2012 kqa ganesh nayak memorial open quiz prelims
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Prelims of the KQA Open Quiz by Vivek Karthikeyan (kiVi) and Venkatesh Srinivasan (Venky)TRANSCRIPT
XXIII Ganesh Nayak Memorial Open Quiz 2012
Prelims
Quizmasters
Vivek Karthikeyan and Venkatesh S
Answers Follow…
1
The Sanskrit words for “age” and “beginning”
combine to give us what familiar term in
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh?
Answer follows…
Ugadi (Yuga + Adi)
What three word phrase,
familiar to Indian road
travellers is the title of this
quirky travel book about
three people traversing
North India on a SUV?
2
Answer follows…
Horn OK Please
With what seven-letter name, presumably because of
the feather-light ball, was Table Tennis originally
introduced by John Jacques of London, who ran a
famous sporting store?
3
Answer follows…
• Gossima
Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland
Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka
Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka
Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley
?
?
Give the two missing items from this list
4
Answer follows…
• Mo Yan
• European Union
• 2012 Nobel Prize winners
Balarama is a veteran who has been the star for the last 13 years. His predecessor was Drona, who had been on the job for 18 years before he died of electrocution.
This year, word has it that Balarama may not be fit and be replaced by 52-year old Arjuna. Others in contention are Gajendra and Abhimanyu.
The big day that they are preparing for is on October 24 this year when they will walk the 5 km route, carrying a rather heavy load.
Explain
5*
Answer follows…
• Elephants who carry the howdah at the Mysore Dussera procession
Infosys announced recently that it is to open a new delivery centre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The decision to locate the centre in the Midwest was taken after the company last week won a five-year, $200 Mn deal with this global, iconic brand to provide technology services, including taking over some of the IT personnel of the brand .
Which iconic Milwaukee-based brand?
6
Answer follows…
• Harley Davidson
What 10-minute project is this all about?
7
Answer follows…
• The project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s free fall from 39 km.
Ranked 11th on the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, and representing NASA's state-of-the-art technology for meeting supercomputing requirements, it is located at NASA Ames Research Center near Mountain View, California. It is maintained by NASA, and its partners SGI and Intel.
The supercomputer is named after a star cluster – the alternate name for which is used in India to describe a contiguous set of states.
One-word name please
8
Answer follows…
• Pleiades (Seven Sisters)
Two of the greatest American novels of the 20th century are headed for the big screen later this year (2012), and literary fans are bracing for the worst.
Baz Luhrmann is directing one of the films, starring Leonardo Di Caprio; the trailer of the film has evoked the following reaction on Twitter, “___ _____ ______ 3D: Borne back ceaselessly into your face.”
The other film is the first ever movie adaptation of this 1951 book and is being directed by Walter Salles who has retraced a journey across North America and interviewed scholars and surviving members of the Beat Generation. Name the books
9
Answer follows…
• The Great Gatsby
The closing line of the book is So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.“
• On the Road
Lonesome George was the last known individual of the subspecies. In his last years, he was known as the rarest creature in the world. George served as a potent symbol for conservation efforts in Ecuador and internationally. Upon his death in June 2012, the sub-species became extinct.
Which sub-species?
10*
Answer follows…
• Pinta Island / Abingdon Island tortoise (half points for Galapagos tortoise)
Which town in Tamil Nadu has a Doordarshan TV tower standing at 1060 feet, making it India’s tallest structure ?
11
Answer follows…
• Rameswaram
Since the early 1990s, what object has been used as a mark of protest by anti-tax protestors and conservatives in the US?
A custom has developed among some conservative activists of sending these to legislators and other officials via postal mail as an act of symbolism. The informal slogan of these protests is “Taxed Enough Already”.
12
Answer follows…
• Tea Bags
ID the film
- Video trailer removed
13
Answer follows…
• Delhi Safari
Phiroze Edulji Palia was the first one, from Bangalore in 1932. However, the first “authentic” Kannadiga was Wing Commander VM Muddiah in 1959. Both of them did it two times.
The maximum is 164 times.
