World Heritage Day

Today (18^th April) is World Heritage Day. India has 38 World Heritage Sites.

Here are 10 sites from different parts of the country. Can you identify them?
All photos shot by me. 

1)    This temple was built around 1150 AD by the emperor of one of the iconic and longest ruling dynasties in world history. What is the name of the temple? Where is it located?

2)      A collection of 7 churches in Old Goa have been collectively designated as a world heritage site. Name this church which was built in 1597.

3)     These carvings are from an iconic structure in Gujarat that is perhaps unique to India. Name this 11^th C monument, which is one of the finest and largest examples of this kind of structure. It is also featured on the new Hundred Rupee note.

4)     Name this architect, the pioneer of the Modern Movement, whose building projects in 7 different countries and 3 different continents have been collectively designated as world heritage site.

5)      This was an important learning centre for 700 years from 5^th C to 12^th C.

6)    These wonderful gargoyles embellish this still functional building, considered to be one of the finest examples of Victorian Gothic architecture.

7)      The king who built these monuments also founded a city that is named after him.

8)     Half a dozen hill forts scattered across the state of Rajasthan have been designated as world heritage sites. Name this fort.

9)    3 mountain railways of India have been collectively designated as world heritage site. A 4^th line is on the tentative list. Name the railway line featured in this picture.

10)   Name this site, which is India’s first “Mixed Heritage” site representing both natural and cultural elements.

THE REALLY DIFFICULT QUIZ ABOUT 2019

Test your knowledge about the year that just passed into history. 

1) On 3^rd January, China became the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon. The Chinese probe Chang’e-4 landed in a crater located in the South Pole – Aitken basin on the far side of the moon, that never faces earth. The crater where the probe landed is named after a famous Hungarian-American mathematician and aerospace engineer noted for many key advances in aerodynamics. Who is he?

2) On 12^th February, a country renamed itself by adding the label “North” to its name. This renaming followed 30 years of dispute with a neighbouring country, which accused it of appropriating its cultural identity and heritage. What are these 2 countries?

3) On 10^th April, the world was blown away by the first ever image of a Black Hole. The Black Hole is located in the Messier 87 galaxy, 500 million trillion kms away from us. Astronomers soon named the Black Hole as M87*, the asterisk mark indicating a “black hole”. But a Hawaiian language professor came up with a poetic name, which means “embellished dark source of unending creation”. What is this unofficial name of the Black Hole?

4) On 30^th April, Emperor Akihito stepped down to become the first Japanese monarch to abdicate in 200 years. This brought to an end the Heisei Era. The next day, his son, Naruhito ascended the throne to usher in a new era. What is the name of this new era, which has been inspired from the 7^th Century collection of Japanese poetry called Manyoshu?

5) On 6^th May, Archie was born, seventh in line to the British throne. What would be his pompous title, if his parents choose not to let him grow up as a private citizen?

6) On 18^th June, Marta Vieira da Silva of Brazil became the leading goal scorer in women’s or men’s World Cup tournaments by scoring her 17^th goal in the 1-0 win against Italy in Valenciennes, France. Whose record did she eclipse?

7) The Hong Kong protesters, who were in news for most of 2019, use colour coded maps to identify establishments that are sympathetic to their movement and those against. What 2 principal colours are used for this code?

8) On 18^th August, a group of around 100 people walked up a mountain and installed a plaque to mourn a passing away. The plaque mentioned “415 ppm CO2” as the cause of the tragic demise. What was being mourned?

9) On 18^th October, 50 years after man first set foot on Moon, two NASA astronauts, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, created history through their first all-woman spacewalk. They spent 7 hours outside the International Space Station to replace a faulty power control unit. This historic spacewalk was originally scheduled for March but had to be postponed. What was the reason for this reschedule?

10) On 27^th June, Matty Roberts, a 21-year old college student created a storm on the Internet by asking people to raid a top-secret military base in Nevada, that has been associated with aliens and UFOs. It brought FBI knocking on his door. What was this event touted as on Facebook?

11) A photo editing app is fuelling a fashion revolution on the Internet, which is characterized by female teenagers dressing and acting in a certain manner that is indistinguishable from each other. What is this meme called?

12) Finally, Donald Trump, who became the third American President to be impeached. At the heart of the controversy was Trump’s alleged request to his Ukrainian counterpart, to investigate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, about his work with Burisma Holdings Limited, a large energy exploration and production company. Where is the headquarters of Burisma located? 

Navaratri Quiz - 1

1)    On which day is Durga believed to have killed Mahishasura?

