Quiz about India. Covers History, Culture, Sports, Literature and Music

1. LSD’s The Independence Day
India Quiz
By Yogesh

2. Mains

3. Design
• List It –I (40 points)
• Infinite Pounce (8 Questions Clockwise)
• List It-II (40 points)
• Infinite Pounce (8 Questions Counter Clockwise)
• List It-III (40 points)
• Long Connect
• Tie Break (If Required)

4. List It-I (40 points)
List the Names of the people you see in the next picture (4 points per name, Extra 6 on all names
correct)
The collective name by which they were known (10 points)

9. Infinite Pounce 8 questions
Clockwise

10. Identify the Olympian
X was one of the first athlete from India who has won a medal in Olympics.
The medal which was given to X was the first to be won by any Indian in that sports category. Since
1900 when Norman Pritchard won two silver medals in athletics, India had won gold medals only in
field hockey, a team sport.
X is the only Indian Olympic medallist to have never received a Padma Award. X was fleet footed,
which made him different from other athletes of his time. English coach Rees Gardner saw this trait
in him and trained him prior to 1948 Olympic games
In 1955, X joined the police force as a sub-inspector where he won several competitions held within
the Police department and also performed National duties as a sports instructor.
Despite serving the police department for twenty-seven years and retiring as an Asst. Police
Commissioner, X had to fight for pension later on in his life. For years, he was neglected by the
sports federation and had to live the final stages of his life in poverty. X died tragically in a road
accident in 1984.

12. Khashaba
Dadasaheb
Jadhav

13. Give X.
X is a revered name and has been deified by many groups, especially in the Shaivite bhakti
tradition.
It is claimed by some that X is an incarnation of the mythical serpent Ananta. This X oeuvre
comprises of Yogasūtra and the commentary integral to the sutras, called the Bhāṣya.
In the past, the sutras and the Bhaṣya have been considered by some to have had different
authors, the commentary being ascribed to "an editor" (Skt. "vyāsa"). However, a recent
comprehensive re-examination of all the evidence has confirmed the view of many older
Sanskrit authors in the period before 1000 that one and the same person composed the
sutras and the Bhāṣya commentary.
The same study also confirms the date of composition of this work as falling in
approximately 400 BC.

16. X,Y,Z ?
X is a 1958 Hindi drama film produced and directed by Y, and written by Ritwik Ghatak and
Rajinder Singh Bedi. Its music was composed by Z with lyrics written by Shailendra. The
film stars Dilip Kumar and Vyjayantimala in the lead roles with Pran and Johnny Walker. It
was one of the earliest films to deal with reincarnation and had a gothic noir feel to it. The
first and only collaboration between Roy and Ghatak, it was one of their most
commercially successful and influential films.
X won the National Film Awards for Best Feature Film in Hindi and nine Filmfare Awards,
including Best Film, Best Director, Best Music Director, Best Female Playback Singer, Best
Dialogue, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematographer.
Janam Janam, the 1988 Hindi film starring Rishi Kapoor, is a remake of X. In 2007, Farah
Khan made Om Shanti Om using some plot elements from X but did not credit the earlier
film.

18. X= Madhumati
Y= Bimal Roy
Z= Salil Chowdhury

19. Name A & B
Bud Collins in his book, ‘History of Tennis’ describes the match as follows:
“Wimbledon ’69 had barely begun, and the defending champion, A, was under
siege, losing in the second round on Court 4, a patch of grass hardly fit for the emperor. I
rushed out and saw this anonymous Indian B was killing my mate, serving at 6-3, 6-4, 3-3.
On this trembling occasion, A said he felt like he was holding a skillet. He can still recollect
the momentary fear, “Losing wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, so I loosened up.”
But B tightened up. He bungled an overhead that would have taken him to 4-3, and A
began taking over”
A won that set and the next two sets 6-0.

21. Rod Laver and
Premjit Lall

22. Give X and Y.
• X was a Majestic-class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy. The ship was commissioned as
HMS Hercules for the British Royal Navy during World War II, but construction was put
on hold after the war's end, and she never entered British service. India purchased the
incomplete carrier from the United Kingdom in 1957, and construction was completed in
1961.
• X was commissioned as the first aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy and played a key role
in enforcing the naval blockade on East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.
• The ship was decommissioned in January 1997 and from 1997 to 2012, she was
preserved as a museum ship in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai, until it was closed in 2012 due to
safety concerns. In January 2014, the ship was sold through an online auction and was
scrapped for metal.
• In February 2016, Indian auto manufacturer _____ unveiled a new bike made with metal
from X’s scrap and named it Y in honour of X.

