Quizzing in India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quizzing in India is quite popular, and has developed its own, unique flavour. Quizzing in India is different from American and British Quizzing in that it is diverse, with different genres catering to different geographical regions, age groups, interests, etc.
Contents |
[edit] Origin of Quizzing in India
Quizzing in India began when Neil O' Brien conducted the first proper organized quiz in 1967 at Christ the King Church Parish Hall in Calcutta(now Kolkata). O'Brien who had recently returned from England and had been exposed to the pub quizzing culture there was enthused enough to attempt starting quizzing as a mental sport in Calcutta, especially among the Anglo-Indian community. The sport soon caught on and became well-established in the city. From there quizzing spread to other Indian cities as well in a very short time.
[edit] Quizzing by City
Indian Quizzers are generally concentrated in the major cities of India. Each city has, over time, evolved its own peculiar brand of quizzing.
[edit] Bangalore
Bangalore has a rich tradition of quizzing. The late Wing Commander G R Mulky founded the Karnataka Quiz Association in 1983. The KQA holds quizzes in the School, College and Open categories every month. Highlights of the general quizzing scene include Mahaquizzer, a solo quiz contest held across several cities annually and ASKQANCE, the KQA Anniversary celebrations, featuring an Open Quiz, a Corporate quiz and an Inter-School contest. Another large quizzing group in Bangalore is The Bangalore Quiz Group[1].
Bangalore has witnessed two quizzing booms; one, in the 1980s, was made possible by Bangalore's emergence as a major destination for education. The second boom happened mid-1990s because many young professionals took up residence in the city. Under the Peepal Tree is a festival of quizzing that first started in 1999.
[edit] Kolkata
Kolkata is the birthplace of quizzing in India. Quizzing in India was started by Neil O'Brien, an Anglo-Indian, who is now known as the father of quizzing in India and remains one of the best quizzards the country has ever produced. In the beginning open quizzing was strongly supported by the Anglo-Indian community and the Dalhousie Institute club still hosts most of the annual open quizzes that are held in the city. Kolkata does not have too many quizzes any longer, although Kolkatans still make wonderful quizzers.
In open quizzing, the Eddie Hyde Memorial Open Quiz is the oldest annual open quiz in the country but unfortunately has been irregularly held in recent years. Other well known open quizzes that are still regularly held are the Dalhousie Institute (DI) Open conducted by Neil O'Brien and the Argus Open conducted by R.M. Sen. Some of the well-known open quizzes that have now died out are Argus Losers Plate, Summer Invitation Quiz (conducted by Francis Groser), North Star quiz and the Saturday Club Quiz. For a few years, the Argus Apex Quiz, an individual quiz was also held but soon lost popularity.
The College quizzing circuit in Kolkata is reasonably active. School level quizzing remains quite strong and continues to supply strong quizzards to the open quizzing circuit.
Well known quizzards from Kolkata include Neil O'Brien, Shouvik Guha, Jayashree Mohanka, Gautam Ghosh (of IITIIM fame), Partho Dutta, Ranjan Roy Chowdhury, Saurav Sen, Subhendu Roy, Sanjoy Mukherjee, Philip Antunis, Saptarishi Sanyal, Tathagata Chatterjee, Vimla Jagannath and Soumyadip Chowdhury.
Other well-known quizzards who began their quizzing careers in Kolkata but live elsewhere now include Jug Suraiya, Dayita Datta (winner of the first BBC Mastermind India), Devangshu Datta (Finalist in BBC Mastermind India and related to Dayita), Anustup Datta, Partha Ghosh and Francis Groser.
Famous quizzards who have quizzed for significant time in Calcutta include Saranya Jayakumar and others.
Quizmasters Derek O' Brien and Barry O'Brien, sons of Neil O'Brien have achieved considerable renown as quizmasters in the Indian subcontinent and even outside that. Both of them started their careers from Kolkata.
[edit] Kerala
Kerala is a state which has produced many eminent quizzers. Kerala has a decent quizzing circuit, with several quizzes held around Cochin, Calicut and Trichur. NIT Calicut, Medical College Trivandrum, and Calicut Medical College has been quite prominent in the Kerala quizzing circuit. The main event in Kerala Quizzing circuit is Crossroads, the only quiz fest in Kerala. It is conducted by Enquire, the quiz club of NITC. Kerala has an active schools quiz circuit, with several quizzes held in Cochin and Trivandrum.
