Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 15

The correct answer is A, Bombay State. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 had left Bombay as a large bilingual state containing both Marathi and Gujarati speaking areas, and the demand for separate linguistic states continued in both. The Bombay Reorganisation Act of 1960 therefore divided it with effect from the first of May 1960 into Gujarat, with its capital first at Ahmedabad and later at Gandhinagar, and Maharashtra, with Bombay as its capital. The first of May is kept in one state as Gujarat Day and in the other as Maharashtra Day. Option B is wrong because Madras State kept its boundaries and simply took the name Tamil Nadu in January 1969. Option C is wrong because Mysore State similarly took the name Karnataka in November 1973 without being divided. Option D is wrong because Saurashtra was itself merged into Bombay State in 1956 and had ceased to exist as a separate state by 1960.

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 A, 13 April 1919. On the day of Baisakhi in 1919 a crowd gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, and Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on the closed enclosure. The Hunter Committee inquired into the firing, and Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest. Option B, 10 May 1857, is the date the revolt of 1857 broke out at Meerut, a different century and a different event. Option C, 5 February 1922, is the Chauri Chaura incident in Gorakhpur district, after which Gandhi withdrew the Non Cooperation Movement. Option D keeps the day and month but changes the year to 1920, which is the commonest way this question is made wrong.

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, 1975, by the Thirty-sixth Amendment. Sikkim's entry into the Union came in two steps. The Thirty-fifth Amendment of 1974 first made it an associate state, a status created for it alone. The Thirty-sixth Amendment then made it a full state of the Union, and the sixteenth of May 1975 is kept as the day of that accession; the amendment also inserted Article 371F, which carries special provisions for Sikkim. Option A is wrong because the Thirty-first Amendment of 1972 dealt with the strength of the Lok Sabha, not with Sikkim. Option C is wrong because 1963 is the year Nagaland became a state, by an ordinary Act of Parliament and Article 371A. Option D is wrong because the Fifty-third Amendment relates to Mizoram, whose statehood came in 1987 along with that of Arunachal Pradesh. Remember Article 371A for Nagaland and Article 371F for Sikkim.

The correct answer is B, the nuclear tests carried out at Pokhran. On 11 May 1998 India tested nuclear devices at Pokhran in Rajasthan under Operation Shakti; the same day the indigenous Hansa-3 trainer aircraft made its first test flight and the Trishul missile was successfully test-fired, and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee named the date National Technology Day. It was observed for the first time in 1999. Option A is wrong because the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas made its maiden flight in January 2001. Option C is wrong because the first Indian remote sensing satellite, IRS-1A, was launched in 1988 and is not connected with this day. Option D is wrong because the PARAM series of supercomputers was developed by C-DAC through the 1990s, again with no link to this date.

The correct answer is D, Faizpur. The fiftieth session of the Indian National Congress met in December 1936 at Faizpur in the Khandesh region of what is now Maharashtra, and it was the first session of the Congress held in a village rather than in a city. Jawaharlal Nehru presided, and the choice of a rural venue was deliberate, marking the Congress decision to take its programme of agrarian reform to the peasantry before the provincial elections held under the Government of India Act of 1935. Option A, Karumadi, is a village in Kerala known for the Karumadikkuttan statue of the Buddha. Option B, Punnapra, also in Kerala, is remembered for the Punnapra Vayalar uprising of 1946. Option C, Rampur, is a district town of Uttar Pradesh and hosted no such session; all three are placed here only because they sound like villages.

The correct answer is B, officially raised. The Indian Air Force was constituted on 8 October 1932 and its first flight took to the air in the following year, which is why the day is kept as the anniversary of the force itself and is marked by a display at an air force station. Option A is wrong because the raising of the first squadron followed the creation of the force and is not the reason for the date. Option C is wrong because the change of name relates to a later period, when the prefix Royal was dropped after independence, and no day is kept for it. Option D is wrong because the appointment of the first Indian chief came in 1954 and is remembered as a separate landmark. Hold 8 October with the year 1932.

