Tag: India

[132]

On February 25, 1998, world-famous opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti was all set to perform the aria Nessun dorma from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot at the 1998 Grammy Awards. That evening, after the show had already begun, he became too ill to perform as planned (which was frustratingly common with Pavarotti — he was called the “king of cancellations”). The producers of the show were desperate to find a way to fill Pavarotti’s time slot and approached X, who was also scheduled to perform one of their own wildly iconic hits that night.

X asked to listen to Pavarotti’s rehearsal once and agreed on the spot to perform in Pavarotti’s stead, with almost none of the meticulous prep that a performance this complex would’ve required – and they absolutely nailed it. Over a billion people worldwide watched the performance, and X was met with an instant standing ovation. X went on to record the aria and perform it live several more times in later years, most notably for Pope Francis in 2015.

Who is X?

Show Answer
Aretha Franklin, who was set to perform her smash-hit version of Otis Redding's Respect. To be fair, Aretha was good friends with Pavarotti and had performed the aria two nights prior at the annual MusiCares event, so she was technically prepared to do it, but this being the Grammys, she absolutely knocked it out of the park.

[131]

The word X meaning ‘a walled area’ or ‘enclosure’ in Old Iranian was mentioned in the work Anabasis by the Greek soldier and writer Xenophon in which it is described as a ‘park for animals’. However, its meaning has evolved into many languages including English to describe a certain, special place.
Identify X.

Show Answer
Paradise
Here's a great In-Depth Study on religious belief system of Indians.

[130]

Lake Priyadarshini an important freshwater source for Indians working at this location.
Where is this lake located?
Hint: Think cold
shivling

Show Answer
Antarctica.
Lake Priyadarshini is part of Maitri, India's second permanent base in Antarctica after Dakshin Gangotri. It was named after the then Prime Minister of India Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.
Read More about the Indian Antarctic Programme.

[129]

Which dreaded word commonly used today originally meant ‘a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot’.
prison

Show Answer
Deadline (the same one we so often miss these days)
Read More about the history of the word.

[128]

This 2015 movie was based on the story of a person who predicted something which very few people could. He currently goes by the name Cassandra on X/Twitter, after the mythological character cursed to predict the future, but never heard by anyone.
Identify the movie & person whose story it tells.

Show Answer
The Big Short, based on the story of Michael Burry, who predicted the Global Financial Crisis 2008.
Watch Warren Buffet explain the 2008 crisis.

[127]

Known as the Omron Rings, why would this constellation be in everyone’s pockets?
ring

Show Answer
Also known an the EURion constellation, it is pattern of symbols found in bank notes all around the world. The presence of this pattern prevents them from being photocopied or printed.
Read More.
100

[126]

How is this imaginary fish related to the world of finance?
red fish

Show Answer
Draft Red Herring Proposal, a document filed by a company that intends to issue an initial public offering (IPO) in India. The document is named after an expression which means to mislead, which in turn is named after a non-existent fish.
Read More about the original expression.

[125]

In 1983, Mr Harpal paid a princely sum of Rs 47,500 to purchase this. It was such a big deal that it was handed to him by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
What did he purchase?
indira

Show Answer
The first Maruti Suzuki car (Maruti 800) sold in India. Mr Singh won the car in a lottery & the keys were given by the PM herself!
Read More.

[124]

This place was originally called Qomolangma (meaning Holy Mother) in the local language.
Over the years it has been called by several other names such as:
Peak XV
Deodungha
Gauri Shankar
Identify the place.

Show Answer
Mount Everest
Watch what it takes to summit the highest mountain in the world.

[122]

Apeks, Atomic Aquatics, Cressi, Mares, Sherwood, and Zeagle are all popular brands of scuba regulators — but arguably the oldest and best known is another brand that shares its name with a famous 1971 rock “concept” album (and its title song).

What brand?

Show Answer
Aqua-Lung, the first commercially successful scuba system that stemmed from a prototype designed and patented by none other than oceanographer Jacques Cousteau himself.

Aqua-Lung also lent its name to the seminal rock album (and song) Aqualung by Jethro Tull. According to frontman Ian Anderson, the inspiration for the name sparked when he saw a homeless man with breathing problems and likened him to the scuba-diving main character from the TV show Sea Hunt (who was wearing an Aqualung).

[121]

Who recently ended their multi-decade partnership with a major sports company, to launched their own brand called – Sun Day Red?
sdr

Show Answer
Tiger Woods.
Woods ended his partnership with Nike of 27 years, to launch his own brand called Sun Day Red, inspired by his clothing at Golf events. The logo is a tiger with 15 stripes for his 15 major championships, with the provision to add more stripes to count future wins.
Read More.
tiger

[120]

In 2003, electronic games company Radica released X, a handheld game device which is a hardware-based offshoot of a 1996 website with the same name that itself is, in essence, a computerized version of a much older, free-form party game. X (both the device and the website) has gained cult status in certain circles for being “scarily accurate”, owing to the way it was designed – the website is built upon an early AI neural network that actually enables it to learn and fine-tune its strategy as it plays, and the handheld device is loaded with a smaller version of the neural network that limits its ability to “learn”, but is very accurate regardless.

