Awards & Honours Mixed Quiz: Set 8

The correct answer is C, the United Kingdom. BAFTA stands for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and its awards are given for films, television programmes and games made or shown in Britain. The film awards are announced a few weeks before the Oscars and are often treated as a pointer to them.

Option A, the United States, is the country of the Oscars, the Emmy, the Grammy and the Tony. Option B, France, is the country of the Cannes Film Festival and its Palme d'Or. Option D, Italy, is the country of the Venice Film Festival and its Golden Lion. A question in this form is really asking whether the candidate can place each award in its own country, so the four countries should be learnt with the award names.

The correct answer is B, Tanvi Shah. She was the first Indian woman musician to win a Grammy, in 2010.

Tanvi Shah, a singer and lyricist from Chennai, wrote and sang the Spanish lines of the song 'Jai Ho' from the film Slumdog Millionaire. The song won the Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media at the 2010 ceremony, shared with A. R. Rahman and Gulzar. The same film had already brought Rahman two Academy Awards, and Rahman and Resul Pookutty are the other Indian names students should keep with it.

A is wrong: Neeti Mohan is a playback singer with no Grammy. C is wrong: Shweta Pandit is a playback singer who has not won one either. D is wrong: Shalmali Kholgade is also a playback singer without a Grammy.

Exam tip: Tanvi Shah - first Indian woman to win a Grammy, 2010, for the Spanish lyrics of 'Jai Ho'.

The correct answer is C, Interpreter of Maladies. The collection of nine short stories, most of them about Indians and Indian Americans living between two countries, was Jhumpa Lahiri's first book and won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, an unusual honour for a debut collection of stories.

Option A, The Namesake, is her first novel, published in 2003, and was made into a film, but it won no Pulitzer. Option B, Unaccustomed Earth, is her second collection of stories, published in 2008. Option D, The Lowland, is her novel of 2013, set partly in Kolkata during the Naxalite years, and it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize without winning. All four are her own books, so the question is only about which one carried the Pulitzer, and the answer is the earliest of them.

The correct answer is D, Vinesh Phogat. The wrestler Vinesh Phogat was nominated in 2019 for the Laureus World Sports Award in the Breakthrough of the Year category, the first Indian athlete to be shortlisted in that category. The nomination followed a remarkable 2018, in which she won gold at the Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast and then gold at the Asian Games in Jakarta, becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to win an Asian Games title. She had already received the Arjuna Award in 2016. The Laureus World Sports Awards, begun in 2000 by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, are often called the Oscars of sport. Option A is wrong because Anirban Chatterji is not a Laureus nominee. Option B is wrong because Pankaj Advani, a world champion in billiards and snooker, was not on the list. Option C is wrong because the sprinter Dutee Chand, known for her legal fight over hyperandrogenism rules, was not nominated that year. Exam tip: Vinesh Phogat - Laureus nomination 2019, Asian Games gold 2018, Arjuna Award 2016.

The correct answer is A, 1961. The Arjuna Award is the oldest of the national sports awards and honours a sportsperson for consistently outstanding performance over the four years before the award; the recipient is given a bronze statuette of Arjuna, a scroll of honour and a cash prize. Option B, 1985, is the year the Dronacharya Award for coaches began. Option C, 1991, points to the Khel Ratna, instituted in 1991–92 and now named after Major Dhyan Chand. Option D, 2002, is the year of the Dhyan Chand Award for lifetime achievement in sport. The four years therefore belong to four different awards, and a candidate who learns them as one sequence — 1961, 1985, 1991–92, 2002 — can answer any question in this family. One more detail is asked beside the year: the number of Arjuna Awards given in a year is limited, and the statuette is of Arjuna, the archer of the Mahabharata, which is the clue in the name itself.

The correct answer is D, Afghanistan. The Amir Amanullah Khan Award is Afghanistan's highest civilian honour, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received it in June 2016 at Herat, on the day he and President Ashraf Ghani opened the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier called the Salma Dam, which India built on the Hari Rud. The honour is named after Amir Amanullah Khan, the ruler who won Afghanistan full control of its foreign affairs from the British in 1919. Option A is wrong, although Saudi Arabia did honour the Prime Minister in April 2016; its top award is the Order of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, a different decoration with a different name. Options B and C are wrong because neither Uzbekistan nor Iran gives an award of this name, and neither conferred its highest civilian honour on him in that year. Exam tip: Amir Amanullah Khan Award means Afghanistan, 2016, Herat and the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.

The correct answer is B, Vinoba Bhave. He received the award in 1958, in the very first year it was given, for community leadership, in recognition of the Bhoodan movement in which he walked from village to village asking landowners to give land to the landless. No Indian received it before him.

