Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 18

The correct answer is B, Garo. Wangala is the post-harvest thanksgiving festival of the Garo tribe of Meghalaya, held in the autumn in honour of the sun deity Misi Saljong. Long drums are beaten together by rows of men while women dance in line, and because a hundred or more drums may sound at one time, the festival is popularly called the Hundred Drums festival.

Option A, Khasi, is the tribe of Ka Pomblang Nongkrem, the five-day dance at Smit in the same state. Option C, Apatani, of the Ziro valley in Arunachal Pradesh, celebrates Dree for the crops and Myoko for friendship. Option D, Angami, of Nagaland, celebrates Sekrenyi, a festival of purification held in February. All three are real tribal festivals, which is what makes the distractors work.

The correct answer is C, Jammu & Kashmir. Pashmina is the very fine wool combed from the undercoat of the Changthangi goat, reared by herders on the cold high plateau of Ladakh, and it was first spun and woven into shawls in the valley of Kashmir. The craft is traced to the fifteenth century, when Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin is said to have brought weavers from Central Asia; the shawls later reached Europe and gave English the word cashmere. A single Kani or Jamawar shawl can take months on the loom, and Kashmir Pashmina now carries a GI tag. A is wrong because Uttar Pradesh is known for Banarasi silk and chikankari. B is wrong because Punjab is known for phulkari embroidery. D is wrong because Himachal Pradesh weaves Kullu shawls and Kinnauri patterns from sheep wool. Exam tip: Pashmina — Changthangi goat of Ladakh, woven in Kashmir, GI tagged.

The correct answer is C, the 89th Amendment. Until 2003 a single National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes worked under Article 338. The 89th Constitutional Amendment Act of 2003 split it, leaving Article 338 with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and inserting Article 338A to create a separate National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, with a chairperson, a vice-chairperson and other members appointed by the President.

Option A, the 73rd Amendment of 1992, added Part IX and gave panchayats constitutional status. Option B, the 86th Amendment of 2002, inserted Article 21A and made free and compulsory education for children a fundamental right. Option D, the 97th Amendment of 2011, dealt with cooperative societies. Only the 89th Amendment concerns the tribal commission, so C is correct.

The correct answer is B, both statements are true, but B is not the correct explanation of A. Chola temples such as the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, built by Rajaraja I, were far more than places of worship. They held land and villages, employed priests, garland makers, cooks, dancers and musicians, ran schools and craft workshops, and even lent money, so the religious, social and cultural life of the region gathered around them. Chola bronzes were cast by the lost wax method and mostly show deities such as Nataraja, Vishnu and Parvati, while a few portray donors and devotees, including saints and members of the royal family. Both statements are correct facts, but the subject matter of the bronzes does not explain why the temples were social centres; their land, wealth and grants do. So option A is wrong. Option C is wrong because Statement B is true, and option D is wrong because Statement A is true. Exam tip: Brihadisvara temple, Thanjavur, Rajaraja I; Chola bronzes by the lost wax method, Nataraja the most famous.

The correct answer is B, Austro-Asiatic family. The tribal languages of Jharkhand and the neighbouring belt of central and eastern India, namely Santali, Mundari, Ho and Kurukh's neighbours in the Munda group, belong to the Austro-Asiatic family, whose Indian branch is called Munda. Santali, written in the Ol Chiki script, is the best known of them and was added to the Eighth Schedule in 2003. Option A is wrong because Indo-European, through its Indo-Aryan branch, covers Hindi, Bengali and Odia, the regional languages of the plains, not the tribal languages of the plateau. Option C is wrong because the Tibeto-Burman family lies along the Himalayan belt and the north-east, far from central India. Option D is wrong because the Dravidian family is concentrated in the south, although the Dravidian language Kurukh is indeed spoken by the Oraon of the same region, which is what makes this option a tempting trap.

The correct answer is D, Chhau. Chhau was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. It is a masked dance-drama of eastern India with three styles named after their homes: Seraikella in Jharkhand and Purulia in West Bengal, where masks are worn, and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, where the dancers perform without masks. The form grew out of martial training, so its steps imitate combat and the movements of birds and animals, while its stories come from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and local legend. It is danced at the spring festival of Chaitra Parva to the beat of the dhol and the dhumsa. A is wrong because Fugdi is a women's folk dance of Goa. B is wrong because Jhoomar belongs to Punjab. C is wrong because Dalkhai is a folk dance of western Odisha. Exam tip: Indian entries on the UNESCO list include Chhau (2010), Ramlila, Kutiyattam, Vedic chanting and Sankirtana.

The correct answer is C, 1999. Parliament passed the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act in 1999 to meet India's obligation under the TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization, and the Act was brought into force on 15 September 2003. Option A is wrong because 1970 is the year of the Patents Act, a different branch of intellectual property law. Option B is wrong because 1995 is the year the WTO came into being and TRIPS became binding on India, which created the need for the law but is not the year of the Act. Option D is wrong because no GI legislation was passed in 2005; that year saw an amendment to the Patents Act instead. Candidates should keep three years apart: TRIPS 1995, the Act 1999 and its commencement 2003.

