By Arun A S Major Chandrakant Nair

30 Questions

No negative marks

Starred questions will be considered in case of a tie.

*1. He is a 1972 batch Kerala cadre officer of Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He started his career as the sub-collector of Thrissur District. Later he became the Collector and spent his eight years of career in Thrissur city. He was called the second Sakthan Thampuran for his role in the development of the Thrissur city. Apart from serving in both, state and central governments, he has been a Director on several Boards including the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Life Insurance Corporation of India and Infrastructure Development and Finance Company of India. Who?

Vinod Rai, the present Comptroller and Auditor General of India

2. The Man Booker Prize is annually awarded to any full-length novel, written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or two other nations which were previously part of the commonwealth. Name the two countries.

Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe

3. The Shadman Chowk in Lahore was renamed in whose honour recently, on his 105th birth anniversary?

Bhagat Singh

4. What was famously inspired by this magazine, which was launched in 1920 by journalist H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan?

It inspired the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. Originally, the title of the film was Black Mask, before being changed.

* 5.

6. Although this phrase has featured in politics since antiquity, it is of relatively recent coinage; the Oxford Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a “stroke of State”. It is generally classified into three – Breakthrough, Guardian and Veto. What?

Coup d'état

7. Fondly referred to as the Enid Blyton of Malayalam, Leela Nambudiripad has penned 37 books of which 23 are for children. She is the recipient of many awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the best work in children's literature (in 1979) and the Bala Sahitya Institute award for Lifelong contribution towards children's literature (in 1999). She has also served in the Public Relations Department of Kerala Kalamandalam for 22 years. Under what pseudonym does she write?

Sumangala

8. Whose self portrait?

Rabindranath Tagore

9. He had a catastrophic childhood. His parents divorced when he was two. He was a juvenile delinquent. He threw bricks at car windows. He went shoplifting in local department stores. He stole bicycles. On one occasion he stole a postman's bike, with the mail still in the bag. His current post-tax salary of £11.3 million was deemed disgusting by the French finance minister, Jerome Cahuzac. 'At a time when everyone around the world is tightening their belts,' he said, 'these figures are not impressive, they are indecent.' He simply replied: 'I don't understand all the criticism. After all, the more money I earn, the more tax France receives.' Identify this man who is very much in the news.

* 10. This phrase was first used to represent the doctrine proposed by V.K. Krishna Menon in 1953, at the United Nations. According to the author Leo Mates, there may have been an earlier usage of the word when it was worked out, but in a Times of India interview of 1968, Krishnamenon remembered having used the term for the first time in 1950. Which phrase?

Non-alignment / Non – aligned movement

11. Which is the only country in the world to completely outlaw the cultivation, harvesting, production and sale of tobacco and tobacco products?

Bhutan

12. Acinonyx , the genus name of this animal belonging to the cat species, comes from the Greek words for “thorn” and “claw” and refers to its curious semi-retractable claw, a feature they share with no other cat. Which animal?

Cheetah

13. Bridgmanization or high pressure processing (HPP) is a method of preserving and sterilizing food, in which a product is processed under very high pressure, leading to the inactivation of certain microorganisms and enzymes in the food. The technique was named after a 17th century scientist whose work included detailing the effects of pressure on fluids. During this process, more than 50,000 pounds per square inch (340 MPa) may be applied for around fifteen minutes, leading to the inactivation of yeast, mold, and bacteria. Name the process or the scientist after whom it is named.

Pascalization / Blaise Pascal

14.

Rex Vijayan & Bijibal

* 15. In 1986, this magazine published excerpts from Other Shores from Vladimir Nabokov, which was the first time Nabokov was published in the USSR. Alexander Roshal, the co-founder and editor of the magazine was punished for this. In 1992 the magazine fell upon hard times and ceased publication but Roshal privatized it and publication was resumed. Name the magazine.

64, the chess magazine

16. Whose official logo?

17. Mosaic of someone created using images of items he is synonymous with.

Who?

Image in the next slide.

18. What is the lady trying to build from dominos here?

19. Pictured is a type of alert area constructed by the Strategic Air Command of USAF during the Cold War. Initially, planes were parked on alert aprons at right angles. However, the development of large aircrafts like the B-52 Stratofortress created a problem in launching aircraft efficiently. To fix this, aircrafts were repositioned in herringbone configurations, which then allowed the planes to pull out onto the runway as quickly as possible.