Option A, Mother Teresa, received the award in 1962 for peace and international understanding, four years after Bhave. Option C, Jayaprakash Narayan, received it in 1965 for public service. Option D, C. D. Deshmukh, who had been Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and Finance Minister, received it in 1959 for government service, which makes him the closest distractor because he is only one year behind. The order to remember is Bhave 1958, Deshmukh 1959, Mother Teresa 1962.

The correct answer is A, Wildlife protection. The Amrita Devi Bishnoi National Award is given for outstanding courage and devotion in protecting wildlife. It was instituted by the Union environment ministry in 1994 and carries a cash prize with a citation. It is named after Amrita Devi Bishnoi, who in 1730 at Khejarli near Jodhpur clung to a khejri tree to stop the Maharaja's men from felling it; she and more than 360 other Bishnois died in that protest. The Bishnoi community, which follows the 29 rules laid down by Guru Jambheshwar, still guards the blackbuck, the chinkara and the khejri tree of the Thar desert, and the Khejarli sacrifice is remembered as an inspiration for the later Chipko movement. Option B is wrong because energy saving is rewarded by the National Energy Conservation Awards. Option C is wrong because broader environmental work is honoured by the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar. Option D is wrong because biodiversity effort is recognised by the India Biodiversity Awards. Exam tip: tie Amrita Devi to Khejarli 1730, the khejri tree and the blackbuck of Rajasthan.

The correct answer is A, a distinguished work of Indian fiction, translations included. The JCB Prize for Literature was instituted in 2018 for a work of fiction by an Indian writer, and a novel translated into English from an Indian language is eligible, with a separate sum going to the translator when a translated book wins. It quickly became one of the richest literary prizes in the country.

Option B is wrong because the prize is for fiction and not for poetry; poetry is covered by the Kabir Samman of Madhya Pradesh and by the Sahitya Akademi awards. Option C is wrong because non-fiction is outside its scope, although several Indian prizes and the Sahitya Akademi awards do cover it. Option D, writing for children, is the field of the Sahitya Akademi's Bal Sahitya Puraskar, instituted in 2010. Group the newer English language prizes by year to keep them apart: the Crossword Book Award from 1998, the DSC Prize from 2010 and the JCB Prize from 2018.

The correct answer is C, 1952. The Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's national academy of music, dance and drama, was created by a government resolution of 31 May 1952 and formally inaugurated on 28 January 1953 by President Rajendra Prasad. It was the first of the three national academies; the Sahitya Akademi for literature and the Lalit Kala Akademi for fine arts followed in 1954. Its annual awards, the Akademi Puraskar, have been given to performing artists since 1952, which makes it the oldest national honour for the performing arts in India. The higher honour, the Akademi Ratna or Fellowship, was started in 1954. A is wrong because 1961 is the year the Arjuna Award for sports began. B is wrong because 1950 is when the Constitution came into force, not when the Akademi was formed. D is wrong because 1959 is the year the National School of Drama was set up, not the start of the awards. Exam tip: Sangeet Natak Akademi 1952 (awards from 1952); Sahitya Akademi and Lalit Kala Akademi 1954.

The correct answer is C, coaches who have trained medal winners. Instituted in 1985, the Dronacharya Award honours coaches whose trainees have won medals at the Olympic, Asian or Commonwealth Games or at a World Championship, and it is given in two categories, Regular and Lifetime. Option A describes the Dhyan Chand Award, instituted in 2002 for lifetime achievement, which recognises a player’s contribution including the work done after retirement. Option B describes the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, from 1956–57, the only one of these honours that goes to an institution of learning. Option D describes the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar of 2009, which is given to companies, sports control boards and voluntary bodies. The name itself is the clue, since Dronacharya was the teacher of archery in the Mahabharata.

The correct answer is D, Subramanian Raman. He received the Dronacharya Award of 2021 in the Regular category for table tennis, the award given to coaches whose trainees reach the podium at the Olympic, Asian, Commonwealth or World Championship level. Options A and B, Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, are players and not coaches, and they are put here because both are India’s leading table tennis names of the same years; Manika Batra won the Commonwealth Games singles gold in 2018. Option C, Mouma Das, is also a player, a long-serving international who received the Arjuna Award. The distinction the question rests on is therefore the class of award: the Dronacharya is for coaches, the Arjuna and the Khel Ratna for players, so a player’s name can never answer a Dronacharya question.

The correct answer is A, Asia's Nobel Prize. The description is used because the award honours a lifetime of selfless service in Asia, in fields such as government service, public service and community leadership, in the manner in which the Nobel Prizes honour service to humanity. It is the phrase newspapers and question papers both use.

