Best in Class Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nobel Laureate

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, writer, philosopher and social reformer. Known as the "Bard of Bengal", he holds the distinction of having written the national anthems of two different countries - India and Bangladesh. In 1913, he became the first Non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This was awarded for his collection of poems "Gitanjali". In 1915, he was also awarded a knighthood by King George V, however, he renounced it four years later to protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, where British troops fired indiscriminately on Indians trapped in a closed compound, killing hundreds.

Answer: Oscar Winner

Born Sampooran Singh Kalra, this Indian poet, lyricist and author is better known by his pen name, Gulzar. Gulzar has won many awards for his work in Hindi cinema. In 2009, he won an Oscar for Best Original Song for "Jai Ho" from the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", an award he shared jointly with the song's composer, A.R. Rahman.

The song also won a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Answer: Nobel Laureate

Amartya Sen is an Indian economist who is well-known for his work developing theories of welfare economics, economic and social justice. It was this work that led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998. The award recognized his work on identifying the causes of famines and measures to prevent them, as well as the measures he developed to quantify poverty.

A year later he was also awarded Indian's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna.

Answer: Nobel Laureate

Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje which is currently the capital of North Macedonia. However, she spent most of her life working in India in the city of Calcutta (now renamed Kolkata). After becoming a nun, she moved to India and founded the Missionaries of Charity.

This religious community of nuns works with the poor and destitute, caring for those neglected by society. From lepers to those suffering from AIDS, the charity looks after all those who have been abandoned. In 1962, Mother Teresa was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and in 1979, she was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Answer: Nobel Laureate

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, better known as C.V. Raman, was an Indian physicist. Raman conducted research into the field of light scattering. Along with his student, K.S. Krishnan, he discovered a phenomenon called modified scattering. He also created his own spectrograph to study this effect.

In 1930, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work in this field, making him the first Asian to be awarded a Nobel Prize in any scientific field. The effect he discovered was named the Raman Effect or Raman scattering.

Answer: Olympic Medalist

Abhinav Bindra won first place at the men's 10-meter air rifle event in the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics making him India's first individual gold medalist. All previous gold medals were won in the team sport of field hockey. Bindra participated in five Summer Olympics starting from the 2000 games in Sydney to the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, but this was his only Olympic medal.

He did win multiple medals at other events like the Commonwealth and Asian Games, before he retired from the sport in 2016.

Answer: Olympic Medalist

Winning her first title in 2002, Mary Kom went on to win six golds and a silver and bronze each at the World Boxing Championships, becoming the first woman to do so. Eight championship medals was a record across both genders at the time of her achievement. Women's boxing was included in the Olympics only in 2012, resulting in Kom missing out on competing during her prime years.

She did manage to win a bronze at the 2012 games.

Answer: Olympic Medalist

Leslie Claudius is one of only two Indians to have won four Olympic medals in the 20th century. He shared this distinction with fellow hockey player, Udham Singh. Claudius was part of the team that won a hat-trick of Olympic golds at the 1948, 1952, and 1956. In the 1960 games, he captained the team that went on to win silver.

Answer: Olympic Medalist

Norman Pritchard became India's first Olympic Medalist when he won two silver medals in athletics at the 1900 Paris Olympics. He was also the first athlete born in Asia to win an Olympic medal. While later research shows that Pritchard had been selected to represent Great Britain (India was a British colony at the time), the International Olympic Committee, official body of the Olympics, still credits his medals to India. Pritchard later adopted the name Norman Trevor and moved to the US to pursue an acting career.

Answer: Oscar Winner

Bhanu Athaiya was the first Indian to win an Oscar. She won Best Costume Design for work on the film "Gandhi". Apart from work in Hindi and other cinema, she was also famous as an artist. She was the only woman associated with the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, a group of modern artists based in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Answer: Oscar Winner

Indian composer, singer, songwriter and musician, A.R. Rahman started his career in the Tamil movie industry. His talent brought him recognition across South India and he successfully entered the Hindi film industry as well. After winning numerous awards in India, he won two Oscars in 2009 for his work in the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" - Best Original Score and Best Original Song (shared with lyricist Gulzar).

Answer: Oscar Winner

Guneet Monga is a film producer. Monga's first brush with the Oscars was when her film "Kavi" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2010. In 2019, a film that she was an executive producer of "Period. End of Sentence." won the Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject).

She won another Oscar in 2023 when her film "The Elephant Whisperers" won in the same category. Both short films were distributed by Netflix.