The journals Young India and Navajivan, started in 1919, were edited by:

The correct answer is A, Bengal Gazette. The Bengal Gazette, also called the Calcutta General Advertiser and popularly known as Hicky's Gazette, was started by James Augustus Hicky in 1780 and is the first newspaper published in India. It attacked senior officials of the East India Company and was suppressed within two years. Option B is wrong because Samachar Darpan, brought out from Serampore in 1818, is the first newspaper in an Indian language, Bengali, but not the first newspaper in the country. Option C is wrong because Bombay Samachar, started in Gujarati in 1822 by Fardunjee Marzban, is the oldest newspaper in India still in print, a different distinction. Option D is wrong because Udant Martand of 1826 is the first Hindi newspaper. All four carry a first, so read the stem closely.

The correct answer is B, Jugal Kishore Shukla. Udant Martand was brought out from Calcutta on 30 May 1826 by Jugal Kishore Shukla as a weekly, and it is the first newspaper in Hindi; 30 May is observed as Hindi Journalism Day on that account. The paper closed within about a year and a half for want of subscribers. Option A is wrong because Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi founded the Hindi weekly Pratap at Kanpur in 1913 and died in the Kanpur riots of 1931. Option C is wrong because Raja Ram Mohan Roy edited Sambad Kaumudi in Bengali and Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian. Option D is wrong because Madan Mohan Malaviya was associated with the Leader of Allahabad and with Hindi journalism later in the century, not with Udant Martand. The paper is also remembered for proving that a Hindi readership existed before any Hindi daily could be sustained.

The correct answer is B, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Tilak, along with G. G. Agarkar, started the Marathi weekly Kesari and the English weekly Mahratta in 1881. The articles in Kesari brought him two sedition trials, and in 1908 he was sentenced to six years' transportation, which he served at Mandalay in Burma, where he wrote the Gita Rahasya. Option A is wrong because Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the moderate leader and Tilak's chief opponent within the Congress, was associated with the Sudharak rather than with these two papers. Option C is wrong because Bipin Chandra Pal founded Bande Mataram in 1906, which Aurobindo Ghosh edited. Option D is wrong because Dadabhai Naoroji started the Gujarati paper Rast Goftar in 1851 and later the journal Voice of India. Kesari still appears in questions as the paper through which Tilak gave the slogan that freedom is our birthright.

The correct answer is C, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. Azad launched the Urdu weekly Al-Hilal in 1912 to carry the nationalist argument to Urdu readers and to oppose the separatist politics of the time. When the paper was proscribed under the press laws he started Al-Balagh in 1915. Option A is wrong because Mohammad Ali Jauhar founded the English weekly Comrade in 1911 and the Urdu daily Hamdard in 1913. Option B is wrong because Zafar Ali Khan edited the Urdu paper Zamindar from Lahore, which was also repeatedly penalised. Option D is wrong because Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of the Aligarh movement, belongs to an earlier generation and is associated with the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, not with Al-Hilal. Azad later became the first Education Minister of independent India. The title Al-Hilal means the crescent, and the paper's circulation was large enough for the government to treat it as a serious threat.

The correct answer is A, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Ram Mohan Roy brought out Mirat-ul-Akhbar in Persian from 1822, besides the Bengali Sambad Kaumudi from 1821, and he closed the Persian journal in protest when the Licensing Regulations of 1823 required a licence to print. He also petitioned against those regulations, which is why he is counted among the first defenders of press freedom in India. Option B is wrong because Devendranath Tagore led the Brahmo Samaj after Roy and is associated with the journal Tattvabodhini Patrika. Option C is wrong because Harish Chandra Mukherjee edited the Hindu Patriot, which exposed the oppression of indigo planters in Bengal. Option D is wrong because Fardunjee Marzban started the Gujarati paper Bombay Samachar in 1822. Sambad Kaumudi is also the paper through which Roy campaigned against sati before its abolition in 1829.