UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — How rare archival photos revealed the magic of Madras
Q1. Consider the following statements regarding the early history of Madras and Fort St George:
1. Permission to build a fort at Madraspatnam was obtained by the English East India Company from the raja of Chandragiri in 1639.
2. Fort St George was recognised as a Presidency by 1652.
3. The site was preferred largely because it lay nearer the weaving centres from which goods were obtained for export to Persia and the East Indies.
4. The city's name was officially changed from Madras to Chennai by the Government of India in 1947.
Which of the statements given above is/are NOT correct?
- Permission to build a fort at Madraspatnam was obtained by the English East India Company from the raja of Chandragiri in 1639.
- Fort St George was recognised as a Presidency by 1652.
- The site was preferred largely because it lay nearer the weaving centres from which goods were obtained for export to Persia and the East Indies.
- The city's name was officially changed from Madras to Chennai by the Government of India in 1947.
- A. 1 and 2
- B. 2 and 3
- C. 1, 3 and 4
- D. 4 only
Q2. With reference to the growth of British power centred on Madras, consider the following:
1. 'Madras' was the shortened name of a fishing village, Madraspatnam, at which the East India Company built its fort and factory.
2. Between 1668 and 1749 the Company expanded the territory under its control around Fort St George.
3. By about 1801 the last of the local rulers had been shorn of his powers, and Madras became the administrative and commercial capital of southern India.
4. Fort St George acquired the status of a Presidency only after the Company had become master of southern India.
Which of the above is/are correctly identified?
- 'Madras' was the shortened name of a fishing village, Madraspatnam, at which the East India Company built its fort and factory.
- Between 1668 and 1749 the Company expanded the territory under its control around Fort St George.
- By about 1801 the last of the local rulers had been shorn of his powers, and Madras became the administrative and commercial capital of southern India.
- Fort St George acquired the status of a Presidency only after the Company had become master of southern India.
- A. 1 and 2 only
- B. 1, 2 and 3
- C. 2, 3 and 4
- D. 1 and 4
Q3. Consider the following in the context of Carnatic music and Chennai's music traditions:
1. Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri constitute the 'Trinity' of Carnatic composers of the early nineteenth century.
2. Chennai entered the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the field of Gastronomy.
3. Musical knowledge in the city has traditionally been transmitted by the Gurukulam method, in which teachers host students in their own homes.
4. The city's Music Season extends over about two months and features roughly 1,500 performances across public spaces.
Which of the above is/are correctly identified?
- Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri constitute the 'Trinity' of Carnatic composers of the early nineteenth century.
- Chennai entered the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the field of Gastronomy.
- Musical knowledge in the city has traditionally been transmitted by the Gurukulam method, in which teachers host students in their own homes.
- The city's Music Season extends over about two months and features roughly 1,500 performances across public spaces.
- A. 1 and 3 only
- B. 2 and 4 only
- C. 1, 3 and 4
- D. 1, 2 and 4
Q4. Which one of the following autonomous bodies of the Ministry of Culture is the country's apex institution for music, dance and drama, and administers Kathak Kendra and the Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy?
- A. The Sahitya Akademi, set up in 1954 for letters
- B. The Sangeet Natak Akademi, set up in 1953 for the performing arts
- C. The Lalit Kala Akademi, set up in 1954 for the visual arts
- D. The Centre for Cultural Resources and Training, set up in 1979 for cultural education
Q5. Which one of the following organisations under the Ministry of Culture, founded at Madras in 1936, is designated an institution of national importance for the preservation of the classical arts?
- A. The National School of Drama, the Ministry's premier theatre-training institution
- B. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, the Ministry's centre for the arts
- C. The Kalakshetra Foundation, on nearly 100 acres by the Chennai seashore
- D. The Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy of music, dance and drama
Q6. The stated institutional purpose of the Kalakshetra Foundation is best defined as that of
- A. a State academy that confers fellowships and national honours on senior performing artists
- B. a documentation centre that builds audio-visual archives of classical performance traditions
- C. a teachers' training college attached to the annual conference of the Madras Music Academy
- D. a centre for artistic education devoted to the study and performance of the fine arts free from commercialism
Q7. Therukoothu is treated as pre-eminent among Tamil Nadu's folk performance traditions chiefly because
- A. it is the only Tamil performing tradition in which the characters sing and dance at the same time
- B. it is performed exclusively by hereditary temple servants attached to Mahabharata shrines
- C. it carries, layer upon layer, the cultural history of the Tamil country from ancient times and ranks among South Asia's most crystallised folk theatre forms
- D. it is the sole Indian folk theatre form to have taken shape entirely after the decline of Sanskrit drama
Q8. In accounts of Tamil performance traditions such as Therukoothu, the triad 'Eyal, Isai and Natakam' denotes
- A. the three hereditary performer roles of narrator, drummer and impersonator in a koothu troupe
- B. the three branches of Tamil - literature, music and drama - on which the tradition draws
- C. the three successive watches into which an all-night koothu performance is divided
- D. the three district clusters - Vellore, Tiruvannamalai and Kancheepuram - where the form survives
Q9. M.G. Ramachandran, who made his screen debut in Sathi Leelavathi (1936) playing a dishonest police officer, appeared in approximately how many films in the course of his career?
- A. More than 50
- B. More than 130
- C. More than 300
- D. More than 500
Q10. Sport & Pastime, the magazine brought out by The Hindu Group and used by its Library Department to cross-check dates of cultural events in Madras, ran for approximately how many years before it ceased publication?
- A. About 11 years
- B. About 21 years
- C. About 31 years
- D. About 41 years
Q11. Consider the following statements comparing public archives with a private newspaper photo archive in India:
1. Under the Public Records Act, 1993, unclassified public records more than thirty years old that have been transferred to the National Archives of India may be made available to bona fide research scholars, subject to prescribed exceptions.
2. Abhilekh Patal, the online access portal of the National Archives of India, offers its digitised documents free of charge to the public, and the records hosted on it run to several crore pages.
3. Unlike public records, in The Hindu's photo archive the entire body of physical prints, negatives and transparencies was already available in digital form, so no manual searching was needed while assembling the recent 'Madras on Stage' display.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- Under the Public Records Act, 1993, unclassified public records more than thirty years old that have been transferred to the National Archives of India may be made available to bona fide research scholars, subject to prescribed exceptions.
- Abhilekh Patal, the online access portal of the National Archives of India, offers its digitised documents free of charge to the public, and the records hosted on it run to several crore pages.
- Unlike public records, in The Hindu's photo archive the entire body of physical prints, negatives and transparencies was already available in digital form, so no manual searching was needed while assembling the recent 'Madras on Stage' display.
- A. 1 only
- B. 1 and 2 only
- C. 2 and 3 only
- D. 1, 2 and 3
Q12. Consider the following statements about the 'Madras on Stage' photo-archives exhibition:
1. It was the fourth edition of the 'Made of Chennai' series and was mounted at Kasturi Buildings, the newspaper's corporate head office.
2. Its curator's plan devoted the display entirely to drama and stage photographs, cinema and the performing arts being excluded from this edition.
3. The photographs on show spanned the 1920s to the 2010s.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- It was the fourth edition of the 'Made of Chennai' series and was mounted at Kasturi Buildings, the newspaper's corporate head office.
- Its curator's plan devoted the display entirely to drama and stage photographs, cinema and the performing arts being excluded from this edition.
- The photographs on show spanned the 1920s to the 2010s.
- A. 1 and 2 only
- B. 2 and 3 only
- C. 1 and 3 only
- D. 1, 2 and 3