2)    The image of Goddess Durga is infused with life through an elaborate process using the medium of a banana plant draped in yellow saree. What is this ritual called?

3)    Traditionally the idols of Durga in West Bengal are made from river-bed clay and Shola. What is Shola?

4)    An important part of Durga Puja, the Sandhi Puja is performed during the period beginning from the last 24 minutes of Ashtami and ending after the first 24 minutes of Navami. What is this crucial 48 minute period called?

5)    Name the two Generals of Mahishasura who attacked the Goddess from the rear

6)    Durga was traditionally worshipped during spring in the month of March. Who is widely believed to have conceived the Durga Puja in its present form?

7)    Durga carries ten weapons in her ten hands, each one received from various Gods. Among them are the Trishul from Shiva and the Chakra from Vishnu. Who gave her the Dhanush (Bow and Arrow)

8)    It is customary to offer 108 numbers of this flower to the Goddess during the Puja. Which flower?

9)    What is ‘daker saj’ and why is it called so?

10) Why is Durga Puja called ‘akal bodhon’ or untimely invocation?

Answers to World Heritage Day Quiz

1) Mandu

2) Humayun's Tomb

3) Darasuram Chola Temple

4) Kumbalgarh Fort

5) CST Building

6) Chittorgarh Fort

7) Mahabalipuram (Arjuna's Penance)

8) Sanchi Stupa

9) Bhimbetka

10) Valley of Flowers

World Heritage Day Quiz

To celebrate World Heritage Day today, here are ten photos from my portfolio of World Heritage Sites in our incredible country. Just identify them. One of them is in the tentative list of UNESCO.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

#DailyQuiz

This is an unusual post on this blog, which otherwise features only questions and answers. But I think this is the perfect platform to put down my experience of a yearlong social experiment, which is slowly winding down as we begin the process of drawing curtains over 2015. The idea of asking a daily question on twitter has its inspiration from a fellow tweeter @DegreeKaapi, who began doing this in 2014, but discontinued it for some unknown reasons before he had crossed the three figure mark. In fact when he had posted his intent of a daily quiz, I had given him a week’s notice, warning that I will start it myself, if he does not do so in a week’s time. So when his quiz vanished from my timeline, I resolved to start my own on 01.01.2015. And I did without any fanfare. I chose #DailyQuiz as the hashtag for my daily quiz and the first question appropriately was on Gregorian calendar.

My questions have generally been topical, relating often to a significant event or commemoration of that day. The questions haven’t been easy, but neither have they been extraordinarily difficult. They haven’t been trick questions as quiz masters are frequently wont to ask. I didn’t have a question bank to draw from each day. This blog features some 1400 questions, but I never once dipped into it for #DailyQuiz. Sometimes, the questions would drop into my head straight from heaven, but on most days (or nights) it was lot of hard work searching and researching for the questions and the answers. Getting the answers 100% correct was important to maintain my credibility.  Keeping the #DailyQuiz flag flying each morning was a stressful task, but not because of the paucity of questions to ask. 

When I started #DailyQuiz, I had no expectations other than sharing my passion for quizzing. I can think of a dozen benefits of quizzing, but probably this is not the right time or place to talk about them. But there is one benefit that I cannot resist mentioning. It is the lateral forays along new paths and making serendipitous discoveries. Both while setting questions and validating the answers, I often experienced this profound joy of serendipity. And I thought #DailyQuiz will arouse the curiosity among my twitter followers and let them experience the same delight. But I was sadly mistaken. Only one person @LEELAKAPOOR1 understood the true purpose of #DailyQuiz. 

I never cared how people found answers to the questions. But it was important that they engage with me and with others. The objective was learning and sharing. Though I never stated it, Googling to find the answers was never discouraged. Only four followers - @LEELAKAPOOR1, @DegreeKaapi, @cgBalu and @aar004 engaged with me constantly by answering the questions. Three others, @maith_i, @happie_hameesha and @plumpernickel also engaged irregularly. Those who engaged with me on #DailyQuiz could be counted on the digits of my two hands; that is less than 1% of my 1200 plus followers. Even those who engaged regularly never retweeted and try to popularize the quiz. So #DailyQuiz is a failed social experiment. 

