The first newspaper published in India was

The correct answer is B, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, who brought out Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali in 1821 and the Persian weekly Mirat-ul-Akhbar the next year, closing the latter in protest against the Licensing Regulations of 1823. Option A is wrong because Rash Behari Bose was a revolutionary of a much later generation who worked from Japan and helped found the Indian Independence League. Option C is wrong because Sisir Kumar Ghosh, with his brother Motilal Ghosh, founded the Amrita Bazar Patrika, the paper that turned into an English weekly to escape the Vernacular Press Act. Option D is wrong because Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar is associated with Som Prakash and with widow remarriage and women's education, not with Sambad Kaumudi. Remember the pair that goes with this name: Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali of 1821 and Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian of 1822, both from Calcutta and both by the same reformer.

The correct answer is B, Wood's Despatch of 1854, sent by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control, and called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a complete system: departments of public instruction in the provinces, universities in the presidency towns, a grants-in-aid scheme for private schools, vernacular primary education, teacher training and the education of women. Option A is wrong because Macaulay's Minute only settled the medium of instruction and the Anglicist case in 1835. Option C is wrong because the Hunter Commission of 1882 reviewed how far the Despatch had been carried out. Option D is wrong because the Sargent Plan of 1944 came at the end of British rule and was criticised for proposing a forty-year timetable for universal education.

The correct answer is C, 1835. Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote his Minute on 2 February 1835, and Lord William Bentinck's resolution of the following month accepted it, ending the long quarrel between the Orientalists and the Anglicists in favour of European learning taught in English. Option A is wrong because 1813 is the year of the Charter Act that first set aside one lakh rupees a year for education. Option B is wrong because 1823 is the year of the Licensing Regulations against the press, although the General Committee of Public Instruction was also formed in that year. Option D is wrong because 1854 belongs to Wood's Despatch. The policy Macaulay built rested on the downward filtration theory, the belief that education given to the upper classes would trickle down to the masses.

The correct answer is B, the Charter Act of 1813, which required the Company to set aside not less than one lakh rupees a year for the revival and improvement of literature, the encouragement of the learned natives of India and the introduction of useful knowledge. Option A is wrong because the Charter Act of 1793 is remembered for renewing the Company's monopoly for twenty years and for making the Governor-General's salaries a charge on Indian revenues. Option C is wrong because the Charter Act of 1833 ended the Company's commercial activities and made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India. Option D is wrong because the Charter Act of 1853 introduced open competition for the civil service and separated the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General's Council.

The correct answer is C, 1857, the year of the revolt, when the three presidency universities were founded on the model recommended by Wood's Despatch of 1854; they were examining rather than teaching universities at the start. Option A is wrong because 1835 is the year of Macaulay's Minute and of the Metcalfe Press Act. Option B is wrong because 1854 is the year of the Despatch that recommended the universities, a distinction worth holding on to since many questions offer both years. Option D is wrong because 1882 is the year of the Hunter Commission, and also the year the Vernacular Press Act was repealed by Lord Ripon. A fourth university, at Allahabad, followed later in the century. One more point is often attached to this year: these universities examined candidates and awarded degrees while the teaching was done by affiliated colleges, a pattern that lasted for decades.