Awards & Honours Mixed Quiz: Set 25

The correct answer is B, Asal Uttar. In the Khem Karan sector in September 1965, Abdul Hamid of 4 Grenadiers used a recoilless gun mounted on a jeep to destroy Pakistani Patton tanks at close range in the fields of Asal Uttar, and he was killed while engaging another; the battle ruined so much armour that the area came to be called the graveyard of Pattons. Option A, Chawinda, is the sector of the same war in which Lieutenant Colonel Ardeshir Burzorji Tarapore of the Poona Horse earned the other Param Vir Chakra of 1965, so the year is right and the recipient is wrong. Option C, Basantar, belongs to the war of 1971 and produced two awards, to Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal and Major Hoshiar Singh. Option D, Rezang La, belongs to the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and to Major Shaitan Singh of 13 Kumaon. Keep the pairs by war: Asal Uttar and Chawinda in 1965, Basantar in 1971.

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 B, 1984. Satyajit Ray, the Bengali director of Pather Panchali and the rest of the Apu trilogy, received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1984. Option A is wrong because 1974 is a decade too early, and the recipient of that year belongs to the earlier group of pioneers. Option C is wrong because 1992 is the year in which Bhupen Hazarika was honoured; 1992 is also the year Ray received the Bharat Ratna and an honorary Academy Award shortly before his death, which is precisely why this option is placed here. Option D is wrong because 1996 is the year of Sivaji Ganesan, the Tamil actor. Separating Ray's Phalke award of 1984 from his Bharat Ratna of 1992 is the whole point of this question.

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 A, Rezang La. In November 1962 Major Shaitan Singh commanded a company of 13 Kumaon at Rezang La in the Chushul sector of Ladakh, which fought on against overwhelming numbers until almost the whole company had fallen; he moved from post to post under fire to steady his men and was killed, and the award was posthumous. Option B, Tithwal, belongs to the Jammu and Kashmir operations of 1948 and to Company Havildar Major Piru Singh and Lance Naik Karam Singh. Option C, Gangasagar, belongs to the war of 1971, where Lance Naik Albert Ekka of 14 Guards earned the award on the eastern front. Option D, Quaid Post, is the Siachen Glacier position captured in 1987 by Naib Subedar Bana Singh, after whom it was renamed Bana Post. The 1962 war produced three awards in all, to Dhan Singh Thapa, Joginder Singh and Shaitan Singh.

The correct answer is A, Lal Bahadur Shastri. The original rules of 1954 did not allow a posthumous award; the provision was added in 1955, and the first person honoured after his death was Lal Bahadur Shastri, the second Prime Minister of India, in 1966, the year he died at Tashkent. Option B is wrong because Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel received the award posthumously much later, in 1991. Option C is wrong because Dr B. R. Ambedkar, the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution, was honoured posthumously in 1990. Option D is wrong because K. Kamaraj, the Tamil Nadu leader, was honoured posthumously in 1976, a decade after Shastri. All four are genuine posthumous recipients, so only the order of years separates them. Note also that the posthumous provision was introduced within a year of the award being instituted, which is why 1954 and 1955 are so often interchanged in this chapter, and that Shastri's award came in the same year as the Tashkent Declaration.

The correct answer is B, 1989. Lata Mangeshkar received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1989, and she was later awarded the Bharat Ratna in 2001. Option A is wrong because 1987 is the year of Raj Kapoor, the actor, director and showman of Hindi cinema. Option C is wrong because 1994 is the year of Dilip Kumar, who is frequently set against Lata Mangeshkar in such questions because both belong to the same era of Hindi film. Option D is wrong because 2000 is the year of Asha Bhosle, her sister, and the two Mangeshkar sisters are the pair most often interchanged in this chapter. Holding the two together, Lata Mangeshkar in 1989 and Asha Bhosle in 2000, removes the confusion at a stroke. A further anchor is that Lata Mangeshkar's Phalke award of 1989 came twelve years before her Bharat Ratna of 2001, so the two honours should never be given the same year.

The correct answer is B, C. Rajagopalachari. The Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1954 and in that first year it went to three men: C. Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then Vice-President and later President, and the physicist C. V. Raman. Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, received the honour in 1955, a year later, which is exactly the near miss the examiner is testing. Option C, Indira Gandhi, received it in 1971 and was the first woman to be honoured. Option D, Lal Bahadur Shastri, received it in 1966, and his was the first Bharat Ratna conferred posthumously. Learn these four names with their four years together, because the question is set by swapping one for another. Note also that the Padma awards were instituted in the same year, 1954, and that the Bharat Ratna is announced by the President and carries no monetary grant.

