Awards & Honours Mixed Quiz: Set 24

The correct answer is B, Major Somnath Sharma. On 3 November 1947 Major Sharma of the 4th battalion of the Kumaon Regiment held the village of Badgam near Srinagar with one company against a far larger raiding force, and by refusing to pull back he kept the Srinagar airfield from falling, on which the whole airlift of Indian troops into Kashmir depended. He was killed in the action and the award was posthumous. Option A, Second Lieutenant Rama Raghoba Rane of the Bombay Sappers, is the strongest distractor, because he was the first recipient to be decorated while living, having cleared mines and roadblocks under fire so that armour could advance. Option C, Lance Naik Karam Singh of 1 Sikh, also received the award for the Jammu and Kashmir operations of 1948, at Tithwal, and survived. Option D, Naik Jadunath Singh of 1 Rajput, received it posthumously for the defence of Taindhar in 1948. All four belong to the same operations, which is why they are grouped here.

The correct answer is D, Jawaharlal Nehru. The first three recipients of the Bharat Ratna, all in 1954, were C. Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, the physicist C. V. Raman and the philosopher S. Radhakrishnan, who later became President. Jawaharlal Nehru received the award in 1955, along with Bhagwan Das and the engineer M. Visvesvaraya, so he belongs to the second set and not the first. Options A, B and C are therefore all part of the 1954 group and cannot be the answer. The question is set in the negative form, which is common in this chapter, so read the stem carefully: it asks who was left out of 1954, not who received the award. Remember the three 1954 names together, since a matching question often uses them.

The correct answer is C, 1969. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award was introduced in 1969 by the Government of India, as part of the celebration of the birth centenary of Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, and it has been conferred each year since on one person for a lifetime's contribution to Indian cinema. Option A is wrong because 1954 is the year in which the National Film Awards themselves began, as well as the year the Bharat Ratna was instituted, which makes it the strongest distractor in this set. Option B is wrong because 1961 has no connection with the award. Option D is wrong because 1973 is simply a later year in the series, by which time four recipients had already been honoured. The pair worth remembering together is 1954 for the National Film Awards and 1969 for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.

The correct answer is B, C. V. Raman. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his work on the scattering of light, the phenomenon known as the Raman effect, which he announced on 28 February 1928; that date is kept as National Science Day. Option A, Jagadish Chandra Bose, did pioneering work on radio waves and on plant physiology and is honoured in India for it, but he never received a Nobel Prize, which makes him the strongest distractor here. Option C, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, won the Physics prize in 1983 for his work on the structure and evolution of stars, by which time he was an American citizen; he was also Raman's nephew. Option D, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, shared the Chemistry prize in 2009 and holds British and American citizenship.

The correct answer is B, 15 August 1947. The decoration was instituted on 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force, but it was given effect from 15 August 1947 so that acts of gallantry performed from the day of independence onwards could be recognised. That is why the very first award, to Major Somnath Sharma for the action at Badgam on 3 November 1947, is for a deed that preceded the creation of the medal. Option A, 26 November 1949, is the date on which the Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, now marked as Constitution Day, and has nothing to do with this award. Option C, 26 January 1947, mixes the day and month of Republic Day with the wrong year; Republic Day itself falls in 1950. Option D, 1 January 1950, is an invented date offered because it looks administratively plausible. The pair to remember is institution in 1950 and effect from 1947.

The correct answer is B, the spiritual dimension of life. Sir John Templeton endowed the prize in 1972 for a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery or practical works, and he insisted that its value always exceed that of the Nobel Prize. A is wrong because architecture is the field of the Pritzker Prize, founded in 1979. C is wrong because mathematics is covered by the Fields Medal, restricted to those under forty, and by the Abel Prize of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. D is wrong because grassroots environmental activism is recognised by the Goldman Environmental Prize, called the Green Nobel, and partly by the Right Livelihood Award. Matching each prize to its field is the first step in this chapter.

The correct answer is A, Devika Rani. Devika Rani, an actress and producer often described as the first lady of Indian cinema, received the first Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1969, so the very first recipient of the honour was a woman. Option B is wrong because Kanan Devi, the singer and actress of the Bengali screen, received the award in 1976. Option C is wrong because Durga Khote received it in 1983. Option D is wrong because Ruby Myers, who acted under the name Sulochana and was among the biggest stars of the silent era, received it in 1973. All four are women from the early decades of Indian cinema, which is why the question turns entirely on the year 1969 and the name attached to it.

