Mitron..….INDIA QUIZ

SAARANG 2017SWATHI P.GAVINAASH R

MELWIN JAMES

PRELIMS

Rules35 questions

11-20 starred questions; Incase of ties starred questions will be considered.

For further ties sudden death will be used from question 1.

Teams of 3 or less.

Top 8 teams into finals.

Incase of tie in finals, performance in prelims will be considered.

Malpractices will lead to disqualification.

Decisions of QM is final.

1 “She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world”

What/who did British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler describe thus?

The Dancing Girl of the Indus Valley Civilization

2)• “You Said It the Best Independent India has lost its conscience keeper” was an article in the Mint magazine on the 28th of January 2015

• How was the headline a reference to?

The personality was RK Laxman; You Said It was his daily cartoon strip for the Times of India

3• When A Raja was imprisoned in the Tihar Jail, there were statements from

the officials vehemently denying favourable treatment

• The allegations arose because of certain administrative set-up for the jail

• What?

Security is managed by the TN Police Force

4 What is this a map of? Image follows

AUROVILLE

5Monks in Tibet ask people coming from India, if they have ----------- ------, and when they give one, they prize it as a holy relic. The reason why they consider it as a holy relic is because they believe that Dalai Lama would have touched it because of a certain Trait/characteristic of ----------- ------.

FITB

Currency notes

6Mucuna Pruriens is a legume found in various parts of India and Africa. Looking at its uses- it is used as animal feed, coffee substitute, traditional ayurvedic medicine in an attempt to treat Parkison’s etc. The hairs lining the seed pods contain serotonin and the protein mucunain. The calyx below the flowers is also a source of some spicules and the stinging hairs on the outside of the seed pods are used in preparing a product. These are probably the reason for the product’s effect and thus the scientific name.What is this effect?

Itching

7• “Drowned Out” is an award-winning documentary by Franny

Armstrong. It tracks the battle of a family in a certain village in Madhya Pradesh against the government.

• Arundhati Roy talked about the issue: “As a writer, I was drawn towards it like a vulture to a kill. Instinctively I knew that this was the heart of politics, this was the story of modern India”

What was the documentary about?

The  building of the Sardar Sarovar Dam across the Narmada River

8• The following was a revelation from Gabriel to Prophet Muhammad: “Have ye thought upon Al-Lat and Al-‘Uzzá and Manāt, the third, the other? These are the exalted gharāniq, whose intercession is hoped for.”• Relegated to the footnotes of history, the debates surrounding this

particular revelation gained heat after 1988. Why?

These were the “Satanic Verses” which the Prophet later recanted. The novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie was published in 1988

9In 1967, the then MLA of Hassanpur in Haryana made a series of actions in a fortnight which led to the coining of a famous expression/phrase . It became subject of numerous jokes and cartoons. 18 years later government of India introduced a new law referring to people like him.a) Expression or phraseb) What law?

Aaya Ram Gaya RamAnti-Defection Law

Gaya Lal changed party thrice in a fortnight first from the Indian National Congress to United Front, back to Congress and then within nine hours to United Front again. When Gaya Lal decided to quit the United Front and join the Congress, then Congress leader Rao Birendra Singh brought him to Chandigarh press and declared “Gaya Ram was now Aya Ram”

10)Suprabaa sweets and Vegetarian Family restaurants, a Chennai based restaurant recently introduced a new dish as a tribute to X. It is prepared by adding Mayonnaise, chilly flakes, white sauce, sweet chilly sauce, mozarella cheese etc over a base Food item. The entire mixture is slightly undercooked to give it a distinctive white colour. Its not expensive and the owner claims they receive approximately 130 orders a day. who is X? Image in next slide

 

Trump Dosa/White Dosa ; Donald Trump

11)

The image shown on next slide is that of Lucknow Charbagh Railway Station. Considered to be one of the most beautiful railway stations in India, the architectural skills of the designer can be found from the fact that the aerial view of this railway station resembles something from the field of sports.

Just tell me what is the aerial view of this railway station a resemblance to?

Chess board

an aerial view of the station building shows it as a chess board and the domes and pillars of the building appear to be pieces of a chess game.

