Which of the following awards was won by Lata Mangeshkar in the year 2001?

The correct answer is D, Afghanistan. The Amir Amanullah Khan Award is Afghanistan's highest civilian honour, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received it in June 2016 at Herat, on the day he and President Ashraf Ghani opened the Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier called the Salma Dam, which India built on the Hari Rud. The honour is named after Amir Amanullah Khan, the ruler who won Afghanistan full control of its foreign affairs from the British in 1919. Option A is wrong, although Saudi Arabia did honour the Prime Minister in April 2016; its top award is the Order of King Abdulaziz Al Saud, a different decoration with a different name. Options B and C are wrong because neither Uzbekistan nor Iran gives an award of this name, and neither conferred its highest civilian honour on him in that year. Exam tip: Amir Amanullah Khan Award means Afghanistan, 2016, Herat and the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.

The correct answer is D, Mamta Kalia. The Vyas Samman for 2017 went to the Hindi writer Mamta Kalia for her novel 'Dukham Sukham'. The Vyas Samman is given every year by the K.K. Birla Foundation for an outstanding Hindi work published in the previous ten years, and it carries a citation and a cash prize. The same foundation gives two other literary awards: the Saraswati Samman, open to a work in any language listed in the Eighth Schedule, and the Bihari Puraskar for writing from Rajasthan. Mamta Kalia is known for her Hindi stories and novels and has headed the Mahadevi Verma Srijan Peeth in Allahabad. Option A is wrong because Namita Gokhale writes in English and co-founded the Jaipur Literature Festival. Option B is wrong because Meena Kandasamy is an English-language poet and translator. Option C is wrong because Jhumpa Lahiri writes in English and won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Interpreter of Maladies'. Exam tip: Vyas Samman is for Hindi alone, while Saraswati Samman covers all Eighth Schedule languages.

The correct answer is C, M.S. Subbulakshmi. Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi, the Carnatic vocalist, received the Bharat Ratna in 1998 and was the first singer and the first musician of any kind to be given the award. She was also the first Indian musician to receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, in 1974, and she sang at the United Nations General Assembly in 1966. Her rendering of the Venkateswara Suprabhatam and of Vaishnava Jana To is still heard every morning in temples and homes. The Bharat Ratna, instituted in 1954, is India's highest civilian honour and is given for exceptional service in any field. Option A is wrong because Zakir Hussain is a tabla player who was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, not the Bharat Ratna. Option B is wrong because A.R. Rahman, a composer, holds the Padma Bhushan. Option D is wrong because R.D. Burman, a music director, never received the Bharat Ratna. Exam tip: M.S. Subbulakshmi in 1998 was the first musician, and Lata Mangeshkar in 2001 the second singer to receive it.

The correct answer is C, 1953. The National Film Awards were instituted in 1954 and the first set of awards honoured films released in 1953, which is why the first Best Feature Film award is recorded against the Marathi film Shyamchi Aai for that year. The practice of judging the previous year's releases has continued ever since.

Option A, 1950, and option B, 1952, are both earlier than the qualifying year and correspond to no award cycle. Option D, 1954, is the year in which the awards were instituted and first presented, and treating it as the year of the films being judged is the mistake the question is designed to catch, since the films honoured were always those of the preceding year. Remembering the pair as instituted in 1954 for the films of 1953 settles both halves of the question at once.

The correct answer is B, a Swarna Kamal, a cash prize, a shawl and a certificate. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award carries the Swarna Kamal, or Golden Lotus, along with a cash prize, a shawl and a certificate, and it is presented at the National Film Awards ceremony.

Option A is wrong because the Rajat Kamal, or Silver Lotus, is given for the other categories of the National Film Awards and not for this lifetime honour. Option C describes no award in this scheme; a plain gold medal with a scroll belongs to other kinds of recognition. Option D refers to the Padma awards, which are conferred on Republic Day and consist of a medallion and a sanad, or certificate, signed by the President, so it belongs to an entirely different system of honours.