Indian History

                                                            Phuti Masjid / Image Source Situated in Murshidabad in West Bengal, Phuti Masjid is a mosque built by Sarfaraz Khan who had held the role of Nawab of Bengal for only one year (1739- 1740.)  Sarfaraz Khan had succeeded his father Shuja-ud-Din Muhammad Khan who had become Bengal Nawab after the death of latter's father-in-law Murshid Quli Khan, the first Nawab of Bengal and the founder of Murshidabad and the Nasiri dynasty which  ruled Bengal from  1717 until 1740.  

Born on September 2, 1885, TK Madhavan was a prominent social reformer who played a dominant role in the famed Vaikom Satyagraha , a movement for temple entry and abolition of untouchability. He was a follower of Sri Narayana Guru and in 1927 he was elected as the Organizing Secretary of the Shree Narayan Dharma Paripalana Yogam .  Vaikom Satyagraha, which lasted for 18 months during 1924–25, was a movement to allow temple entry for the avarnas or lower castes at Vaikom (a part of the then princely state of Travancore) in the Kottayam district of Kerala.  TK Madhavan was arrested in 1924 for participating in the Vaikom Satyagraha. He sought the help of Mahatma Gandhi who arrived at Vaikom on March 7, 1925 and camped there with TK Madhavan, helping in the successful completion of Satyagraha. TK Madhavan made his contribution in the field of journalism. From 1917 onwards he was the editor of the Malayalam daily Deshabhimani which he started to educate the people of their rights.    He h

                                                                                     Behramji Malabari. Image Source An associate of Dadabhai Naoroji , M. G. Ranade, Dinshaw Wacha and other contemporary political leaders and social reformers, Behramji Merwanji Malabari was a Parsi social reformer who vigorously championed the cause of women. He was against casteism and child marriage, advocated widow remarriage. He was in favour of equality of sexes and uplift of the status of the women, particularly the widows.  Born in Vadodara in 1853, Behramji Malabari had participated in the first session of the Indian National Congress held in Mumbai in 1885. In 1908 he founded a social service organization Seva Sadan Society for the education and empowerment of women. The branches of Seva Sadan Society, which he founded with another social reformer Dayaram Gidumal, were also set up in Ahmedabad and Surat. In 1875, he published a collection of Gujarati poems, Nitivinod (Pleasure of Morality) in w

Yesterday Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of a university in Aligarh named after Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh who is known for establishing a Provisional Government of Free India in Kabul in 1915 with himself as the President and Maulana Barkatullah of Bhopal as the President.  Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh was a freedom fighter, revolutionary and journalist. Born in a royal family in 1886 in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Pratap Singh was one of the few royals who actively participated in the India’s struggle for freedom. From 1914 to 1945 he lived abroad in the USA, Austria, Germany, China, Afghanistan, Japan and Turkey working for India’s freedom from British colonialism.  Mahendra Pratap Singh worked closely with the Hindustan Ghadar Party in the USA. In 1926 the Ghadar Part sent him to Tibet to organize a rebellion against the British. He started an Indian League in Japan. Mahendra Pratap Singh supported technical and vocational education to students by estab

Muhammad Iqbal was an Urdu poet and lawyer. Born in Sialkot (now in Pakistan) on November 9, 1877, he was a great nationalist during early years of career writing the famous nationalist song: Sare Jahan se Accha, Hindositan hamara, but later on he voiced the idea of a separate Muslim state in the north-west India in his presidential address to the annual session of the Muslim League at Allahabad in 1930. It was this idea which later fructified and culminated in the creation of a separate Muslim state of Pakistan on August 14, 1947. Naturally enough, he is acclaimed as the father of the idea of Pakistan.  Muhammad Iqbal, also known as Allama Iqbal, died in Lahore in 1938.

Q.1. Which one of the following dynasties ruled over the Delhi Sultanate following Timur’s invasion? (a) Sayyid dynasty (b) Lodi dynasty (c) Tughlaq dynasty (d) Khalji dynasty Q.2. Which of the following Delhi Sultanate rulers had set up employment exchanges for the unemployed? (a) Firuz Shah Tughlaq (b) Alauddin Khilji (c) Muhammad bin Tughlaq (d) Iltutmish Q.3. Which of the following rulers of the Delhi Sultanate is called “Father of Indian Irrigation”? (a) Firoz Shah Tughlaq (b) Alauddin Khilji (c) Muhammad Bin Tughlaq (d) Sikandar Lodi Q.4. Which of the following battles took place between Sher Shah and Humayun? (a) Battle of Ghaghra (b) Battle of Bilgram (c) Battle of Surajgarh (d) None of the above Q.5. The Mughal empire under Akbar was divided into 15 provinces. They were called --------. (a)  Parganas (b)  Subahs (c)  Sarkars (d)  None of these Q.6. What was the name of the war that took place between Sher Shah Suri and  the Mughal Governor of Bihar, Jalal Khan,  in 1534 ? (a)

 Q.1.- Ibrahim Lodhi was defeated by Rana Sanga in which of the following battles? (a) Battle of Khatoli (b) Battle of Gagron (c) Battle of Khanwa (d) None of the above Q.2.- Who among the following Delhi Sultanate rulers was first to have coins inscribed with the name of Abbasid caliph of Baghdad? (a) Iltutmish (b) Ruknuddin Firoz (c) Razia  (d) None of the above Q.3.- Chintamani Bhatta’s Suka-saptati (Parrot’s Seventy) was the first Sanskrit work to be translated into Persian by the name Tutinama. Who translated the work during the time of Mohammad-bin-Tughlaq? (a) Malik Muhammad Jayasi  (b) Amir Khusrau  (c) Zia Nakhshabi  (d) Zain-ul-Abidin   Q.4.- The Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in Delhi is the earliest example of Islamic architecture in India. What was the original construction at the site of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque? (a) A Jain temple (b) A Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu (c) A Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva (d) None of the above Q.5.- Which of the following rulers of Delhi Sulta

Madhav Rao I Image Source Madhav Rao I was appointed the 9th Peshwa of the Maratha Empire on 23 June in 1761 upon the death of his father, Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao, also known as Nana Saheb, who had lost his eldest son and heir Vishwas Rao in the third battle of Panipat in 1761.  Madhav Rao's claim to fame lies in his being instrumental in restoring the Maratha supremacy which was dented by their defeat in the third battle of Panipat.  Since Madhav’s age at the time of his ascension to the Peshwaship was 16 years, his uncle Raghunath Rao, the eldest surviving member of the Peshwa family, took upon himself the regency of the Maratha empire and became its de facto ruler. This led to acrimonious differences between Madhav Rao and  Raghunath Rao who entered into wars against each other.  In 1765 Raghunath Rao called for the partition of the Maratha State between himself and the Peshwa. Madhav Rao I had defeated Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore, in each of the campaigns the Peshwa undertook