The correct answer is B, Siachen Glacier. In June 1987 Naib Subedar Bana Singh of the 8th battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry led a small party up a sheer ice wall to take the highest post on the Siachen Glacier, held by the enemy and known as Quaid Post, and the position was renamed Bana Post in his honour; he survived and received the award in person. Option A, the Gangotri Glacier, is the source of the Bhagirathi in Uttarakhand and has no military history of this kind. Option C, the Zemu Glacier, lies on the eastern face of Kangchenjunga in Sikkim and is a glaciological rather than military landmark. Option D, the Pindari Glacier, in Kumaon, is best known as a trekking destination. The Siachen Glacier is the detail that matters here, since it is described as the highest battlefield in the world.

The correct answer is B, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The Abel Prize was established in 2002, the bicentenary of the birth of the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel, first awarded in 2003 to Jean-Pierre Serre, and it carries no age limit, so it recognises a lifetime of work. A is wrong because the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry and the economics laureate, but there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics at all. C is wrong because the International Mathematical Union awards the Fields Medal, given every four years to mathematicians under forty. D is wrong because the Association for Computing Machinery awards the Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science. For revision, note that the Fields Medal is the one restricted by age and the Abel the one that is not, and that both exist because Alfred Nobel's will of 1895 named no prize for mathematics.

The correct answer is B, 2018. Amitabh Bachchan was named for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2018, and the honour was presented at the National Film Awards ceremony that followed. Option A is wrong because 2016 is the year of Kasinathuni Viswanath, the Telugu director. Option C is wrong because 2019 is the year of Rajinikanth, the Tamil actor, whose award came immediately after Amitabh Bachchan's and is the commonest wrong choice here. Option D is wrong because 2020 is the year of Asha Parekh, the actress of the nineteen sixties. Keeping the run of recent years in order, Viswanath in 2016, Vinod Khanna in 2017, Amitabh Bachchan in 2018, Rajinikanth in 2019 and Asha Parekh in 2020, answers every question drawn from this part of the list.

The correct answer is B, the United Nations Environment Programme. Champions of the Earth was launched in 2005 by the United Nations Environment Programme, whose headquarters are at Nairobi in Kenya, and it recognises leaders from government, civil society and business whose work protects the environment, in categories such as policy leadership, entrepreneurial vision and science and innovation. Option A is wrong because UNESCO's work on nature runs through biosphere reserves and natural World Heritage Sites rather than this award. Option C is wrong because the World Health Organization, based at Geneva, gives awards in public health. Option D is wrong because the Food and Agriculture Organization, based at Rome, works on food security and hunger. A related honour for young people is the Young Champions of the Earth award.

The correct answer is B, Captain Vikram Batra. Batra, of 13 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles, led the recapture of heights in the Dras sector during the Kargil operations of 1999 and was killed while rescuing an injured soldier; the award was posthumous. The other three Kargil awards went to Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey, also posthumously, and to Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav and Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, both of whom survived. Option A, Major Hoshiar Singh of 3 Grenadiers, earned the award in the Battle of Basantar in the war of 1971 and lived to receive it. Option C, Lance Naik Albert Ekka of 14 Guards, received it posthumously for the action at Gangasagar on the eastern front in 1971. Option D, Major Dhan Singh Thapa, earned it in the Sino-Indian war of 1962 at Sirijap in Ladakh and survived captivity. Only Batra belongs to Kargil.

The correct answer is B, 1986. The Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust instituted this prize in 1986, two years after Indira Gandhi's death, and it is presented on 19 November, her birth anniversary, with a cash award of twenty-five lakh rupees. Option A is wrong because 1984 is the year of her assassination, not of the prize. Option C is wrong because 1991 is the year of Rajiv Gandhi's death and of prizes set up in his memory. Option D is wrong because 1995 is the year of the Gandhi Peace Prize, which is the award most often confused with this one. Keep the two apart by the giver and the money: the Gandhi Peace Prize comes from the Government of India and carries one crore rupees, while this prize comes from a memorial trust and carries twenty-five lakh rupees.

