Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 12

The correct answer is B, Thailand. The baht is the currency of Thailand, whose capital is Bangkok. Thailand is the only country in South East Asia that was never a European colony, and it is a founder member of the grouping known as ASEAN, whose headquarters is at Jakarta.

Option A, Vietnam, uses the dong and its capital is Hanoi. Option C, Indonesia, uses the rupiah, a name close to the Indian rupee but a different currency altogether. Option D, Singapore, is a city state whose currency is the Singapore dollar and whose name serves as both country and capital. Because these four countries appear together in almost every question on this region, it is worth writing the four pairs of capital and currency on one line and revising them as a set.

The correct answer is A, Brazil. Brazil is called the Coffee Bowl of the World because it grows and sends out more coffee than any other country and has done so for more than a century. Its coffee belt lies in the south-east, in the states of Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo and Parana, where the deep red soil called terra rossa, the warm climate and the rolling plateau suit the plant. The large estates there are known as fazendas, and the port of Santos handles much of the export. Coffee needs a hot, wet climate with well drained slopes, which is why it is a plantation crop of the tropics. B is wrong because Mexico is a smaller coffee grower and is better known for maize and silver. C is wrong because India grows coffee mainly in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu but is far behind Brazil. D is wrong because Serbia has a cool climate that cannot support coffee at all. Exam tip: Brazil Coffee Bowl of the World, Sri Lanka Pearl of the Indian Ocean, Cuba Sugar Bowl of the World.

The correct answer is B, Rome. The Food and Agriculture Organization was founded in 1945 and works from Rome in Italy. It leads international work on food production, nutrition and rural development, publishes the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, and observes World Food Day on 16 October, the date of its founding. Rome also holds the World Food Programme, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Option A, Paris, is the seat of UNESCO, the OECD and the Financial Action Task Force. Option C, Bern in Switzerland, holds the Universal Postal Union, one of the oldest international bodies. Option D, Brussels, is the headquarters of NATO and of the main institutions of the European Union. Rome is the food city and that link is enough to answer the question.

The correct answer is D, India, Australia, Japan and the US. Malabar 2020 was held in two phases in November 2020, the first in the Bay of Bengal off Visakhapatnam and the second in the Arabian Sea, and Australia joined India, Japan and the United States in it. Malabar began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the US Navy. Japan became a permanent participant in 2015. Australia had taken part once in 2007 and then returned in 2020, which brought the navies of all four Quad countries together in the same exercise. The drills cover anti-submarine warfare, air defence, cross-deck flying and live firing. Option A is wrong because that was the three-nation line-up from 2015 to 2019, before Australia rejoined. Option B is wrong because Israel has never been part of Malabar. Option C is wrong for the same reason, and it also leaves out Japan, a permanent member. Exam tip: Malabar started 1992 as India-US, Japan permanent from 2015, Australia from 2020 — the four Quad navies.

The correct answer is D, Mumbai. Axis Bank, which began in 1994 as UTI Bank and was renamed in 2007, has its corporate office in Mumbai, the city that also holds the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the State Bank of India, the Central Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and both stock exchanges. Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, so most private banks and insurers are based there.

Option A, Ahmedabad, is where Axis Bank was registered and has a large office, which makes it the trap in this question, and it is also the home of the Space Applications Centre and the Physical Research Laboratory. Option B, Bengaluru, is the headquarters of Canara Bank and of ISRO. Option C, Chennai, is the headquarters of Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. None of these is the headquarters of Axis Bank.

The correct answer is B, Shri Krishna Sinha. Shri Krishna Sinha, affectionately called Shri Babu, is remembered as Bihar Kesari, the lion of Bihar. He was the first Premier of Bihar under the 1937 provincial elections and then the first Chief Minister of the state after independence, holding office until 1961. He led the Barahiya Tal satyagraha against illegal levies, joined the salt satyagraha, and made Bihar the first state in India to abolish the zamindari system in 1950. He also worked with Dr Rajendra Prasad to have the Deoghar temple opened to Dalits. Option A is wrong because Rajendra Prasad, independent India's first President, is called Desh Ratna and Bihar Vibhuti. Option C is wrong because Karpoori Thakur is remembered as Jannayak, the people's leader. Option D is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai was Punjab Kesari and Sher-e-Punjab. Exam tip: Punjab Kesari is Lajpat Rai, Bihar Kesari is Shri Krishna Sinha, Andhra Kesari is T. Prakasam.

The correct answer is B, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Patel was the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India, and he persuaded or pressed more than five hundred princely states into joining the Indian Union after 1947. That firmness earned him the name Iron Man of India, and for the same work he is also called the Bismarck of India. The title Sardar came earlier, from the peasant women of Bardoli after he led the Bardoli Satyagraha of 1928.