What name was given to these alert areas (after their resemblance to something)?

Image in the next slide.

Christmas Trees

* 20. The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates is an annual event with attendees like Nobel Peace Laureates, high-profile leaders and organizations from around the globe. The summit is a brainchild of the Mikhail Gorbachev Foundation. At every summit, the delegates honor people who have stood up for human rights and world peace with the Peace Summit Award.

The 2010 recipient, a Roman Catholic turned Nichiren Buddhist, was selected for the following contributions - raising money for Haiti earthquake victims, pressing for the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi, fighting bird flu, and supporting the work of the United Nations. In 1990, he was the central figure in a showdown between his new and old employers and famously said, “Deep in my heart I am always purple” to express solidarity with his previous employers who were based in Florence.

Just identify.

Roberto Baggio Refused to take the penalty vs. Fiorentina after his transfer to Juventus in 1990 and

picked up a Fiorentina scarf thrown onto the field by fans and kissed it

21. In 1976, he was awarded the Magsaysay Award for International Understanding in recognition of his contribution to India's industrial development.

Who? (Surname is enough)

Henning Holck-Larsen

22. Pictured is the largest member of the family of water lilies. The lily, named after a monarch, has ribbed undersurface and leaves veining “like transverse girders and supports” and was the inspiration for a 1851 construction, a building four times the size of St. Peter's in Rome.

Name the plant. Also, identify the construction.

Image in the next slide.

Victoria Lily (Victoria amazonica) The Crystal Palace

23. The conservation of Angkor Wat in Cambodia is perhaps one of the most outstanding projects of X. In 1982, a project report was prepared and an experiment was carried out on the conservation project. A five-member team visited Angkor Wat and incorporating few observations in the report prepared earlier, prepared a comprehensive conservation report. Consequently, between 1986-1992 the missions lead by four officers of X and their team have successfully completed the conservation and restoration of the temple.

Excerpt from the website of X, chronicling their achievements. Just identify X.

24. Pictured is a cricket ground X, that hosted 3 matches (Pakistan vs Namibia, Bangladesh vs New Zealand, West Indies vs Kenya) in the 2003 cricket world cup. The ground is owned and named after a company whose 1947 tagline Y, conceived by a copywriter named Frances Gerety, was voted in 2000 as the best advertising slogan of the twentieth century by the Advertising Age magazine.

Identify X and Y.

Image in the next slide.

X – De Beers Diamond Oval, Kimberley Y – A Diamond is Forever

* 25. YouView is an IPTV television service formally launched on 4 July 2012, and is a partnership between four broadcasters (BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and ITV). As a part of promotion of the venture, a poll was undertaken to identify “The moments that changed TV forever”.

Which moment from 2012 topped the list?

Image in the next slide.

James Bond and Her Majesty the Queen at the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony

26. He joined Arrah Town School in 1922. The school had two water pots, one for Hindus and another for Muslims. When the young X drank water from the Hindu pot, the matter was reported to the Principal, who placed a third pot for “untouchables.” A scandalized X broke this pot twice, eventually leading the school to abandon the third pot.

Excerpt from a The Statesman article titled ‘The man who broke water pots to bring home a message.’

Identify X.

27. Which English word meaning ‘something or someone regarded as an essential or coordinating element thereby holding together parts that exist or function together as a unit’ is derived from the contraption pictured?

Lynchpin

28. Pictured is an instrument used in geometry for angle trisection. It consists of a semicircle, with a line segment the length of the radius extending along the same line as the diameter of the semicircle, and with another line segment of arbitrary length perpendicular to the diameter.

What is it called?

Tomahawk

29. This is Elsa Lanchester with her iconic hairstyle in Bride of Frankenstein.

What inspired the hairstyle?

The Bust of Nefertiti

* 30. This pioneering translator of Edgar Allen Poe is credited with coining the term "modernity" to describe the life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience. Many of his works were heavily influenced by his voyage to and subsequent experiences in India in the 1840s. The protagonists of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events were named after him. Also, Ravi, the protagonist of OV Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Itihasam, carries his works to Khasak.

Who, dubbed by Arthur Rimbaud as ‘the king of poets’?

Charles Baudelaire