Honours and Awards Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The first person from the north-east to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award was Bhupen Hazarika.

The Assamese singer, composer and filmmaker received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in cinema, for 1992. He was later honoured with the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 2019.

Plabita Borthakur and Adil Hussain are actors from Assam who have not received the Phalke award. Since Hazarika is listed, 'None of them' is wrong.

Answer: D

The prize went to Turning Point.

UNESCO's Kalinga-linked Prix Jules Verne recognised the Doordarshan science series, presented by Yash Pal and Girish Karnad, for popularising science on television.

Answer: C

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He received it in 1913 for Gitanjali, in his own English rendering with an introduction by W.B. Yeats - the first Nobel Prize of any kind awarded to an Asian.

Answer: C

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: A

The Cannes award is for films.

The Cannes Film Festival has been held on the French Riviera since 1946, and its highest honour is the Palme d'Or. Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar shared the top prize at the first festival.

Answer: C

There was no prize for economics in 1901.

Nobel's will provided for five prizes: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The economics prize was instituted by the Swedish central bank in 1968 in Nobel's memory, and is not strictly a Nobel Prize.

Answer: C

The Arjuna Award is for outstanding performance in sports.

Instituted in 1961, it recognises consistently outstanding performance over the preceding four years, together with qualities of leadership and discipline. It ranks below the Khel Ratna.

Answer: A

Ramanand Sagar did not receive the award.

He was the maker of the television Ramayan of 1987. Raj Kapoor received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1987, V. Shantaram in 1985 and Ashok Kumar in 1988.

Answer: B

The Sharad Joshi Samman is for satire and the essay.

Instituted by the Madhya Pradesh government in memory of the Hindi satirist Sharad Joshi, it honours writing in the vyangya tradition - satire directed at social and political life.

Answer: B

The Arjuna Awards were instituted in 1961.

They were the first national sports awards in India, and were followed by the Dronacharya Award for coaches in 1985 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in 1991.