The Venkateswara temple, the most visited temple in India, stands on the Tirumala hills near which town?

The correct answer is B, 1953. Andhra State was created on 1 October 1953 out of the Telugu-speaking districts of the old Madras State, with Kurnool as its capital and Tanguturi Prakasam as its first Chief Minister, and it was the first state in independent India carved out on the basis of language. Option A is wrong because 1950 is the year the Constitution came into force, when no such state existed. Option C is the commonest trap: 1 November 1956 is the date Andhra Pradesh was formed by merging Andhra State with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad under the States Reorganisation Act, which is a later and separate event. Option D is wrong because 1960 is the year Bombay State was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Keep 1953 for Andhra State and 1956 for Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is B, Potti Sriramulu. He fasted for a separate Telugu-speaking province and died on 15 December 1952 on the fifty-eighth day of the fast; the protests that followed made the government concede the demand within days, and Andhra State was created the next October. He is remembered as Amarajeevi, the immortal one. Option A is wrong because Tanguturi Prakasam, called Andhra Kesari, became the first Chief Minister of the new state but did not die in the agitation. Option C is wrong because Kandukuri Veeresalingam was a nineteenth-century social reformer of the Telugu country who worked for widow remarriage and women's education. Option D is wrong because Neelam Sanjiva Reddy was the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1956 and later President of India.

The correct answer is C, 2014. Telangana came into being on 2 June 2014 under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, becoming the twenty-ninth state of the Union, and Hyderabad was to serve as the joint capital of both states for a transitional period while Andhra Pradesh built its new capital at Amaravati. Option A is wrong because 2000 is the year three other states were created, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, which is why it is a favourite distractor. Option B is wrong because 2011 is the year of the last census and of the renaming of Orissa as Odisha. Option D is wrong because 2019 is the year the Andhra Pradesh High Court began work at Amaravati and the year Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories.

The correct answer is A, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The Satish Dhawan Space Centre stands on Sriharikota island on the coast of the Nellore region, between the Pulicat lake and the Bay of Bengal, and every Indian orbital launch, by PSLV, GSLV, SSLV or LVM3, lifts off from there; the site is named after Satish Dhawan, a former chairman of ISRO. Option B is wrong because Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram is the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and a sounding rocket station, not an orbital launch site. Option C is wrong because Balasore in Odisha has the Chandipur missile testing range, which belongs to the DRDO. Option D is wrong because Hassan in Karnataka has the Master Control Facility that keeps station on India's geostationary satellites after they are launched.

The correct answer is B, Kuchipudi. Kuchipudi is named after the village of Kuchipudi, or Kuchelapuram, in the Krishna delta, where the dance drama tradition of the Bhagavata Mela was carried on; Siddhendra Yogi is remembered as the figure who gave it its form, and the Tarangam, danced on the rim of a brass plate, is its best known piece. Option A is wrong because Bharatanatyam belongs to Tamil Nadu and grew in the temples of the Kaveri delta. Option C is wrong because Odissi is the classical dance of Odisha, linked with the Jagannath temple at Puri and the maharis. Option D is wrong because Mohiniyattam is the classical solo dance of Kerala, which is also home to Kathakali. Kuchipudi is counted among the eight classical dances of India.