Static GK Mixed Quiz: Set 35

The correct answer is D, 1979. The Second Backward Classes Commission, known as the Mandal Commission after its chairman Bindheshwari Prasad Mandal, was appointed on the first of January 1979 by the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai under Article 340 of the Constitution. It submitted its report in December 1980, identified a long list of socially and educationally backward communities and recommended twenty-seven per cent reservation for Other Backward Classes in central government services and in central educational institutions. Option A is wrong because 1990 is the year the recommendation was implemented, when the V. P. Singh government issued the office memorandum on OBC reservation, not the year of appointment. Option B is wrong because no backward classes commission was appointed in 1972. Option C is wrong because 1967 relates to the first Administrative Reforms Commission period and to the general elections of that year, not to this commission. The First Backward Classes Commission under Kaka Kalelkar had been appointed in 1953.

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 A, Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. The Treaty of Allahabad was signed in 1765 by Robert Clive with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh after the Company's victory at the Battle of Buxar in 1764. By it the emperor granted the Company the diwani, that is the right to collect the revenue, of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, which made the Company the real ruler of eastern India while the Nawab kept only the nizamat or police and judicial duties. Option B is wrong because Awadh and Rohilkhand were not ceded; Awadh was restored to Shuja-ud-Daula on payment of an indemnity and was kept as a buffer state. Option C is wrong because Awadh again does not belong in the list. Option D is wrong for the same reason, and because Odisha is the third province that completes the grant.

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 D, Mother Tongue. Every major Indian education commission has held that a child learns best in the language spoken at home. The Secondary Education Commission of 1952 under Dr A. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar and the Education Commission of 1964 to 1966 under Dr D. S. Kothari both said the mother tongue should be the medium at the primary stage, and the Kothari Commission built its three-language formula on that base. The National Policy on Education and later policy documents repeat the same position. Option A is wrong because the regional language of a state may not be the language a particular child speaks, as with a tribal or migrant child, so it is a weaker rule than the mother tongue. Option B is wrong because introducing English as the medium at the primary stage works against comprehension, though it is taught as a language. Option C is wrong because the official language, Hindi or English for Union purposes, is chosen for administration and not for the comprehension of young learners.

The correct answer is B, Bhutan. The takin is a heavily built goat-antelope of the eastern Himalayas, and Bhutan ties it to a legend about a saint who joined the head of a goat to the bones of a cow. Option A, Nepal, is wrong because its national animal is the cow, though the two countries are often swapped in a hurried reading. Option C, Myanmar, is wrong; the takin does occur in its northern hills, which is what makes this option plausible. Option D, Mongolia, is wrong, and the horse is the animal most associated with it. The rest of Bhutan's symbols complete a high-yield set: the raven as national bird, the blue poppy as national flower, the cypress as national tree, and the thunder dragon, the Druk, on the flag, from which the country takes its name Druk Yul.

The correct answer is B, the First Anglo-Maratha War. The Treaty of Salbai of 1782 closed the First Anglo-Maratha War, which had begun with the Company's attempt to place Raghunath Rao in power at Pune. The treaty restored the position as it stood before the war, recognised Madhav Rao II as the Peshwa and gave the Company about twenty years of peace with the Marathas, which it used against Mysore. Option A is wrong because the Second Anglo-Mysore War was ended by the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784, signed with Tipu Sultan. Option C is wrong because the Second Anglo-Maratha War followed the Treaty of Bassein of 1802 and ended with separate treaties at Deogaon and Surji-Arjungaon in 1803 and 1804. Option D is wrong because the First Anglo-Sikh War ended with the Treaty of Lahore in 1846.

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 A, Kaka Kalelkar. The First Backward Classes Commission was appointed in January 1953 under Article 340 with Dattatreya Balkrishna Kalelkar, known as Kaka Kalelkar, as chairman, and it submitted its report in 1955. It listed more than two thousand communities as backward but the government rejected the report, in part because the chairman added a note of dissent doubting whether caste should be the test of backwardness. Option B is wrong because B. P. Mandal chaired the Second Backward Classes Commission of 1979. Option C is wrong because Justice Rajinder Sachar chaired the committee of 2005 on the status of Muslims in India. Option D is wrong because Justice R. S. Sarkaria chaired the commission of 1983 on Centre-State relations. Keeping the two backward classes commissions apart by chairman and year is the quickest way to answer this family of questions.

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 Treaty of Bassein. Signed in 1802, it bound Peshwa Baji Rao II to Lord Wellesley's subsidiary alliance after his defeat by the Holkars at Poona. The Peshwa accepted a Company force in his territory at his own cost and gave up the right to deal with any other power, which the other Maratha chiefs treated as a surrender of Maratha independence and which led directly to the Second Anglo-Maratha War. Option A is wrong because the Treaty of Purandar of 1776 was an agreement between the Company and the Marathas that set aside the earlier Treaty of Surat. Option B is wrong because Salbai of 1782 only ended the first war between them. Option D is wrong because the Treaty of Amritsar was signed with Ranjit Singh in 1809 and fixed the Sutlej as the limit of Sikh expansion.

