In which year was the Jnanpith Award instituted?
- A.1944
- B.1954
- C.1961
- D.1965
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is C, 1961. The Jnanpith Award was instituted in 1961 by Bharatiya Jnanpith, and it is regarded as the highest literary honour given in India. It goes to an Indian citizen writing in one of the languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, and a writer may receive it only once.
Option A, 1944, is the year Bharatiya Jnanpith itself was founded as a literary and research trust by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain and Rama Jain, seventeen years before the award was created. Option B, 1954, is the year the Government of India set up the Sahitya Akademi, which is a different institution altogether and gives its own annual awards. Option D, 1965, is the year for which the first Jnanpith was actually given, to G. Sankara Kurup, four years after the award was instituted. Keeping all four dates separate, 1944 the trust, 1954 the Akademi, 1961 the award and 1965 the first winner, disposes of a whole family of questions.
Read the full article: Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi: Awards and Winners
Practice Questions
View allWho among the following was awarded the 55th Jnanpith Award?
- A.Amitav Ghosh
- B.Raghuveer Chaudhari
- C.Chandrashekhara Kambara
- D.Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri
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The Malayalam poet, known simply as Akkitham, received the 55th Jnanpith Award, given for the year 2019. He was the sixth Malayalam writer to be honoured, the language whose G. Sankara Kurup had won the very first Jnanpith for 1965.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first recipient of the Jnanpith Award?
- A.G. Sankara Kurup
- B.Sumitranandan Pant
- C.Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
- D.Kuvempu
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The Malayalam poet received the first Jnanpith Award, for the year 1965, for his collection of poems Odakkuzhal, meaning the reed flute.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first woman writer to receive the Jnanpith Award?
- A.Mahadevi Verma
- B.Ashapurna Devi
- C.Amrita Pritam
- D.Mahashweta Devi
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The Bengali novelist received the Jnanpith for the year 1976 for Pratham Pratishruti, the first book of a trilogy about three generations of women in a Bengali household, and she was the first woman to be honoured with the award.
Read the full explanation →A recipient of the Jnanpith Award is presented with a bronze statue of which figure?
- A.Vagdevi, the goddess Saraswati
- B.Nataraja
- C.Goddess Lakshmi
- D.Gautama Buddha
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Along with a citation and a cash prize, every Jnanpith laureate receives a bronze replica of Vagdevi, Saraswati as the goddess of speech and learning, which is a fitting emblem for a literary honour and a detail asked directly in objective papers.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first writer in the English language to be awarded the Jnanpith?
- A.Arundhati Roy
- B.R. K. Narayan
- C.Amitav Ghosh
- D.Vikram Seth
Show answer
English was not an eligible language for the Jnanpith until 2013, when it was added to the languages of the Eighth Schedule for the purpose of this award.
Read the full explanation →