Kerala is not blessed with many good quizmasters althought the ENQUIRERS put up a good show. School quizzing is very common in kochi and trivandrum. Loyola School, St Thomas residential school, all the BVM's,Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vidyodaya, Silver Hills etc are the best quiz teams in Kerala.
Several quizzers from Kerala are regulars in the national quiz circuit. The Calicut Quiz Foundation (now defunct),ENQUIRE quiz club and Grey Cells United (from Cochin) are two of the several quiz clubs which have been active in Kerala.
[edit] New Delhi
Delhi has an eclectic range of quizzes. Engineering colleges such as the NSIT, Delhi College of Engineering and IIT Delhi are known for their quizzes. Hans Raj College, St Stephen's and Hindu college also occasionally organise quizzes. Quizzing suffers because of large distances and problems in commuting within the city. There is a somewhat better school quizzing circuit. Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Vasant Valley,DPS RK Puram, Mother's International,Springdales,St Columba's and Father Agnel are the major schools that quiz. The Columban Open Quiz, organised by St. Columba's School is the biggest inter-school quiz in North India. Amongst the business schools in the National Capital Region (NCR), FMS, IIFT, IMT Ghaziabad, IMI and MDI Gurgaon have strong business quizzers who regularly lock horns at various business quizzes. Open quizzing is almost non-existent because of the distances. Most college fests in Delhi have at least one quiz. Such quizzes do not see a lot of attendance but there are some dedicated quizzers who make it a point to attend.
The quizzers have fast become Mercenaries, or the original freelancers. The movie 'White Men Can't jump' is probably the best example. When anyone can form a 2 man team, and play quizzing as if it was double or quits. Sadly, to keep the utopian image, this has been kept in the dark.
[edit] Hyderabad
Hyderabad has a quiz association called K-Circle. It has been meeting every Friday since 1972, and currently, for the last several years, has been meeting at YMCA Secunderabad. Many accomplished quizzers have been associated with it over the years, and make it a point to drop in at the YMCA for a spot of quizzing followed by a cup of tea at the nearby Garden restaurant, if they're in town on a Friday evening.
KCircle suffers from a highly floating population of quizzes, with several members relocating to other cities after passing out of college, or moving on to other jobs. This has led to it currently operating on a lower key than before. They do however make it a point to come up with one major quiz a year - the KC Open, with two quizzes, one for students and the other an open quiz. Expat KCircle members often make it a point to travel back to Hyderabad to participate in or contribute questions to the quiz.
Schools such as the Hyderabad Public School Begumpet, HPS Ramanthapur,Little Flower High School, NASR, Gitanjali, Kendriya Vidyalaya Picket and other large Kendriya Vidyalayas, Niraj Public School and Johnson Grammar School have an excellent quizzing record over the years in local events as well as nationwide TV quizzes.
The KCircle website used to feature an archive of several hundred questions from past quizzes but this has been taken down, due to concerns expressed by various KCircle members that the extensive archive on the website was being plagiarized wholesale. The TCS IT Wiz is an IT quiz that is conducted every year.
[edit] Chennai
Quizzing in Chennai takes place in the many institutions of higher learning located in the city, such as the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The Quiz Foundation of India conducts well-attended fortnightly meetings.
Two important highlights of the Madras quizzing calendar are the Landmark Quiz, conducted by Dr. Naveen Jayakumar (and sometimes by Derek O'Brien) and the Odyssey Quiz, conducted by Praveen Goday, held on the Indian Independence Day (15 August) and Republic Day (26 January) respectively, both sponsored by local bookstore chains of the same name. In terms of sheer size, the Landmark quiz beats it all, with around 800-900 teams (of 3) participating in a live show at The Music Academy Chennai. The Odyssey quiz, which is more recent than Landmark quiz, is fast gaining popularity. These two quizzes attract participants not just from Chennai, but from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, and from as far as Mumbai.