The correct answer is B, the first of November. The date carries a double significance for Karnataka. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 brought the Kannada speaking areas together as an enlarged state on the first of November 1956, though it was then called Mysore State; and it was again on the first of November, in 1973, that the state was renamed Karnataka. The day is celebrated as Rajyotsava, the festival of the state, with the state flag and the state anthem. Option A is wrong because the first of May is Gujarat Day and Maharashtra Day, from the division of Bombay State in 1960, and also Labour Day. Option C is wrong because the fifteenth of November is the foundation day of Jharkhand. Option D is wrong because the thirtieth of May is the statehood day of Goa, which became a state in 1987. Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh keep the same first of November as Karnataka.

The correct answer is B, 4 to 10 October. The two dates were chosen for two events: on 4 October 1957 the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was placed in orbit, and on 10 October 1967 the Outer Space Treaty came into force. Option A is wrong because 2 to 8 October is Wildlife Week in India, and mixing the two October weeks is the commonest error here. Option C is wrong because August holds no space week; National Space Day in India marks a lunar landing and is a separate single day. Option D is wrong because the first week of November has no such observance either. The easy hold is the anniversary of Sputnik: space week opens on the day the space age began.

The correct answer is B, 1938. Subhash Chandra Bose was elected president of the Indian National Congress at the Haripura session in Gujarat in 1938, where he set up a National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru. He was elected a second time at Tripuri in 1939, defeating Pattabhi Sitaramayya, but resigned in April of that year after losing the confidence of the working committee, and went on to found the Forward Bloc. Option A, 1932, is the year of the Communal Award and the Poona Pact and has no connection with his presidency. Option C, 1941, is the year Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta and made his way to Germany. Option D, 1943, is the year he took charge of the Indian National Army at Singapore and proclaimed the Azad Hind government, which is the fact most often confused with the presidency.

The correct answer is B, plant health. The General Assembly declared 2020 the International Year of Plant Health to show how protecting plants from pests and diseases protects food supply, trade and the environment, and the Food and Agriculture Organization led the year. Option A is wrong because soils had their year in 2015, when 5 December was also observed as World Soil Day. Option C is wrong because family farming was the theme of 2014, and a full decade of family farming was later declared for the years 2019 to 2028. Option D is wrong because fruits and vegetables were the subject of the very next year, 2021, which is the commonest confusion in this question. Learning the two farm years in order, plant health then fruits and vegetables, removes the trap.

The correct answer is A. Bihar Diwas recalls the twenty-second of March 1912, when Bihar was separated from the Bengal Presidency and constituted as a province of its own, along with Orissa; the two were separated from each other later. Bihar is therefore one of a small group of states whose foundation day is older than the Republic itself, and it does not derive from any of the reorganisation Acts. Option B is wrong because the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 made only minor boundary adjustments to Bihar and did not create it. Option C is wrong because the separation of Jharkhand, on the fifteenth of November 2000, reduced Bihar rather than founding it, and is kept as Jharkhand's day, not Bihar's. Option D is wrong because the first provincial assembly under the Government of India Act of 1935 is not the event the day commemorates. Compare Odisha's Utkal Divas on the first of April, for the year 1936.

The correct answer is A, 22 March. World Water Day was recommended by the Earth Summit held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and has been observed since 1993 to draw attention to fresh water, its scarcity and the target of water and sanitation for all. Option B is wrong because 23 March is World Meteorological Day, the anniversary of the coming into force of the convention that created the World Meteorological Organization in 1950. Option C is wrong because 2 February is World Wetlands Day, which takes its date from the signing of the Ramsar Convention in 1971. Option D is wrong because 8 June is World Oceans Day, which concerns the seas rather than fresh water; note that three days fall together on 22, 23 and 24 March.

