Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 27

The correct answer is B, Charles Metcalfe. As acting Governor-General, Charles Metcalfe repealed the Licensing Regulations of 1823 through the Press Act of 1835, often called the Metcalfe Act, and freed Indian newspapers from the need for a licence; for this he is called the Liberator of the Indian Press. Option A is wrong because Lord William Bentinck is remembered for the abolition of sati in 1829 and for the suppression of thuggee, not for press reform. Option C is wrong because Macaulay, though he drafted the press regulation of 1835 as a member of the council and wrote the famous Minute on Education, is not the one given this title. Option D is wrong because Lord Hastings, Governor-General from 1813, relaxed pre-censorship in 1818 but the licensing rules returned in 1823.

The correct answer is B, Unity, Faith, Sacrifice. The Indian National Army took 'Ittehad, Etmad, Qurbani' as its motto, and those three words mean unity, faith and sacrifice.

Subhas Chandra Bose reorganised the INA at Singapore in 1943 and gave it the war cry 'Jai Hind' and the marching song 'Kadam Kadam Badhaye Ja'. The army had a women's regiment named after Rani Lakshmibai, which was led by Captain Lakshmi Sahgal.

Option A, Unity and Discipline, is the motto of the National Cadet Corps. Option C, Do or Die, was Gandhi's call to the people in the Quit India Movement of 1942. Option D, Service before self, is a general service slogan and was not the motto of the INA.

Exam tip: INA — motto Ittehad, Etmad, Qurbani; slogan Jai Hind; founded 1942 and reorganised by Bose in 1943.

The correct answer is B, Rashtrakuta. Cave 16 at Ellora in Maharashtra, the Kailasa temple, was cut under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I in the eighth century. It is a monolithic temple, excavated downward from the top of the hillside so that courtyard, gateway, shrine and tower were all carved out of one mass of rock rather than built up from blocks. Option A is wrong because the Chalukyas of Badami are associated with the cave temples at Badami and the group at Aihole and Pattadakal. Option C is wrong because the Pallavas worked at Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram, where the Shore Temple and the Pancha Rathas stand. Option D is wrong because the Chandelas built the Khajuraho group in Madhya Pradesh, which is structural stone temple architecture and not rock-cut work.

The correct answer is D, Foreign Policy of India. Panchsheel is the name given to the five principles that guide India's conduct towards other countries.

The five are mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. They were written into the preamble of the agreement on trade and intercourse with the Tibet region of China, signed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai on 29 April 1954. The word itself comes from Buddhist usage, where the five rules of conduct are called panchsheel, and these principles later fed into the non-aligned movement.

A is wrong: the Fundamental Duties were added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976 and now number eleven. B is wrong: NITI Aayog is a policy think tank set up in 2015 and has nothing to do with this term. C is wrong: inter-state relations are dealt with in Articles 261 to 263 of the Constitution.

Exam tip: Panchsheel means the five principles signed by Nehru and Zhou Enlai on 29 April 1954, the base of India's non-alignment.

The correct answer is B, Paris. The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel and completed in 1889 in Paris for the world exposition held to mark the centenary of the French Revolution, and it has remained the best known landmark of France. Option A is wrong because London's landmarks are Big Ben in the Elizabeth Tower of the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge. Option C is wrong because Rome is the city of the Colosseum, the great amphitheatre of the Roman empire, and of the Vatican beside it. Option D is wrong because Berlin is the city of the Brandenburg Gate. A detail worth adding is that Gustave Eiffel also designed the internal framework of the Statue of Liberty, which connects two of the most frequently set monuments in this chapter.

The correct answer is C, France and Germany. The Maginot Line was the chain of concrete forts that France built along its border with Germany.

It is named after Andre Maginot, the French war minister who pushed the project through, and it was built in the 1930s after the First World War to stop another German invasion. The line was deep, heavily armed and widely thought to be impregnable, but it covered only the German frontier. In 1940 the German army simply went around its northern end through the Ardennes in Belgium and France fell in six weeks, which is why a Maginot Line is now a byword for a defence that is strong in the wrong place.

A is wrong: no such line divides Namibia and Angola. B is wrong: the United States and Canada are separated by the 49th Parallel. D is wrong: the Germany and Poland boundary is the Oder Neisse Line, fixed after the Second World War.

Exam tip: Maginot Line is France and Germany, while the Siegfried Line was Germany's own answering line of defences.