There's also the IIT-Madras open quiz and other quizzes held during their annual cultural festival Saarang. The Quiz Foundation mailing list is available at [2]
[edit] Coimbatore
Coimbatore Institute of Technology's BRAHMA is an yearly open quiz conducted by Quiz club of C.I.T also attracts fair number of participants
[edit] Mumbai
The main centres of Bombay Quizzing are the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and St. Xavier's College, Bombay.
Bombay's size is one of the factors for quizzing not taking off in the city - participants need to travel interminable distances to attend a quiz on a Saturday or a Sunday. However, with Bombay being the hub of television programming in the country, a lot of quiz-based game shows are shot here. Recently, an effort has been made to kickstart open quizzing with the coming together of quizzers as the Bombay Quiz Club [3].
[edit] Pune
The first time Pune quizzing came to the national scene was when the AFMC team comprising two budding doctors, Rangaraj Setlur and Kaushik Chatterjee first came runners up and then went on to win the predecessor of all Indian TV quizzes -'QUIZTIME'. Down the years, the focus from college based quizzing has slowly shifted from college based to open events, thanks to the cool calm environs of 'The Boat Club Quiz Club'. Carrying on the hallowed traditions of quizzing in Pune were quizzers like G.Rajgopal, Rochan Pant, O'neill Sagar, Ajay Menon, the Kamath family, George Thomas, Anurakshat Gupta, Ashish Tripathi, Ramanand Janardhan, Amit Garde, Subhrajit Bhattacharya, Brijesh, Gaurav Sabnis, Niranjan Pednekar,Hirak Parikh, Ayon Gupta, Arka Bhattacharya, etc. The acme was probably reached when in the 1990s, there were pitch battles on stage between the two titans of Pune quizzing, Armed Forces Medical College and College of Engineering, Pune. This was probably thanks to the active quiz clubs functioning in the institutions.
Pune, like Bangalore has a large number of colleges and IT companies, and hence has a very strong quizzing tradition. Pune Quizzing is very college-driven, with students of many colleges like Fergusson College, the College of Engineering, Pune the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), the Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE), the Army Institute of Technology, the Pune Institute of Computer Technology and the Vishwakarma Institute of Technology taking a keen interest in quizzing. B-Schools like SIBM, SCMHRD,SITM and SIMS are also very strong in the Pune quizzing circuit. SITM organizes the Telecom GrandMasters (TGM) quiz every year. Several people who have passed out of college and are working (quite often at one of several software firms located in Pune) are also active quizzers.
Pune Quizzes generally have two-member teams, and have mostly shifted to the Infinite bounce format from the Direct & Pass format. An interesting peculiarity of Pune Quizzing is that here, Infinite Bounce is called Infinite Rebounds, a name has so far not been observed to be used anywhere else. There is no formal Quizzing Association in Pune, though there are weekly informal quiz meetings at the COEP Boat Club. A quiz blog, Interrobang keeps track of Pune Quizzing. Pune quizzers are also known for serious discussion of quiz formats and organisation, among other things.
[edit] Guwahati
Close on the heels of the ‘Eddie Hyde Memorial Quiz’ (the first open quiz in India) in Calcutta in 1967, was held the first quiz contest in Assam in the same year. It was held in Cotton College, Guwahati as a part of the annual college week festival of the college. Prof. Dilip Kumar Baruah and Prof. Dilip Kakoty of Cotton College conducted the quiz that was won by an all-ladies team. The first open quiz in Assam was organized by a socio-cultural organization called Agrani in 1969. In the seventies, four to five quizzes were held annually; and in the eighties and nineties, this figure went up to more than twenty. Apart from the general quizzes, quizzes on specialized topics viz. sports, science, environment, music and cinema were also held from time to time. The first ever T.V. quiz show in Assam went on air on 24 March 1985 on Doordarshan.
In 1989, three major quiz shows were held in Assam. The North East Regional Inter College Invitational Quiz (NERICIQ) organized by Jyoti, a socio-cultural organization from Silchar, was the first among the three. It was followed by an All-Northeast Open Quiz organized by Sanskritiki at Guwahati; and finally, the Oil India Limited came up with another good quiz named ‘Pankaj Sharma Memorial Quiz’. Celebrity quizmasters from Delhi and Kolkata conducted all the aforementioned quizzes. The nineties saw some more exciting quizzes being held in Guwahati. The Northstar and the Tea Centre quizzes became highly popular, as some of the big names from the Indian quizzing arena conducted them.
