Press, Education & Institutions MCQs for UPSC Prelims

Correct answer: C - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

'Songs from Prison' was a collection of English translations of ancient Indian devotional lyrics made by Mahatma Gandhi during his imprisonment, later edited and published by John S. Hoyland, so the correct answer is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Tilak is remembered for the Gita Rahasya, Nehru for works like the Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History, and Sarojini Naidu for her own poetry such as The Golden Threshold, none of which match this particular title, so the other three are wrong.

Correct answer: A - 1 and 2 only

Statements 1 and 2 are correct, so 'A' is the answer. Wood's Despatch of 1854 introduced the grants-in-aid system to support private schools and recommended setting up universities in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. Statement 3 is wrong: it favoured the vernacular languages at the primary level and English only at higher levels, not English as the medium at all levels. Hence 'A' (1 and 2 only).

Correct answer: B - 2 only

Calcutta Madarsa was founded by Warren Hastings in 1781, so pair 2 is correct; the Sanskrit College at Benaras was established by Jonathan Duncan, not William Jones, so pair 1 is wrong; and Fort William College was founded by Lord Richard Wellesley, so the listing of the founder as 'Arthur' (commonly cited as the error) makes pair 3 incorrect as matched. Thus only pair 2 is correct and the answer is (b). The question is mildly disputed because Fort William College is indeed a Wellesley foundation, but the official key treats only pair 2 as correctly matched.

Correct answer: D - he wanted to train British civilians for administrative purpose in India

Lord Wellesley founded Fort William College in 1800 to train young civil servants of the East India Company in Indian languages, laws and customs so that they could administer the territories effectively. Far from being directed by London, Wellesley acted on his own initiative, and the Court of Directors disapproved of the expense, eventually establishing Haileybury College in England instead. Reviving oriental learning was the motive behind institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and the Asiatic Society, not this college, although oriental scholarship did flourish there incidentally. William Carey was employed at the college as a teacher of Bengali, but providing him employment was a consequence, not the purpose, of its founding.

Correct answer: A - Gopal Baba Walangkar

Gopal Baba Walangkar, an early Dalit activist from Maharashtra and a follower of Jyotiba Phule's ideas, started Vital-Vidhvansak in 1888, the first journal addressed specifically to the untouchable communities, attacking the caste system and Brahminical orthodoxy. Jyotiba Phule was Walangkar's inspiration and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj, but Vital-Vidhvansak was not his publication. Gandhi's journals for the cause of untouchables, such as Harijan, came much later, in the 1930s. Ambedkar's publications like Mooknayak (1920) and Bahishkrit Bharat also belong to the twentieth century, decades after Walangkar's pioneering effort.

Correct answer: C - Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar served as the secretary of the Hindu Female School founded by J. E. D. Bethune in 1849, an institution that was later renamed the Bethune School, so he is the correct answer. Annie Besant and Sarojini Naidu belong to later periods and other movements, and Debendranath Tagore is associated with the Brahmo Samaj and the Tattwabodhini Sabha rather than with this particular girls' school, so the other three options are incorrect.

Correct answer: C - Rabindranath Tagore translated the National Anthem from Bengali to English here.

While staying at the Besant Theosophical College in Madanapalle in 1919, Rabindranath Tagore produced the English rendering of 'Jana Gana Mana', set to notation there, which makes the third statement correct. Pingali Venkayya is linked with flag design but at Vijayawada/Machilipatnam, not Madanapalle, so the first is wrong. Pattabhi Sitaramaiah was a Congress leader but did not lead the Quit India Movement from this town, so the second is wrong. The Theosophical Society's Indian headquarters were established at Adyar near Madras, not Madanapalle, so the fourth is wrong.

Correct answer: D - 1, 2 and 3

The Charter Act of 1813 first set aside funds for education, the General Committee of Public Instruction (1823) was created to oversee its use, and the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy that followed shaped the decision to promote English education, so all three contributed and (d) is correct. None of these can be excluded because the policy outcome (Macaulay's Minute and Bentinck's 1835 resolution) flowed directly from the debate within the GCPI funded under the 1813 Act. Hence options limiting the answer to fewer statements are incomplete.