Delhi GK: Formation, Monuments and Exam Facts

The correct answer is C, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The Delhi Metro was the first metro and rail based system in the world to be certified by the United Nations for earning carbon credits, because its regenerative braking returns electricity to the grid each time a train slows. It also built solar plants at its stations and depots and uses rainwater harvesting and green buildings, which is why it is described as the first completely green metro.

Option A, the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, and option B, the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit, are both older and efficient systems but did not take the carbon credit route first. Option D, the London Underground, opened in 1863 and is the oldest underground railway in the world, which makes it the natural trap for a candidate who reads first as oldest. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation itself was set up in 1995 and its first stretch opened in December 2002.

The correct answer is A, the Sixty-ninth Amendment Act of 1991. It inserted Articles 239AA and 239AB into the Constitution, renamed the union territory of Delhi as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and gave it a legislative assembly and a council of ministers, with the arrangement coming into force in February 1992. The assembly can legislate on the State and Concurrent Lists except on public order, police and land.

Option B, the Seventy-third Amendment of 1992, added Part IX and gave constitutional status to panchayats. Option D, the Seventy-fourth Amendment of the same year, did the same for municipalities, and the two are often confused with this one because their dates are close. Option C, the Sixty-first Amendment of 1988, lowered the voting age from twenty-one years to eighteen. Only the Sixty-ninth deals with Delhi.

The correct answer is B, 70. The Delhi Legislative Assembly has seventy seats, all filled by direct election, and the Council of Ministers may not be larger than a tenth of that strength, which means at most seven ministers including the Chief Minister. Delhi also elects seven members to the Lok Sabha and its assembly elects three members to the Rajya Sabha.

Option A, sixty, is the strength of the assemblies of Goa, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, which is why it feels plausible. Option C, ninety, is the strength of the Chhattisgarh assembly and close to that of Haryana. Option D, forty, is the strength of the Sikkim assembly and of Puducherry's elected members. The pair to fix in memory is Delhi seventy seats and seven Lok Sabha members.

The correct answer is C, 1911. At the Delhi Durbar held on 12 December 1911, King George V, who had come to India for his coronation durbar, announced that the capital of British India would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. The reasons were that Delhi lay closer to the centre of the empire's Indian territories and had been the seat of earlier rulers, and that Bengal had become the storm centre of the national movement after the partition of 1905.

Option A, 1877, was the durbar at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, held under Lord Lytton during a famine. Option B, 1903, was Lord Curzon's durbar for the coronation of Edward VII. Option D, 1919, is the year of the Rowlatt Act, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, and no durbar was held then.

The correct answer is A, Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. After the 1911 announcement the two British architects planned the new capital, Lutyens designing the Viceroy's House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, and laying out the central vista, while Baker designed the two Secretariat blocks on Raisina Hill and the circular Council House that became Parliament House. The city was formally inaugurated in 1931.

Option B, Le Corbusier with Pierre Jeanneret, planned Chandigarh in the 1950s. Option C names two of India's best known modern architects, of whom Charles Correa planned Navi Mumbai's central business district, but neither worked on New Delhi. Option D names planners associated with Bhubaneswar and with the early Chandigarh plan. Only Lutyens and Baker belong to New Delhi, whose central area is still called Lutyens Delhi.

The correct answer is C, the Red Fort Complex. Shah Jahan built the fort between 1639 and 1648 as the citadel of his new capital Shahjahanabad, and it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007. The Prime Minister raises the national flag and speaks from its ramparts on Independence Day, and its buildings include the Diwan-i-Aam, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Rang Mahal and the Moti Masjid.

Option A, the Qutub Minar and its monuments, and option B, Humayun's Tomb, were both inscribed earlier, in 1993, and are the two older Delhi entries. Option D, the Jantar Mantar of Delhi, is not on the list at all; it is the Jantar Mantar of Jaipur that was inscribed, in 2010. So Delhi has three World Heritage Sites in all, two from 1993 and one from 2007.