The correct answer is B, France. Le Corbusier is counted as a French architect. He was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland in 1887, settled in Paris, took French citizenship in 1930 and worked from France for the rest of his life. Jawaharlal Nehru brought him to India to plan Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, after the first planner Albert Mayer and his architect Matthew Nowicki left the project. Le Corbusier laid the city out in numbered sectors on a grid and designed the Capitol Complex in Sector 1 — the High Court, the Secretariat, the Legislative Assembly and the Open Hand monument — which UNESCO added to its World Heritage list in 2016. Option A is wrong because Germany is the home of the Bauhaus school and Walter Gropius, not of Le Corbusier. Option C is wrong because Italy is linked with Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Palladio. Option D is wrong because Spain is known for Antoni Gaudí of Barcelona. Exam tip: Chandigarh — Le Corbusier; New Delhi — Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.

The correct answer is A, Nagaland. Moatsu is a festival of the Ao tribe of Nagaland, kept in the first week of May once the fields have been cleared, the seed sown and the seedlings planted. It marks the end of that hard stretch of work and the start of a short rest before the rains, and it runs for about three days with singing, dancing, rice beer and roasted meat. Its best-known part is Sangpangtu, when men and women in their finest dress sit around a large fire and food and drink are shared. It is one of the two chief Ao festivals, the other being Tsungremmong in August. B is wrong because Tripura is known for Garia Puja and Kharchi Puja. C is wrong because Assam is known for Bihu, tied to the harvest and the Assamese new year. D is wrong because West Bengal is known for Durga Puja and Poila Boishakh. Exam tip: Moatsu belongs to the Ao tribe of Nagaland and falls in early May; the Hornbill Festival is the state's December event.

The correct answer is A, Kushana. The Gandhara school of art grew in the north-west, around Peshawar and Taxila, and reached its height under the Kushana rulers, above all Kanishka, in the first and second centuries. Its sculptors worked in grey schist and later in stucco, and they gave the Buddha a Greek-Roman face: wavy hair, a sharp nose, heavy drapery falling in folds, and a halo behind the head. This blending of styles is why it is called the Greco-Buddhist or Indo-Greek school. The Mathura school flourished in the same Kushana period but used red sandstone and a purely Indian idiom. B is wrong because the Mauryas are known for polished stone pillars and their animal capitals. C is wrong because the Nandas left no distinct school of sculpture. D is wrong because the Cholas are remembered for bronze images such as the Nataraja, many centuries later. Exam tip: Gandhara grey schist and a Greco-Roman Buddha, Mathura red sandstone — both under the Kushanas.

The correct answer is A, Mizoram. Chapchar Kut is the best known festival of the Mizo, held in March once the jhum fields have been cleared and burnt and the villagers wait for the sowing rains. Men and women in thangchhuah puan and vakiria headgear dance to drums, and the Cheraw, in which dancers step between bamboo staves clapped together on the ground, is its signature performance. Mim Kut and Pawl Kut are the other two Mizo festivals.

Option B, Sikkim, observes Losar, Losoong and Saga Dawa. Option C, Arunachal Pradesh, holds Mopin of the Galo, Solung of the Adi and Nyokum of the Nyishi. Option D, Assam, celebrates Bihu and Ali Ai Ligang. The bamboo dance itself is the clue, because Cheraw is Mizoram's own and is often confused with the similar dances of the region.

The correct answer is B, Painting. Amritlal Vegad, born in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh in 1928, was a painter and collage artist who trained at Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan under Nandalal Bose, and later taught art in Jabalpur. He is remembered for collages made from torn pieces of coloured paper, and for the sketches and paintings with which he filled his Hindi travel writing on the Narmada, a river he walked along for thousands of kilometres. That is why Madhya Pradesh papers place him with the visual arts rather than the performing arts. Option A is wrong because he worked on flat surfaces in paper and colour, not in stone or metal. Option C is wrong because he was never a singer. Option D is wrong because he had no place in music; that misreading comes from grouping every artist under the performing arts. Exam tip: Vegad, Jabalpur, painting and collage, Narmada travelogues in Hindi.

The correct answer is A, Urdu. Under Article 345 a State may adopt any language in use within it as its official language, and Uttar Pradesh has adopted Hindi as its official language and Urdu as its second official language. Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language written in the Perso-Arabic script and is in the Eighth Schedule. Option B is wrong because Awadhi, the speech of the Awadh region and the language of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, is counted as a dialect of Hindi in the census returns and has no official status. Option C is wrong because Bundeli, spoken in the Bundelkhand region, is likewise treated as a Hindi dialect. Option D is wrong because Bagheli, spoken in the Baghelkhand tract on the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh border, is also a dialect and not an official language. The examiner is testing the difference between an official language and a regional dialect.