12)FITBVirender Sehwag, while doing is job as a commentator in the recent India-England series, made a sarcastic joke referring to a heavy underuse of a player by England captain Alastair Cook. He made a reference saying ,”England ---------- ---------- ----------- chal raha hein”, as he mocked that England is protecting/saving a player from injury.

He was making word play of a government scheme.

Batty Bachao Abhiyan

13) Give me the name of the train The image on the right is from the flag-off ceremony of a train named after the foremost and the most important of the Dasha-Mahavidyas, a group of ten goddesses of Hindu Mythology.

It also happens to be the first ever train of a particular Indian state that ran on broad gauge lines since Independence

Bigger image follows

Tripura Sundari Express

14)The etymology of this ‘performance’ can be traced back to an Urdu word meaning ‘court’ as it was usually held in royal courts or ‘darbars’ and the audience were mostly the king and high ranked officials in his kingdom.

Back then such performances usually took 5 hours but nowadays it lasts generally 2-3 hours.

What?

Katcheri

• Filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s famous comic character X is a crime-solving detective who goes on several adventures solving crimes across the country and sometimes across the border too.

• He is accompanied by his teenaged cousin Tapesh and at times by the bumbling crime writer Lalmohon Ganguli aka Jatayu.

• Initially written as short stories and novels, the adventures of X were later published as comics by Ananda Publishers and more recently, by Penguin Books.

• X's character resembles Sherlock Holmes and Tapesh/Topshe's character resembles Dr. Watson. In the stories of X, he is displayed as a big admirer of Sherlock Holmes which he mentions multiple times. In Kailash Choudharyr Pathar he praises the way Holmes used to draw large conclusions from observations. In Londone X, when X goes to Baker Street, he openly considers Holmes as the "master" of all private detectives.

15)

FeludaProdosh Chandra Mitra

• The Ogilvy and Mather campaign for Make Love Not ----- (MLN-) is a series of three videos featuring Reshma, sharing beauty tips and urging people to sign a petition for enforcing a particular ban in India. The video campaign triggered global conversation and support for the cause, and more than 300,000 people have signed the petition addressed to the Prime Minister of India.

• What is special about Reshma and what ban are they advocating?

16)

Reshma is an acid attack survivor; ban on over the counter sale of acid

• Covering an area of 2,500 acres (enough space to organise 476 parallel football matches) and containing 25 lakh individual solar panels, this plant surpassed the Topaz Solar Farm in California as the world’s largest solar power plant.

• It has a capacity of 648 MW of clean, green power, and will provide electricity to 1.5 lakh homes. The plant, built by Adani Power, took only eight months to complete at a cost of $679 million (approximately Rs 4,500 crore).

• Where am I?

17)

Kamuthi , TN

• In 1853 thirteen square miles of land comprising the five hills Kathalagli, Potrein, Terah (Moti Tibba), Bakrota, and Bhangora were acquired by the then Government of India from the Raja of Chamba state. In return, the annual tribute that the Chamba state paid to the British Government was reduced by 2000 rupees. The total tribute at that time was 12,000 rupees per year.

• In 1854 Sir Donald McLeod recommended that the estate be named after James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, the name it still carries today.

• Which place are we talking about?

18)

Dalhousie

19)• According to legend, to build the fort Rao Jodha had to displace Bhaurcheeria

hill's sole human occupant, a hermit called Cheeria Nathji, the lord of birds. Upset at being forced to move Cheeria Nathji cursed Rao Jodha with "Jodha! May your citadel ever suffer a scarcity of water!". Rao Jodha managed to appease the hermit by building a house and a temple in the fort very near the cave the hermit had used for meditation, though only to the extent that even today the area is plagued by a drought every 3 to 4 years. Jodha then took an extreme measure to ensure that the new site proved propitious; he buried a man called "Raja Ram Meghwal" alive in the foundations. "Raja Ram Meghwal" was promised that in return his family would be looked after by the Rathores. To this day his descendants still live in Raj Bagh, "Raja Ram Meghwal's" Garden, an estate bequeathed to them by Jodha.