The correct answer is A, Asha Bhosle. Asha Bhosle, the playback singer with one of the longest careers in Indian film music, received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2000. Option B is wrong because Lata Mangeshkar, her elder sister, received it eleven years earlier, in 1989, and the two sisters are the pair most frequently interchanged in questions from this chapter. Option C is wrong because Manna Dey, the singer of Hindi and Bengali film songs, received it in 2007. Option D is wrong because Bhupen Hazarika, the singer, composer and film-maker of Assam, received it in 1992. All four are singers, so the question turns on the years alone, and the safest anchor is the pair 1989 and 2000 for the two Mangeshkar sisters.

The correct answer is B, Sachin Tendulkar. The cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was named for the Bharat Ratna in 2013 and honoured in 2014, the first sportsperson to receive the highest civilian award of the country and also the youngest recipient at that time. Option A is wrong because Major Dhyan Chand, for all his three Olympic golds in hockey, has not received the Bharat Ratna; the highest sporting award and National Sports Day carry his name instead. Option C is wrong because Milkha Singh received the Padma Shri and not the Bharat Ratna. Option D is wrong because Vishwanathan Anand received the Padma Vibhushan and was the first winner of the Khel Ratna, but not the Bharat Ratna. Note that the rules for the Bharat Ratna were widened to allow any field of human endeavour, which is what made a sportsperson eligible.

The correct answer is A, Battle of Basantar. Fighting with 17 Poona Horse in the Shakargarh sector in December 1971, Khetarpal refused to abandon his burning tank and continued to engage advancing armour until he was killed, holding the bridgehead across the Basantar river; the award was posthumous, and Major Hoshiar Singh of 3 Grenadiers received the Param Vir Chakra in the same battle. Option B, Asal Uttar, belongs to the war of 1965 and to Abdul Hamid of 4 Grenadiers. Option C, Longewala, was indeed fought in 1971 and is famous for the defence of a desert post against armour, but it produced a Maha Vir Chakra rather than a Param Vir Chakra. Option D, Chawinda, belongs to 1965 and to Lieutenant Colonel Tarapore of the Poona Horse, who commanded the same regiment Khetarpal later served in, which is what makes this option tempting.

The correct answer is B, the Uttam Yudh Seva Medal for distinguished service in war. It is the second of the three Yudh Seva medals instituted in 1980, below the Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal and above the Yudh Seva Medal. Option A is wrong because the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal rewards distinguished service in peacetime and not gallantry. Option C is wrong because the Shaurya Chakra is the third of the peacetime gallantry awards, below the Ashoka Chakra and the Kirti Chakra, and has nothing to do with distinguished service. Option D is wrong because the Vir Chakra is the third wartime gallantry award, while saving a life brings a Jeevan Raksha Padak. Matching questions of this kind are decided by two words: Chakra or Seva, and Yudh or Vishisht.

The correct answer is B, 1913. Raja Harishchandra, written, produced and directed by Dadasaheb Phalke, was released in 1913 and is recognised as the first full-length Indian feature film; the Dadasaheb Phalke Award takes its name from its maker. Option A is wrong because 1896 is the year the first films were shown in Bombay by the representatives of the Lumiere brothers, a screening rather than an Indian production. Option C is wrong because 1931 is the year of Alam Ara, made by Ardeshir Irani, the first Indian film with sound. Option D is wrong because 1937 is the year of Kisan Kanya, the first indigenously processed colour film of India. The chain 1896, 1913, 1931 and 1937 covers nearly every question on the firsts of Indian cinema.

The correct answer is A, the Vajra, the weapon of Indra. Savitri Khanolkar, who designed the decoration, placed the state emblem of India at the centre of the circular bronze medal and set four replicas of the Vajra, the thunderbolt of Indra, around it, so that the medal carries a sense of irresistible force; the reverse bears the words Param Vir Chakra in Hindi and English separated by lotus flowers, and the ribbon is plain purple. Option B, the Sudarshana Chakra, is the discus of Vishnu and does not appear on this medal. Option C, the trident of Shiva, is likewise absent from the design. Option D, the lion capital of Ashoka, is the state emblem itself, which is at the centre rather than in the four replicas, so the option names the right object in the wrong position, which is the trap. Note also that the purple ribbon is itself a frequently set detail.