Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 14

The correct answer is D, 25 January. National Voters' Day is observed on 25 January every year because the Election Commission of India was set up on 25 January 1950, a day before the Constitution came into force. The day has been observed since 2011 to encourage citizens who have turned eighteen to enrol as voters, and new electors are handed their Elector Photo Identity Cards at functions held in polling-station areas, each year under a chosen theme. Option A is wrong because 26 March is not an Indian observance of this kind; it is the independence day of Bangladesh. Option B is wrong because 24 February is marked in India as Central Excise Day. Option C is wrong because 27 December is remembered as the day Jana Gana Mana was first sung, at the Calcutta session of the Congress in 1911. Exam tip: the Election Commission was founded on 25 January 1950, so National Voters' Day falls a day before Republic Day.

The correct answer is B, the announcement of the Raman Effect. C. V. Raman made the announcement on 28 February 1928 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics for it in 1930, the first Nobel in the sciences for an Indian. Option A is wrong because Aryabhata, India's first satellite, was launched on 19 April 1975 with Soviet help, and that date carries no national day. Option C is wrong because the founding of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is not the reason for this observance, although the Council takes part in the celebrations. Option D is wrong because the first test flight of the Hansa-3 trainer aircraft belongs to 11 May 1998 and is one of the three achievements behind National Technology Day.

The correct answer is D, 26 November. The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India on 26 November 1949, and the Government of India declared that date Constitution Day, or Samvidhan Divas, in 2015, the year of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, who chaired the Drafting Committee. Until then the day was marked quietly as National Law Day. The Constitution came into force two months later, on 26 January 1950, which is kept as Republic Day, though a few articles on citizenship, elections and provisional arrangements took effect on the day of adoption itself. A is wrong because 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti, also the International Day of Non-Violence. B is wrong because 30 November carries no such national observance. C is wrong because 15 October, the birthday of Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is kept as World Students' Day. Exam tip: adopted 26 November 1949, Constitution Day; enforced 26 January 1950, Republic Day.

The correct answer is B, Operation Trident. During the war of 1971 Indian missile boats struck Karachi harbour in an action that sank enemy vessels and set the oil installations on fire, and 4 December is kept as Navy Day in memory of it. Option A is wrong because the raising of the force belongs to a different date and the day is not an anniversary of its establishment, unlike Air Force Day. Option C is wrong because the commissioning of a carrier is a separate event in naval history and no day of remembrance is attached to it. Option D is wrong because the naval uprising of 1946 is an important episode of the freedom struggle but is not what this day marks. Tie 4 December to Karachi and the pair is fixed.

The correct answer is A, Sir M. Visvesvaraya. Born on 15 September 1861, he was the engineer behind the Krishna Raja Sagara dam and the flood protection works at Hyderabad, served as the Diwan of Mysore and received the Bharat Ratna, and the day honours the profession through his name. Option B is wrong because Homi Bhabha is remembered as the architect of the Indian nuclear programme and no national day is attached to his birthday. Option C is wrong because Vikram Sarabhai is the father of the Indian space programme, and the space day of the country is linked to a mission rather than to his birth. Option D is wrong because A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, though an engineer and a President, is remembered on his own birthday in October as a day for students.

The correct answer is A, the first week of July. Van Mahotsav was begun in 1950 on the initiative of K. M. Munshi, then the union minister for agriculture and food, and July was chosen because the monsoon has set in over most of the country by then and a sapling planted in wet ground has the best chance of surviving. Option B is wrong because the first week of June holds World Environment Day on 5 June, a single day and not a planting festival. Option C is wrong because the last week of August has no national plantation observance of this kind. Option D is wrong because the second week of September falls in the nutrition month and carries Hindi Diwas on 14 September. Tie the festival to the rain: monsoon first, planting second.

The correct answer is B, the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 near the lunar south pole. The Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 touched down on 23 August 2023, making India the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon and the first to land in the region of the south pole, and the Government named the date National Space Day. Option A is wrong because the Mars Orbiter Mission entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. Option C is wrong because the launch of one hundred and four satellites by a single PSLV flight took place on 15 February 2017. Option D is wrong because Rakesh Sharma flew to space in April 1984 aboard a Soviet mission, and no national day marks that flight. Chandrayaan-3 carried the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover, and its launch had taken place on 14 July 2023 from Sriharikota, which is the detail asked next.

