WBPSC Clerkship 2024: West Bengal and GK Mixed Quiz (Round 3, 20 Questions)

West Bengal's state animal is the fishing cat, a wild cat of wetlands that catches fish. The Royal Bengal Tiger is India's national animal, not the state animal; the word 'Bengal' in its name is the trap.

Howrah Bridge, which joins Howrah and Kolkata across the Hooghly, opened in 1943; in 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu after Rabindranath Tagore. Vidyasagar Setu is the Second Hooghly Bridge, Vivekananda Setu is the Bally Bridge, and Nivedita Setu is the second Vivekananda bridge beside it.

Bishnupur is in Bankura district and was the capital of the Malla kings. It is famous for the terracotta work of the Rasmancha, Jor Bangla and Shyam Rai temples and for Baluchari sarees. Purulia is better known for Chhau dance and Birbhum for Santiniketan.

Jaldapara National Park in Alipurduar district is famous for the one-horned rhinoceros; Gorumara in Jalpaiguri has rhinos too. The Royal Bengal Tiger is the Sundarbans' animal, the red panda lives in Singalila (Darjeeling) and Neora Valley (Kalimpong), and the Asiatic lion only in Gir forest in Gujarat.

The Damodar comes down from the Chota Nagpur plateau in Jharkhand, and its floods used to drown large parts of Bardhaman, Hooghly and Howrah again and again: hence the 'Sorrow of Bengal'. After independence the dams of the Damodar Valley Corporation brought the floods largely under control. The Damodar finally joins the Hooghly.

Set up in 1948, the DVC was independent India's first multipurpose river valley project, modelled on the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of the USA. The Hoover Dam is also in the USA, but it is a single dam, not a valley development body; China's Three Gorges came much later.

Governor-General Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1793: the revenue the zamindars owed was fixed for ever. 1765 is when the Company got the Diwani, 1784 Pitt's India Act, 1813 the Charter Act.

The orientalist Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784 to study Asia's history, languages and culture. Warren Hastings was then Governor-General and its patron, not its founder. James Prinsep, later its secretary, deciphered the Brahmi script.

After Raja Rammohun Roy's long campaign, Lord William Bentinck banned sati by the regulation of 1829 (Regulation XVII). Cornwallis is known for the Permanent Settlement, Dalhousie for the Doctrine of Lapse, and Canning as Governor-General during the revolt of 1857.

After Vidyasagar's campaign and petitions, the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act was passed in 1856, making the remarriage of Hindu widows legal. 1829 is the year sati was abolished, 1891 the year of the Age of Consent Act.

The first session of the Congress, in Bombay in December 1885, was presided over by the Bengali barrister W. C. Bonnerjee (Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee); 72 delegates attended. Allan Octavian Hume founded the Congress but did not preside. Dadabhai Naoroji presided over the second session (1886, Calcutta).

Netaji proclaimed the Provisional Government of Azad Hind in Singapore on 21.10.1943. The headquarters of the Azad Hind Fauj were later moved to Rangoon (Burma). In Berlin he had earlier set up the Free India Centre and the Indian Legion.

On 16.04.1853 India's first passenger train ran about 34 km from Bori Bunder in Bombay to Thane, under Lord Dalhousie. Howrah–Hooghly, eastern India's first line, opened the next year, on 15.08.1854: that is the trap here.

Among India's states, Gujarat has the longest coastline: the Gulfs of Kutch and Khambhat and the Kathiawar peninsula make its coast very indented. Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu face the Bay of Bengal, but their coasts are shorter than Gujarat's.

The Western and Eastern Ghats meet in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu; their highest peak is Doddabetta, and the hill town of Ooty is here. The Aravallis are in Rajasthan, and the Vindhyas and Satpuras in central India on either side of the Narmada valley.

The Narmada flows west through the rift valley between the Vindhyas and Satpuras and enters the Arabian Sea through the Gulf of Khambhat in Gujarat; so its mouth is an estuary, not a delta. The Godavari, Krishna and Mahanadi flow east into the Bay of Bengal and build deltas.

The liver is the largest gland in the human body; it makes bile, which helps digest fats. The thyroid is the largest endocrine gland and the pituitary is called the 'master gland'; but the question asks for the largest of all glands.

Iron rusts only when it meets both oxygen and water (moisture); rust is hydrated ferric oxide. In dry air, or in boiled water with no air, iron hardly rusts. Paint, oil or grease, or a coat of zinc (galvanisation), keeps rust away.

The haemoglobin of red blood cells contains iron; this iron binds oxygen and carries it from the lungs to the body's cells. A lack of iron in food causes anaemia. Magnesium is found in the chlorophyll of plants.