What are we talking about here?

Show Answer
20Q, an updated version of 20 Questions that learns from its entire player base to constantly refine its responses.

[119]

Connect the following clues from a non-exhaustive list:
1988 – a dove carrying a laurel branch
2000 – Sydney Opera House
2008 – Jade ring
2012 – Thames river
2024 – scrap of iron from the Eiffel Tower

Show Answer
These are the different designs on the Olympic (Summer) medals over the years.
1988 - Seoul - a dove carrying a laurel branch
2000 - Sydney - Sydney Opera House
2008 - Beijing - Jade ring
2012 - London - Thames River
2024 - Paris - scrap of iron from the Eiffel Tower
Read About the history of Olympic medal designs.
Take a Look at the designs in detail.

[118]

X is a 2010 bestselling fiction book, the fifth in its series, that edged out former US President George W. Bush’s memoir Decision Points (which was released on the same day) in sales in its first week of publication.

What book is this?

Show Answer
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, the fifth book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. Ugly Truth sold 548,000 copies in its first week of publication, compared to Decision Points' 437,000 copies.

[117]

First time X was observed by the ‘outside world’ was when a group of French sailors happened to enter a town & saw the event.
The person was bathed, dressed in white robes, and served his favorite foods for a last meal. He would also prepare by writing a poem.
What am I talking about?

Show Answer
Harakiri (or Seppuku), the ritualistic suicide performed by Japanese samurais.
Read More

[116]

In his 1631 treatise Historiae naturalis et medicae Indiae orientalis, Dutch physician and explorer Jacobus Bontius wrote, of a tribe he’d encountered in the jungles of what is now Indonesia, that “the Malays informed him that the X could talk, but preferred not to, lest they be compelled to labor.”*

Bontius’ mention of X was the Western world’s first introduction to the name of this tribe, a word that passed from Dutch to Portuguese to English and is still used today in slightly modified form – ironically, even speakers of modern Malay and Indonesian use the European corruption of the name, even though its etymology lies in Old Malay.

Who are the X?

*Considering Bontius was there as part of a Dutch East India Company expedition, this was probably a very good idea.

Show Answer
Orangutans. Orang hutan ("forest person" in Malay) originally referred to just people that lived in the forest, but had shifted in meaning to include the apes who shared the forest with them by the time Europeans showed up. The name was passed on from Dutch to Portuguese to English, losing the h and coalescing into a single word in the process. Modern Malay and Indonesian stole it right back, so native Indonesians also call them orangutans now.

[115]

Prior to his most famous match, X announced that he would win by a margin of 5-0, or 4-1, in the 5 game series. The match did end up with a 4-1 result, only it was in favour of X’s opponent. He later said of the match (after his win in game 4)
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so good after winning just one match. I remember when I said I will win all or lose just one game in the beginning. If this had really happened ― I won 3 rounds and lost this round ― it would have had a great bearing on my reputation. However, since I won after losing 3 games in a row, I am so happy. I will never exchange this win for anything in the world. I, X, lost, but mankind did not.”
Id X.

Show Answer
X is Lee Sudol who played 5 games against Google's AlphaGo, the computer trained to play the strategy game of Go. Even though the player lost 4 games, he was impressed to see how well the computer played the game.
Read More about the match.

[114]

Following a rather tepid album release in 1986, influential English artist X had a bit of a brainwave and released a seventh solo album titled (in Cyrillic) СНОВА В СССР in 1988, consisting entirely of live-in-studio covers of older (English) rock and roll songs, and distributed only in the Soviet Union on the Soviet government-run Melodiya label.

Soon after, though, copies of the album began popping up outside the Soviet bloc (which, in a way, had been X’s initial intention), going for anywhere between $100-$250 in the US and up to £500 in the UK. This eventually led to a global release of the album in 1991, notably with the title misprinted as “СНОВА Б СССР”.

Who is X?

Show Answer
Paul McCartney, or "Пол Маккартни", as his name appears on the album cover.

"Снова в СССР" translates to "Back in the USSR" in English. McCartney had originally wanted to release the album outside of the usual distribution channels in the UK to make it look like copies were being smuggled in from the USSR, but his record label refused to allow that, so he decided to release it in the USSR itself as a gesture of peace, in keeping with the concept of glasnost.

Despite "Back in the USSR" being the title of a 1968 Beatles track, there are no Beatles songs on this album.