Q.464

The "Dr." attached to his name was an academic one: he studied Mass Communication at Columbia University and completed a PhD in the early 50s for his work on trying to apply mass communication techniques to Indian education.

He eventually quit a full-time academic position in India to take up music and movies. He did dabble in politics, once serving as an independent MLA (in the late 60s) and once losing a Lok Sabha election as a BJP candidate in 2004.

Who?

[+ Show Answer]

Dr. Bhupen Hazarika, who died in November 2011.

This day last year: Q.99

Q.463

(Click to see a bigger version of this image)

Image: Wikipedia

[+ Show Answer]

This day last year: Q.98

Q.462

2012 will see many tourist operators (particularly in Britain) offering special tours and cruises centered around places like Belfast and Southampton. This is expected to peak around April 2012.

Belfast will also see the unveiling of a building (seen in accompanying image) built under a "Signature Project" floated a few years ago. It is slated to open on 31st March. All this is to mark the centenary of what?

Image: Wikipedia

[+ Show Answer]

The Titanic, whose construction was completed on 31st March 1912 and which sank on 15 April the same year. It was built in Belfast and set sail from Southampton.

This day last year: Q.97

Q.461

11/22/63 is Stephen King's latest book, about Jake Epping, a time-traveller who travels back in time to 1958 attempting to stop not just JFK's assassination but also change an ordinary person's future.

If the front cover is this, what is on the back cover?

Image: Stephenking.com

[+ Show Answer]

This image (the idea being this illustrates the obvious "what if" scenario for the book):

This day last year: Q.96

Q.460

First awarded in 2008 as a prize in Mathematics, this prize was extended to four other scientific categories from 2009 (two prizes are awarded under the Social Sciences segment, making it 6 'laureates' per year). It is meant to reward and encourage high quality scientific research by Indians; the prize includes a fifty lakh rupees award.

You see this year's winners above. The name of the prize comes from the corporate entity that has instituted this. Which entity?

[+ Show Answer]

Infosys. More on the Infosys Prize here.

Image: The Infosys Prize website.

This day last year: Q.95

Q.459

Four versions of the "Vivek Express" have been launched by Indian Railways in 2011, in various parts of the country. These commemmorate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. Among these is train no. 15906, which is now India's longest running train.

This train will traverse 4,286 km in about eighty-plus hours. Like the previous holder of this record (the Himsagar Express), one of the train's termini is Kanyakumari. What is the other end-point?

[+ Show Answer]

Dibrugarh in Assam.

This day last year: Q.94

Q.458

The Christian group The Seventh-day Adventist Church is called so is because of its belief in the second coming of Christ (i.e. the Advent). The other reason explains the phrase "Seventh Day". Unlike most other Christian denominations, believers observe the Sabbath (i.e. the day of rest in Semitic religions) on the Saturday of a week, not the Sunday. This is akin to how Jews mark the Sabbath.

This year, in the end of December, a group of Seventh-day Adventists in the little island country of Samoa were faced with a dilemma around this observance, and eventually most parishes decided to observe it on a Sunday from now on. Why?

[+ Show Answer]

Samoa is switching to the west of the International Date Line (the imaginary boundary between calendar days in the Pacific) so as to share the same time zone as its major economic partners such as Australia and New Zealand. This meant they moved from Thursday (29th) to Saturday (30th), losing Friday. The church members begin the Sabbath from Friday evening, which won't be possible this time. To preserve a 7-day cycle, they have decided to switch to a Sunday.

Religion was never easy. More here.

This day last year: Q.93