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Vol. XXV No. 8, August 1-15, 2015
Quizzin’ with Ram’nan
(Current Affairs questions are from the period August 1st to 15th. Questions 11 to 20 pertain to Chennai and Tamil Nadu.)
1. In which religious place in Maharashtra did the Sinhastha Kumbh Mela, commence on July 15th?
2. Name the legendary music composer called ‘Mellisai Mannar’ (Emperor of light music) who passed away on July 15th.
3. Name the Padma Vibhushan-winning artist decorated with France’s highest civilian award, the Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur, recently.
4. Expand GAGAN (system), jointly developed by ISRO and AAI, launched for aircraft navigation recently.
5. Name Leander Paes and Sania Mirza’s partner when the Indian duo recently won the mixed doubles and women’s doubles titles at Wimbledon.
6. Which country recently won the Copa America for the first time, defeating Argentina in the final?
7. Name the NASA spacecraft that recently completed a historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons.
8. Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have announced the discovery of a new particle, which would be a new form of matter, whose existence was first predicted in the 1960s. Name it.
9. Name the legendary actor, born Michael Shalhoub, and famously known for his roles in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), who passed away recently.
10. According to the recently released World Bank Group’s report The State of Social Safety Nets 2015, which Indian initiative has been ranked as the world’s largest public works programme?
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11. Which Tamil litterateur has been conferred the Sahitya Akademi’s prestigious ‘Bhasha Samman’ for contributions to Classical and Medieval Literature (Southern)?
12. Where in the State is an Indian Institute of Management located?
13. From the base of which structure is the mean sea level for Chennai calculated?
14. What historic mode of transport arrived in Chennai on June 13, 1855 on board the ship Haveling?
15. What does the pedestal of the Cornwallis statue depict?
16. What initiative started by Richard Johnston debuted in Madras on October 12, 1785?
17. Which (then) 43-acre site, synonymous with Egmore and with a Grecian name, was granted to Hall Plumer (civil servant and contractor) in 1798?
18. Who is the Sangitha Kalanidhi designate for 2015?
19. Which religious edifice in San Thomé is known as ‘Dhyana Ashram’ and dedicated to Our Lady of Guidance?
20. By what name is Pereira Street, off Wall Tax Road, called?
Answers to Quiz1. Trimbakeshwar, Nashik; 2. M.S. Viswanathan; 3. S.H. Raza; 4. GPS-Aided Geo Augmented Navigation;
5. Swiss great Martina Hingis; 6. Chile; 7. New Horizons; 8. Pentaquark; 9. Omar Sharif; 10. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA).
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11. K Meenakshi Sundaram; 12. Tiruchchirappalli; 13. The Old Pillar lighthouse in the High Court complex; 14. The first four steam engines that were used for the inaugural railway service in South India in 1856; 15. The figures of Britannia and Victory flanking a bas-relief that shows Cornwallis receiving Tippu Sultan’s sons as hostages; 16. The first newspaper Madras Courier; 17. Pantheon; 18. Sanjay Subrahmanyan; 19. The church of Madre de Deus on Mada Church Road; 20. Jamla Thottam.