The correct answer is B, Qutb-ud-din Aibak. He began the tower, of which only the first storey was raised in his lifetime, and it stands beside the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque he built in the Qutub complex. The minar is named after the Sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, and the Iron Pillar in the same courtyard dates from Gupta times and is far older than the tower.

Option A, Iltutmish, is the ruler who added the next three storeys and completed the tower, so a question worded as who completed it is answered by him. Option C, Alauddin Khalji, built the Alai Darwaza in the same complex and began the unfinished Alai Minar. Option D, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, repaired the top storey after it was damaged by lightning, which is why all four names appear together in the options.

The correct answer is A, Sawai Jai Singh II. The ruler of Amber and founder of Jaipur built the Delhi Jantar Mantar in 1724, the first of the five observatories he raised, the others being at Jaipur, Ujjain, Mathura and Varanasi. Its large masonry instruments, such as the Samrat Yantra, the Ram Yantra, the Jai Prakash and the Misra Yantra, were meant to correct existing astronomical tables and to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets.

Option B, Shah Jahan, built the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid but no observatory. Option C, Muhammad Shah, was the Mughal emperor of the time, and Jai Singh built the observatory during his reign, which makes this a strong distractor. Option D, Raja Man Singh, was the Amber ruler and Mughal general of Akbar's time, a century and a half earlier.

The correct answer is B, Asola Bhatti. The Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary lies on the southern Delhi Ridge, the last northern spur of the Aravalli range, and covers old mining land that has been restored to thorn forest. It is the only wildlife sanctuary of the territory, which has no national park at all, and it shelters nilgai, jackal, civet, porcupine and a large number of birds.

Option A, Sultanpur, is a national park in Gurugram district of Haryana and a Ramsar site, not a Delhi sanctuary. Option C, the Okhla bird sanctuary, lies on the Yamuna at the Delhi border but falls in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Option D, Surajpur, is a wetland in the same Uttar Pradesh district. Being close to Delhi is what makes all three good distractors.

The correct answer is B, Ghiyas-ud-din Tughlaq. The founder of the Tughlaq dynasty built Tughlaqabad in the early fourteenth century as the third of Delhi's historic cities, with massive sloping rubble walls on a rocky outcrop in the south of the present city. His own tomb stands on a causeway across what was once a reservoir beside the fort.

Option A, Muhammad bin Tughlaq, his son, built Jahanpanah, the city that enclosed the space between Siri and Qila Rai Pithora, and is better remembered for moving his capital to Daulatabad. Option C, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, built Firozabad with the citadel now called Firoz Shah Kotla and brought two Ashokan pillars to Delhi. Option D, Sikandar Lodi, shifted his capital to Agra, and the Lodi tombs in Delhi belong to his line.

The correct answer is C, 1966. Until then cases from Delhi went to the Punjab High Court, and a separate High Court for Delhi was set up in 1966 by an Act of Parliament, with jurisdiction that then extended over Delhi and for some years over other areas as well. It sits at Sher Shah Road in New Delhi.

Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force and the Supreme Court of India was inaugurated, which is the commonest confusion here. Option B, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, under which Delhi became a union territory, and also the year the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was founded. Option D, 1991, is the year of the Sixty-ninth Amendment, which gave Delhi its legislative assembly.

The correct answer is B, Jawaharlal Nehru. Shanti Van, the forest of peace, lies north of Raj Ghat on the bank of the Yamuna and marks the place where the first Prime Minister of India was cremated in 1964. The set of memorials along this stretch is asked as a matching question, so each name has to be tied to its leader.

Option A, Mahatma Gandhi, is remembered at Raj Ghat, the simple black stone platform that is the best known of these memorials. Option C, Lal Bahadur Shastri, is remembered at Vijay Ghat. Option D, Indira Gandhi, is remembered at Shakti Sthal, while Rajiv Gandhi's memorial is Veer Bhumi and Charan Singh's is Kisan Ghat. Learning the five pairs together is the quickest way to answer any version of this question.