Option A, Lala Lajpat Rai, is Punjab Kesari or Sher-e-Punjab. Option C, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, is Lokmanya, and Valentine Chirol called him the Father of Indian Unrest. Option D, Subhas Chandra Bose, is Netaji. All three are correct sobriquets, but for different people, which is exactly how this question is built.

The correct answer is B, 2004. The committee on civil services reforms under P. C. Hota, a former Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission, was set up in 2004 and gave its report the same year. It looked at how officers are recruited, trained, posted and promoted, and suggested a fixed minimum tenure in a post, a sounder system of performance appraisal, mid-career training with examinations, and lateral entry of specialists for jobs needing domain knowledge. Many of its ideas later fed into the work of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission set up in 2005 under Veerappa Moily. Option A is wrong because 2003 saw no such committee. Option C is wrong because 2005 is the year of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission and of the Right to Information Act. Option D is wrong because by 2006 the Hota report was already being examined. Exam tip: Hota Committee 2004 on civil services reform; Second ARC 2005 under Veerappa Moily.

The correct answer is D, Indonesia. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, has four members — India, the United States, Japan and Australia — and Indonesia is not one of them. The grouping grew out of the coordination between these four navies after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, was set up as a dialogue in 2007, lapsed for a decade and was revived in 2017. It is an informal strategic forum rather than a treaty alliance with a standing army, and it works on maritime security, vaccines, critical and emerging technology, climate action and infrastructure across the Indo-Pacific. The Malabar naval exercise, which began as an India–United States drill, now brings all four Quad navies together. Options A, B and C are wrong because the United States, India and Japan are all founder members of the Quad. Indonesia is instead a founder member of ASEAN and a G20 member, and it works with India through forums such as the East Asia Summit and IORA. Exam tip: Quad = India, US, Japan, Australia; Malabar is the exercise of these four navies.

The correct answer is C, Kanpur. The Indian Institute of Pulses Research works at Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and is one of the institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. It began in 1984 as the Project Directorate on Pulses and was raised to an institute in 1993. Its work is on chickpea, pigeonpea, lentil, mungbean, urdbean and field pea: breeding better varieties, protecting the crop from disease and pests, and advising farmers, which matters because India is the largest producer and consumer of pulses in the world. Option A is wrong because Bhopal has the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering. Option B is wrong because Patna has the ICAR Research Complex for the Eastern Region. Option D is wrong because Hyderabad has the Indian Institute of Rice Research and the Institute of Millets Research. Exam tip: Kanpur pulses, Hyderabad rice and millets, Shimla potato, Lucknow sugarcane.

The correct answer is C, The Hague. The Netherlands keeps Amsterdam as its constitutional capital, but the seat of government, the parliament, the residence of the monarch and the supreme court are all at The Hague. The International Court of Justice, the chief judicial organ of the United Nations, sits there in the Peace Palace, and so does the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The currency of the Netherlands is the euro.

Option A, Amsterdam, is the capital in name and the largest city, known for its canals. Option B, Rotterdam, is one of the busiest ports of Europe but has no such role. Option D, Utrecht, is an old university city. Remember the pairing that Amsterdam is the capital on paper while The Hague is where the work of the state is actually done.

The correct answer is C, Honours Your Trust. UCO Bank uses this line in its logo and advertising.

UCO Bank was founded in Kolkata in 1943 as the United Commercial Bank, and the industrialist G. D. Birla was behind its creation. It was one of the fourteen banks nationalised in July 1969, took its present name in 1985, and still has its head office in Kolkata. Taglines are a favourite one-mark question because each public sector bank keeps the same line for years.

Option A, 'Good People to bank with', belongs to Union Bank of India. Option B, 'Where every individual is committed', is the line of Bank of India. Option D, 'Faithful And Friendly', is used by Bank of Maharashtra.

Exam tip: UCO Bank - Kolkata, 1943, 'Honours Your Trust'; Union Bank - 'Good People to bank with'.

The correct answer is B, Vienna. The International Atomic Energy Agency was set up in 1957 and works from Vienna in Austria. It promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy and applies safeguards and inspections to see that nuclear material is not diverted to weapons, work for which it and its then head shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. India is a member and several of its civil nuclear plants are under agency safeguards. Vienna also holds UNIDO and the secretariat of OPEC.

Option A, The Hague, holds the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Option C, Geneva, holds the WHO, ILO and WTO. Option D, Stockholm, is the city of the Nobel Foundation and of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, not of the atomic energy agency.

