Honours and Awards Questions and Answers

Answer: C

He worked on wheat.

Sanjaya Rajaram, who succeeded Norman Borlaug at CIMMYT, bred more than 480 wheat varieties released in 51 countries, crossing winter and spring wheats to produce plants of wide adaptation. He received the World Food Prize in 2014.

Answer: A

The Saraswati Samman is given for literature.

Instituted by the K.K. Birla Foundation in 1991, it honours an outstanding literary work published in the previous ten years in any of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was the first recipient.

Answer: C

Ramlila was so proclaimed.

UNESCO listed the traditional performance of the Ramayana in 2005 as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity, and it was inscribed on the Representative List in 2008. Vedic chanting and Kutiyattam were the other Indian entries in that round.

Answer: C

Rabindranath Tagore was the first.

He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, seventeen years before C.V. Raman's physics prize of 1930 and fifty-five before Har Gobind Khorana's in medicine.

Answer: B

Paulina Vega of Colombia was crowned.

She won Miss Universe 2014 at Doral, Florida, in January 2015, the second Colombian to hold the title.

Answer: C

Imtiaz Dharker received it.

The Pakistan-born British poet, who grew up in Glasgow and has long lived partly in Mumbai, was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014.

Answer: C

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the first to decline it.

He objected that a member of the committee that selects recipients should not himself be considered. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1992.

Answer: A

It is the Bharat Ratna.

Instituted in 1954, it is the highest civilian honour of India, given for exceptional service in any field. It carries no title and no monetary grant, and the recipient is entitled only to a sanad and a medallion. The Param Vir Chakra is the highest military decoration.

Answer: B

Bhalchandra Nemade was selected.

The Marathi novelist and critic received the Jnanpith Award for 2014. His novel Kosla, published in 1963, is regarded as a turning point in modern Marathi fiction.

Answer: D

Anand Mahindra was the first Indian to receive it.

The Harvard Medal is given for extraordinary service to the university. He is an alumnus of Harvard College and the Business School, and endowed the Mahindra Humanities Center there.