Prelims India Quiz

Abhishek BalajiSurya Shekhar Chakraborty

Varun Gajendragadkar

Prelims Answers

*Q1This is a list of companies which are the most valuable

companies in history adjusted for inflation. FITB.• Exxon-Mobil 2007• Apple 2012• Microsoft 1999• Petro China 2007• IBM 1967• Saudi Aramco 2012• The South Sea Company 1720• The Mississippi Company 1720• _____________________

The Dutch East India CompanyExxon-Mobil 2012 U.S. $572.9 billion Apple 2012 U.S. $661.6 billion Microsoft 1999 U.S. $851 billion PetroChina 2007 U.S. $1.12 trillion IBM 1967 U.S. $1.3 trillion Saudi Aramco 2012 U.S. $3.6 trillionThe South Sea Company 1720 U.S. $4 trillion The Mississippi Company 1720 U.S. $6 trillion The Dutch East India Company 1637 $7.4 trillion

Q2

Some say X was first created in the kitchens by a palace cook named Kakasura Madappa out of some ingredients. The cook simply made a concoction of besan, ghee and sugar. The sweet that was formed delighted the royalties so much that it became a 'Royal Sweet'. When asked its name, Madappa obviously didn't have its name, so he simply called it the X.

Mysore Pak

Q3

X was sued in 1986 for violations of the Gold Control Act, for illegal production of Gold. However, he wasn't sued because the court was afraid how the public would react to it. Later in December 2000, the magazine India Today published a cover story about X with allegations of fakery made by the magician P. C. Sorcar Jr.

ID X who is known to be a great influence and the guru of Isaac Tigrett who started the Hard Rock Cafe chain.

Puttaparthi Sai Baba

*Q4 Mumbai Irani cafes occupy prime ‘corner’

locations. In fact most if not all the Irani hotels in Mumbai are built on street corners, now considered prime real estate so much so that unscrupulous builders even hire gangsters to scare away the café owners. Why were these plots originally very cheap to buy?

These were seen as having poor vastu so the landowners would earlier sell them cheaply and the Irani hotel owners, being Muslims, of course did not believe in Vastu so bought them up Even today, houses built on corner plots or facing a crossroads have a Ganesha idol installed on the wall to avoid bad luck

Q5

Cloudtail is a joint venture by Amazon Asia and Catamaran Ventures, India. Cloudtail is one of the largest sellers on Amazon, with products in almost all categories. Y, a famous Indian IT billionaire, owns Catamaran Ventures and has a 51% stake in Cloudtail.ID Y

Narayana Murthy

Q6 The etymology of the word X can be traced

back to Sanskrit, from Dravidian (Tamil compound of (nāram) and (kāy); also Telugu, Malayalam,and Kannada).

There are no commonly used English dictionary words that rhyme exactly with X.

Orange

*Q7 X’s al-Shabaab group banned Y sometime ago because

they felt that it was too westernized and too anti-islam. • The extremist group in fact offered no official

explanation for the ban, which are commonly cooked up and served across the Horn of Africa.

• They refused to relax the ban even after being warned that more than a 100,000 people might have to die of starvation.

• The reason for the ban is that Y resembles the holy trinity too much.

X= country Y= food item

Somalia and the Samosa

Q8 _________ was born as Gnanadesikan in

Pannaipuram, Theni district, Tamil Nadu, on June 2, 1943. But when he joined the school his father changed his name as "Rajaiya" but his village people used to call him as "Raasayya".

He studied under Dhanraj Master and the master used to call him as just “X".

In his first movie Annakili, Tamil film producer Panchu Arunachalam added “Y" (which means younger in Tamil) as a prefix.

• ID YX

‘Ilaiya’ ‘raaja’

Q9 Silver nitrate, on exposure to NaCl and proteins

with exposed sulphur atoms, forms salts that are largely pale. But light soon reacts with the silver and removes it from its compounds, depositing it as a metal.

This chemical, is authorized for manufacture by only one company in India sees huge demand once in about every 4 years. It has been exported to Thailand, Singapore, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Malaysia and South Africa. It was used in Cambodia in 2012.

Name the application of this chemical

Mysore Paints and Varnishes Ltd. and Indelible Ink

Q10 The myth goes that X married 27 daughters of Daksha

but truly loved only one of them. • His other wives complained about his negligent

behaviour to Daksha , who cursed him that he would become ugly forever. As a penance X prayed to lord Shiva to remove the curse.

however lord Shiva said that he could not completely remove the curse , but said that whenever X lost his beauty completely , he would again gradually gain his beauty and the cycle would go on.

• Who is X and what resulted thus?

Chandra, Lunar Cycle

Q11 X is an American television thriller series created by Joshua

Safran, that premiered on ABC on Sunday September 27, 2015. The series' protagonist is Alex Parrish played by Y, who is suspected of committing a terrorist attack. Flashbacks tell her story and the ones of her fellow recruits at the FBI Academy in X.