The correct answer is A, camelids. The year 2024 was the International Year of Camelids, the family of animals that includes camels, llamas, alpacas, vicunas and guanacos, which carry loads, give milk, meat and wool, and support families in deserts and high mountains where little else can live. Option B is wrong because glass had its international year in 2022, marked for its role in optics, medicine and communication. Option C is wrong because quinoa, the grain of the Andes, had its year in 2013, the same year as water cooperation. Option D is wrong because natural fibres such as jute, cotton and wool had their year in 2009, along with astronomy. Since all four are genuine designations, the mark depends entirely on holding the number and the name together.

The correct answer is B, Haryana. The Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 divided the then state of Punjab on a linguistic basis with effect from the first of November 1966: the Hindi speaking southern districts became the new state of Haryana, the hill areas were transferred to Himachal Pradesh, and the city of Chandigarh was made a union territory to serve as the shared capital of both Punjab and Haryana. Haryana Day and Punjab Day therefore fall on the same date. Option A is wrong because Himachal Pradesh, although it gained territory by this Act, became a full state only on the twenty-fifth of January 1971, under the State of Himachal Pradesh Act of 1970. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand was created on the ninth of November 2000 from Uttar Pradesh. Option D is wrong because Chhattisgarh was created on the first of November 2000 from Madhya Pradesh; sharing the day of the month with Haryana is exactly the trap here.

The correct answer is B, 21 June. India proposed the day at the United Nations General Assembly, which adopted the resolution in December 2014, and the first observance was held in 2015; the date was chosen because 21 June is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Option A is wrong because 21 March is the International Day of Forests, and it is also World Poetry Day. Option C is wrong because 1 July is National Doctors' Day in India, kept on the birth and death anniversary of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, who was a physician and Chief Minister of West Bengal. Option D is wrong because 12 May is International Nurses Day, observed on the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale.

The correct answer is A, 1526. In the First Battle of Panipat, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last Sultan of the Lodi dynasty, and the victory ended the Delhi Sultanate and founded the Mughal empire in India. Babur's use of field artillery and the tulughma formation against a much larger army is the reason the battle is remembered as a turning point in military history as well as in dynastic history. Option B, 1556, is the Second Battle of Panipat, in which Akbar's forces under Bairam Khan defeated Hemu and restored Mughal rule after the interlude of the Sur dynasty. Option C, 1761, is the Third Battle of Panipat, in which Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the Marathas and checked their expansion in the north. Option D, 1576, is the Battle of Haldighati, fought between Akbar's army and Maharana Pratap of Mewar, and is placed here because its year looks close to 1556.

The correct answer is C, 11 July. The Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme began the observance in 1989, taking the date from Five Billion Day, 11 July 1987, when the world’s population was estimated to have crossed five billion; the United Nations Population Fund now leads the campaign. Options A, B and D place the same day number in the wrong month and are offered for exactly that reason, because candidates remember the eleventh but not July. A second fact from the same chapter is often asked beside it: World Youth Day in the UN calendar is International Youth Day, observed on 12 August, declared by the General Assembly in 1999. Keep the July and August pair together to avoid the swap.

The correct answer is A, the airlift of Indian troops to Srinagar. On 27 October 1947, a day after the Instrument of Accession was signed by the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, the first infantry company was flown into Srinagar to meet the tribal invasion, and the day is kept by the infantry as its own. Option B is wrong because Hyderabad was integrated in September 1948 through a separate operation. Option C is wrong because the Territorial Army was raised in 1949 and has its own day in October, which makes it a tempting but wrong choice here. Option D is wrong because the first Republic Day parade belongs to 1950 and to 26 January. Pair 27 October with Srinagar and 1947 and the question is settled.

The correct answer is B, the nuclear tests at Pokhran. India carried out nuclear tests at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 11 May 1998 under the operation known as Shakti, and a home-built aircraft was flight-tested and a missile fired on the same day. The Government therefore declared 11 May as National Technology Day.

