Firsts in Awards: First Indians and First Women

The correct answer is B, Rabindranath Tagore. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali, becoming not only the first Indian but the first Asian of any country to receive a Nobel Prize. Option A, C. V. Raman, won the Physics prize in 1930 for the scattering effect named after him, and he was the first Indian to win in a science subject, which is a different first and the most common confusion in this question. Option C, Mother Teresa, received the Peace Prize in 1979 and was the first woman holding Indian citizenship to be honoured. Option D, Hargobind Khorana, shared the Medicine prize in 1968 for work on the genetic code, but he had taken American citizenship by then and is counted as a laureate of Indian origin.

The correct answer is B, C. V. Raman. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his work on the scattering of light, the phenomenon known as the Raman effect, which he announced on 28 February 1928; that date is kept as National Science Day. Option A, Jagadish Chandra Bose, did pioneering work on radio waves and on plant physiology and is honoured in India for it, but he never received a Nobel Prize, which makes him the strongest distractor here. Option C, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, won the Physics prize in 1983 for his work on the structure and evolution of stars, by which time he was an American citizen; he was also Raman's nephew. Option D, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, shared the Chemistry prize in 2009 and holds British and American citizenship.

The correct answer is B, C. Rajagopalachari. The Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1954 and in that first year it went to three men: C. Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, then Vice-President and later President, and the physicist C. V. Raman. Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, received the honour in 1955, a year later, which is exactly the near miss the examiner is testing. Option C, Indira Gandhi, received it in 1971 and was the first woman to be honoured. Option D, Lal Bahadur Shastri, received it in 1966, and his was the first Bharat Ratna conferred posthumously. Learn these four names with their four years together, because the question is set by swapping one for another. Note also that the Padma awards were instituted in the same year, 1954, and that the Bharat Ratna is announced by the President and carries no monetary grant.

The correct answer is B, Indira Gandhi. She received the Bharat Ratna in 1971, while she was Prime Minister, and she remains the first woman on the list. Option A, Mother Teresa, received it in 1980 and holds a different first: she was the first naturalised Indian, that is a person born abroad who had taken Indian citizenship, to be honoured, and she had received the Nobel Peace Prize the previous year. Option C, M. S. Subbulakshmi, the Carnatic vocalist, received it in 1998 and was the first musician to be given the award. Option D, Aruna Asaf Ali, the heroine of the Quit India Movement who hoisted the flag at the Gowalia Tank maidan in 1942, received the Bharat Ratna in 1997, and hers was a posthumous award.

The correct answer is A, Lal Bahadur Shastri. He died at Tashkent in January 1966 after signing the agreement that ended the war of 1965, and the Bharat Ratna was conferred on him that same year, the first time the honour was given after the recipient's death. Option B, Vallabhbhai Patel, who died in 1950, received the award much later, in 1991, so his was also posthumous but not the first. Option C, B. R. Ambedkar, the chairman of the drafting committee of the Constitution, died in 1956 and was honoured in 1990, again posthumously and again not the first. Option D, Rajiv Gandhi, was assassinated in 1991 and received the Bharat Ratna in that year. The question turns entirely on which posthumous award came earliest, so fix 1966 in memory.

The correct answer is B, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Known as the Frontier Gandhi and as Badshah Khan, he led the Khudai Khidmatgar movement in the North-West Frontier Province and became a citizen of Pakistan after partition; India honoured him with the Bharat Ratna in 1987, the first time the award went to someone who was not an Indian citizen. Option A, Nelson Mandela, was the second such recipient, honoured in 1990, which makes him the obvious trap. Option C, Mother Teresa, was born in Skopje but had taken Indian citizenship, so she is counted as the first naturalised Indian to be honoured, in 1980, and not as a foreigner. Option D, the Dalai Lama, has received many honours in India, but the Bharat Ratna is not among them.