18 others from Karnataka have done this so far, with the latest happening in January 2012.
What have these 20 people done?
14
Answer follows…
• Play test cricket for India
“Follow! nay, I’ll go with thee, _____ __ _____. ” This is one of the earliest instances of this phrase, found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This often hyphenated phrase is essentially made up of two different words referring to the same part of the human anatomy.
What phrase, used mainly in a negative sense today to refer to living conditions ?
15*
Answer follows…
• Cheek-by-jowl
Primary
Medium
National Language
Primer
Expert
Well-versed
Master
Names of exams conducted by which organization in India that had Mahatma Gandhi as its first president from 1918-1948?
16
Answer follows…
• Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha
The _________ frog is found in Trinidad and Tobago and the north coast of South America as well as in the Amazon area. The name comes because the creature is so small that it hides among bananas and is then sometimes accidentally exported to other countries.
What’s the name?
17
Answer follows…
• Stowaway Frog
This is a painting depicting a traditional folk dance of the tribal community in East India of the same name. The painter is a Padma Bhushan awardee, who revived Bengali folk art through his paintings in the 1920s-40s.
Name the tribe or the painter
18
Answer follows…
• Santhals
• Jamini Roy
From a minimalist poster series celebrating pioneering women in science, this is a tribute to a lady who has a U.S. Navy destroyer and a Cray model named after her. Who (think COBOL)?
19
Answer follows…
• Grace Hopper, of the ‘bug in the notebook’ fame.
Commonly known as the Browns, these butterflies have eye like spots. Large groups of these dull-coloured butterflies were noticed to flutter through meadows with a bouncy flight, pausing to drink at fallen fruit. The males would often chase wildly after the females. What name did the Danish biologist Fabricius give them, after a mythical woodland creature having features of a goat and a horse and known for lasciviousness? Pictures on next slide
20*
Answer follows…
• Satyrids after satyrs in Greek myth
In 1763 after he got out of the militia, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe. In his autobiography he writes of a particular place: ...after a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum; …as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter. Who, and what idea (for a book) did the locale inspire?
21
Answer follows…
• Edward Gibbon struck upon the idea of writing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
In his works Dropsie Avenue, New York – The Big City, and A Contract With God, Will Eisner shows us vignettes of daily life and decay. His stories are set in the sub-standard multi-family dwellings common in NY at the time (and in many cities then and now). What 16th century legal term, originally coined for any rented accommodation are these housing projects known by? Pictures on next slide
22
4.
Answer follows…
• Tenement
It has been called a “massive phenomenon” by a top industry honcho, and is claimed to have spawned an entire ecosystem. A company, Zipdial, uses it in a voting system. Its usefulness also came to the fore when India against Corruption (IAC) started using it to give mainstream politicians a run for their money. A representative of the movement says the IAC's database has more than 20 million unique entries at its computers in Mumbai. What method did IAC employ to gain supporters?
23
Answer follows…
• Supporters are asked to give a missed call!
Middlemarch by George Elliot is considered to be her finest work. There is a recent resurgence of interest in its plotline. The story is set in a small, picturesque town, with a mix of the terribly poor, a bit of the very wealthy, and a lot of the middle classes, with things like a local election thrown in.
The causal factor for the interest has been called a “parody,” with a Guardian reader giving it an alternate title ______, a play on the term for a “non-magical people.”
What is the reason for the renewed interest, and what did the reader call it?
24
Answer follows…
•The Casual Vacancy
•The reader called it “Mugglemarch”
This representation from the Bible is the first known instance. Today a ‘transfer of authority’ is termed as ____, having originated from the name of the artifact.
What phrase?
25*
Answer follows…
•Passing the mantle
•The mantle is a sleeveless coat typically worn by bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The pic shows Elijah giving his mantle to Elisha.
It began as the Morand plantation. Near the end of the eighteenth century a Frenchman purchased the land. After a few decades, the Carondelet Canal was built, splitting the land. It soon had a diverse population that included Caucasians, Haitian Creoles, and free persons of colour. The local square was the Place des Nègres where slaves gathered on Sundays to dance.