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, the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee. Appointed in 1957 to examine the working of the community development programme, it reported that development could not succeed without democratic decentralisation and recommended a three-tier structure: the gram panchayat at the village level, the panchayat samiti at the block level and the zila parishad at the district level, with elected bodies at the base. Rajasthan was the first state to adopt the system, inaugurated at Nagaur in October 1959, followed by Andhra Pradesh. Option A is wrong because the Ashok Mehta Committee of 1977 recommended a two-tier system with the mandal panchayat and the zila parishad. Option C is wrong because the L. M. Singhvi Committee of 1986 recommended constitutional status for panchayats and the creation of nyaya panchayats. Option D is wrong because the G. V. K. Rao Committee of 1985 recommended that the district be the unit of planning with a district development commissioner.

The correct answer is B, 1961. The Dowry Prohibition Act was passed in 1961 and came into force on 1 July that year.

The Act makes the giving, taking or demanding of dowry a punishable offence, and defines dowry as property or valuable security given in connection with a marriage. It was strengthened by amendments in 1984 and 1986, which fixed a minimum punishment and provided for Dowry Prohibition Officers. Around the same years criminal law added cruelty to a wife as an offence and made a death within seven years of marriage in suspicious circumstances a dowry death, with the burden of explanation on the husband's family.

A is wrong: no dowry law was passed in 1967. C is wrong: 1952 saw no such legislation. D is wrong: 1959 is when the bill was under discussion, but the Act carries the year 1961.

Exam tip: Dowry Prohibition Act - 1961, in force 1 July 1961, amended in 1984 and 1986.

The correct answer is B, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej. The Indus Waters Treaty was signed at Karachi in 1960 by Jawaharlal Nehru and President Ayub Khan, with the World Bank as the third party to the agreement. It divided the six rivers of the Indus system: the three eastern rivers, the Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej, were allotted to India, and the three western rivers, the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum, to Pakistan, with India allowed limited non-consumptive, domestic and run-of-the-river use of the western rivers. Options A, C and D are wrong because each mixes the two groups: A names exactly the three western rivers that went to Pakistan, while C and D each place one western river, the Chenab and the Jhelum respectively, in India's share.

The correct answer is B, Yuri Gagarin. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961 and completed a single orbit of the Earth, becoming the first human being in space. The day is now marked every year as the anniversary of human spaceflight.

Option A, Alexei Leonov, was also a Soviet cosmonaut, but his own first came four years later, in March 1965, when he stepped out of Voskhod 2 and made the first spacewalk. Option C, Neil Armstrong, was the first person to set foot on the Moon, in July 1969, which is a different first and the commonest confusion in this question. Option D, Rakesh Sharma, was the first Indian in space, in 1984 aboard a Soviet mission, and he is offered whenever the paper wants to see if the candidate has read the words in the world rather than in India.

The correct answer is B, Centre-State relations. The commission was appointed in 1983 under Justice Ranjit Singh Sarkaria, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, to review the working arrangements between the Union and the states. It reported in 1988 with recommendations that included the creation of the Inter-State Council, sparing use of Article 356, consultation with states before legislating on subjects in the Concurrent List, and appointment of Governors who are detached from local politics. Option A is wrong because banking reform was the work of the Narasimham Committees of 1991 and 1998. Option C is wrong because linguistic reorganisation was examined by the Dhar Commission of 1948, the JVP Committee of 1949 and the States Reorganisation Commission of 1953. Option D is wrong because poverty measurement was studied by the Lakdawala, Tendulkar and Rangarajan committees.

The correct answer is C, the Soviet Union. The Tashkent Declaration was signed in January 1966 by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan at Tashkent, then in the Soviet Union and now the capital of Uzbekistan, with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin as mediator. Both sides agreed to withdraw their forces to the positions held before the 1965 war and to restore diplomatic relations. Shastri died in Tashkent the same night the declaration was signed. Option A is wrong because the United States did not mediate this settlement, although it later hosted the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Option B is wrong because Britain played no mediating role here. Option D is wrong because Egypt, though a close non-aligned partner of India, was not a party to the talks.

The correct answer is C, the Kothari Commission. The Education Commission of 1964 to 1966, chaired by the physicist Dr Daulat Singh Kothari, was the first body to study education at every stage from the primary school to the university. It proposed a uniform national structure of ten years of general education, two years of higher secondary education and three years for the first degree, along with the three-language formula, work experience in school and public spending of six per cent of national income on education. Its report shaped the National Policy on Education of 1968. Option A is wrong because the Radhakrishnan Commission of 1948 dealt only with university education. Option B is wrong because the Mudaliar Commission of 1952 dealt with secondary education and suggested multipurpose schools. Option D is wrong because the Hunter Commission of 1882 was a colonial body on primary and secondary education.

The correct answer is B, Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The Shimla Agreement was signed in July 1972, after the war of 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh. Its central provisions were that the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir would be respected as the Line of Control and that India and Pakistan would settle their differences bilaterally and by peaceful means, without third-party involvement. Option A is wrong because Ayub Khan had left office by 1969; his agreement with India was the Tashkent Declaration of 1966. Option C is wrong because Lal Bahadur Shastri died in January 1966. Option D is wrong because Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif signed the Lahore Declaration in 1999, after the Delhi-Lahore bus service was started. A further point worth remembering is that the agreement was signed at Shimla in July 1972 and that the exchange of territory and the return of prisoners of war taken in 1971 followed from it, which is why the Shimla Agreement and the Tashkent Declaration are so often set against each other in a single question.