1. Which 2014 Indian action-heist comedy film directed by Farah Khan featured an ensemble cast of Shahrukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood, Vivaan Shah and Jackie Shroff, and was loosely based on the Hollywood film Ocean’s Eleven?
2. Name the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics characters? This film features a young robotics prodigy named Hiro Hamada who forms a superhero team to combat a masked villain.
3. What is the name of the very soft and thin roti which is cooked on an upturned kadai placed on hot coals?
4. The Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir consists of three regions. If Jammu, and the Kashmir Valley are two of these, which is the third?
5. Which is the first superhero film to not have the superhero’s name in the title?
6. Who declared in 1936 that Germany and Italy would form an ‘axis’ around which the other states of Europe would revolve?
7. The playing of which Indian stringed musical instrument involves depressing the strings with the back of the fingertips rather than the ball of the fingertips?
8. If it is known as the Indian Premier League (IPL) in India, what is the national league T20 cricket tournament called in Australia?
9. One rupee currency notes are set to make a comeback after two decades, although in a different colour. It depicts the first rig that discovered oil in Bombay High in 1974 and has been in service for 32 years. What is its name?
10. This component of the blood got its name from piastrine by Giulio Bizzozero in 1882 because these spherules looked like miniature versions of common objects found on a dinner table. James Wright named it with the English translation of the Italian word and it is by this name that it is known now . What component of our blood is this?
11. Which Hollywood film company made a deal with Reliance ADA Group to set up a new studio?
12. Which magazine that began publication in 1960 has the tagline ‘Bridging US-India Relations’ and is appropriately named after the interval between two intermediate supports of a bridge that is closed by a solid beam?
13. Which holy city of the Muslims has a full name that means ‘City of the Prophet’? It is the second holiest city after Mecca.
14. Name the cities between which the Maitree Express started plying on April 14, 2008, after 43 years.
15. Which Moghul Emperor’s tomb served as an inspiration for the design of the Taj Mahal?
16. Which spice is the dried outer covering of the nutmeg seed or jaiphal?
17. Which of Tchaikovsky’s ballets popularly performed during Christmas features the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy?
18. Band Aid was a charity supergroup featuring mainly British and Irish musicians in 1984 by Bob Geldof to raise money for anti-poverty efforts in Ethiopia by releasing the song Do They Know It’s Christmas? for the Christmas market that year. Why did Bob Geldof put together its reincarnation called Band Aid 30, 30 years later after the UN contacted him?
19. In which direction do cyclones rotate in the Northern Hemisphere?
20. Every Christmas and Easter, the Pope delivers the Urbi et Orbi address and blessing from the central loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, at noontime. What does this term mean?
answers
1. Happy New Year
2. Big Hero 6
3. Roomali roti
4. Ladakh
5. The Dark Knight
6. Benito Mussolini
7. Sarangi
8. Big Bash
9. Sagar Samrat
10. Platelets (or little plates, scientifically called Thrombocytes)
11. Dreamworks
12. Span
13. Medina (Madinat al-Nabi means ‘The City of the Prophet’. The word Medina simply means ‘city’)
14. Kolkata and Dhaka
15. Humayun’s, New Delhi
16. Mace or Javithri
17. The Nutcracker
18. To spread awareness about the 2014 Ebola crisis in Western Africa spreading throughout the world.
19. Anti-clockwise
20. Urbi meaning the city and Orbi meaning the globe