The correct answer is D, Hubli. The South Western Railway zone has its headquarters at Hubballi, still widely written as Hubli, in Karnataka. The zone was carved out of the Southern and South Central Railways and began work on 1 April 2003; it runs the Hubballi, Bengaluru and Mysuru divisions and covers most of Karnataka with a little of Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Option A is wrong because Chennai is the headquarters of Southern Railway, the first zone of independent India, formed in 1951. Option B is wrong because Secunderabad is the headquarters of South Central Railway. Option C is wrong because Kolkata is the headquarters of Eastern Railway and of Metro Railway, while South Eastern Railway sits at Garden Reach in the same city. Indian Railways is managed by the Railway Board, and the first train in India ran from Bori Bunder to Thane on 16 April 1853. Exam tip: Hubballi South Western, Jabalpur West Central, Bilaspur South East Central, Hajipur East Central, Bhubaneswar East Coast.

The correct answer is B, Hyderabad. IRDAI was constituted under the IRDA Act of 1999 to regulate insurers, to register them and to protect policyholders. Its office was shifted from New Delhi to Hyderabad, and it is the one major financial regulator of India that works from neither Mumbai nor the capital, which is why the question is repeated so often.

Option A, Mumbai, holds the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the Life Insurance Corporation and the reinsurer GIC Re, so a candidate who reasons that insurance means Mumbai marks it wrongly. Option C, New Delhi, holds the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority and the National Housing Bank. Option D, Pune, is the headquarters of Bank of Maharashtra and of the National Insurance Academy, not of the regulator itself.

The correct answer is C, Anti-lock braking system. ABS stands for anti-lock braking system, a safety device that keeps the wheels from locking during hard braking. Sensors at the wheels watch how fast each one is turning, and when a wheel is about to stop turning the control unit releases and applies the brake pressure many times a second. Because the wheels keep rolling, the tyres hold their grip on the road, so the driver can still steer while braking hard and the vehicle usually stops in a shorter distance. A locked wheel simply skids and goes wherever it was already going. ABS is now required by law on cars and on larger two-wheelers in India. Option A is wrong because 'avoid brake system' is not a term used for any vehicle part. Option B is wrong because 'actual brake system' has no meaning in engineering. Option D is wrong because an automatic braking system is a different feature in which the vehicle applies the brakes by itself to avoid a crash. Exam tip: ABS prevents wheel lock and keeps steering control; it does not replace the brakes.

The correct answer is C, Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose addressed Gandhi as the Father of the Nation in a radio broadcast made while he was leading the Azad Hind movement during the Second World War, and the phrase has stayed with Gandhi ever since. It is worth noting that the expression is a mark of respect and not a constitutional or official title, because the Constitution confers no such designation.

Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave the nation the phrase about the light having gone out of our lives on the evening of Gandhi's assassination, which candidates often confuse with this question. Option B, Rabindranath Tagore, is credited with the other great title, Mahatma. Option D, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, worked closely with Gandhi but coined no title for him. The pairing to remember is Tagore for Mahatma and Bose for Father of the Nation.

The correct answer is C, Kathmandu. SAARC was founded by the declaration signed at Dhaka in December 1985 by seven countries, and Afghanistan joined later as the eighth member. Its permanent secretariat, however, was opened at Kathmandu in Nepal in 1987 and works there under a Secretary-General drawn in turn from the member states. The distinction between the city of founding and the city of the secretariat is exactly what papers test.

Option A, Dhaka, is where the charter was signed, which makes it the favourite wrong answer, and it is also the seat of the BIMSTEC secretariat. Option B, Colombo, hosts no SAARC secretariat, although it holds some regional centres. Option D, New Delhi, is the home of the South Asian University, set up under a SAARC agreement, but not of the secretariat.

The correct answer is A, Lucknow. SIDBI was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 as the principal financial institution for the promotion, financing and development of micro, small and medium enterprises, and its head office is at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. It refinances banks that lend to small units and runs the funds that support start-ups and microfinance institutions.

Option B, Mumbai, is the headquarters of NABARD and of the Export-Import Bank of India, the two institutions a candidate tends to group with SIDBI. Option C, Kanpur, is an industrial city of the same state and is the home of the Indian Institute of Technology and the National Sugar Institute, not of SIDBI. Option D, New Delhi, holds the National Housing Bank. The pair to remember is SIDBI with Lucknow.

The correct answer is B, Sarojini Naidu. Naidu was a poet in English whose collections include The Golden Threshold and The Bird of Time, and the lyrical quality of her verse earned her the name Nightingale of India, or Bharat Kokila. She was the first Indian woman to preside over the Indian National Congress and later became the Governor of the United Provinces.

Option A, Lata Mangeshkar, is the closest trap, because she is called Swar Kokila and the Queen of Melody, and some popular writing also calls her a nightingale; in exams the Nightingale of India is Sarojini Naidu. Option C, Annie Besant, was the first woman President of the Congress overall and the founder of the Home Rule League. Option D, Kamala Nehru, took part in the civil disobedience movement but carries no such title.