The correct answer is C, Hawa Mahal. The Hawa Mahal at Jaipur was built in 1799 by Sawai Pratap Singh of the Kachhwaha house, and was designed by Lal Chand Ustad as a five storey screen of red and pink sandstone with hundreds of small jharokha windows. Option A is wrong because Mehrangarh fort at Jodhpur was founded by Rao Jodha of the Rathore house in 1459, long before Pratap Singh. Option B is wrong because the Purana Qila in Delhi is linked with Sher Shah Suri, who raised it on the site of Humayun's Dinpanah in the sixteenth century. Option D is wrong because India Gate was designed by Edwin Lutyens and completed in 1931 under British rule as a memorial to soldiers of the First World War. Hold Hawa Mahal with Sawai Pratap Singh and the year 1799.

The correct answer is B, Jugal Kishore Shukla. Udant Martand was brought out from Calcutta on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla as a weekly, and it is the first newspaper in Hindi; 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day on that account. The paper closed within about a year and a half for want of subscribers. Option A is wrong because Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi founded the Hindi weekly Pratap at Kanpur in 1913 and died in the Kanpur riots of 1931. Option C is wrong because Raja Ram Mohan Roy edited Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali and Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian. Option D is wrong because Madan Mohan Malaviya was associated with the Leader of Allahabad and with Hindi journalism later in the century, not with Udant Martand. The paper is also remembered for proving that a Hindi readership existed before any Hindi daily could be sustained.

The correct answer is B, Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi took over the English weekly Young India and the Gujarati weekly Navajivan in 1919 and used them to explain satyagraha, the Rowlatt agitation and the non-cooperation movement; in 1933 he began Harijan. He carried no advertisements in his papers so that they would stay independent, and his first paper had been Indian Opinion, started in South Africa in 1903. Option A is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru wrote widely but is linked to the National Herald, founded in 1938. Option C is wrong because Lala Lajpat Rai is associated with the journals People and Vande Mataram of Lahore. Option D is wrong because Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel is not identified with a paper of this kind. Navajivan also gave its name to the Navajivan Trust at Ahmedabad, which still publishes Gandhi's writings.

The correct answer is C, San Francisco Conference. The Charter of the United Nations was signed at San Francisco on 26 June 1945, at the close of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, by the delegates of fifty nations; Poland signed a little later and so the organisation began with fifty-one original members. The Charter came into force on 24 October 1945, once the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of the others had ratified it, and that day is kept as United Nations Day. The name United Nations was coined by President Franklin Roosevelt. Option A is wrong because The Hague is the seat of the International Court of Justice, not the place of signing. Option B is wrong because London is where the General Assembly held its first session, in January 1946. Option D is wrong because no United Nations conference was held at Berlin. Exam tip: signed 26 June 1945 at San Francisco and in force from 24 October 1945.

The correct answer is B, George Wittet. The Gateway of India on the Apollo Bunder waterfront at Mumbai was designed by the Scottish architect George Wittet in a style that blends Gujarati work with Islamic arch forms, and it was completed in 1924 to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. Wittet also designed the building that now houses the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in the same city. Option A is wrong because Edwin Lutyens planned New Delhi with Herbert Baker and designed Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate. Option C is wrong because Frederick William Stevens designed the Victoria Terminus, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, in Mumbai. Option D is wrong because William Emerson designed the Victoria Memorial at Kolkata, which was proposed by Lord Curzon.

The correct answer is A, 1962. The Sino-Indian War was fought between 20 October and 21 November 1962, when China attacked across the Himalayan frontier. The fighting ran in two separate theatres, Aksai Chin in Ladakh in the west and the North East Frontier Agency, today Arunachal Pradesh, in the east. China declared a unilateral ceasefire on 21 November 1962 and kept Aksai Chin. Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister and the reverses cost Defence Minister V. K. Krishna Menon his post; the war pushed India to enlarge its army and raise mountain divisions trained for high altitude. Option B is wrong because no India-China war took place in 1969. Option C is wrong because 1973 is remembered for the Kesavananda Bharati judgment and the launch of Project Tiger, not a war. Option D is wrong because 1964 is the year Nehru died. Exam tip: 1962 with China, 1965 and 1971 with Pakistan, 1999 Kargil.

The correct answer is B, France. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States, dedicated in 1886, designed by the sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi with its internal framework by Gustave Eiffel, and it stands on an island at the entrance to New York harbour. Option A is wrong because Britain was the power from which the American colonies had won independence, so a gift of this kind from Britain would make no sense. Option C is wrong because Spain's connection with the Americas lies in the earlier age of exploration and colonisation. Option D is wrong because Italy made no such gift, and the name is placed in the options only because of the country's reputation in sculpture. The statue stands on Liberty Island at the entrance to New York harbour and was raised there as a mark of the friendship between the two republics.

