Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 33

The correct answer is D, Addu City. The seventeenth SAARC summit was held in November 2011 at Addu City in the Maldives, the country's second largest urban area, on Addu Atoll in the far south of the chain, and its theme was building bridges. Option A is wrong because Male is the capital of the Maldives and hosted an earlier SAARC summit, which is why it is the strongest distractor here; the Maldives has hosted the summit more than once and the venue in 2011 was deliberately moved away from the capital. Option B is wrong because Dhaka hosted the very first summit in 1985, at which the SAARC Charter was adopted, and also a later one. Option C is wrong because Colombo in Sri Lanka has hosted SAARC summits of its own but not the seventeenth. The eighteenth summit, in 2014, was held at Kathmandu.

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 C, 15 August 1972. The six-digit Postal Index Number was brought into use on 15 August 1972 to replace the practice of writing out long postal addresses that often repeated place names found in several states. Option A is wrong because 15 August 1947 is the date of independence; the posts then still worked on the colonial system without numeric codes. Option B is wrong because no postal reform of this kind took place in 1965, and the date is offered only because it combines a Republic Day with a plausible year. Option D is wrong because 1986 is the year Speed Post was launched by the Department of Posts, a separate development that candidates often confuse with the PIN. Note also that the PIN shares its introduction date with Independence Day, which is how it is best remembered.

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, 1985 at Dhaka. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation came into being on 8 December 1985, when the heads of state and government of seven South Asian countries adopted its Charter at the first summit in Dhaka; the proposal had been made by President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh at the start of the decade, and 8 December is observed as SAARC Charter Day. Option A is wrong because 1983 is the year of the New Delhi declaration on South Asian regional cooperation, a preparatory step by the foreign ministers rather than the founding. Option C is wrong because 1987 is the year the SAARC Secretariat was opened at Kathmandu, on 16 January, a fact often swapped with the founding. Option D is wrong because Colombo hosted later summits and is not connected with the founding year.

The correct answer is C, the United States. The bald eagle has been the national bird and the central figure of the Great Seal of the United States since 1782, and the bison was later adopted as the national mammal. Option A, Canada, is wrong; its national animal is the beaver and the maple leaf is its best-known emblem, carried on the flag. Option B, Mexico, is a genuine distractor because its national bird is the golden eagle, shown on its flag gripping a snake while perched on a cactus, so a careless reader sees the word eagle and picks Mexico. Option D, Russia, uses the double-headed eagle on its coat of arms, but that is a heraldic emblem rather than a national bird. Three eagles in one question is the usual design, so attach each to its country.

The correct answer is A, Shriram Bhikaji Velankar. He was an Additional Secretary in the Union Ministry of Communications and a Sanskrit scholar, and he worked out the six-digit code that came into use on 15 August 1972. Option B is wrong because Sir Bartle Frere was the Commissioner of Sind who issued the Scinde Dawk in 1852, the first adhesive postage stamp in Asia, more than a century earlier. Option C is wrong because Rowland Hill was the British reformer behind the penny post and the idea of prepaid uniform postage in Britain, and he had no part in the Indian PIN. Option D is wrong because Lord Dalhousie was the Governor-General under whom the Post Office Act of 1854 reorganised the Indian posts, which is a different reform altogether.

The correct answer is C, Kothari commission 1966. The Kothari Commission, which worked from 1964 to 1966, recommended the three language formula for schools, and the policy of 1968 later adopted it. The commission was headed by Daulat Singh Kothari, then chairman of the University Grants Commission, and its report was titled Education and National Development. Under the formula a pupil learns the regional language or mother tongue, Hindi and English, so that the country keeps a link language while regional languages are respected. The same commission is remembered for asking that six per cent of national income be spent on education. A is wrong because the National Policy on Education of 1968 only accepted and announced what the commission had proposed. B is wrong because the policy of 1986 restated the formula and added the idea of a national system of education. D is wrong because the Chattopadhyaya Commission, which sat from 1983 to 1985, examined teachers and their status. Exam tip: the Kothari Commission of 1964 to 1966 proposed it and the 1968 policy adopted it.

The correct answer is B, Kathmandu. The SAARC Secretariat was established at Kathmandu in Nepal on 16 January 1987 and is headed by a Secretary-General chosen from the member states in turn; it coordinates the work of the technical committees and the regional centres. Option A is wrong because Dhaka is the city of the first summit of 1985 and is also the seat of the BIMSTEC Secretariat, which makes it the most likely wrong choice here. Option C is wrong because Colombo has hosted summits and is the headquarters of none of the three main groupings in this chapter. Option D is wrong because New Delhi hosts the South Asian University, opened in 2010 as a SAARC institution, and hosted the fourteenth summit in 2007 at which Afghanistan was admitted, but not the Secretariat. Remember Kathmandu for SAARC, Jakarta for ASEAN and Dhaka for BIMSTEC.

