1. What is the top choice today one would get if one entered the question ‘why’ on the Youtube search box?
2. Over 300,000 extras were used to shoot this scene, the most for any film according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Name the movie and the city.
3. In October 1963 at a particular ceremony Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, “This _____ has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and therefore is worthy of worship. Call it a temple or a gurdwara or a mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence”. What was Nehru specifically referring to?
4. This metallo-beta-lactamase-1 enzyme was first detected in a Klebsiella pneumoniae bacterial isolate from a Swedish patient of South Asian origin in 2008. It makes bacteria resistant to a broad range of beta-lactam antibiotics including carbapenems which are a mainstay for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. The discovery was reported in Lancet Infectious Diseases journal in 2010 by K K Kumaraswamy et al. What two words in the name of this enzyme caused a furore in India?
5. What international conflict began on March 20, 2003 and formally ended on December 15, 2011?
6. This prime mover in the Mahabharata has a real name of two words — the first relates to the fact that he is dark-skinned while the second word refers to his being born on an island between two streams of a river. By what name is he better known to us?
7. Only two people have been recipients of both the Bharat Ratna and the Nishaan-e-Pakistan, the highest civilian awards in India and Pakistan respectively. Name both of them.
8. The Burj Khalifa has now returned the title of ‘Earth’s tallest freestanding structure’ to the Middle East after nearly 700 years. This region last held the honour till 1311 AD when the Lincoln Cathedral in England was completed. Which structure’s record did the cathedral beat?
9. In 2009 PM Gordon Brown of UK made this unusual apology, “Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for A____ T______ and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While T______ was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to A_____’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.” Who was AT?
10. Whose successful political campaign was accompanied by a catchy slogan, “ ______ nahin, Ganesh hain, Brahma, Vishnu Mahesh hain”? And fill in the blank.
11. At around the same time eminent architect Le Corbusier was preparing the blueprint for the modern city of Chandigarh, the German architect Otto Konigsberger had planned a particular city in the east of India to be a well-planned city with wide roads and many gardens and parks. Which city?
12. Eva married Adolph on April 29, 1945 at around 12.30 am. For a short while she became the First Lady of the Third Reich till she and her husband ended their lives the next day at around 1.30 pm. Till then who played the role of First Lady when Hitler was unmarried?
13. In 1958 USA proved successful with its rocket science and launched the Explorer-1 satellite on the Jupiter-C rocket designed in part by Wernher von Braun. The satellite carried a radiation detector designed by a University of Iowa astronomer. While in orbit it detected swathes of charged particles around the earth that were discovered to contribute to the swirling lights of the polar auroras. Who was the astronomer who designed this detector?
14. What tropically growing plant was the main export to Europe in 1763 from Louisiana and was the main cash crop of that colony? Worm infestations at the end of the 18th century caused repeated crop failures and by 1800, planters turned to sugar, cotton, and tobacco.
15. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the longest mountain chain on earth (at 40 thousand kilometers). It is located along the middle of the Atlantic. The southern tip lies above seal level as the Tristan da Cuhna islands in the south Atlantic. Which country in the north Atlantic is the only part of this chain that is above water.