There were many other quiz contests that were held from time to time in Assam. Guwahati became the capital of quizzing in the Northeast. In the nineties, a quiz club named Guwahati Quiz Foundation was formed that had almost all the reputed quizzers of the region as its members. However, within a few years time, the group became inactive and later, defunct.
The 21st century heralded a new age of quizzing in Assam and the Northeast. Trivia Bytes® Quiz Forum was formed in November, 2001 by a group of like minded youths, who had a burning thirst for knowledge acquisition and subsequent disbursement of the same for the betterment of the Society.
Trivia Bytes® have conducted a number of Quiz competitions in the year 2006. These were Guwahati Book Fair Quiz; School Quiz in the Annual Horticulture Show at Guwahati; Quiz Competition at Don Bosco Institute Youth Festival,Guwahati; College Quiz at the Annual Function of Assam Institute of Management, Guwahati; School Quiz organized by Anthropology Department, Govt. of India; School Quiz at South Point School, Guwahati at the annual Cyber Fest '06; School Quiz at Dipannita Academy, Guwahati; An all Assam Quiz Fest comprising School Quiz, Open House and Business Quiz Competition organized by Leo Advertising, Guwahati; Intra College Competition at both the prestigious Assam Engineering College and Guwahati Medical College on their College-Week Festival and 7th Dipul-Pranjit North East Inter College/University Quiz Competition at Pandu College, Guwahati. All these successful quiz competitions were conducted by Mr. Sailen Baishya, a well know Quiz Master in the Quizzing world of Assam.
[edit] Some Prestigious Quizzes of Assam
Many educational institutions, Government agencies, Corporations etc. have been organising some prestigious quiz meets in Assam. Of these, mention maybe made of COP QUEST organised by Assam Police in association with M/s Trivia Bytes Creations, QUIZ KID and Dr. Neelofer Rehman Saikia Memorial Inter-School Quiz (organised by Don Bosco School, Guwahati), Sahodaya Utsav Quiz organised by Army School. Narengi, Guwahati (renamed QONQUEST in 2006), OIL Narengi Club Quiz organised by Narengi Club, Guwahati under Oil India Limited (renamed In The Pipeline in 2006), and IITG Alcheringa Quiz organised by the IIT Guwahati as part of their annual festival Alcheringa.
[edit] Some drawbacks of quizzing in Assam
Unlike in other parts of India, quizzers from Assam face some problems. Though there is no lack of talent here, there is very much a lack of exposure. People rarely get to see live national level quizzes with celebrity quizmasters being organized here. That is why young people from the Northeast do find it difficult to cope up with the standard of questions asked in national level quizzes, when they go out of their state to participate in them.
Corporate quizzes are rarely organised in Assam. This maybe ascribed to the fact that the region still lacks a corporate culture. Therefore, people of the region are still unknown to the pleasure of joining/watching a corporate quiz.
[edit] Types of Quizzes in India
[edit] School Quizzes
School Quizzes in India are often conducted by outside organisations, and not set by the schools themselves, as is the case in college quizzes. Many inter-school quizzes are conducted every year in major Indian cities, such as the The Hindu Young World Quiz, organised by the The Hindu, conducted by V.V. Ramanan, and held in 12 cities, is reckoned by many to be the largest live quiz for high school students. The 2005 edition saw a total of nearly 5000 teams taking part across the cities.
There is also The Times of India Fun-Da-Mental Quiz, earlier known as Times Newswise Quiz and the Limca Quiz. The Bournvita Quiz and ESPN Sports quizzes are popular school quizzes on TV (see sections below). TCS IT Wiz is an IT quiz for schools held across 8 cities of India since 1999. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts two nationwide schools quizzes, the CBSE Heritage India Quiz (conducted by Adittya Nath Mubayi and Kunal Savarkar since 2003) and the CBSE Intel Science Quiz (conducted by Pickbrain).