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 B, the postal region. The first of the six digits identifies one of the nine postal regions or zones into which the country is divided for the purpose of the PIN. Option A is wrong because the delivery post office is identified by the last three digits of the code, which are the most specific part of it. Option C is wrong because the sorting district is given by the third digit, read together with the first two; the first digit alone is far too broad for that. Option D is wrong because the zones are not arranged by the alphabetical order of state names at all; they run in a rough clockwise sweep beginning with the north-western states in zone 1, and the ninth zone is not a state grouping but the Army Postal Service.

The correct answer is B, Monthly channel. India Post moves its mail through six named channels, and there is no 'Monthly channel' among them. Under the Mail Network Optimisation Project the department separated its traffic so that each kind of article travels on a route with its own time norms. The six are the Metro channel, for mail between the big metro cities; the Rajdhani channel, linking the state capitals; the Green channel, for local mail inside a city; the Business channel, for corporate and bulk business mail; the Periodical channel, for newspapers and magazines; and the Bulk mail channel, for very large mailings. Because of this split, a letter addressed to a metro city does not travel with local city mail. A is wrong because the Metro channel is one of the six. C is wrong because the Rajdhani channel, which joins the capitals, is also one of them. D is wrong because the Business channel handles corporate and bulk mail and is on the list. Exam tip: the six mail channels are Metro, Rajdhani, Green, Business, Periodical and Bulk.

The correct answer is B, Afghanistan. SAARC began with seven members, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan was admitted as the eighth member at the fourteenth summit held in New Delhi in 2007, making it the only country to have joined the grouping after its founding. Option A is wrong because Myanmar is an observer at SAARC, and is instead a full member of BIMSTEC, which it joined in 1997. Option C is wrong because Mauritius is also an observer at SAARC, besides being the seat of the Indian Ocean Rim Association at Ebene. Option D is wrong because Iran is an observer and has sought membership without obtaining it. The list of observers, which includes China, Japan, the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Australia as well, is the set these three distractors come from.

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 C, the Army Postal Service. Zone 9 is the only one of the nine PIN zones that is functional rather than geographical: it covers Army Post Office and Field Post Office addresses wherever the units concerned are posted, so that mail to serving personnel need not disclose their location. Option A is wrong because the North-Eastern states fall in zone 7, along with West Bengal, Odisha and Sikkim. Option B is wrong because the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are also in zone 7 and not in a zone of their own. Option D is wrong because Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh lie in zone 1 with Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. Zone 9 is the detail most often tested in this topic.

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 A, the Bangkok Declaration. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was created on 8 August 1967 by the Bangkok Declaration, also called the ASEAN Declaration, signed by the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand; 8 August is observed as ASEAN Day. Option B is wrong because Jakarta is the seat of the ASEAN Secretariat but not the city of the founding declaration, and the two facts are deliberately mixed in option sheets. Option C is wrong because Manila has given its name to other agreements of the region and hosted later ASEAN summits. Option D is wrong because Singapore, although a founder, is associated with the ASEAN Declaration of Concord of a later period and with the secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Note also that BIMSTEC was founded in 1997 by a Bangkok Declaration of its own.

The correct answer is B, Scinde Dawk. It was issued in 1852 in the province of Sind by Sir Bartle Frere, its Commissioner, and was the first adhesive postage stamp brought out anywhere in Asia. Option A is wrong because the Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp, issued in Britain in 1840, not in Asia. Option C is wrong because the Jai Hind stamp bearing the national flag was issued on 21 November 1947 and was the first commemorative stamp of independent India, almost a century later. Option D is wrong because the Queen Victoria stamps of 1854 were the first to be valid throughout India, but they came two years after the Scinde Dawk, which remains the earliest. The distinction between the all-India stamp of 1854 and the provincial stamp of 1852 is the trap here.

The correct answer is B, Jakarta. The ASEAN Secretariat has been at Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, since 1976, and it supports the summits, the ministerial councils and the three community pillars into which the grouping's work was organised in 2015. Option A is wrong because Bangkok is the city where the founding declaration of 1967 was signed, and this is the commonest confusion in the chapter: founded at Bangkok, housed at Jakarta. Option C is wrong because Manila has hosted summits but holds no permanent organ of the grouping. Option D is wrong because Kuala Lumpur hosted the first East Asia Summit in 2005 and the summit of 2022 at which the admission of Timor-Leste was agreed in principle, but the Secretariat has never been there. India became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992 and a strategic partner in 2012.

The correct answer is B, Post Office Act, 1854. Passed while Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General, it made the posts an all-India department, created the post of Director General of Post Offices and fixed postage by the weight of a letter alone, so that distance no longer mattered. Option A is wrong because the Act of 1837 only gave the East India Company a monopoly over carrying letters and did not bring in distance-blind pricing. Option C is wrong because the Act of 1898 consolidated the existing law and governed the posts for more than a century, but it introduced neither the Director General nor the uniform rate. Option D is wrong because the Act of 2023 is the current law, which replaced the 1898 Act and removed the government monopoly on carrying letters.