• Which fort

Mehrangarh Fort

• The origin of this genre is generally credited to the filmmaker Manmohan Desai and screenwriter duo Salim-Javed who very successfully exploited the genre in the 1970s and 1980s. The genre is named after the Indian mixture of spices in cuisine. Typically these films freely mix action, comedy, romance, and drama or melodrama complete with musicals filmed in picturesque locations. It helped establish many leading actors as superstars such as Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Mithun Chakrabarty, Rajnikanth and Chiranjeevi. More recently, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Mahesh Babu, Allu Arjun, Ajith and Vijay have all tasted success in this format.

• According to The Hindu, this is the most popular genre of Indian cinema.

20)

Masala Movie

• While West Bengal believes it was invented in then Calcutta by confectioner Nabin Chandra Das, Odisha says it was invented in the holy city of Puri way back in the 13th century.

• This pearly white, mouthwatering delicacy has found itself amid a controversy over its origin.

• Which delicacy?

21)

Rasagulla

22)According to Mythology, when Rudraveena was created by god Shiva, he attached the two equal resonators because he was thinking about something. Just tell me what does these equal resonators represent? Looking for a specific Answer

Parvathi’s Breasts

23)Moneylife is a website and print magazine edited by Debashis Basu and his wife Sucheta Dalal. Ms Sucheta Dalal received the Femina Woman of Substance Award in 1993. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2006. For what events that came to limelight in 1992 is she noted for?

Harshad Mehta scam

24)Landmark, India’s leading book and music store had launched a Chennai based lifestyle magazine named ‘Inbox 1305’ in the year 2008. Explain the number 1305.

Chennai’s Latitudes 13 degrees 5 minutes north

25) Few Reasons for what recent proposal by a state government?A jumping to 4th position when it comes to speaking in the parliament, among many.A geographical anomaly when looking at India as a whole.Inspiration from a neighbouring state.Example of Punjab in 1950.Erase the memory of an unfortunate pre independence episode.

Dropping of west in west bengal

26)The Motihari town is the headquarters of East Champaran District in Bihar. There is a massive opium warehouse, which is probably the most popular house in this place, and is now a protected monument. The reason for this fame was tracked down in the year 1983 ( thank god it was a year earlier). This district is important because Mahatma Gandhi led the first Satyagaraha Revolution here.

Why is this house famous?

George Orwell’s birthplace

27Some stimates say they are close to 1500. According to the Bengal gazette, Krem Mawmluh was chronologically the first as it was found in 1844. There are approximately 150 of them just in the Shnongrim ridge. As a part of Clouds Exhibition Project, it is estimated that Krem Liat Prah alongwith Krem Labbit, at close to 35 km, would be the longest one in the Indian Subcontinent.

What am I speaking about?

Caves of meghalaya

28 It was started in 1953 at Moazzam Jahi, a prominent fruit market in a certain Indian city. In addition to Moazzam Jahi, it has outlets in other parts of the city as well. Besides this city, it has branches in Vizag, Mumbai, Dubai, Jaipur, Vijayawada Airport, Warangal and Suryapet.

The confusing name is owing to the fact that the founder, Khanchand Ramnani is a sindhi migrant, who came here after partition.

What?

Karachi Bakery

29)Sonam Wangchuk, a mechanical Engineer and scientist designed an innovative project whereby runoff water of the glaciers was diverted to villages in Ladakh using plastic pipes. When the water came out with high pressure , owing to the temperature being nearly -25deg Celsius during cold winters, it instantly transformed into ----- as soon as it came in contact with the air, and thus started falling around the pipes and over the time collected to form the structure as shown in the next slide.

What are these structures called? (2 worded answer)

First word is related to ------

Second word - think mythology, religion etc . IMAGE FOLLOWS

Ice stupa

30)What two wordIt is believed, this originated because the Nawab of -------- (a place otherwise known for a 1925 event), a meat lover could not eat meat because of his oldage & since he was toothless. Hence he ordered his chefs to come up with a solution.

What was the delicious recipe had they had created?