I made no attempts to market #DailyQuiz and relied on others to promote it though RT, but that never happened. More importantly it had no prizes to offer! Twitter with its 140 character limit is a great platform for quizzing, but I quickly learned that a plain vanilla quiz like mine cannot compete with other kinds of entertainment that twitter offers. Yesterday I conducted a twitter poll to find reasons for the poor participation. The answers were

• ·        Too difficult – 35%
• ·        Fear of giving wrong answers – 15%
• ·        Waste of time – 35%
• ·        Already answered by others – 15% 

But #DailyQuiz is a personal triumph for me, for my discipline and commitment. The questions were unfailingly up before 9, except when I was in Germany for a fortnight. I didn’t let my motivation slack despite no encouragement. It provided great moments of personal catharsis in what has been a very stressful year for a variety of reasons. I am extremely thankful to the seven followers mentioned before for their support through their answers. I am also thankful to the rest of my followers for ignoring #DailyQuiz and infuriating me sufficiently to keep the fire burning in my belly.

Answers to Quiz - 140

1)      Year 2014 will be most remembered for 2 types of crashes – airplanes and crude price. Malaysian Airlines lost 2 planes, one mysteriously and the other shot down by Russian supported Ukrainian rebels. Air Asia lost a plane in a thunderstorm. Crude oil price plummeted by more than 50% to #60 per barrel. The two came together in a deadly cocktail when the CEO of an oil refining company was killed in an air crash in Russia. Name the company and the CEO.

Total, Christophe de Margerie

2)      The deadly Ebola virus scared the guts out of people, as the toll mounted in the impoverished West African country of Sierra Leone. While doctors and nurses fought the virus valiantly and earned the “Person of the Year” accolade from Time magazine, it was another rare and less known disease that captured people’s imagination in Social Media through the Ice Bucket challenge. Name this disease.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

3)      The sporting spectacle of the year was undoubtedly the Football world cup in Brazil. While eyebrows went up when the host nation got a 1-7 thrashing of their lives at the feet of Germany in the semifinal, what set the tongues wagging was the bite of Uruguayan Luis “Dracula” Suarez. Name the Italian player he bit on the shoulder.

Giorgio Chiellini

4)      Uber, the ride-sharing service, which threatened to disrupt the way people hire taxis fell afoul of regulators across the world as it got its wheels mired in one controversy after another. Name the CEO of the company, valued currently at over $40 billion, and whose top executive famously threatened to dig up dirt of its critics.

Travis Kalanick

5)      Outer Space was back in the news in 2014 as NASA successfully tested Orion, which will be the forerunner of manned space exploration in future. But what took our breath away was the mathematics behind the precise landing of European Space Agency’s probe on a comet, 10 years after leaving the Earth. Name the probe and the comet.

Philae, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

6)      Ferguson, a small town in Missouri, USA, burned when a white police officer fatally shot down a black teenager. Riots broke out again when the jury refused to indict the cop, who finally quit. Name the cop and the victim.

Darren Wilson and Michael Brown

7)      #BringBackOurGirls was a twitter campaign to express widespread condemnation and outrage against the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by an armed group Boko Haram. While a little more than 50 girls escaped from their abductors, many continue to languish in captivity. Name the northeastern town of Nigeria, where this shocking incident happened.

Chibok

 

8)      2014 was the year when the US economy staged a smart recovery. Name the first woman chief of the Federal Reserve who is widely being given credit for this bounce back.

Janet Yellen

9)      A gigantic cruise liner that ran aground in 2012 was refloated this year as part of a salvage operation that is the largest ever attempted costing $1.5 billion. Name this Italian cruise ship.

Costa Concordia

10)  Russian President Vladimir Putin earned the wrath of Western Europe and USA by annexing Crimea from Ukraine after a sham referendum. Name the capital and the largest city of Crimea.

Simferopol

11)  The gentle world of cricket was plunged into profound grief as a young and upcoming Australian cricketer, Phillip Hughes, was fatally felled on the field by a ball that struck him behind his ear. Who bowled this lethal ball?

Sean Abbott

12)  2014 was a bloody year with escalating conflict in Gaza and Al-Shabab massacres in Kenya. But the Jehadi group of ISIS took barbarism to new lows by beheading journalists. Name the first such US journalist to be beheaded.

James Foley

13)  Hackers, allegedly backed by North Korea, unleashed a cyberwar on Sony following their production of a movie showing the assassination of the North Korean dictator. Sony initially backed off, but at the behest of President Obama, the film “The Interview” was released on Christmas Day. Who directed this film?

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

14)  2014 had its fair share of the adventures and misadventures of celebrities. Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence were leaked and Kim Kardashian posed nude for a magazine cover. But which celebrity movie star made our jaws drop by her facelift?

Renee Zellweger

QUIZ - 140

How well do you know the events of 2014? Take these 14 questions to find out.

