The Salar Jung Museum, famous for the largest one-man collection in the world, is located in which city?

The correct answer is B, the Indian Museum, Kolkata. It was founded in 1814 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is the oldest museum in India as well as the largest multipurpose museum in the country, with sections for art, archaeology, anthropology, geology, zoology and economic botany. Its first curator was the Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich, who had himself proposed the museum. Option A is wrong because the National Museum at Janpath, New Delhi was founded only in 1949 and moved into its own building in 1960, so it is much younger even though it is the premier museum of the Union Government. Option C is wrong because the Salar Jung Museum at Hyderabad dates from 1951; its distinction is being the largest one-man collection in the world, not the oldest museum. Option D is wrong because the Government Museum, Chennai, founded in 1851, is the second oldest museum in India, not the oldest.

The correct answer is C, Kolkata. The National Library of India stands in the Belvedere Estate at Alipore in Kolkata, in a building that was once the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. It is the largest library in India by volume of holdings and is the library of record for the country, receiving one copy of every book published in India. It works under the Ministry of Culture. Option A is wrong because Delhi has the Delhi Public Library and the Central Secretariat Library, both important but neither the National Library. Option B is wrong because Chennai has the Connemara Public Library, which is one of the four depository libraries under the Delivery of Books and Newspapers Act but not the National Library. Option D is wrong because Mumbai has the Central Library in the Town Hall, run by the Asiatic Society, which is likewise a depository library only.

The correct answer is B, Lord Curzon. The Imperial Library was created by the Imperial Library Act of 1902 and opened to readers in 1903 on Curzon’s initiative; he merged the collections of the Calcutta Public Library of 1836 with the Home Department secretariat libraries to form a single library of record. After independence the Imperial Library was renamed the National Library in 1948 and was opened at Belvedere in 1953. Option A is wrong because Lord Ripon is remembered for the Local Self Government Resolution of 1882 and for repealing the Vernacular Press Act, not for the library. Option C is wrong because Lord Dalhousie belongs to an earlier period and is associated with the railways, the telegraph and the Doctrine of Lapse. Option D is wrong because Lord Irwin served in the late 1920s and early 1930s, long after the Imperial Library had opened, and is linked with the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931.

The correct answer is A, the Imperial Record Department. It was set up at Calcutta in 1891 to bring together the scattered records of the Government of India, shifted to New Delhi after the capital was transferred, and occupied its present building on Janpath, designed by Edwin Lutyens, in 1926. After independence it was renamed the National Archives of India and it is today the largest archival repository in South Asia, working under the Ministry of Culture and headed by the Director General of Archives. Option B is wrong because the Imperial Library was the library of record that became the National Library, a different institution altogether. Options C and D are wrong because no such names were given to the central archival body; a record room is only the office in which a department keeps its current files before they are transferred to the archives under the Public Records Act, 1993.

The correct answer is B, the Delivery of Books and Newspapers (Public Libraries) Act, 1954. It obliges a publisher to deliver one copy of every book published in India to the National Library at Kolkata and one copy each to the Connemara Public Library at Chennai, the Central Library at Mumbai and the Delhi Public Library; these four are the National Depository Libraries. The Act was amended in 1956 to bring newspapers within it. Option A is wrong because the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 deals with the registration of printing presses and the filing of copies with the State Government, not with the depository libraries. Option C is wrong because the Public Records Act, 1993 governs the records of government offices and the National Archives. Option D is wrong because the Copyright Act, 1957 protects the rights of authors and publishers and has nothing to do with legal deposit.