Important Days & Dates Mixed Quiz: Set 7

The correct answer is A, the constitution of the World Health Organization came into force. WHO became a specialised agency of the United Nations on 7 April 1948, and the first World Health Day was observed in 1950; the organisation announces a theme for the day each year and its headquarters are at Geneva. Option B is wrong because the United Nations came into being on 24 October 1945, when its Charter took effect. Option C is wrong because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on 10 December 1948, an event marked by Human Rights Day. Option D is wrong on the year as well: the Stockholm Conference met in June 1972 and led to World Environment Day on 5 June. WHO also leads World No Tobacco Day on 31 May and World AIDS Day on 1 December.

The correct answer is B, the Constitution of India came into force. The Constitution took effect on 26 January 1950 and India became a sovereign republic. The date was chosen on purpose, because the Indian National Congress had declared Purna Swaraj, or complete independence, on 26 January 1930, and the founders wished to honour that pledge.

Option A is wrong because independence came on 15 August 1947, which is observed as Independence Day. Option C is wrong because the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949, and that day is kept as Constitution Day, earlier called Law Day; the two-month gap between adoption and commencement is exactly what this question tests. Option D is wrong because the first general election was held in 1951 and 1952, after the Republic had come into being.

The correct answer is A, Dr S. Radhakrishnan. He was born on 5 September 1888, was a philosopher and teacher before entering public life, and served as the first Vice-President and the second President of India. When admirers wished to celebrate his birthday, he asked that it be kept as Teachers' Day instead.

Option B, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was independent India's first Education Minister, and his birthday, 11 November, is observed as National Education Day, which makes him the strongest distractor. Option C, Dr Zakir Husain, was an educationist and the third President of India, but no national day is named for him. Option D, Dr Rajendra Prasad, was the first President of India and presided over the Constituent Assembly. Remember the pair: 5 September for teachers and 11 November for education.

The correct answer is A, Yoga for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. The second International Day of Yoga fell in 2016, the year after the first observance of 2015, and the theme tied yoga to the Sustainable Development Goals that the United Nations had adopted in 2015, with the main event held at Chandigarh. Options B, C and D are themes of the kind announced in other years or simply invented for the question, and they are meant to attract a candidate who remembers only that the themes speak of peace, wellness or health. The lesson for the examination hall is to count the editions: the first day was in 2015, so the second was in 2016, and the theme must belong to that year. The day itself is observed on 21 June, following the General Assembly resolution of 2014 on India’s proposal.

The correct answer is D, 2 October. The General Assembly declared the day in 2007 and set it on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, so that the date honours the leader whose method of non-violent resistance the resolution names. Option A, 30 January, is the day Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 and is observed in India as Martyrs’ Day, or Shaheed Diwas, but it is not the United Nations observance. Option B, 2 April, is World Autism Awareness Day, declared in 2007 as well, and it is placed here to catch a candidate who remembers only the year. Option C, 15 August, is India’s Independence Day and no United Nations day falls on it. Along with the yoga day of 21 June, this is the second observance in the UN calendar that comes directly from India.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. National Unity Day, or Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, is observed on 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, who was born in 1875 at Nadiad, Gujarat. The day was started in 2014 to honour his role as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister who brought more than 560 princely states into the Indian Union, earning him the title Iron Man of India. It is marked with a Run for Unity and a unity pledge, and on 31 October 2018 the 182-metre Statue of Unity was unveiled in his memory at Kevadia on the Narmada. A is wrong because Dr Ambedkar's birth anniversary, 14 April, is Ambedkar Jayanti. B is wrong because Indira Gandhi's birthday, 19 November, is observed as National Integration Day. D is wrong because Mother Teresa was born on 26 August, which is not a national day. Exam tip: 31 October means Sardar Patel, National Unity Day and the Statue of Unity.

The correct answer is B, Sir M. Visvesvaraya. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was born on 15 September 1861, served as the Diwan of Mysore, and built the Krishnarajasagara dam and the system of automatic sluice gates that made his name. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955, and Engineers' Day honours him.

Option A, Homi Jehangir Bhabha, was the architect of India's atomic energy programme and is remembered as a physicist rather than an engineer. Option C, Vikram Sarabhai, founded India's space programme, and Indian space landmarks are tied to him instead. Option D, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, was an aerospace scientist and the eleventh President of India; his birthday, 15 October, is observed as World Students' Day. A candidate who notices the day names the engineer, not the scientist, gets this right at once.

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, UNESCO. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization proclaimed the day in 1966, and it was first observed in 1967; UNESCO also leads International Mother Language Day on 21 February and World Teachers’ Day on 5 October. Option A, UNICEF, works for children and leads campaigns around World Children’s Day on 20 November, and it is the distractor most often chosen because literacy is thought of as a matter for children. Option C, the World Health Organization, leads the health observances of 7 April, 31 May and 1 December. Option D, the International Labour Organization, declared the World Day Against Child Labour on 12 June. Learning the agency along with each day removes a whole family of questions in one stroke.