1)      Year 2014 will be most remembered for 2 types of crashes – airplanes and crude price. Malaysian Airlines lost 2 planes, one mysteriously and the other shot down by Russian supported Ukrainian rebels. Air Asia lost a plane in a thunderstorm. Crude oil price plummeted by more than 50% to $60 per barrel. The two came together in a deadly cocktail when the CEO of an oil refining company was killed in an air crash in Russia. Name the company and the CEO.

2)      The deadly Ebola virus scared the guts out of people, as the toll mounted in the impoverished West African country of Sierra Leone. While doctors and nurses fought the virus valiantly and earned the “Person of the Year” accolade from Time magazine, it was another rare and less known disease that captured people’s imagination in Social Media through the Ice Bucket challenge. Name this disease.

3)      The sporting spectacle of the year was undoubtedly the Football world cup in Brazil. While eyebrows went up when the host nation got a 1-7 thrashing of their lives at the feet of Germany in the semifinal, what set the tongues wagging was the bite of Uruguayan Luis “Dracula” Suarez. Name the Italian player he bit on the shoulder.

4)      Uber, the ride-sharing service, which threatened to disrupt the way people hire taxis fell afoul of regulators across the world as it got its wheels mired in one controversy after another. Name the CEO of the company, valued currently at over $40 billion, and whose top executive famously threatened to dig up dirt of its critics.

5)      Outer Space was back in the news in 2014 as NASA successfully tested Orion, which will be the forerunner of manned space exploration in future. But what took our breath away was the mathematics behind the precise landing of European Space Agency’s probe on a comet, 10 years after leaving the Earth. Name the probe and the comet.

6)      Ferguson, a small town in Missouri, USA, burned when a white police officer fatally shot down a black teenager. Riots broke out again when the jury refused to indict the cop, who finally quit. Name the cop and the victim.

7)      #BringBackOurGirls was a twitter campaign to express widespread condemnation and outrage against the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by an armed group Boko Haram. While a little more than 50 girls escaped from their abductors, many continue to languish in captivity. Name the northeastern town of Nigeria, where this shocking incident happened.

8)      2014 was the year when the US economy staged a smart recovery. Name the first woman chief of the Federal Reserve who is widely being given credit for this bounce back.

9)      A gigantic cruise liner that ran aground in 2012 was refloated this year as part of a salvage operation that is the largest ever attempted costing $1.5 billion. Name this Italian cruise ship.

10)  Russian President Vladimir Putin earned the wrath of Western Europe and USA by annexing Crimea from Ukraine after a sham referendum. Name the capital and the largest city of Crimea.

11)  The gentle world of cricket was plunged into profound grief as a young and upcoming Australian cricketer, Phillip Hughes, was fatally felled on the field by a ball that struck him behind his ear. Who bowled this lethal ball?

12)  2014 was a bloody year with escalating conflict in Gaza and Al-Shabab massacres in Kenya. But the Jehadi group of ISIS took barbarism to new lows by beheading journalists. Name the first such US journalist to be beheaded.

13)  Hackers, allegedly backed by North Korea, unleashed a cyberwar on Sony following their production of a movie showing the assassination of the North Korean dictator. Sony initially backed off, but at the behest of President Obama, the film “The Interview” was released on Christmas Day. Who directed this film?

14)  2014 had its fair share of the adventures and misadventures of celebrities. Nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence were leaked and Kim Kardashian posed nude for a magazine cover. But which celebrity movie star made our jaws drop by her facelift?

Answers to Quiz - 139

1)    What branch of astronomy concerns itself with the description and mapping of stars?

Uranography

2)    Name the 16^th Century German lawyer turned astronomer, after whom the system of designating stars is called.

Bayer Designation after Johann Bayer (1572 – 1625)

3)    Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux and Procyon form the 5 vertices of The Winter Hexagon. Name the 6^th and brightest star in this pattern.

Sirius

4)    How many stars have been classified as visible to the naked eye?

9096

5)    What acronym describes the astronomical database cataloguing over 5 million objects beyond the solar system?

SIMBAD (Set of Identifications, Measurements, and Bibliography for Astronomical Data)

6)    Name the constellation with most stars, 281

Centaurus

7)     Name the ancient astronomer who compiled the first comprehensive star catalogue in 2^nd Century BC.

Hipparchus

8)    Which is the most distant star visible to the naked eye?

Deneb

9)    Other than the Sun, which is the nearest star to Earth?

Proxima Centauri

10)  What pattern is created by the stars: Scheat, Alpheratz, Markab and Algenib?
Great Square of Pegasus