Famous Personalities Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The first Indian woman soldier skydiver is Manju.

In 2023 the Indian Army announced that Lance Naik Manju, of the Army Ordnance Corps, had become the first woman soldier skydiver, after completing the required qualifying jumps.

The distinction is 'soldier'. Shital Mahajan Rane is a well-known civilian skydiver, awarded the Padma Shri for her record jumps, but she is not a soldier. The other names are not associated with this first.

Answer: C

The 'Steel Man of India' is Jamshed J. Irani.

Dr. Jamshed Jiji Irani, a metallurgist, led Tata Steel as its managing director from 1992 to 2001 and is credited with modernising the company and making it one of the lowest-cost steel producers in the world. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2007 and is widely referred to as the Steel Man of India.

Lakshmi Mittal heads ArcelorMittal and is sometimes called a 'steel king', Om Prakash Jindal founded the Jindal group, and Anil Agarwal founded Vedanta, which is mainly in metals and mining; none carries this title.

Answer: C

Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian of Vedic times.

Panini composed the Ashtadhyayi, a grammar of Sanskrit in about 4,000 concise rules that remains the foundation of Sanskrit grammar. He is usually dated to about the fifth or fourth century BCE, at the close of the Vedic age, and his grammar also describes the Vedic language, which is the sense of the paper's 'of Vedic times'.

He was not a Greek philosopher. The astronomer-mathematician of the options describes Aryabhata, and the great poet of ancient times describes someone like Kalidasa.

Answer: B

The Saint of the Gutters is Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata in 1950 and spent her life serving the destitute and dying in the city's slums, which earned her the name 'Saint of the Gutters'. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was canonised in 2016.

Baba Amte is known for his work with people affected by leprosy at Anandwan, and Anna Hazare for his anti-corruption movement and the model village of Ralegan Siddhi. Since the name belongs to Mother Teresa, 'None of these' is wrong.

Answer: B

'The Saint of the Gutters' is Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata in 1950 and worked among the destitute and dying in the city's slums, which earned her the name 'Saint of the Gutters'. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and the Bharat Ratna in 1980, and was canonised in 2016.

Baba Amte worked with leprosy patients at Anandwan, and Anna Hazare is a social activist known for rural development at Ralegan Siddhi and anti-corruption campaigns; neither carries this title.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is Khushwant Singh.

The writer and journalist Khushwant Singh was given the Padma Bhushan in 1974 and gave it back in 1984, in protest against Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple. That is the usual sense in which he is named as the journalist who would not keep the honour. (Wikipedia's list of people who declined or renounced Indian honours includes him.)

Strictly, he returned the award rather than refusing it when it was offered. Shekaran Nair and Ratan Thiyam are not known for turning down a Padma Bhushan, and Ratan Thiyam is a theatre director, not a journalist. Arun Shourie is a journalist, but he is not the person associated with refusing this award.

The wording of the question is loose, and the official key gave B.

Answer: D

The words are Martin Luther King, Jr.'s.

King wrote them in his 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' of 16 April 1963, a reply to white clergymen who had called the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama 'unwise and untimely'. The line argues that injustice in one place threatens justice everywhere because all communities are bound together, which is why King, as an outsider, had come to Birmingham.

Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X and Mahatma Gandhi all spoke about justice and freedom, and Gandhi deeply influenced King's non-violence, but this sentence is not theirs.

Answer: C

The Virgin of the Rocks is by Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo painted it for the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception in Milan. Two versions exist: the earlier one, of about 1483-86, is in the Louvre in Paris, and the later one, finished around 1508, is in the National Gallery in London. It shows the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, the infant John the Baptist and an angel in a rocky grotto, and is a classic example of Leonardo's soft shading (sfumato).

Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian were the other great masters of the High Renaissance, known for works such as the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The School of Athens and Assumption of the Virgin, but this painting is Leonardo's.

Answer: D

The words are those of Swami Vivekanand (Vivekananda).

At the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893 and in later lectures, Vivekananda argued that acceptance should go beyond tolerance: one should not merely tolerate other faiths but accept them, since all religions are paths to the same truth. The sentence quoted is a summary of that teaching.

Gandhi spoke of equal respect for all religions (sarva dharma sama bhava), Ambedkar's writing on religion centred on equality and his turn to Buddhism, and Guru Nanak's message was of one God beyond Hindu and Muslim. None of them is the source of this sentence.

Answer: B

The Gramotthan Vidyapeeth was established by Swami Keshavanand.

Swami Keshavanand built up the educational institutions at Sangaria in Hanumangarh district, which grew into the Gramotthan Vidyapeeth, a centre for rural education and development in the desert region. He was also a member of the Rajya Sabha.

Pt. Jhabarmal Sharma was a journalist and historian of Rajasthan, and Acharya Tulsi was the Jain leader who started the Anuvrat movement; neither founded the Vidyapeeth.