Cultural Institutions of India: Academies, ICCR and Museums

The correct answer is B, the Sahitya Akademi. Founded on 12 March 1954 with Jawaharlal Nehru as its first President, it is the national academy of letters, recognises twenty-four languages, the twenty-two of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution together with English and Rajasthani, and gives the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Bhasha Samman and translation prizes. Option A is wrong because the Sangeet Natak Akademi is the academy of the performing arts, that is music, dance and drama. Option C is wrong because the Lalit Kala Akademi is the academy of the visual arts, covering painting, sculpture and graphic art. Option D is wrong because the Indian Council for Cultural Relations is not an academy at all; it carries Indian culture abroad through cultural centres, scholarships and chairs of Indian studies, and it works under the Ministry of External Affairs.

The correct answer is A, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The Council was founded on 9 April 1950 by Azad, independent India's first Education Minister, who also became its first President; its headquarters in New Delhi is named Azad Bhavan after him. Its work is cultural diplomacy: Indian cultural centres abroad, scholarships for foreign students, chairs of Indian studies, the Distinguished Indologist Award and journals in several languages. Option B is wrong because Jawaharlal Nehru was the first President of the Sahitya Akademi, a different body of the same decade. Option C is wrong because Dr S. Radhakrishnan, as Vice-President, inaugurated the Sangeet Natak Akademi in January 1953 but did not found the Council. Option D is wrong because C. Rajagopalachari was the last Governor-General of India and later a political leader in Madras, with no founding role here.

The correct answer is B, Rabindra Bhavan. The three national academies share the building on Ferozeshah Road in New Delhi named after Rabindranath Tagore, which is why a single question can cover all three at once. Option A is wrong because Azad Bhavan is the headquarters of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, named after its founder Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Option C is wrong because Shastri Bhavan houses offices of several Union ministries and is not the home of the academies. Option D is wrong because Dharohar Bhavan is the office of the Archaeological Survey of India in New Delhi. A useful way to keep them apart is that Rabindra Bhavan holds the academies that give awards in the arts and letters, Azad Bhavan the body that works abroad, and Dharohar Bhavan the body that protects monuments.

The correct answer is A, the Sangeet Natak Akademi. The Akademi created the National School of Drama in New Delhi in 1959 as one of its own training units, and the school became an independent autonomous body in 1975; it trains students in acting, direction, stage design and allied crafts, and it runs a repertory company. Option B is wrong because the Lalit Kala Akademi works in the visual arts and set up regional art centres with studios, not a drama school. Option C is wrong because the Indian Council for Cultural Relations sends Indian artists and teachers abroad and funds foreign students in India, but it founded no such school. Option D is wrong because the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting deals with film and broadcasting, including the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune, which is the plausible but different institution in this family.

The correct answer is B, 1954. The Lalit Kala Akademi was founded on 5 August 1954 as the national academy of art, in the same year as the Sahitya Akademi, which was inaugurated on 12 March 1954. It holds the National Exhibition of Art, gives the National Akademi Awards and elects Fellows of its own. Option A is wrong because 1952 belongs to the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which was created by a resolution of 31 May 1952 and inaugurated in January 1953, making it the eldest of the three. Option C is wrong because 1959 is the year the National School of Drama was set up by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Option D is wrong because 1961 is associated with other institutions of that decade and not with this academy. The simplest line to remember is one academy in 1952 and two in 1954.

The correct answer is B, Alexander Cunningham. The Archaeological Survey of India was created in 1861 and Cunningham, an army engineer turned archaeologist who had surveyed Buddhist sites following the accounts of Chinese travellers, became its first Director-General; he is often called the father of Indian archaeology. Option A is wrong because James Prinsep was the scholar who deciphered the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts in the 1830s, which made Ashoka's edicts readable, but he died long before the Survey was founded. Option C is wrong because John Marshall was a later Director-General, under whom the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were announced in the 1920s. Option D is wrong because Mortimer Wheeler headed the Survey in the 1940s and is remembered for his work at Harappa and Arikamedu and for training Indian archaeologists.

The correct answer is B, Kolkata. The Indian Museum at Kolkata was founded in 1814, grew out of the collections of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is both the oldest and the largest museum in the country, with sections on art, archaeology, anthropology, geology, zoology and botany. Option A is wrong because the National Museum in New Delhi dates only from 1949, when its collection was first shown at Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the National Gallery of Modern Art at Jaipur House from 1954. Option C is wrong because the Government Museum at Chennai, though an old and important collection with its bronze gallery, was founded later in the nineteenth century. Option D is wrong because the museum at Mumbai now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya belongs to the early twentieth century, having been planned to mark a royal visit.

The correct answer is C, seven. The Zonal Cultural Centres were created from 1985 onwards to work with folk and tribal arts across cultural rather than political boundaries, and there are seven of them: the North Zone Centre at Patiala, the North Central Zone Centre at Prayagraj, the West Zone Centre at Udaipur, the South Zone Centre at Thanjavur, the East Zone Centre at Kolkata, the North East Zone Centre at Dimapur and the South Central Zone Centre at Nagpur. Option A is wrong because five is the number of regions in several other administrative schemes and not of these centres. Option B is wrong because six leaves out one of the zones listed above, commonly the South Central Centre at Nagpur, which was the last to be added. Option D is wrong because eight is a distractor drawn from the eight states often grouped as the North East. Remember seven zones and seven headquarters together.

The correct answer is B, 1979. The Centre for Cultural Resources and Training was set up in New Delhi in 1979 to bring culture into school education, and it trains teachers and teacher educators, prepares teaching material on the arts, and gives scholarships to young children with talent in the arts. Option A is wrong because 1975 is the year the National School of Drama, founded in 1959, became an independent autonomous body. Option C is wrong because 1985 is the year from which the Zonal Cultural Centres were created, a different kind of body working on folk and tribal arts in the regions. Option D is wrong because 1987 is the year of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, which does research and documentation across the arts. Keeping these four years in order, 1975, 1979, 1985 and 1987, settles several questions at once.

The correct answer is A, Azad Bhavan in New Delhi. The building is named after Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who founded the Council on 9 April 1950 and was its first President, and it houses the body that runs India's cultural centres abroad, the scholarship schemes for foreign students and the chairs of Indian studies in foreign universities. Option B is wrong because Rabindra Bhavan holds the three national academies, the Sangeet Natak, Sahitya and Lalit Kala Akademis. Option C is wrong because Jaipur House is the home of the National Gallery of Modern Art, which opened in 1954. Option D is wrong because Teen Murti Bhavan, the residence of Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister, houses the museum and library named after him. A second fact worth attaching here is that the Council answers to the Ministry of External Affairs and not the Ministry of Culture.