Art & Culture GK Questions with Answers – Page 16

The Akademi created the National School of Drama in New Delhi in 1959 as one of its own training units, and the school became an independent autonomous body in 1975; it trains students in acting, direction, stage design and allied crafts, and it runs a repertory company.

The three national academies share the building on Ferozeshah Road in New Delhi named after Rabindranath Tagore, which is why a single question can cover all three at once.

The Council was founded on 9 April 1950 by Azad, independent India's first Education Minister, who also became its first President; its headquarters in New Delhi is named Azad Bhavan after him.

Founded on 12 March 1954 with Jawaharlal Nehru as its first President, it is the national academy of letters, recognises twenty-four languages, the twenty-two of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution together with English and Rajasthani, and gives the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Bhasha Samman and translation prizes.

The national academy for music, dance and drama is the nodal office for intangible cultural heritage under the Ministry of Culture, prepares India's nominations and maintains the national inventory of intangible heritage.

The General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention in 2003; it entered into force in 2006 and India ratified it in 2005.

Sankirtana is the Vaishnava practice of the Meitei people, performed in the temple courtyard, in which narrative singing is accompanied by the pung drum and cymbals and the performance moves from song into dance; it was inscribed in 2013.

Jandiala Guru is a town near Amritsar where the Thathera community beats sheets of brass and copper into utensils entirely by hand, heating and hammering the metal in a sequence that has been passed down within families; the craft was inscribed in 2014.

Ramman is celebrated in the twin villages of Saloor Dungra in Chamoli district, in the Garhwal Himalayas, in honour of the local deity Bhumiyal Devta, and it combines masked dances, recitation and episodes from the Ramayana over several days.

The Kalbelia are a community of the Thar region traditionally associated with handling snakes, and their dance, performed by women in flowing black skirts, imitates the movement of a serpent while the men play the been and the khanjari.

Chhau is a masked dance built on martial movement and episodes from the epics, and it has three recognised styles: Seraikella in Jharkhand, Purulia in West Bengal and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, the last of which is danced without masks.

Yoga was inscribed in 2016, and in the same year India joined the multinational element Nawrouz, the spring new year celebrated across a belt of countries, so 2016 carries two entries for India.

Kutiyattam is performed in temple theatres called kuttampalam, uses the Sanskrit drama repertoire, and is counted among the oldest living theatre traditions in the world; UNESCO recognised it as a Masterpiece in 2001 and it moved to the Representative List in 2008.

Garba, the ritual and devotional dance performed during Navaratri around an earthen lamp in honour of the goddess, was inscribed at the eighteenth session of the Intergovernmental Committee held in Botswana in December 2023.

The Jahangiri Mahal is the large red sandstone palace within Agra Fort, built in Akbar's reign for the women of the household and later named after Jahangir; the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal and the Musamman Burj, where Shah Jahan passed his last years, stand in the same fort.

Kumbhalgarh, built by Rana Kumbha in the Aravalli hills, is remembered both as Maharana Pratap's birthplace and for its very long encircling wall, held to be among the longest in the world.

Fort St George was built by the East India Company at Madras in the 1640s and was the first English fort in India; the settlement that grew around it became the Madras presidency.

The palace was built in the nineteenth century for the Nawab Nazim of Bengal on the bank of the Bhagirathi, and takes its name from its very large number of doorways, many of them false, which is the detail questions turn on.

The palace stands in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, although it was the seat of the rulers of Travancore and is to this day maintained by the Government of Kerala, a division that followed the reorganisation of states.

The correct answer is B, Raigad, which Shivaji made his capital and where his coronation took place in 1674, the ceremony at which he took the title Chhatrapati.