In which year was the Kalidas Samman instituted by the Government of Madhya Pradesh?

The correct answer is C, music, dance and drama. The Sangeet Natak Akademi is the national academy for the performing arts, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture with its office at Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi, and it has given its annual Akademi Puraskar since 1952. Option A is wrong because literature belongs to the Sahitya Akademi, which gives the Sahitya Akademi Award in the recognised Indian languages. Option B is wrong because painting, sculpture and graphic art belong to the Lalit Kala Akademi, whose National Akademi Awards are announced with the National Exhibition of Art. Option D is wrong because cinema is handled by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which announces the National Film Awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award; none of the three academies deals with film. Learning the three academies by field settles most questions in this chapter.

The correct answer is B, Madhya Pradesh. The Tansen Samman was instituted by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1980 for Hindustani classical music and is presented at the Tansen Samaroh held every year at Behat near Gwalior, where the memorial of Tansen stands. Madhya Pradesh also gives the Kalidas Samman, the Tulsi Samman for folk and tribal art, the Lata Mangeshkar Award for light music and the Kabir Samman for poetry, so the state is the single most productive source of questions in this chapter. Option A is wrong because Uttar Pradesh gives the Yash Bharati and Bharat Bharati honours instead. Option C is wrong because Rajasthan's cultural awards are administered through its own akademis and do not include this samman. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra's state honours do not include the Tansen Samman, although Gwalior gharana musicians have long worked in Maharashtra.

The correct answer is A, Hindustani classical music. The samman is named after Tansen, the singer of Akbar's court who is counted among the nine jewels of that court, and the Government of Madhya Pradesh gives it for Hindustani classical music at the Tansen Samaroh at Behat near Gwalior. Option B is wrong because the highest recognition in Carnatic music is the Sangita Kalanidhi, conferred by the Music Academy in Madras, and no Madhya Pradesh samman is reserved for that tradition. Option C is wrong because dance in Madhya Pradesh is honoured through the Kalidas Samman in the years when that award's rotation falls on classical dance, not through the Tansen Samman. Option D is wrong for the same reason: theatre is one of the rotating fields of the Kalidas Samman. Remember the pairing as Tansen for Hindustani music and Kalidas for the rotating national award.

The correct answer is B, the Akademi Ratna or Akademi Fellowship. The Fellowship is the Akademi's highest honour and is deliberately scarce: not more than forty living persons hold it at any one time, which is why it is reserved for masters and senior scholars of the performing arts. Option A is wrong because the Akademi Puraskar, given every year with a tamrapatra, an angavastram and a purse, ranks below the Fellowship; a Fellow has usually received the Puraskar earlier in life. Option C is wrong because the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar was instituted in 2006 for artists who have not completed forty years of age and is an encouragement award, the junior honour of the three. Option D is wrong because the Tagore Akademi Puraskar was a special honour given in 2011 for the hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore and is not the standing highest award.

The correct answer is C, forty years. The Sangeet Natak Akademi instituted the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2006, naming it after the shehnai player Ustad Bismillah Khan, to recognise promise in music, dance, theatre, the traditional and folk arts and puppetry, and the eligibility condition is that the artist has not completed forty years of age. Option A is wrong because thirty years is the ceiling used by some state youth awards, not by this one. Option B is wrong because thirty-five is a distractor drawn from other young talent schemes. Option D is wrong because forty-five would place the award well into mid career and defeat its purpose as an encouragement honour. A useful cross link is that forty also appears in this chapter as the ceiling on the number of living Akademi Fellows, so keep the two uses of the figure separate.