The correct answer is B, Amartya Sen, honoured in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics, including work on social choice and on the causes of famine, which showed that famines occur even when food is available if people lack the means to obtain it.

Option A, Abhijit Banerjee, shared the prize in 2019 with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty; he is of Indian origin and holds citizenship abroad, and the two Indian names in economics are regularly swapped in options. Option C, Manmohan Singh, was an economist and Prime Minister but never a Nobel laureate. Option D, Raghuram Rajan, served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and has not received the prize. Attach the years firmly: Sen in 1998, Banerjee in 2019.

The correct answer is A, Savitri Khanolkar. Born in Switzerland, she married an officer of the Indian Army, settled in India and studied its languages, art and traditions closely, and when the new republic needed its own decorations she was asked to design them. Besides the Param Vir Chakra she designed the Ashoka Chakra, the Maha Vir Chakra and the Vir Chakra, drawing on Indian imagery such as the Vajra of Indra and the wheel of Ashoka. Option B, Nandalal Bose, was the artist who supervised the decoration and illumination of the original manuscript of the Constitution of India, which makes him a plausible but wrong answer. Option C, Pingali Venkayya, designed the flag from which the national flag was developed. Option D, Deenanath Bhargava, drew the national emblem of the lion capital for the Constitution manuscript under Nandalal Bose. Only Khanolkar designed the gallantry medals.

The correct answer is B, Shyamchi Aai. The Marathi film Shyamchi Aai, directed by P. K. Atre and based on the writing of Sane Guruji, won the first Best Feature Film award at the National Film Awards for the year 1953. The choice of a Marathi film for the first honour reflected the intention that the awards would cover every Indian language.

Option A, Do Bigha Zamin, directed by Bimal Roy, belongs to the same period and is a landmark of Indian realist cinema, but it did not take the first Best Feature Film award. Option C, Pather Panchali, directed by Satyajit Ray, was released in 1955 and is celebrated worldwide, which makes it a tempting answer. Option D, Mother India, directed by Mehboob Khan, came in 1957, four years after the year named in the question.

The correct answer is B, Raja Harishchandra. Dadasaheb Phalke wrote, produced and directed Raja Harishchandra, released in 1913, which is recognised as the first full-length Indian feature film, and it is for this that he is called the father of Indian cinema. Option A is wrong because Alam Ara, made by Ardeshir Irani and released in 1931, was the first Indian talkie, that is the first film with sound, and it is the fact most often confused with this one. Option C is wrong because Kisan Kanya of 1937 is remembered as the first indigenously processed colour film of India. Option D is wrong because Pundalik, of 1912, was a filmed stage performance and is not counted as the first full-length Indian feature. The chain of firsts worth memorising is Raja Harishchandra in 1913 for the feature film, Alam Ara in 1931 for sound and Kisan Kanya in 1937 for colour.

The correct answer is A, Berlin. The Berlin International Film Festival, held in Germany early in the year, gives the Golden Bear to the best film and Silver Bears for direction, acting and screenplay. The bear was chosen because it is the emblem of the city of Berlin itself, which makes the pair easy to remember.

Option B, Venice, gives the Golden Lion, the lion being the symbol of the city and of St Mark. Option C, Cannes, gives the Palme d'Or, the golden palm leaf taken from the coat of arms of the town. Option D, the Moscow International Film Festival, gives the St George statuette and is rarely the answer in an Indian paper. Berlin, Venice and Cannes are the three festivals whose prizes are asked again and again.

The correct answer is B, Ashoka Chakra. India maintains two parallel chains of gallantry awards. For bravery in the presence of the enemy, that is in war, the order runs Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra. For gallantry otherwise than in the face of the enemy, that is in peacetime, the order runs Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, and the Ashoka Chakra may also be conferred on civilians. The Ashoka Chakra therefore stands at the head of the peacetime chain exactly as the Param Vir Chakra stands at the head of the wartime one. Option A, the Maha Vir Chakra, is second in the wartime chain and is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C, the Kirti Chakra, is second in the peacetime chain and so corresponds to the Maha Vir Chakra. Option D, the Shaurya Chakra, is third in the peacetime chain and corresponds to the Vir Chakra.

The correct answer is C, K. K. Birla Foundation. The foundation instituted the Saraswati Samman in 1991 for an outstanding literary work in any of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, published in the previous ten years, and the award carries the largest cash prize of any Indian literary honour.

