MCQ – GK Questions

Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali — a collection of devotional poems he translated into English prose himself during a voyage to England in 1912. The Swedish Academy described the verse as profoundly sensitive and fresh. He was the first Asian person to win a Nobel Prize of any kind.

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi won the 2025 Chemistry Nobel for developing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — porous molecular structures with enormous internal surface areas. One gram of MOF can have a surface area larger than a football field, making them valuable for gas storage, separation, and removing environmental pollutants.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was established in 1968 by Sweden's central bank — 72 years after Nobel's death in 1896. The original five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Peace) date from 1901. This distinction is a common exam trap in "which is NOT original" questions.

Han Kang is a South Korean author. She won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life. Her internationally known works include The Vegetarian and Human Acts.

María Corina Machado of Venezuela won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights and for unifying a divided political opposition around the demand for free elections and a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called her "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times."

John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton won the 2024 Physics Nobel for discoveries that enabled machine learning through artificial neural networks. Hinton, sometimes called the "godfather of AI," left Google in 2023 to speak openly about the risks of the technology he helped create.

Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organisation of atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha) from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize. Founded in 1956, they have spent nearly seven decades giving personal testimony about the devastation caused by nuclear weapons, contributing to the global nuclear taboo.

Cassandra Kulukundis won the inaugural Best Casting Oscar for One Battle After Another. The Academy had first announced this category in February 2024. It is the first new competitive Oscar category since Best Animated Feature was introduced in 2001.

Norway's Sentimental Value, directed by Joachim Trier, won the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards. The film also received acting and other nominations that night.

Sinners received 16 nominations at the 98th Academy Awards, breaking the previous all-time record of 14, which had been held jointly by All About Eve (1951), Titanic (1998) and La La Land (2017). Despite 16 noms, Sinners won four awards.

Jessie Buckley won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Agnes, William Shakespeare's partner, in Hamnet. Her win made her the first Irish woman ever to take the Best Actress Oscar.

Michael B. Jordan won the Best Actor Oscar for his dual performance as Smoke and Stack in Sinners, Ryan Coogler's supernatural thriller set in the Jim Crow-era South. It was his first Oscar nomination and first win.

One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, won the Best Picture Oscar at the 98th Academy Awards on 15 March 2026. The film won six awards in total that night — the most of any film at the ceremony.

The copper plaque handed to every Sahitya Akademi winner was designed by Satyajit Ray — the celebrated Bengali filmmaker was also an accomplished graphic artist and designer.

Sahitya Akademi awards are given in 24 languages — the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, plus English and Rajasthani, which the Akademi recognises separately.

Devabrat Das won for his Assamese novel Karhi Khelar Sadhu. His win represents the novel category among the four novels recognised in the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Awards.

Mamta Kalia's memoir Jeete Jee Allahabad centres on Allahabad (now Prayagraj), a city long associated with Hindi literary circles. The book won the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Award for Hindi.

Navtej Sarna's novel Crimson Spring won the 2025 Sahitya Akademi Award for English. Sarna, a former IFS officer who served as India's Ambassador to the US, had been writing fiction alongside his diplomatic career.

The awards were announced on 16 March 2026, months after the Akademi had to cancel its original December 2025 press conference when the Ministry of Culture asked for a review of the awards process.

Harmanpreet Kaur, who captained the Indian women's cricket team to a T20 World Cup title, was awarded the Padma Shri in 2026. She is among the sports awardees in the 2026 Padma Shri list.