24. INS Vikrant and Bajaj V

25. Who was X and what was this consignment all
about?
In 1965, after approvals, a 450 ton consignment of Lerma Rojo & Sonora 64 left to
Pakistan and India but was stopped at Mexico, then went by a 30 truck convoy to
Los Angeles, reaching LA after a detour due to the Watts riots.
At LA, a Mexican bank refused to honour the Pakistani payment of US $100,000 due
to a misspelling on the cheque, but still the shipment was loaded on a freighter and
shipped to Bombay and Karachi.
12 hours into the ship’s journey, war broke out and X received a telegram from
Pakistan minister Malik Bucha “I’m sorry to hear you are having trouble with my
check, but I've got troubles, too. Bombs are falling on my front lawn. Be patient, the
money is in the bank ...”

27. Norman Borlaug
The first dwarf
spring wheat strains
that started the
Green Revolution in
India & Pakistan

28. Give X ?
X was a popular 19th-century Bengali poet and dramatist. He was born in Sagordari, a village in
Keshabpur Upazila, Jessore District of Undivided Bengal (now Bangladesh).
He was a pioneer of Bengali drama. His famous work Meghnad Bodh Kavya, is a tragic epic. It
consists of nine cantos and is exceptional in Bengali literature both in terms of style and content. He
also wrote poems about the sorrows and afflictions of love as spoken by women.
X is widely considered to be one of the greatest poets in Bengali literature and the father of the
Bengali sonnet. He pioneered what came to be called Amitrakshar chhanda (blank verse).
Although his first love remained poetry, X showed prodigious skill as a playwright. He was the first
to write Bengali plays in the English style, segregating the play into acts and scenes. He was also the
pioneer of the first satirical plays in Bengali – Buro Salik er Ghare Row.
In the words of Sri Aurobindo:
All the stormiest passions of man's soul he [X] expressed in gigantic language.

30. Michael
Madhusudan Dutt

31. Initially two envoys – Ali Mardan Khan and Muhammad Ali Khan were sent to the
court of Muhammad Ali with a request to close the Mughal frontiers around Kabul
so that the Afghan rebels X was fighting against, may not seek refuge in Kabul.
that certain Afghan rebels who were troubling the eastern provinces not be sheltered.
When no concrete response was received, another envoy, Muhammad Khan
Turkman was sent to deliver a more strongly worded protest, but Muhammad Ali’s
court wasted time in discussing how best to address this new envoy respectfully.
The last straw was the murder of two courtiers, who were sent to gain news of
Turkman’s whereabouts.
What retributive action happened next?

33. Nadir Shah Pillaged Delhi

34. List It-II (40 points)
List the Names of the people you see in the next picture (5 points per name, Extra 10 on all names
correct)

38. Doordarshan Anchors
• Sarla Maheshwari
• Nidhi Ravindran
• Shobhna Jagdish
• Shammi Narang
• Ved Prakash
• Salma Sultan

39. Infinite Pounce
Counter Clockwise
+15 on correct
-10 on incorrect

40. X ?
• After independence, Bhopal was one of the last states to sign the Instrument of Accession
as Nawab Hamidullah Khan made an effort to retain Bhopal as a separate unit which ignited
agitations against him in December 1948, leading to the arrest of prominent leaders
including X on 23 January 1949.
• X was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for violating restrictions on public meetings.
Later, the political detainees were released as the Nawab signed the agreement for merger on
30 April 1949.
• X became the Chief Minister (1952–1956) of Bhopal, and later Union Cabinet Minister
(1956–1967), holding the portfolios of Education, Law, Public Works, Industry and
Commerce, National Resources and Separate Revenue.
• He was the President of the Indian National Congress in 1972–1974 and returned to the
government as Union Minister for Communications from 1974 to 1977.

42. Dr. Shanker Dayal
Sharma

43. Give X
X was the leader of the agnostics (ajnanavada). Upanishads over millenniums had proposed
opposing theories of body, soul, karma and transmigration. X rejected all the contradictory theories
of body and soul. His followers circumvented and avoided speculative questions rather than trying
to answer them, hence were accused of being ignorant (ajnana).
X lived around the 6th or 5th century BCE, contemporaneous with Mahavira and the Buddha.
In the Samannaphala Sutta, X is recorded as saying:
'If you ask me if there exists another world [after death], if I thought that there exists another
world, would I declare that to you? I don't think so. I don't think in that way. I don't think otherwise.
I don't think not. I don't think not not. If you asked me if there isn't another world... both is and
isn't... neither is nor isn't... if there are beings who transmigrate... if there aren't... both are and
aren't... neither are nor aren't... if the Tathagata exists after death... doesn't... both... neither exists
nor exists after death, would I declare that to you? I don't think so. I don't think in that way. I don't
think otherwise. I don't think not. I don't think not not.'