The actor Y has come under a lot of criticism for her voice modelling, especially her accent. In fact, the actor has faced a lot of criticism in the past, when Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor commented “Why does she have that accent?” on a famous talk show, Y replied with “I got it from the same place that her boyfriend got it from”.

ID X, Y

Quantico, Priyanka Chopra

Q12 The introduction of ____ in India, is associated with a

significant decrease in the reported acceptability of domestic violence towards women and female foeticide, as well as increase in women’s autonomy and decrease in infertility. There were a number of hypotheses, from rising incomes to growing female literacy. Those are all moderately correlated with the decline in birthrates and could help explain the shift. But, curiously enough, nothing seems to match up with the trends as neatly as the introduction of ____.

Television

Q13 When Jai Singh, the ruler of the now Rajasthan,

visited the showrooms of Rolls-Royce in London, he was affronted when the salesman implied that he couldn't afford to purchase one of the sleek new models -- he promptly purchased 10, shipped them home, tore their roofs off, and used them to ______________.

He told the Municipal Corporation to use the 10 Rolls Royce cars for garbage collection

Q14

• Put funda. It’s bigger on the inside next slide.

India-Bhutan border. India is on the right.

Q15

• Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar has recently proposed to replace X with an electric version

• He said “Everybody should work hard to earn their livelihood, but pulling the weight of others is like exploitation”

• X?

Hand pulled Rickshaws

Q16Identify this famous Indian Social Media Personality.Photo on next slide. He has over 122k tweets to his name and 203k followers on Twitter.

Tinu Cherian Abraham

Finals

Theme round- Place name origins

India quiz

• Named after the sage Kashyap• It was initially called Kashyapmeru

Q1

Kashmir

• X means “Water tank” and Y means “Royal”, so XY means “Royal Water Tank”.

• XY was built by Alauddin Khilji to supply water for Siri fort• When Chris Martin performed in Delhi, he chose a café in XY Village,

which is arguably the most “happening” place in Delhi.

Q2

Hauz khas

• Although the most obvious guess says otherwise, Ain-i-Akbari suggests that the name of this town comes from Barbakpur.

• The most obvious guess is that it comes from an English word the British brought when this town was chosen to be the site of the first cantonment of the British.

Q3

Barrackpore

• Early British texts mention this place as Brodera• It is a corrupted form of the word Vatodar (heart of the banyan) which

comes from Vatpatrak (leaf of the banyan).

• Give me the new name of this place.

Q4

Q4 Hint: In the news in 2014

Vadodara (do not accept baroda)

• The name derives from the Sanskrit words for angle and for Surya.• Apart from what it’s almost synonymous with, X also hosts an X Dance

Festival, where Odissi is one of the prime dances on display.

Q5

DRIES

1• X meaning abode of springs and lakes, also called Islamabad, is a city

in Jammu and Kashmir. • The name X is probably derived from the Sanskrit term for "Land of

countless springs”. • According to a Sir A. Stein, the name of the city comes from the great

spring X issuing at the centre of the city. • Mehbooba Mufti represents X constituency in Lok Sabha. Identify X

Safety Slide

Answer• Anantnag

2• X’s real name is Sukhvinder Kaur. She was born in 1965 in Dorangala village

of Gurdaspur district in Punjab. • X studied till Class X, she married Mohan Singh at age 17• She used to stitch clothes to supplement her husband's small income • After her husband left for Doha (Qatar) in search of a better job, X

embraced a total new outlook and became known to the world by a different name altogether

• How do we better know X ?

Safety Slide

Answer• Raadhe Maa

3• The company X was founded in 1971 and was one of the very few private industries

given permissions which was largely due to the managing director’s “close” relations to PM Indira Gandhi.

• It went into liquidation in 1977. It was nationalised in 1981 to revive the company and in 1982 Y entered into a Joint Venture Agreement with 60:40 sharing.

• Production of their most iconic product began in 1983.XY became a huge success with the launch and continues to be a market leader in the segment.

• In 2006 govt. sold all its shares in JV to private investment group and the company became a subsidiary of the parent Y.

• In 2015 XY became the first subsidiary in the world to valued more than its parent company when its value crossed $19.1 billion.

• ID X&Y

Safety

Answer• X: Maruti• Y: Suzuki

4• X party was formed by Punjabi Indians in the United States and

Canada for liberating India from the British Rule• X is an Urdu word meaning “revolt” or “rebellion”• The party was started by Kartar Singh Sarabha and Sohan Singh. Lala

Har Dayal and Rashbehari Bose were prominent members• The members started their own newspaper and urged the people of

Punjab to start armed revolution against the British• The party was an inspiration to many future freedom fighters• Also, X is a name of a super hit Bollywood movie

Safety

Answer• Ghadar

5• X was born in Agra, he was the eldest son of Shaikh Mubarak of Nagaur in

Rajputana, India. His father, Shaikh Mubarak, was a scholar in the philosophy and literature of Greece as well as in Islamic theology.

