Who among the following was associated as Secretary with Hindu Female School which later came to be known as Bethune Female School?

The correct answer is A, 1 and 2 only. The Act of 1813 broke the Company's trade monopoly and asserted the Crown's sovereignty, but left the revenues where they were, so the first two statements stand and the third does not. The Act came at the height of the free trade campaign in Britain: it threw the India trade open to all British merchants, keeping the monopoly only in tea and in the China trade, which was ended by the Charter Act of 1833. It also declared in plain words that the Crown held sovereignty over the Indian territories the Company governed, and it set aside one lakh rupees a year for education and allowed missionaries into India. Statement 3 is wrong because the Company continued to control and spend Indian revenues; Parliament supervised through the Board of Control rather than taking the purse. B and D are wrong because each includes statement 3. C is wrong for the same reason and also drops statement 2. Exam tip: 1813 opened trade except tea and China; 1833 ended the monopoly altogether.

The correct answer is B, its unprofitability in the world market because of new inventions. Indigo lost its market when chemists learned to make the dye in a factory, so the Indian crop became unprofitable and cultivation shrank. Adolf von Baeyer worked out the structure of indigo in the eighteen eighties and the German firm BASF began selling synthetic indigo in 1897; within a few years it had taken most of the world trade, because the manufactured dye was cheaper and of a steadier quality than the plant extract. Bengal and Bihar, which had lived on indigo exports, saw acreage collapse in the first decade of the twentieth century. A is wrong because the Indigo Revolt of 1859 in Bengal and the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 checked the planters in particular districts but did not end the industry. C is wrong because national leaders raised the cultivators' grievances, not a case against the crop. D is wrong because the Government protected the planters rather than curbing them. Exam tip: synthetic indigo from Germany, 1897, killed the natural dye trade.

The correct answer is D, neither 1 nor 2. Both statements describe the two offices wrongly, so neither can be accepted. A jagir was an assignment of the land revenue of a tract, given to a mansabdar in place of a cash salary for military and administrative service, not for judicial and police duty; the holder collected the revenue due and kept troops from it. Jagirs were transferable and were shifted every three or four years so that no noble struck roots in one district, and they lapsed to the emperor on the holder's death, so statement 1 is wrong. A zamindar, by contrast, held a hereditary right in the soil of his locality, collected revenue from the peasants and passed on the state's share while keeping a commission called nankar, so the hereditary part of statement 2 is exactly reversed. A, B and C are wrong because each accepts at least one of these two flawed statements. Exam tip: jagir was transferable and not hereditary, zamindari was hereditary and rooted in the locality.

The correct answer is C, 2 - 4 - 1 - 3. Mahendravarman I came first, Gopala next, then Bhoja and finally Parantaka I, which is exactly this order. Mahendravarman I ruled the Pallavas of Kanchi in the early seventh century and is remembered for the rock-cut temples at Mandagapattu and for his play Mattavilasa Prahasana. Gopala was raised to the throne of Bengal around the middle of the eighth century and founded the Pala dynasty. Mihira Bhoja led the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj in the second half of the ninth century, at the height of the tripartite struggle. Parantaka I of the Cholas ruled in the early tenth century and defeated the Pandyas at Vellur. A is wrong because it places Bhoja before Gopala. B and D are wrong because both begin with Parantaka I, the latest of the four rulers. Exam tip: the sequence runs Pallava, then Pala, then Pratihara, then Chola.

The correct answer is C, Mehrgarh. Mehrgarh, on the Bolan river in the Kachi plain of Baluchistan, is the earliest known farming village in the Indian subcontinent, occupied from about 7000 BCE. Its people were among the first in the region to grow wheat and barley and to rear sheep, goats and cattle, and the site records the long shift from hunting and gathering to settled village life. Archaeologists have found mud-brick houses, storage pits, burials with goods placed beside the dead, and some of the earliest evidence anywhere of cotton and of drilled teeth. Mehrgarh is treated as the forerunner of the Harappan civilisation. Option A is wrong because Hallur, in Karnataka, is a southern neolithic and megalithic site known for early iron. Option B is wrong because Chiraud, or Chirand, in Bihar is a neolithic site much later than Mehrgarh and famous for bone tools. Option D is wrong because Burzahom, in Kashmir, is known for pit dwellings and is also later. Exam tip: Mehrgarh of about 7000 BCE is the earliest village with wheat and barley, Burzahom has pit houses and Chirand has bone tools.