Modern Indian History GK

D [The Indian Independence Act]

Notes:

The British Parliament ratified the Mountbatten Plan as the “Independence of India Act – 1947” on July 18, 1947. The Act provided for the creation of two independent dominions of India and Pakistan with effect from August 15, 1947.

A [B.V. Patel]

Notes:

Sardar Patel invited the princely states to join India “to make laws sitting together as friends than to make treaties as aliens”. He ensured the state department would not impose domination over the princely states.

D [Bhopal]

Notes:

In the year 1818, Bhopal became a princely state. Hamidullah Khan was the last sovereign Nawabs of Bhopal. On 1 June 1949, the state of Bhopal was taken over by the Union Government of India.

B [26th amendment]

Notes:

The official recognition of all official symbols of princely India was withdrawn by the 26th Amendment of 1971. Titles, privileges were also withdrawn and it abolished the remuneration of the princes by the privy purses.

A [1873–74]

Notes:

The Bihar famine of 1873–1874 was a famine in British India that followed a drought in the province of Bihar, the neighboring provinces of Bengal, the North-Western Provinces, and Oudh. It affected a population of 21.5 million.

B [He presided over the Congress Annual Sessions twice]

Notes:

Allan Octavian Hume was a civil servant, political reformer and amateur ornithologist and horticulturalist in British India. He was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress. Though it was he who emerged as the founder of the Congress, it had somehow never happened to Hume to preside over a plenary session even once.

C [Lord Dalhousie]

Notes:

Although the Indian Post Office was established in 1837, Asia’s first adhesive stamp, the Scinde Dawk, was introduced in 1852 by Sir Bartle Frere, the British East India Company’s administrator of the province of Sind. The first stamps valid for postage throughout India were placed on sale in October, 1854 with four values: 1/2 anna, 1 anna, 2 annas, and 4 annas. These stamps were issued following a Commission of Inquiry which had carefully studied the postal systems of Europe and America. The new system was recommended by the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie and adopted by the East India Company’s Court of Directors. It introduced “low and uniform” rates for sending mail efficiently throughout the country within the jurisdiction of the East India Company.

B [Masulipatnam]

Notes:

The French East India Company was established in 1664. In 1667, an expedition was sent under the command of François Caron, which upon reaching Surat came up with the first French factory in India in 1668. In 1669, a Persian named Marcara, part of the expedition in 1667, established another factory at Machilipatnam, also known as Masulipatam.

D [Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit]

Notes:

India’s Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Pandit was, on 18 September 1953, elected President of the eighth session of the U.N. General Assembly, becoming the first woman accorded that honour. A sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, she was also the first Indian woman to hold a cabinet post in 1937 when she was made the minister of local self-government and public health.

C [Champaran]

Notes:

Gandhiji travelled to Champaran in Bihar in 1917 to know about the plight of indigo peasants under the oppressive ‘Tinkathia’ plantation system. Under this system, the peasants were forced by the British to plant 3 out of 20 parts of his land with indigo. Gandhiji launched Champaran Satyagraha in support of their cause.