45. Sanjaya Belatthiputta

46. Who is X ?

48. Laxmi Sahgal/Captain Laxmi
• A revolutionary of the Indian
independence movement
• An officer of the Indian National Army
• Minister of Women's Affairs in the Azad
Hind government
• Sahgal is commonly referred to in India as
"Captain Lakshmi", a reference to her rank
when taken prisoner in Burma during the
Second World War.

49. Give me X?
“Dear Mr X, Namaste from India, we are sending you lots and lots of natural green
tea. It fights against harmful free radicals. It helps purify mind and body and regain
a healthy balance. It has also proven to make people smarter. Please Mr X drink the
tea. For your sake and for the world’s sake,” Kolkata-based Te-A-Me Teas said in a
video explaining the idea of sending green tea to X.
“The message is simple: Mr X, it’s never too late to cleanse yourself,” the company
said a day after its representatives delivered a consignment of some 6,000 green
tea bags to the ____ in New York.
Picture on next slide

53. X & Y?
X is an intricately constructed stepwell situated in the town of Patan in Gujarat,
India. It is located on the banks of Y River.
X was built as a memorial to an 11th century AD king. It was added to the list of
UNESCO's World Heritage Sites on 22 June 2014.
Stepwells are a distinctive form of subterranean water resource and storage
systems on the Indian subcontinent, and have been constructed since the third
millennium BC.
X was built in the complex Maru-Gurjara architectural style with an inverted temple
and seven levels of stairs and holds more than 500 principle sculptures.
(Picture on next slide)

56. Rani Ki Vav,
Saraswati River

57. What was the occasion? Who was X and what
was X’s gift misinterpreted as? (3 parts)
From a 2007 article in The Telegraph by Pamela Hicks, daughter of Lord
Mountbatten : “It was 1947 and I received a letter asking to be by her side and was
honoured to accept. I nearly did not make it as my father had just become the
Governor General. With the riots, there was a lot of anxiety but eventually we were
allowed to go to Britain for 10 days. Before we left, my parents saw X, who wanted
to give a present but had no possessions to give. My father, however knew he still
had something with him and requested if it could be used to make a gift, that
would be the equivalent of the Crown Jewels. This was done and when we took it
to Britain, the Queen wrongly thought it was a ________ and hence “a most
indelicate gift and horrible thing.”

59. Princess Elizabeth’s wedding
Mahatma Gandhi gifted her
hand spun khadi, which was
misinterpreted as a loincloth

60. X ?
As the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India, X’s name became synonymous
with transparency and efficiency. When he managed to stamp his authority on the
country's electoral system by conducting the cleanest elections in living memory.
An Indian Administrative Service officer, he earlier served as the 18th Cabinet
Secretary in 1989. He won the Magsaysay award for government service in 1996.
He contested for the post of President of India in 1997 and lost to K.R. Narayanan.
He is often known for his crisp one-liners, be it during his service to his superiors
and ministers or while facing the media.
A Delhi journalist who watched X conduct a “town hall” meeting in election days
remembers that he handled the audience with great skill. Dressed in a loose kurta
and pyjama, he was direct and crisp, and impatient with long-winded questions. His
punch line for the evening was: “Tu cheez badi hai bhrasht bhrasht”

62. TN Seshan

63. What ?
It is believed that the sage Dhadichi, tired of safeguarding the Devas’ weapons,
dissolved them in water and drank it. When the Devas required the weapons to
fight the Asuras, Dhadichi realised that the weapons were part of his bones, and so
he willingly gave up his life, so that Brahma could fashion weapons to defeat the
Asuras.
According to legend, he made this sacrifice, to help fight a righteous war, at a
particular place in India. For this reason among others, the site was chosen for
something else in 1917. What?

65. Mahatma Gandhi situated the
Sabarmati Ashram here.

66. List It-III (Max Points 40)
Identify Every Picture for 4 points.
Take Additional 8 points if all correct

71. Long Connect Max Points 40

72. +40/-20

73. +30/-15

74. +20/-10

75. +10/0

77. Formerly (Ministry of Education)
Currently (MHRD)