The correct answer is D, Mallika Sarabhai. She won the best actress award in 1975 for her role in the Gujarati film Meena Gurjari, early in a career that moved between cinema, theatre and dance. Trained by her mother Mrinalini Sarabhai in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, she is also known for playing Draupadi in Peter Brook's stage and screen production of The Mahabharata, and she runs the Darpana Academy in Ahmedabad. Option A is wrong because Sonal Mansingh is an Odissi and Bharatanatyam exponent honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, not a film actress. Option B is wrong because Sitara Devi was the Kathak dancer whom Rabindranath Tagore called Nritya Samragini, and her film work came in the 1940s. Option C is wrong because Shovana Narayan is a Kathak dancer who also served as an officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service. Exam tip: link Mallika Sarabhai with Darpana Academy and her mother Mrinalini Sarabhai.

The correct answer is D, Chennai. Every GI application in India is filed at the Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai, which functions under the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. Option A is wrong because Mumbai houses one of the branch offices of the patent office, not the GI Registry. Option B is wrong because New Delhi has a patent and trade marks branch office and the ministry itself, but the GI Registry was deliberately placed in Chennai. Option C is wrong because Kolkata holds the head office of the Patent Office of India, which candidates often confuse with the GI Registry. A useful way to fix this is to link the two southern and eastern cities: Patent Office head office at Kolkata, GI Registry at Chennai.

The correct answer is B, Goa. Ranmale is a folk theatre of Goa, performed mainly in the Sattari and Sanguem areas.

It is staged at night in the open during the Shigmo festival and around Holi, in front of a village temple. Men play all the roles, including the female ones, and the episodes are taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, tied together by a narrator, drums and the ghumot. Goa's other well known folk forms are Jagor, Dashavatara, Kalo and Khell, and Zagor is listed among its temple traditions.

Option A is wrong because West Bengal's folk theatre is Jatra. Option C is wrong as Jharkhand is known for Chhau and Paika. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh's forms are Nacha and Pandavani, the ballad style made famous by Teejan Bai.

Exam tip: Ranmale, Dashavatara and Jagor - Goa; Jatra - West Bengal; Nautanki - Uttar Pradesh; Tamasha - Maharashtra; Bhavai - Gujarat.

The correct answer is B, the 92nd Constitution Amendment Act of 2003. That amendment added four languages, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, to the Eighth Schedule and took the count from 18 to 22, where it stands. Option A is wrong because the 73rd Amendment of 1992 is the Panchayati Raj amendment, which inserted Part IX and the Eleventh Schedule; the language amendment of that year was the 71st, which added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali. Option C is wrong because the 103rd Amendment provides reservation for the economically weaker sections and has nothing to do with language. Option D is wrong because the 101st Amendment introduced the Goods and Services Tax. Remember the three language amendments in order: the 21st of 1967 added Sindhi, the 71st of 1992 added three languages and the 92nd of 2003 added four.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Bidriware takes its name from Bidar, a town in northern Karnataka, where craftspersons cast an alloy of zinc and copper, engrave it, inlay pure silver wire and then rub the surface with a special soil that turns the alloy deep black while the silver stays bright. Option A is wrong because Telangana, although next door and the home of Cherial scrolls, Nirmal painting and Pochampally ikat, is not the home of Bidri. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra is known for Warli painting, Paithani saris and Kolhapuri chappals. Option D is wrong because Kerala is known for the Aranmula metal mirror, coir products and Nettur boxes. The trap in this question is always the neighbouring Deccan state, so fix the word Bidar firmly to Karnataka.

The correct answer is A, 14. When the Constitution came into force in 1950 the Eighth Schedule listed 14 languages. Option B is wrong because 18 was the count reached only in 1992, after the 71st Amendment added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali to the 15 that existed then. Option C is wrong because 16 was never a stage in the list at all; the count went from 14 to 15 in 1967 when the 21st Amendment added Sindhi, and then straight to 18. Option D is wrong because 22 is the present number, reached in 2003 when the 92nd Amendment added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali. Candidates lose this question by reading the word initially carelessly and answering with the current figure, so read the stem twice: 14 at the start, 22 today.

The correct answer is A, Patan in Gujarat. In Patola weaving the yarn of both the warp and the weft is tied and dyed before weaving, so the motif is built up from the threads themselves and looks the same from either side; Patan in north Gujarat is its historic centre and the craft carries a GI. Option B is wrong because Pochampally in Telangana also produces ikat, but of a different and generally single ikat kind known as Pochampally ikat or Telia Rumal. Option C is wrong because Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh makes a light cotton silk sari with zari borders, not an ikat. Option D is wrong because Kota Doria of Rajasthan is a fine checked cotton and silk weave known for its square kota pattern. Ikat and its centres are asked almost every year.