started in San Francisco in 1913. Exam tip: Abhinav Bharat 1904 Savarkar, India House 1905 Shyamji Krishna Verma, Ghadar Party 1913 Har Dayal.

The correct answer is A, James Chadwick. Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 1935. He bombarded beryllium with alpha particles and found that the radiation given off was not affected by electric or magnetic fields, yet could knock protons out of paraffin. The only explanation was a particle with no charge and a mass close to that of the proton, which he named the neutron. It completed the picture of the atom, since the nucleus had earlier been short of mass, and it later made nuclear fission possible. Option B is wrong because Rutherford discovered the nucleus through his gold foil experiment and is credited with the proton. Option C is wrong because J. J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1897 with his cathode ray tube. Option D is wrong because John Dalton gave the atomic theory in 1803, long before subatomic particles were known. Exam tip: Thomson for the electron, Rutherford for the proton and nucleus, Chadwick for the neutron.

The correct answer is C, Isaac Newton. Newton passed a narrow beam of sunlight through a glass prism in a darkened room and obtained a band of seven colours on the wall, which he named the spectrum. He then showed with a second prism that the colours could be recombined into white light, proving that the prism does not colour the light but only separates the colours already present in it. The order of the colours from the base of the prism is remembered as VIBGYOR.

Option A, C. V. Raman, discovered the scattering effect named after him and won the Nobel Prize in 1930. Option B, Lord Rayleigh, explained the scattering that makes the sky blue. Option D, S. Chandrasekhar, worked on the structure and evolution of stars.

The correct answer is C, Lahore. The Lahore session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted the Purna Swaraj or complete independence resolution. At midnight on 31 December 1929, Nehru hoisted the tricolour on the banks of the river Ravi. The Congress then fixed 26 January 1930 as Purna Swaraj Day for the whole country, and the session also authorised the Working Committee to launch civil disobedience, which began with the Dandi March in March 1930. That is why the Constitution was brought into force on 26 January 1950. A is wrong, because the Ahmedabad session of 1921 met during the Non-Cooperation Movement, with Hakim Ajmal Khan as acting president. B is wrong, because the Calcutta session of 1928 under Motilal Nehru only gave the British one year to accept dominion status. D is wrong, because the Lucknow session of 1916 is known for the Congress-League pact and the reunion of moderates and extremists. Exam tip: Lahore 1929, Nehru, Purna Swaraj; 26 January 1930, the first Independence Day.

The correct answer is B, The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes. Article 338A sets up this Commission as a constitutional body. It was inserted by the 89th Amendment Act, 2003, which split the old combined National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes into two; the separate ST Commission began work in 2004. It has a Chairperson, a Vice-Chairperson and three members appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal, and it reports to the President, who has the report laid before Parliament. An easy hook: the letter A was added when the tribes got a Commission of their own. A is wrong, because the National Commission for Scheduled Castes comes under Article 338. C is wrong, because the National Commission for Backward Classes got constitutional status under Article 338B through the 102nd Amendment, 2018. D is wrong, because the National Commission for Women is a statutory body set up under the National Commission for Women Act, 1990. Exam tip: 338 SC, 338A ST, 338B backward classes; the Women's Commission is only statutory.