Option A is wrong because the Chandrayaan missions were launched in other months and are marked by the space agency's own calendar rather than by this day. Option C is wrong because the Indian Space Research Organisation was formed in 1969 and its founding is not the reason for a national day. Option D is wrong because the Tejas programme, though an achievement of Indian engineering, is not the event behind the date. Note that India's earlier nuclear test, Smiling Buddha, took place in May 1974.

The correct answer is A, the second of June 2014. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014 carved Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh and named the second of June 2014 as the appointed day; Hyderabad was to serve as the common capital of both states for a period fixed by the Act. Telangana thus became the twenty-ninth state at the time of its creation, and it remains the most recent state to be formed. Option B is wrong because the first of November 2000 is the foundation day of Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Option C is wrong because the ninth of November 2000 is the foundation day of Uttarakhand, then named Uttaranchal, carved out of Uttar Pradesh. Option D is wrong because the thirty-first of October 2019 is the date on which the former state of Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories, a change that created no new state at all. Note the distinction between a new state and a new union territory.

The correct answer is A, 9 January. The date was chosen because Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India from South Africa on 9 January 1915, and his return is treated as the most significant homecoming of an Indian from abroad. The day honours the contribution of the overseas Indian community to the country's development.

Option B, 12 January, is National Youth Day for Swami Vivekananda's birth anniversary. Option C, 26 January, is Republic Day, when the Constitution came into force in 1950. Option D, 30 January, is Martyrs' Day, marking Gandhi's assassination in 1948, and it is a strong distractor because it too is connected with Gandhi. This is a good reminder that January carries two Gandhi dates for different reasons, the return from South Africa on the 9th and the assassination on the 30th.

The correct answer is D, C A B D. Taking the four in the order they appear in history: Wood's Despatch came first, in 1854, and is called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a graded system of schools and universities. The Hunter Commission, also known as the Indian Education Commission, followed in 1882 under W. W. Hunter and reported mainly on primary and secondary education. The Saddler Commission, or Calcutta University Commission, sat in 1917 and 1919 and reviewed university education. The Sargent Plan, prepared by the Central Advisory Board of Education in 1944, was the last of the four and proposed universal free elementary education within forty years. Options A and C both place the Hunter Commission first, which is wrong because Wood's Despatch of 1854 precedes it, and option B puts the Saddler Commission before the Hunter Commission, reversing 1882 and 1917.

The correct answer is A, Birsa Munda. Jharkhand was created by the Bihar Reorganisation Act of 2000, and the fifteenth of November was deliberately named as the appointed day because it is the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, the tribal leader of the Munda community who led the Ulgulan, or great tumult, against colonial land policy and missionary pressure at the end of the nineteenth century, and who died in Ranchi jail while still a young man. Option B is wrong because Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, was born on the third of December and came from Bihar, not from the Jharkhand region. Option C is wrong because Sidhu Murmu, who with his brother Kanhu led the Santhal rebellion of 1855, is remembered on a different date, Hul Diwas in June. Option D is wrong because Tantia Bhil was a rebel of the Nimar region of central India. Learn this pair together with the state's Act of creation.

The correct answer is D, Nagpur. The annual session of the Indian National Congress in December 1920 met at Nagpur under the presidency of C. Vijayaraghavachariar, and it confirmed the programme of non cooperation that a special session at Calcutta had approved in September of that year. The Nagpur session also changed the creed of the Congress from constitutional means to attaining swaraj by all legitimate and peaceful means, and reorganised the party on linguistic provinces with a working committee. Option A, Thiruvananthapuram, never hosted a session of this period. Option B, Mumbai, then Bombay, hosted the first session of 1885 and the Quit India session of August 1942, not the 1920 session. Option C, Tripura, is a confusion with Tripuri in the Central Provinces, where the session of 1939 was held and where the Subhash Chandra Bose crisis came to a head.

The correct answer is B, Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura. The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act of 1971 came into force on the twenty-first of January 1972 and raised Manipur and Tripura from union territories to full states while making Meghalaya, until then an autonomous state within Assam, a state in its own right; the same Act created the union territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. Option A is wrong because Nagaland had already become a state on the first of December 1963, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh attained statehood much later, both on the twentieth of February 1987. Option C is wrong because Assam was already a state and Sikkim joined the Union only in 1975. Option D is wrong for the same reasons, mixing a union territory of 1972 with a state of 1975. The three that share the twenty-first of January can be remembered as the Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura group.