WBPSC Clerkship 2024: West Bengal and GK Mixed Quiz (Round 4, 20 Questions)

Around 750 CE, to end Bengal's long anarchy (matsyanyaya), Gopala was chosen king; he founded the Pala dynasty. Dharmapala and Devapala were the powerful Pala kings after him. Shashanka was the king of Gauda before the Pala age, with his capital at Karnasuvarna.

'Nil Darpan' (1860) was written by Dinabandhu Mitra; set against the indigo planters' oppression and the Indigo Revolt, it caused a stir. Rev. James Long was jailed for publishing its English translation. That translation is believed to be Michael Madhusudan Dutt's, which is why his name is the trap here.

In 1780 James Augustus Hicky brought out the 'Bengal Gazette' from Calcutta, known as Hicky's Bengal Gazette and India's first newspaper. Buckingham started the 'Calcutta Journal' later (1818). William Carey was a Serampore missionary; Ram Mohan Roy is linked with 'Sambad Kaumudi'.

Satyendranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore's elder brother, passed the ICS examination in 1863 and became the first Indian civilian. Surendranath Banerjee and R. C. Dutt passed later, in 1869. Subhas Chandra Bose passed in 1920 but resigned in 1921.

In 1897 Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission in the name of his guru Sri Ramakrishna; its headquarters is Belur Math in Howrah. Sri Ramakrishna had died in 1886, so he was not the founder. Keshab Chandra Sen and Debendranath Tagore were leaders of the Brahmo movement.

Siliguri grew on the banks of the Mahananda; the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary lies next to the city. The Teesta flows east of Siliguri towards Jalpaiguri. The Torsa is the river of Cooch Behar and Alipurduar, the Jaldhaka of Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar.

Tagore wrote 'Amar Sonar Bangla' in 1905, during the protests against the Partition of Bengal; independent Bangladesh adopted it as its national anthem. India's national anthem 'Jana Gana Mana' is also Tagore's, so he wrote the anthems of two countries.

In 1931 Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis set up the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata; he also shaped India's Second Five-Year Plan. Jagadish Chandra Bose founded the Bose Institute (1917) and Meghnad Saha the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics. Satyendra Nath Bose is famous for Bose–Einstein statistics, but he did not found the ISI.

On 30 June 1855 at Bhognadih the Santhals, led by Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, rose (the Hul) against moneylenders, landlords and British rule. Birsa Munda led the Munda rising (Ulgulan, 1899–1900). Titu Mir built the bamboo fort at Narkelberia (1831); Dudu Miyan led the Faraizi movement.

Working at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata, C. V. Raman discovered the Raman effect in the scattering of light in 1928 and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. The day of the discovery, 28 February, is now National Science Day. 1913 is Tagore's Nobel for literature, 1979 Mother Teresa's Peace Prize.

The Regulating Act of 1773 made the Governor of Bengal the Governor-General, and Warren Hastings became the first Governor-General of Bengal. Under the Charter Act of 1833 Lord William Bentinck became the first Governor-General of India. Robert Clive was Governor of Bengal, and Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement (1793).

Under Article 58 of the Constitution the minimum age for the President is 35 years; it is 35 for the Vice-President too. A member of the Lok Sabha must be 25, a member of the Rajya Sabha 30. The Constitution sets no minimum age of 40 for any of these posts.

The 86th Constitutional Amendment of 2002 added Article 21A, making free and compulsory education for all children aged 6–14 a Fundamental Right; the Right to Education Act, 2009 followed from it. The 44th Amendment removed the right to property from the Fundamental Rights, and the 73rd gave panchayats constitutional status.

At about 1465 km the Godavari is the longest river of peninsular India; it rises at Trimbakeshwar near Nashik in Maharashtra and flows into the Bay of Bengal. The Krishna comes next in length. The Narmada is the longest of the west-flowing rivers and falls into the Arabian Sea.

Nathu La is in Sikkim; it links Sikkim with Tibet in China, and a branch of the old Silk Route passed through it. Shipki La in Himachal Pradesh also leads to Tibet, so the two get mixed up. Arunachal's well-known pass is Bum La.

India's southernmost point is Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Kanyakumari is the southernmost point of the mainland, not of the whole country. Rameswaram is an island town in Tamil Nadu; Port Blair (now Sri Vijaya Puram) is the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In myopia the image of a distant object forms in front of the retina, so far things look blurred; a concave (diverging) lens spreads the light so the image falls on the retina. Hypermetropia (long-sightedness) needs a convex lens, presbyopia often a bifocal, astigmatism a cylindrical lens.

Vitamin D is made in the skin when it is exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays, which is why it is called the 'sunshine vitamin'. It helps the body absorb calcium; its deficiency causes rickets in children. Vitamins A, C and K come mainly from food (bacteria in the gut also make some vitamin K).

The Indian Museum was founded in Kolkata in 1814 on the initiative of the Asiatic Society; it is the oldest and largest museum in India, known locally as the 'Jadughar'. The Government Museum in Chennai dates from 1851, the National Museum in New Delhi from 1949.