(Current Affairs questions are from the period January 1st to 15th. Questions 11 to 20 pertain to Chennai and Tamil Nadu.)

1. In which Punjab city did India’s first and the world’s second ‘Climate Change Theatre’ open recently?

2. How did ISRO make history on January 5th with the launch of the GSLV-D5?

3. Who won the coveted Compton-Miller Medal for being the player of the Ashes series which Australia swept 5-0?

4. Name the start-up that recently became the first Indian entity to be bought by Facebook.

5. Who is the latest male footballer to win the FIFA Ballon d’Or and which legend was given an honorary award?

6. Name Israel’s former premier, one of the nation’s most influential figures in history, who died on January 11th, seven years after he went into a coma.

7. Which is the only Indian city to feature (at No. 26) in New York Times list of 52 Places to Go in 2014?

8. Which Asian country recently tested out a new hypersonic missile vehicle, dubbed the ‘WU-14, that has top speeds of Mach 8 to 12?

9. In which Olympic sport held recently in Patna did Sanil Shetty and Ankita Das win their maiden National singles titles?

10. Which Indian railway station’s platform No. 1 has become the world’s longest rail platform in the world?

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11. Name the Tamil daily that was started in December 1917, with Tiru Vi Ka as its editor, to echo the views of Annie Besant’s New India.

12. In which locality in Madras were the first experimental railway lines in the sub-continent laid in 1836?

13. Which edifice built, it is believed, by Paul Benfield in the 1760s, considered the first example of the Indo-Saracenic architectural style in the country?

14. What was started in 1925 by Poothoor Vaidyanatha Iyer?

15. After which divine being was Madras first government aircraft christened?

16. From whom did the John Company rent the village of Triplicane in 1676?

17. Which Asian scholar was given the Thiruvalluvar Award recently?

18. Who was hailed as ‘Lion of Shencottah’ and ‘Nataka Chakravarti’?

19. What natural formation in Chennai is spread over about 42,000 square feet and has a canopy circumference of 753 feet?

20. Which medical institution of repute in Chennai was the brainchild of Mary Anne Scharlieb?