The correct answer is C, 1757. At Plassey on the bank of the Bhagirathi, Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, after buying over his commander Mir Jafar, and the victory made the Company the real power in the richest province of India. Option A, 1764, is the Battle of Buxar, where the Company defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daulah of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam the second, and which completed what Plassey had begun. Option B, 1765, is the year of the Treaty of Allahabad, by which the Company received the diwani, the right to collect the revenues of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Option D, 1761, is the Third Battle of Panipat, fought between Ahmad Shah Abdali and the Marathas in the same decade, which is why it is placed among the options.

The correct answer is D, the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed on 16 September 1987, and the General Assembly later fixed that date as the ozone day. Option A, the Kyoto Protocol, was adopted in 1997 under the climate convention and came into force in 2005, and it deals with greenhouse gases rather than ozone-depleting substances. Option B, the Paris Agreement, was adopted in 2015, also on climate change. Option C, the Basel Convention, of 1989, controls the movement of hazardous wastes across borders. The trap in this question is the general resemblance of environmental treaties, so tie each one to its subject: Montreal for the ozone layer, Kyoto and Paris for climate, Basel for hazardous waste and Ramsar for wetlands.

The correct answer is A, the first of December 1963. The State of Nagaland Act of 1962 gave effect to an agreement with Naga leaders and brought the new state into being on the first of December 1963, carved out of Assam; Article 371A was inserted in the Constitution to give Nagaland special provisions covering Naga customary law and land. Nagaland was thus the sixteenth state, and it was among the earliest states created after the great reorganisation of 1956. Option B is wrong because the twenty-first of January 1972 is the day Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura became states. Option C is wrong because the twentieth of February 1987 is the day Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, the other two states carved from the north east, attained statehood. Option D is wrong because the first of November 1956 is the day of the States Reorganisation Act, which did not create Nagaland. Group the north east by dates: 1963, 1972 and 1987.

The correct answer is B, Allahabad. The fourth session of the Indian National Congress met at Allahabad in 1888 and elected George Yule as its president, and he was the first Englishman and the first non Indian to hold the office. Yule was a Calcutta businessman and a former president of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, and his election was meant to show that the Congress was not a body of one community alone. Option A, Calcutta, hosted the second session of 1886 under Dadabhai Naoroji. Option C, Madras, hosted the third session of 1887 under Badruddin Tyabji, the first Muslim president of the Congress. Option D, Bombay, hosted the very first session of December 1885 under Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, and is the option most often chosen by mistake because it is the city students associate with the early Congress.

The correct answer is B. The Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act of 1987 raised Goa from a union territory to a full state with effect from the thirtieth of May 1987, making it the twenty-fifth state of the Union, while Daman and Diu continued as a separate union territory. Statehood Day therefore marks a change of constitutional status, not the end of colonial rule. Option A is wrong because the liberation of Goa from Portuguese rule took place in December 1961 and is remembered separately as Goa Liberation Day on the nineteenth of December. Option C is wrong because Goa had already been a union territory since 1962, and the 1987 Act ended rather than began that status. Option D is wrong because the proposal to merge Goa with Maharashtra was put to the people in the opinion poll of 1967 and was rejected, which is why Goa kept a separate identity and eventually became a state.

The correct answer is C, 26 November 1949. The Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave to itself the Constitution on the twenty sixth of November 1949, and that day is kept every year as Constitution Day or Samvidhan Divas. Option A, 26 January 1950, is the date the Constitution came into force, which is Republic Day; the day was chosen because the Lahore session of the Congress had made the twenty sixth of January 1930 the first Independence Day. Option B, 9 December 1946, is the day the Constituent Assembly met for the first time, with Sachchidananda Sinha as temporary chairman before Rajendra Prasad was elected president. Option D, 15 August 1947, is the date of independence under the Indian Independence Act. Papers turn this question on the single word adopted, enforced or commenced, so read the stem carefully.