Option B is wrong because the Booker Prize is a British award for a work of fiction, which is a narrow literary field and not public service. Option C is not a phrase in use for any award. Option D is wrong because the Pulitzer Prize is American and belongs to journalism, letters, drama and music; a comparison with it would not describe an award for social work in Asia. When a question asks which award is called Asia's Nobel Prize, the answer is always the Magsaysay.

The correct answer is C, the Philippines. Ramon Magsaysay was President of the Philippines and died in an aircraft crash in March 1957. The award was created in his memory later that year, and it is given at Manila, the Philippine capital, on 31 August, his birth anniversary.

Option A, Indonesia, is wrong; no pan-Asian award of this standing is named after an Indonesian head of state. Option B, Malaysia, is wrong for the same reason, although the country's closeness to the Philippines makes it a natural distractor. Option D, Thailand, is wrong as well. A candidate can reason this out from the award's own description: it honours greatness of spirit in service to the peoples of Asia, and the Foundation that gives it sits in Manila, so the country in the answer must be the Philippines.

The correct answer is C, Literature. The Jnanpith Award is India's highest literary honour, given to an author for an outstanding contribution to literature. It was instituted in 1961 by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust and first awarded in 1965 to the Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup for his collection Odakkuzhal. It is open to writing in any of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and in English since 2013, and the winner receives a citation, a cash prize and a bronze replica of Vagdevi, the goddess of learning. Option A is wrong because medicine in India is recognised by the Dr B. C. Roy National Award. Option B is wrong because social work is honoured by the Jamnalal Bajaj Award and the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Option D is wrong because cinema is honoured by the National Film Awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Exam tip: Jnanpith is for literature; the first winner was G. Sankara Kurup in 1965.

The correct answer is B, 1954. The National Film Awards were instituted in 1954, and the first set of awards was given for films released in the previous year. They were created to encourage films of aesthetic and technical excellence and of social relevance in every Indian language, which is why regional cinema has always been prominent in the list of winners.

Option A, 1947, is the year of independence and has no connection with the founding of these awards. Option C, 1969, is the year the Dadasaheb Phalke Award was instituted, on the birth centenary of Phalke, and is the most attractive wrong answer here. Option D, 1973, is not associated with the founding of either award and is placed only to complete the set of plausible years.

The correct answer is D, 1985. The Dronacharya Award began in 1985, twenty-four years after the Arjuna Award, and it was the first national honour meant for coaches rather than players; the Lifetime category was added later so that a long career of coaching could be recognised separately from recent work. Option A, 1961, is the year of the Arjuna Award. Option B, 1975, and option C, 1981, are years in which no national sports award was instituted and are offered only to crowd the option list with plausible dates. Note the shape of the calendar as a whole: 1956–57 for the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, 1961 for the Arjuna, 1985 for the Dronacharya, 1991–92 for the Khel Ratna, 1994 for the Tenzing Norgay Award, 2002 for the Dhyan Chand and 2009 for the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar.

The correct answer is B, Columbia University. Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaper publisher who owned the New York World, left money in his will both for a school of journalism and for the prizes, and Columbia University in New York administers the awards on the advice of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Option A, Harvard University, and Option C, Yale University, are older American universities with no role in these prizes, and they are offered simply because they are the best-known American names. Option D, the Library of Congress, awards the Gershwin Prize in music and appoints the Poet Laureate of the United States, but it does not run the Pulitzers. Remember the founder and the seat together: Joseph Pulitzer's will, Columbia University, New York, first awarded in 1917.

The correct answer is B, Major Dhyan Chand. In August 2021 the Government renamed the country’s highest sporting honour the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, after the hockey player whose teams won Olympic gold at Amsterdam in 1928, Los Angeles in 1932 and Berlin in 1936. Only the name changed; the criteria, the selection committee and the procedure stayed as they were. Option A, Milkha Singh, the sprinter who came fourth in the 400 metres at Rome in 1960, has no national award named after him. Option C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, gives his name to the Statue of Unity and to the sports complex named for him, not to this award. Option D, Balbir Singh Sr., was a great hockey centre forward and a triple Olympic gold medallist, but the award does not carry his name.

The correct answer is B, 1917. Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911 and provided for the prizes in his will; the first awards were made in 1917 by Columbia University. The prizes cover journalism in American news organisations along with books, drama and music, and the Public Service award in journalism is a gold medal.

Option A, 1901, is the year the Nobel Prizes were first awarded, and papers plant it here to see whether the two are being confused. Option C, 1929, is the year of the Great Depression's onset and has nothing to do with the prize. Option D, 1945, marks the end of the Second World War. The three founding years worth keeping in one line are 1901 for the Nobel, 1917 for the Pulitzer and 1969 for the Booker.