The correct answer is B, Quit India Movement Day. The ninth of August is observed as Quit India Movement Day, or August Kranti Diwas, because the movement launched at the Bombay session of the Congress led to mass action from that date in 1942. The same date is also Nagasaki Day and the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples.

Option A, Hiroshima Day, falls three days earlier, on 6 August, marking the first atomic bombing of 1945, and the two bombing dates are the commonest pair to be mixed up. Option C, National Handloom Day, is observed on 7 August after the Swadeshi Movement of 1905. Option D, Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, is observed on 14 August, the day before Independence Day, in memory of those displaced and killed during the partition of 1947.

The correct answer is B, Major Dhyan Chand. The hockey player was born on 29 August 1905 and won Olympic gold with India in 1928, 1932 and 1936. National Sports Day is observed on his birthday, and the national sports awards are usually presented on that date.

Option A, Milkha Singh, was the athlete known as the Flying Sikh, who finished fourth in the 400 metres at the 1960 Rome Olympics, but no national day carries his name. Option C, Sachin Tendulkar, is a cricketer and a Bharat Ratna, and although his birthday is widely noted, it is not a national day. Option D, K. D. Jadhav, won India's first individual Olympic medal, a wrestling bronze in 1952, a fact worth knowing separately. The sports day belongs to hockey and to Dhyan Chand.

The correct answer is C, 2015. India proposed the day at the United Nations in 2014 and the General Assembly adopted the resolution in December of that year, so the first observance came on 21 June 2015. The date is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.

Option A, 2013, is before the proposal was made and has no bearing on the day. Option B, 2014, is the year the proposal was placed before the United Nations and the resolution adopted, and it is the answer most often chosen by candidates who remember only half the story. Option D, 2016, was the second observance. Hold the two years apart in one sentence: proposed and adopted in 2014, observed from 2015. Note also that 21 June is World Music Day and World Hydrography Day.

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, Sir M. Visvesvaraya, born on 15 September 1861. He was the engineer behind the Krishna Raja Sagara dam and the flood protection works of Hyderabad, served as Diwan of Mysore and was given the Bharat Ratna in 1955. Engineers' Day is observed on his birth anniversary every year.

Option B, Homi J. Bhabha, was the physicist who founded India's atomic energy programme and is remembered as the father of the Indian nuclear programme. Option C, Vikram Sarabhai, was the physicist who founded the Indian space programme and after whom the space centre at Thiruvananthapuram is named. Option D, Satish Dhawan, headed ISRO after Sarabhai and gave his name to the launch centre at Sriharikota. All three are scientists rather than the engineer honoured on this day.

The correct answer is C, 26 November. The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India on 26 November 1949, and that day is kept as Constitution Day. It was earlier observed as Law Day, and since 2015 it has been marked across government offices and schools as Samvidhan Diwas.

Option A, 26 January, is Republic Day, the day the Constitution came into force in 1950, two months after adoption; separating adoption from commencement is the whole point of the question. Option B, 15 August, is Independence Day, for the transfer of power in 1947. Option D, 14 September, is Hindi Diwas, the day in 1949 on which the Constituent Assembly accepted Hindi in the Devanagari script as the official language of the Union. All four dates sit in the same period of history, so each must be tied to its own event.

The correct answer is A, Louis Braille, who was born in France on 4 January 1809. Blinded in an accident as a child, he devised the system of raised dots that allows blind and partially sighted people to read and write by touch, and the system carries his name.

Option B, Helen Keller, was a deaf and blind American writer and campaigner whose life is closely associated with the education of people with these disabilities, which makes her a convincing distractor here. Option C, Alexander Graham Bell, worked with the deaf and invented the telephone, so he belongs to a different field of communication. Option D, Thomas Edison, is remembered for the electric lamp and the phonograph. The United Nations recognised 4 January as World Braille Day to draw attention to braille as a means of full participation in society.

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 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, 16 October. The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded on 16 October 1945 at Quebec in Canada, and the day has been observed in its memory since 1981; the FAO has its headquarters at Rome and leads the campaign every year. Option B, 24 October, is United Nations Day, the anniversary of the Charter coming into force in the same year, 1945, which is what makes the two dates easy to confuse. Option C, 1 December, is World AIDS Day, observed since 1988 under the World Health Organization. Option D, 5 October, is World Teachers’ Day, led by UNESCO since 1994. Notice that October carries three observances in this chapter — the second, the sixteenth and the twenty-fourth — and learn them as a set.

The correct answer is B, K. M. Cariappa became the first Indian Commander-in-Chief. On 15 January 1949, Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa took over from the last British commander as Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army, and that handover is what Army Day marks. He was later made a Field Marshal, an honour shared in India only with Sam Manekshaw.

Option A is wrong because the army as an institution is far older than 1949 and no single founding date is observed. Option C is wrong because the first Republic Day parade belongs to 26 January 1950. Option D is wrong because the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla was established in the nineteen fifties and has no national day of its own. Keep the three service days together: Army 15 January, Air Force 8 October and Navy 4 December.