Important Days & Dates Quiz: Important Days in November and December

The correct answer is B, Jawaharlal Nehru. India's first Prime Minister was born on 14 November 1889, and because of his known fondness for children, who called him Chacha Nehru, his birthday was adopted as Children's Day after his death in 1964.

Option A, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, was born on 3 December, a date now marked as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities rather than as any anniversary of his. Option C, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, was born on 5 September, which India observes as Teachers' Day, and swapping Teachers' Day with Children's Day is the commonest error in this pair. Option D, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was born on 11 November, observed as National Education Day, so his date falls in the same month and only three days earlier, which makes him the sharpest distractor here. The United Nations separately observes World Children's Day on 20 November.

The correct answer is B, 11 November. The date is the birth anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, born in 1888, who was independent India's first Minister of Education and the moving spirit behind the founding of the University Grants Commission and the Indian Institutes of Technology. The Ministry of Human Resource Development began observing the day in 2008.

Option A, 5 September, is Teachers' Day, the birth anniversary of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, and it belongs to a different month altogether. Option C, 14 November, is Children's Day, the birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, and its nearness to 11 November is what makes it a trap. Option D, 26 November, is Constitution Day and also National Milk Day. Fixing the three November dates in order, 11 for education, 14 for children and 26 for the Constitution, keeps them apart in the hall.

The correct answer is B, adopted the Constitution of India. The Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave to itself the Constitution on 26 November 1949, and the Government of India has observed the date as Constitution Day, or Samvidhan Divas, since 2015.

Option A is wrong because the Assembly held its first sitting on 9 December 1946, three years earlier, under the temporary chairmanship of Dr. Sachchidananda Sinha. Option C names a different date and is the trap of this question: the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, two months after adoption, and that day is Republic Day. Option D is wrong because the Drafting Committee, with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as its Chairman, was set up on 29 August 1947. The pair to carry into the exam is adoption on 26 November 1949 and commencement on 26 January 1950.

The correct answer is B, Verghese Kurien. Born on 26 November 1921, Kurien is called the Father of the White Revolution in India. He built the Amul cooperative at Anand in Gujarat and led Operation Flood, the programme that made India the largest producer of milk in the world, and the day has been observed since 2014.

Option A, M. S. Swaminathan, is associated with the Green Revolution in wheat and rice, not with milk, and is remembered as the Father of the Green Revolution in India. Option C, Tribhuvandas Patel, founded the Kaira district milk cooperative that grew into Amul and brought Kurien into the movement, so his name belongs to the same story but not to this date. Option D, Norman Borlaug, was the American agronomist whose high yielding wheat varieties began the Green Revolution worldwide, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Only Kurien's birthday gives National Milk Day.

The correct answer is A, 1 December. World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988 and was the first global health day of its kind, set aside to spread awareness of HIV and AIDS and to remember those who have died of the disease. The same date in India is the Raising Day of the Border Security Force, which was raised on 1 December 1965.

Option B, 7 December, is Armed Forces Flag Day in India and International Civil Aviation Day. Option C, 10 December, is Human Rights Day, marking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and it is also the day the Nobel Prizes are presented. Option D, 2 December, is National Pollution Control Day in India, observed in memory of the Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, and its nearness to 1 December makes it the most likely wrong pick. December's first ten days carry four separate observances, so they are best learnt as a block.

The correct answer is B, the Bhopal gas tragedy. On the night of 2 and 3 December 1984 methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a pesticide plant in Bhopal and killed thousands of people, in what remains the worst industrial disaster in India. The day is used to remember the victims and to press the case for industrial safety and for the enforcement of the pollution control laws.

Option A, the Chernobyl nuclear accident, happened in April 1986 in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, and is marked by the International Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Disaster on 26 April. Option C, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted in December 1997 and came into force in 2005, and it has no commemorative day of this kind. Option D, the Stockholm Conference of 1972, gave rise to World Environment Day on 5 June, a different observance altogether. Only the Bhopal disaster explains 2 December.