In the early 1960s a large portion was torn down. The land stood vacant for a time before Louis Armstrong Park was created out of the area. Through which David Simon creation did we come to know this better?
26
Answer follows…
• Tremé
It is most probably Sindora wallichii, a species belonging to the peanut family. It marked the eastern approach to the Straits of Johore and was felled in 1942 to prevent the enemy from using it to sight their long range artillery.
While many believe it lent its name to the locality, that name probably comes from another timber-producing species.
What is being referred to?
27
Answer follows…
• Changi Tree
• The area Changi is probably named after another species, Chengal, a tree belonging to the dipterocarp family
It is a term used to refer to someone at work who saves all the good or easy jobs for himself, and also in sports for players who look for easy shots – like a person who sits in the back court by the basket waiting for an outlet pass.
The origin for the term is from a hoist (see pic) originally designed for use in orchards, that is also widely used today to service equipment and cables on utility poles.
What term?
28
Answer follows…
• Cherry-Picker
It is called Antina Unde in many parts of Karnataka. Some call it Dinkachi Ladoo. In a more popular form it is called X.
The difference between X and the others is that X does not have as many ingredients, has more dry coconut, dry fruits and edible gum.
What is X?
29
Answer follows…
•Karadantu, as it is popularly called in Northern Karnataka, or more specifically the Belgaum-Gokak belt
When King George V travelled to India to be proclaimed Emperor of India in 1911 at the Durbar in Delhi, he was only the second English King to leave Europe in a long time.
Who was the last one to set out before George?
30*
Answer follows…
• Richard ‘Couer de Lion’ or Richard the Lionheart, on Crusades.
Jawaharlal Nehru first visited Pakistan in 1950, 18 days after the Nehru-Liaquat Pact on minorities was signed. His second visit was in September 1960. The outcome of that visit is something that perhaps the folks down south could study and try to emulate.
What was the reason for Nehru’s second visit?
31
Answer follows…
• To sign the Indus Water Treaty with Ayub Khan
The instrument in Pic A is a wind-driven musical instrument, the origins of which can be traced back to ancient Greece. They are typically seen in churches and concert halls. They were installed in movie theatres during the silent movie era. The instrument in Pic B was developed as an affordable substitute for A, and as a replacement for the piano in middle-class homes. It also became a huge hit in jazz, and later with pop groups. The overdriven sound gained a new image with artists like Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood, Rick Wright, Keith Emerson and Jon Lord using it extensively. Name both.
32
Answer follows…
• A – Pipe Organ
• B – Hammond Organ
First introduced in 1985 by Novo Nordisk, these products have a number of advantages over conventional methods. They are convenient to carry around, help administer accurate dosages and are easier to use with less pain. What are they used for?
Pictures on next slide.
33
Answer follows…
•Used by diabetes patients to inject insulin
In India, only Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi and Pondicherry carry on a tradition seen in other Commonwealth nations. The other similar regions in India have an IAS officer with the title “Administrator”.
What tradition?
34
Answer follows…
• Persons holding position of Lt. Governor
The TIME cover features Hitler playing “his hymn of hate” in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a device while the Nazi hierarchy looks on. A very cool, or sick device, depending on how you look at it, it was a product of the middle ages, and named after a person believed to have been killed on it during the rule of the Roman Emperor Maxentius. What was it called? (larger pics follow)
35*
Answer follows…
• St. Catherine’s Wheel •Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper was a Catholic that fled Hitler’s Germany, and the artist of this disturbing piece. By 1938, Hitler had firmly seized power in Germany, taken over Austria and Czechoslovakia, and had been given a free hand in Eastern Europe by the English prime minister of the time, Neville Chamberlain. Time has had to defend this choice throughout history, and at the time defended it by stating that the “Man of the Year” was a title bestowed on the person who had most influenced events of the previous year.
ID the person talking and the person he is describing at the beginning of the clip.
36
Answer follows…
• Maurice Sendak on William Blake
Finals Shortly…