The correct answer is A, Boston. The Freedom Trail is a 2.5-mile red brick path laid out in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1951, linking sixteen sites connected with the American Revolution. Walkers pass the Massachusetts State House, the Old South Meeting House where the Boston Tea Party was planned, the spot of the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere's house and the Bunker Hill Monument, and the walk ends at the warship USS Constitution. Boston was the centre of colonial protest against British taxes, which is why so much of the revolution's story sits inside one walkable city. B is wrong because Memphis in Tennessee is known for Beale Street and the civil rights museum at the Lorraine Motel. C is wrong because Denver in Colorado is a much later city of the American West. D is wrong because Connecticut is a state, not a city. Exam tip: Freedom Trail, Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre all point to the same city.

The correct answer is A, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Gujarat. The Statue of Unity stands 182 metres high on Sadhu Bet island in the Narmada near the Sardar Sarovar dam in the Narmada district of Gujarat, was sculpted by Ram V. Sutar, and was unveiled on 31 October 2018, the birth anniversary of Patel. Option B is wrong because there is no statue of Mahatma Gandhi of this scale, and the famous Gandhi memorials are Raj Ghat in Delhi and Sabarmati ashram in Gujarat. Option C is wrong because the tall statue linked with Ambedkar is the Statue of Social Justice at Hyderabad, not a Madhya Pradesh monument. Option D is wrong because Bose is remembered through memorials in Kolkata and the renaming of islands, not by this statue. Fix 182 metres with the Statue of Unity.

The correct answer is C, Iran. The Lotus Temple, the Bahai House of Worship at Kalkaji in New Delhi, was designed by Fariborz Sahba, an architect born in Iran who later settled in Canada, and it was completed and opened for worship in December 1986. Twenty-seven marble petals set in clusters of three give the building its nine sides and nine doors and the shape of a half-open lotus, and the marble was quarried at Penteli in Greece. Like every Bahai house of worship it is open to people of all faiths and holds no idol, no altar and no sermon, only readings from scripture. A is wrong because no architect from the UAE was involved in the work. B is wrong because Japan has no connection with the building. D is wrong because the German link belongs to other projects in Delhi, not to this one. Exam tip: Lotus Temple, Bahai faith, architect Fariborz Sahba of Iran, opened 1986, nine sides and twenty-seven petals.

The correct answer is B, Rana Kumbha. Rana Kumbha of Mewar raised the nine-storeyed Vijay Stambha inside Chittorgarh fort in about 1448 to mark his victory over Mahmud Khilji of Malwa, and he also built the great hill fort of Kumbhalgarh, whose outer wall is among the longest fortification walls in the world. Option A is wrong because Rana Sanga, his descendant, is remembered for the battle of Khanwa against Babur in 1527 rather than for building this tower. Option C is wrong because Maharana Pratap belongs to a later generation and to the battle of Haldighati of 1576, and he built no monument of this kind. Option D is wrong because Rao Jodha of the Rathore house founded Mehrangarh at Jodhpur in 1459, in Marwar and not in Mewar.

The correct answer is B, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest religious monument in the world; it was built in the twelfth century as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu and later became a Buddhist site, and its image appears on the national flag of Cambodia. Option A is wrong because Borobudur in Java, Indonesia, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, which is a narrower superlative and the commonest confusion here. Option C is wrong because Hagia Sophia at Istanbul is famous as a church that became a mosque, not for its size. Option D is wrong because the Potala Palace at Lhasa was the residence of the Dalai Lama and is remembered for its setting rather than for being the largest.

The correct answer is B, Iltutmish. Qutb-ud-din Aibak laid the foundation of the Qutub Minar and completed only its first storey, and his successor Iltutmish added the storeys above, bringing the minaret to its height of 72.5 metres, which makes it the tallest brick minaret in the world. Option A is wrong because Balban, though a strong sultan of the same dynasty, is not associated with the building of the minaret. Option C is wrong because Alauddin Khalji built the Alai Darwaza in the same complex and began the unfinished Alai Minar, but did not complete the Qutub Minar. Option D is wrong because Firoz Shah Tughlaq only repaired the upper storeys after lightning damage, as Sikandar Lodi did later. The pair to remember is Aibak begins, Iltutmish completes.

The correct answer is B, Peru. Machu Picchu is the Inca citadel set high in the Andes of Peru, and it was chosen in 2007 as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Option A is wrong because the wonder in Mexico is Chichen Itza, the Mayan site in Yucatan, and the two are the pair most often interchanged because both are pre-Columbian sites of Latin America. Option C is wrong because the wonder in Brazil is Christ the Redeemer, the statue above Rio de Janeiro. Option D is wrong because Chile has no entry in the list. Learning the three Latin American wonders together, Machu Picchu in Peru, Chichen Itza in Mexico and Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, prevents the usual mistake.