Option A, the Sahitya Akademi, gives its own annual award in twenty-four languages, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship and the Bhasha Samman, but not this one. Option B, Bharatiya Jnanpith, gives the Jnanpith Award and the Moortidevi Award, and because both trusts honour writing across Indian languages the two are easily confused. Option D, the Ministry of Culture, funds the Sahitya Akademi but gives no literary award in its own name; the civilian honours it deals with are the Padma awards, which are not literary awards. The same foundation gives the Vyas Samman and the Bihari Puraskar, also from 1991.

The correct answer is B, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The award is conferred by the Government of India through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and is presented at the annual National Film Awards ceremony, the recipient being chosen by a committee of eminent persons from the film industry. Option A is wrong because the Ministry of Culture handles the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the Sahitya Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi, and the arts they cover, but not the film awards. Option C is wrong because the Ministry of Education is concerned with schools, universities and literacy. Option D is wrong because the Ministry of Home Affairs administers the Padma awards and the Bharat Ratna, which is a different family of honours and a common source of confusion.

The correct answer is B, the Royal Society of London. The Royal Society has awarded the Copley Medal since 1731 for outstanding achievement in any branch of science, which makes it older than the Nobel Prizes by well over a century and a half; it is given every year and is open to researchers of any nationality, so it covers physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics alike. Option A is wrong because the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decides the Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry and the prize in economic sciences, and it awards no Copley Medal. Option C is wrong because UNESCO gives the Kalinga Prize, which is for the popularisation of science rather than for research. Option D is wrong because the National Academy of Sciences of the United States has medals of its own and elects foreign associates, but the Copley Medal has never been among its honours; the Royal Society also gives the Rumford and Davy Medals.

The correct answer is A, Flying Officer Nirmaljit Singh Sekhon. During the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 he took off alone from Srinagar airfield while it was under attack by a formation of enemy aircraft, engaged them in the air over the airfield and was killed; the award was posthumous, and he remains the only member of the Air Force to receive it, while no member of the Navy has received it so far. Option B names Arjan Singh, who rose to be Marshal of the Indian Air Force and led the service in 1965, but his recognition came in other forms. Option C, Rakesh Sharma, was the first Indian in space, for which he received the Ashoka Chakra, a peacetime decoration, which makes him a well-placed distractor. Option D names a pilot of a much later episode who received a different gallantry award. The exception to memorise is Sekhon for the Air Force and Salaria for the one United Nations mission.

The correct answer is A, Swarna Kamal, the Golden Lotus. The recipient is given the Swarna Kamal or Golden Lotus medallion, along with a shawl and a cash prize, at the National Film Awards ceremony. Option B is wrong because the Rajat Kamal, the Silver Lotus, is given for several of the other categories of the National Film Awards, such as the best actor and the best director, so the two lotuses must be kept apart. Option C is wrong because the Ashoka Chakra is a gallantry award of an entirely different kind, given for bravery in peacetime. Option D is wrong because the Golden Peacock is the top prize of the International Film Festival of India, an award for a film rather than a lifetime honour for a person.

The correct answer is B, a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Congo. Salaria, of the 3rd battalion of the 1st Gorkha Rifles, was serving with the United Nations force in the Congo in 1961 when he led a small party against a much larger armed group blocking a vital road near Elisabethville; he was killed in the action, and his is the only Param Vir Chakra awarded for a deed performed in a United Nations mission rather than in a war fought by India. Option A, the Sino-Indian war of 1962, produced three awards, to Dhan Singh Thapa, Joginder Singh and Shaitan Singh, and the nearness of the year makes it the strongest distractor. Option C, Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka in 1987, produced the award to Major Ramaswamy Parameswaran of 8 Mahar. Option D, the liberation of Goa in 1961, falls in the same year as the Congo action but produced no Param Vir Chakra.

The correct answer is A, Prithviraj Kapoor. Prithviraj Kapoor, the actor of both stage and screen and the founder of Prithvi Theatres, received the award in 1971 and was its first posthumous recipient. Option B is wrong because B. N. Sircar, the producer who founded New Theatres in Calcutta, received the award in 1970, the year before, and received it in his lifetime. Option C is wrong because Pankaj Mullick, the composer and singer, received it in 1972, the year after. Option D is wrong because V. Shantaram, the director remembered for Do Aankhen Barah Haath and other films, received it much later, in 1985. The three consecutive years of 1970, 1971 and 1972 are worth holding together, because they are set against one another in exactly this way.