Static GK Quiz: Banks, Companies and Their Taglines

The correct answer is A, Punjab National Bank. Punjab National Bank, founded at Lahore in 1894 and the first Indian bank started wholly with Indian capital, uses the line The Name You Can Bank Upon, which plays on the word bank as both a noun and a verb. Option B is wrong because Punjab and Sind Bank, a separate public sector bank with its head office in New Delhi, uses Where Service Is a Way of Life, and the similarity of the two names is exactly what the question is testing. Option C is wrong because Indian Bank uses Your Own Bank. Option D is wrong because UCO Bank, formerly the United Commercial Bank of Kolkata, uses Honours Your Trust. When two bank names share a word, check the tagline rather than the name, because paper setters group them deliberately.

The correct answer is B, Bank of Baroda. Bank of Baroda, founded in 1908 by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, calls itself India's International Bank because it has long carried the widest network of overseas branches among Indian public sector banks. Option A is wrong because the State Bank of India uses The Banker to Every Indian, having earlier used Pure Banking, Nothing Else and With You - All the Way. Option C is wrong because Bank of India, although it too has a sizeable foreign presence, uses Relationships Beyond Banking, and the closeness of the two names makes it the standard trap in this question. Option D is wrong because Canara Bank, founded at Mangaluru, uses Together We Can, a line that puts the bank's own name inside the slogan.

The correct answer is A, Canara Bank. Canara Bank, founded at Mangaluru in 1906 by Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, uses Together We Can, and the line is easy to fix in memory because the last word repeats the bank's own name. Option B is wrong because Corporation Bank, which was merged into Union Bank of India, had used Prosperity for All. Option C is wrong because Union Bank of India uses Good People to Bank With, a line often swapped with Indian Overseas Bank's Good People to Grow With. Option D is wrong because Central Bank of India uses Central to You Since 1911, the year it was founded in Mumbai by Sir Sorabji Pochkhanawala as the first Indian commercial bank wholly owned and managed by Indians. Learn such lines in groups of look-alikes, since that is how distractors are built.

The correct answer is B, Union Bank of India. Union Bank of India, which was inaugurated at Mumbai in 1919 by Mahatma Gandhi, uses Good People to Bank With. Option A is wrong, and it is the whole point of the question: Indian Overseas Bank uses the almost identical Good People to Grow With, so the two must be learnt as a pair, with bank for Union Bank and grow for Indian Overseas Bank. Option C is wrong because Bank of Maharashtra uses One Family One Bank. Option D is wrong because Indian Bank uses Your Own Bank. Questions of this kind reward candidates who revise by similarity rather than alphabetically, because a paper setter will never place four unrelated lines in one question when two near-identical ones are available.

The correct answer is A, Bank of India. Bank of India, founded at Mumbai in 1906 by a group of businessmen and nationalised in 1969, uses Relationships Beyond Banking. Option B is wrong because Bank of Baroda uses India's International Bank, and the pair Bank of India against Bank of Baroda is one of the most frequently set confusions in this chapter. Option C is wrong because HDFC Bank uses We Understand Your World. Option D is wrong because Federal Bank, a private bank based at Aluva in Kerala, uses Your Perfect Banking Partner. A useful memory hook is that the word relationship carries the sense of a bank that does more than take deposits, which is how Bank of India has positioned itself since the line was adopted.

The correct answer is B, Tata Steel. Tata Steel, set up at Jamshedpur in 1907 as Tata Iron and Steel Company, used the line We Also Make Steel to say that besides steel it had built a town, schools, hospitals and institutions, so the product was only part of the story. The campaign is a standard example of corporate advertising in Indian general knowledge. Option A is wrong because the Steel Authority of India Limited, the public sector producer formed in 1973, uses There's a Little Bit of SAIL in Everybody's Life. Option C is wrong because JSW Steel belongs to the JSW group and uses different lines for its businesses. Option D is wrong because Jindal Steel and Power is a separate company of the Jindal family. The reversed boast is what makes the Tata line memorable.

The correct answer is B, Amul. Amul, the brand of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation born out of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union at Anand, uses The Taste of India. Amul is also the brand behind Operation Flood and the White Revolution led by Verghese Kurien, which is why it appears in general knowledge papers in more than one chapter. Option A is wrong because Britannia uses Eat Healthy, Think Better. Option C is wrong because Mother Dairy, set up under the National Dairy Development Board, is a separate brand with its own lines. Option D is wrong because Haldiram's is a snack and sweets company with no such tagline. The Amul girl hoardings, running since 1966, make this the best known advertising line in India.

The correct answer is B, the Life Insurance Corporation of India. LIC, created by an Act of Parliament in 1956 when life insurance in India was nationalised, carries the Sanskrit motto Yogakshemam Vahamyaham, taken from the Bhagavad Gita and usually rendered as your welfare is our responsibility. Option A is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India, as the central bank and regulator, uses no commercial tagline; its emblem carries a palm tree and a tiger. Option C is wrong because National Insurance Company is a general insurer with its own separate branding. Option D is wrong because the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation administers provident fund, pension and insurance for organised sector workers and has no such Sanskrit motto. A Sanskrit line in this chapter almost always belongs to a statutory body, a force or a broadcaster.

The correct answer is B, Doordarshan. Doordarshan, India's public service television broadcaster under Prasar Bharati, carries the motto Satyam Shivam Sundaram, meaning the true, the auspicious and the beautiful. Option A is wrong, and it is the usual confusion: All India Radio, or Akashvani, uses Bahujan Hitaya Bahujan Sukhaya, for the welfare and happiness of the many. Learn the two together, because both belong to Prasar Bharati and both mottoes are in Sanskrit. Option C is wrong because the Films Division, which made documentaries and newsreels for the government, had no such motto. Option D is wrong because the Press Information Bureau is the publicity arm of the Government of India and is not given a Sanskrit motto in examination material. Radio takes the welfare line, television the beauty line.

The correct answer is A, Raymond. Raymond, the textile and apparel company whose mill began at Thane, has used The Complete Man since the 1990s, with advertisements that showed a man as father, husband and colleague rather than only as a buyer of suiting fabric. Option B is wrong because Peter England has used lines such as Honestly Impressive. Option C is wrong because Van Heusen is positioned around formal and business wear with its own campaigns. Option D is wrong because Allen Solly is remembered for Friday Dressing, the line that introduced the idea of smart casual office clothing in India. All four are menswear brands, which is why the question works; the examiner is testing one remembered pairing, not reasoning, so the only defence is a list learnt in advance.