One word is the blank

•Kakori kebab

31• This novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a rendition of the Hindu epic Mahabharata as told from Draupadi's (Panchaali's) viewpoint, namely, that of a woman living in a patriarchal world. As Booklist summarizes the plot, "Smart, resilient, and courageous Panchaali, born of fire, marries all five of the famously heroic Pandava brothers, harbours a secret love, endures a long exile in the wilderness, instigates a catastrophic war, and slowly learns the truth about Krishna, her mysterious friend.“

• An excerpt: “I(Panchali) turned the resentment I couldn’t express towards my father onto his palace. I hated the thick gray slabs of the walls—more suited to a fortress than a king’s residence--that surrounded our quarters, their tops bristling with sentries. I hated the narrow windows, the mean, dimly-lit corridors, the uneven floors that were always damp, the massive, severe furniture from generations ago that was sized more for giants than men. I hated most of all that the grounds had neither trees nor flowers. King Drupad believed the former to be a hazard to security, obscuring the vision of the sentries. The latter he saw no use for—and what my father did not find useful, he removed from his life.”

Palace of illusions

32)Up and until the mid 1930s, those outside a social circle refused to use this ‘term’ as it was considered derogatory because of its association with Devadasis/Courtisans.

It was only after one mainstream person used this ‘term’ when he/she faced the issue in the 1930s .

What ‘term’ meaning an ‘act of ascending’ ? What did this person do in Adyar in January 6,1936?

ArangetramEstablished Kalakshetra

•The person in the question is Rukmini Devi Arundale

33)Id X• Popular because of their alliterative structure and simplicity, Tripadis deal

mainly with social, ethical and religious issues and are attributed to X, a 16th century poet, pragmatist and philosopher. X’s poems upheld the wisdom of pastoral life in rural areas and tried to persuade villagers to give up superstition, meaningless customs and traditions.

• From information gleaned from the poems, historians believe that X’s father, a Shaivaite Brahmin, met his mother, a Shudra woman named Mali in present day Haveri district (formerly part of Dharwad district) of Karnataka state on his way to Benares while on a pilgrimage.

Sarvajna

34) Gopila and Gopralaya Rishi (children of Rishi Vahnimugar) wanted Moksham and prayed to Lord Narayana, who asked them to go to Dwaraka to seek the blessings of Lord Krishna(Kannan). By the time they reached Dwaraka, Krishna Avataaram had ended. Narada asked these two rishis to go to another place in South India.

Here they asked Lord Narayana to give them darshan as Krishna and to show them all the playful things that Krishna had done at Dwaraka. Answering their prayers, Lord Narayana appeared before them as Krishna and enacted, on the banks of Harithra river, all that Kannan had played on the banks of Yamuna river in Dwaraka.

Which is this place in South India, that has been in the news of late ?

Mannargudi

35On 18 February 1946, Bombay was rocked by an unprecedented mutiny by a section of Indian employees within the British Army. It gave the British empire its most dreaded fear and is regarded by many historians as an obscure reason for the British empire to quit India. The mutiny was a reaction to the unfairly treatment meted to the ratings. (Ratings are non-commissioned sailors and officers in the British Army). From the flash point in Bombay, the revolt spread from Karachi to Calcutta. It ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors.

Analogous with a different group, what was the name given by the striking naval officers to themselves?

Indian National Navy

36) WhoHe was tricked by Duryodhana to fight for the kauravas in the Mahabharat war despite being the brother of Madri, the second wife of Pandu.

Infact he was on his way to join his nephews for the impending war before which Duryodhana deceived him and made him the Charioteer of Karna.

Identify this mythological character who was the only Great Warrior (atirath, maharath etc) to be killed by Yudhishtira in the epic war, if you exclude Yudhishtira’s role in killing Drona.

Shalya

37)The etymology of this weapon can be traced back to 1770’s among soldiers in British India as a reference to shooting a particular bird, which was considered a challenging target for marksmen. The weapon’s name was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter" .

Which weapon?

Sniper

38) Riyaz Amlani, the man behind one of India’s most popular chain of Bars, Social, hadmade an offer which says everytime ‘something’ happened, drinks will be offered at his bars on December 31, at just rs 31 .

However fortunately for Amalani that ‘something’ never happened on that day.

What is this something?

Narendra Modi using the word Mitron in his new year eve speech