The correct answer is A, Major Somnath Sharma. He commanded a company of the 4th Battalion of the Kumaon Regiment at Badgam near Srinagar in November 1947 and held off a far larger force of raiders until he was killed; the Param Vir Chakra, instituted on 26 January 1950 with effect from 15 August 1947, was conferred on him posthumously as the first award of the decoration. Option B, Captain Vikram Batra, received the Param Vir Chakra for the Kargil conflict of 1999, more than fifty years later. Option C, Subedar Joginder Singh, was honoured for the war with China in 1962 at Tongpen La. Option D, Major Shaitan Singh, was honoured for the stand at Rezang La in the same war of 1962. All four are genuine recipients, so only the first matters here.

The correct answer is B, Bhanu Athaiya. She won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1983, for the film Gandhi released in 1982, sharing it with John Mollo, and she was the first Indian to win an Oscar in any category. Option A, Satyajit Ray, received an Honorary Academy Award in 1992 for lifetime achievement, which is a different kind of award and came nine years later; he is therefore the first Indian to receive an honorary Oscar, not the first Indian winner. Option C, A. R. Rahman, won two Oscars in 2009 for the music of Slumdog Millionaire, for original score and for the song Jai Ho. Option D, Resul Pookutty, won in the same year for sound mixing in the same film. The trap in this question is the word first.

The correct answer is B, Devika Rani. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, was instituted in 1969 to mark the birth centenary of Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who made Raja Harishchandra in 1913, and the first award went to the actress Devika Rani, who was also a founder of Bombay Talkies. Option A, Prithviraj Kapoor, received the award in 1971, and his was a posthumous honour. Option C, B. N. Sircar, the founder of New Theatres in Calcutta, received it in 1970 as the second recipient, which makes him the closest distractor. Option D, Pankaj Mullick, the composer and singer, received it in 1972. The chain of the first four years is worth memorising in order, because the question is sometimes asked about the second recipient instead.

The correct answer is B, G. Sankara Kurup. The Malayalam poet received the first Jnanpith Award in 1965 for his collection Odakkuzhal, meaning the bamboo flute; the award is given by the Bharatiya Jnanpith for outstanding writing in any of the languages recognised by the Constitution. Option A, Ashapurna Devi, won it in 1976 for the Bengali novel Pratham Pratishruti and holds the related first of being the first woman to receive the award, which is why she is placed here. Option C, Umashankar Joshi, won it in 1967 for Gujarati, sharing the award that year. Option D, Sumitranandan Pant, won it in 1968 for the Hindi collection Chidambara, and he was the first Hindi writer to be honoured, another first that is frequently asked alongside this one.

The correct answer is B, Karnam Malleswari. She won a bronze medal in weightlifting at the Sydney Olympics of 2000, in the sixty-nine kilogram category, and became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal of any colour. Option A, P. T. Usha, is the most tempting answer because of her fame on the track, but she finished fourth in the four hundred metres hurdles at Los Angeles in 1984, missing a medal by one hundredth of a second, so she never won one. Option C, Mary Kom, won a bronze in boxing at London in 2012, twelve years after Malleswari. Option D, Saina Nehwal, won a bronze in badminton at the same London Olympics of 2012. Remember also that Abhinav Bindra won India's first individual Olympic gold, in shooting, at Beijing in 2008.

The correct answer is A, Viswanathan Anand. The chess grandmaster received the award in its first year, 1991-92, when it was called the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna; it was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna in 2021 and remains the highest sporting honour of the country. Option B, Leander Paes, received it in 1996-97 after his Olympic bronze in tennis at Atlanta. Option C, Sachin Tendulkar, received it in 1997-98 and later became the first sportsperson to be given the Bharat Ratna, in 2014. Option D, Geet Sethi, the billiards champion, received it in 1992-93 as the second recipient, which makes him the nearest wrong answer. Keep the two other sporting awards in mind as well: the Arjuna Awards began in 1961 and the Dronacharya Award for coaches in 1985.