• In 1566, he reached Akbar's court. Akbar subsequently appointed him tutor for his princes, Salim, Murad and Daniyal. In 1581, he was appointed sadr of Agra, Kalpi and Kalinjar.

• In 1588, he became poet laureate of Akbar's court. In 1591, he was sent to Khandesh and Ahmednagar as Mughal envoy

• Both he and his brother Abu’l Fazl were a part of Akbar’s “Navratnas”• X?

Safety

Answer• Faizi

6• On 31st October 1984 ,India and Pakistan were playing an ODI at

Sialkot. • India was in a fairly strong position with the scorecard reading 210/3. • Dileep Vengasarkar was batting at 94*. • What happened next and why?

Safety

Answer• Match was abandoned as Indira Gandhi was assassinated

7• Lalita ke Aansoon is a book of poems by Krant Lal Verma. • It depicts a fictional narrative by Lalita, the wife of a famous Indian

personality “X”, describing her suspicions regarding X’s death. • Till this day, many people believe that X, who died in 1966, was

poisoned, possibly due to his actions, and this book promoted this theory. X?

Safety

Answer• Lal Bahadur Shastri

8• Moti Mahal is a chain of restaurants, present all over India• The restaurant serves authentic Punjabi food and the first branch of

this restaurant was started in 1920 in Peshawar by Mokha Singh• Singh’s two cooks, Kundan Lal Gujral and Kundan Jaggi fled to New

Delhi after the partition in 1947 and started their own restaurant here• Gujral is said to have invented this popular dish which every non veg

eater in India absolutely adores, a dish which British Foreign Secretary in 2001, Robin Cook claimed as a “perfect national British dish”

• What dish?

Safety

Answer

Theme – Chief Ministers

1• X was the first CM of Maharashtra who later on became the deputy Prime

Minister of India under Charan Singh• He was a staunch supporter of Nehruvian socialism and after the split in the

Congress party joined Congress(Socialist), before joining Congress(Indira) in 1981

• He was well known throughout India for his pro-farmer policies and decentralization of power

• His popularity in Maharashtra was boundless and was called Prati-Shivaji (new Shivaji) there

• Many landmarks including a prominent Engineering College in Nagpur and the Mumbai-Pune expressway is named after him

Answer• Yashwantrao Chavan

2• X was the CM of his state from 1977 to 2000, making him the longest serving CM in

any state in India• An ardent communist, he became familiar with the communist movement while

studying in Great Britain where he regularly followed the activities of the Communist party there

• He was a founder member of the Communist Party of India(Marxist)• In 1996, he was expected to become the Prime Minister of India representing the

United Front but the CPI(M) decided against participating in the government, and HD Deve Gowda became the PM instead

• His role as CM has been criticized by many for initiating a steady industrial decline in his state

Answer• Jyoti Basu

3• X was the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948

under Raja Hari Singh of Kashmir• He played a key role in the accession of J&K to India and worked

closely with Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel• He was also the one who decided to annex Gurdaspur over Lahore to

India when he had the choice• After serving as the PM of J&K, he served as one of the first Supreme

Court judges of India and later in 1954, became the 3rd Chief Justice of India

Answer• Mehr Chand Mahajan

4• X was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1991 to 1992 and again

from 1996 to 1997• He was the CM during the Babri Masjid demolition and later said that

he takes full responsibility for that incident• During his second tenure, he planned to replace “Yes Sir” with “Vande

Mataram” in roll calls and promised to create Uttarakhand• In 2009, he left BJP and joined SP. Mulayam Singh Yadav blamed him for

the poor performance in 2009 elections, saying he drove away Muslim support of SP.

• Currently, he’s the Governor of Rajasthan

Answer• Kalyan Singh

5• X was the CM of Orissa from 1961 to 1963 and again from 1990 to 1995• He had dropped out of college to become a pilot and subsequently joined

the Royal Indian Air Force and fought in WW2, during which he started gaining interest in nationalist activities

• A trusted friend of Jawaharlal Nehru, he played an important role in the Indonesian freedom struggle by smuggling out former president of Indonesia, Sultan Sjahrir out of Indonesia to change the international public opinion against the Dutch, an act for which he was given Indonesia’s highest civilian award in 1995

• The current CM of Orissa is his son and the party the son represents has X’s first name in it

Answer• Biju Patnaik

6• X was the CM of Assam from 1985 to 1990 and from 1996 to 2001

and is also the youngest CM in India: he was 33 when he became CM• He came into prominence during the Assam movement as a youth

leader, protesting against the influx of Bangladeshi and Burmese people in Assam

• He has got allegations against him for secretly killing the family members of ULFA leaders, which he has vehemently denied

• He was the president of the Asom Gana Parishad until 2005 when his membership of AGP was terminated. He then started his own party, AGP(Progressive)

Answer• Prafulla Kumar Mahanta

Thank You!