The correct answer is B, Operation Trident. On the night of 4 December 1971 Indian missile boats attacked Karachi harbour, sank Pakistani vessels and set the fuel installations ashore on fire, without losing a ship. The Navy observes 4 December as Navy Day in memory of that action.

Option A, Operation Vijay, is the name used for the liberation of Goa in December 1961 and again for the Kargil conflict of 1999, and the Goa action gives Goa Liberation Day on 19 December. Option C, Operation Cactus, was the Indian intervention in the Maldives in 1988 that put down a coup attempt. Option D, Operation Meghdoot, was the occupation of the Siachen Glacier in April 1984. All four are genuine Indian military operations, which is what makes the question testing; the one tied to 4 December is Trident, and the same war gives Vijay Diwas on 16 December.

The correct answer is B, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The General Assembly adopted the Declaration in Paris on 10 December 1948, and the date has been observed as Human Rights Day since 1950. India observes its own National Human Rights Day on 12 October, the day the National Human Rights Commission was set up in 1993.

Option A is wrong because the United Nations Charter was signed in June 1945 and came into force on 24 October 1945, which is United Nations Day. Option C, the Human Rights Council, was created in 2006 and replaced the older Commission on Human Rights; no separate day marks it. Option D, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, was adopted on 20 November 1989, and that date is World Children's Day. The Nobel Prizes are also presented on 10 December, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel, so the date carries two facts.

The correct answer is B, Srinivasa Ramanujan. The largely self taught mathematician was born at Erode in Tamil Nadu on 22 December 1887, worked with G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of thirty-one. The Government of India declared his birthday National Mathematics Day in 2012, on the hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of his birth.

Option A, Aryabhata, was the fifth century mathematician and astronomer who gave the value of pi and the rules of the place value system, and India's first satellite of 1975 was named after him, but he has no national day. Option C, C. V. Raman, was a physicist and not a mathematician; his discovery of the Raman effect on 28 February gives National Science Day. Option D, Brahmagupta, the seventh century mathematician who set out rules for working with zero, also has no day. Only Ramanujan explains 22 December.

The correct answer is B, Chaudhary Charan Singh. Born on 23 December 1902, he served as Prime Minister in 1979 and 1980 and is remembered above all as a champion of the peasantry, whose writings and land reform measures were built around the small farmer. The Government of India began observing his birthday as Kisan Diwas in 2001.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was born on 2 October, the same date as Mahatma Gandhi, and it is his slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan that tempts candidates towards him here. Option C, Morarji Desai, was born on 29 February and led the government that Charan Singh followed. Option D, Chandra Shekhar, was born in July and was Prime Minister in 1990 and 1991. The link to hold on to is Charan Singh and the farmer, matched with 23 December.

The correct answer is B, the surrender of Pakistani forces at Dhaka in 1971. Pakistan's eastern command surrendered to the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini at Dhaka on 16 December 1971, ending a war of thirteen days and leading to the creation of Bangladesh, which observes the same date as its Victory Day.

Option A, the Kargil conflict, ended on 26 July 1999, which India observes as Kargil Vijay Diwas, a separate day whose similar name is the main trap in this question. Option C, the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule, took place on 19 December 1961 after Operation Vijay and is marked as Goa Liberation Day. Option D, the war of 1965, ended with a ceasefire in September of that year and the Tashkent Declaration of January 1966, and it has no Vijay Diwas of its own. Remember that the same 1971 war also gives Navy Day on 4 December.

The correct answer is B, 16 November. The Press Council of India, the statutory watchdog of the press set up to preserve its freedom and to maintain its standards, began functioning on 16 November 1966, and the date is observed as National Press Day in recognition of a free and responsible press.

Option A, 3 May, is World Press Freedom Day, a United Nations observance, and pairing the national day with the international one is the usual confusion here. Option C, 12 November, is National Public Service Broadcasting Day, marking Mahatma Gandhi's only visit to an All India Radio studio in 1947, and it belongs to broadcasting rather than to the press. Option D, 26 November, is Constitution Day and National Milk Day. Learning 16 November for the press council and 3 May for press freedom keeps the two apart.