Almost every city has regular quizmasters on the school and college circuit. TV quiz masters including Siddhartha Basu, Harsha Bhogle, and Derek O'Brien (as well as his brothers Andy and Barry), have also compered school quizzes.
[edit] New Delhi
In Delhi, Adittya Nath Mubayi and Kunal Savarkar (both architects) have been organising school quizzes - including the prestigious Columban Open Quiz- for the last few years. They have also conducted the country's first 'Inclusive' quiz (mentioned in the Limca Book of Records) that featured children who were alternately enabled paired up with students defined as 'appearing to be normally enabled'! Adittya and Kunal have promoted what is probably India's first formally incorporated quizzing outfit- Quizcraft Events & Communications (P) Ltd, known simply as Quizcraft.
[edit] The Japan Quiz
The Embassy of Japan, New Delhi, organises an inter school quiz based on Japan and Japanese culture anually. First held in 2004, the latest edition of this quiz saw 100 teams participating from Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Dehra Dun, Allahabad, Moradabad, Panipat, Lakshmangarh and Karnal. The quiz has been organised by Quizcraft and hosted by Adittya Nath Mubayi since inception.
[edit] Quiz Italia
This inter school quiz, focussing on Italy and all things Italian, is akin to the Japan Quiz and is also organised by Quizcraft for the Italian Embassy at Delhi.
[edit] Other Quizzes
The Doon School Quiz, the JTM Gibson Quiz (in Mayo College, Ajmer) the Scindia School Quiz and the Vasant Valley Quiz are amongst the major quizzes conducted in the school circuit.
[edit] Open Quizzes
Open quizzes are those quizzes that do not have any restriction on the participants with respect to age, club, etc. Unlike college quizzes, they are open to everyone who is interested in participating. K-Circle Open which was for sometime out of action has been revived for the past two years attracting people from different parts of the country. The Landmark quiz, conducted by Landmark, the bookstore, in Bangalore and Chennai is another popular open quiz. BRAHMA an open quiz conducted by Quiz club of Coimbatore Institute of Technology is held at Coimbatore a week prior to Landmark Quiz, also attracts fair number of participants
[edit] Web and Email Quizzes
There are many Yahoo groups that several Indian quizzers are signed up to, and that carry regular quizzes set by various list members.
One of the oldest is Quiznet, which started off in the late 1990s as quiznet@alpha.ece.ucsb.edu, a quiz mailing list that mostly had alumni from KREC Surathkal. Several quizzers from KCircle Hyderabad piled on to the list. Quiznet grew even larger when members from two or three other quiz mailing lists (for example a list of IIT students and alumni) joined in. Since those beginnings, Quiznet has grown to become even larger, with several quizzers from quizzing societies, schools and colleges joining it over the years.
Wikipedia has its own online quiz community - WP:PINQ
[edit] Other online quiz groups
There are several online quiz groups now, several of which were formed by quizzers who met each other on quiznet and on various offline quiz groups, catering to quizzers with shared special interests, or quizzers from quiznet who knew each other and formed smaller communities.
iitiim.com - quiz website for IIT and IIM alumnus, questions set by Gautam Ghosh
InquizzitiveGoogle The Google India Quiz Blog.
Another quizzing portal [4] has been started by ANKUR, a young quizzer
Several newspapers, magazines and online portals have their own quizzes as well.
[edit] Inter-collegiate Quizzes
One of the oldest quizzes in intercollegiate sector is the illustrious SHYAM BHATT QUIZ held by Armed Forces Medical College, Pune since 1984. This quiz is in memoriam of a great quizzer who met with an untimely end, Shyam Bhatt. The quiz has set high standards right through the years and has been a torch bearer in PUNE circle of quizzing.
Several colleges around the country have a quiz as part of their annual cultural fest. Colleges like the IITs and BITS Pilani, have regular open quizzes, besides a series of other quizzes (thematic quizzes on literature, sports etc, as well as daily quizzes) and an active quizzing community.
The annual cultural fests of other colleges in several Indian cities too have their own quizzes, some of which are quite popular and attract quizzers from around India.
Nihilanth is an IIT - IIM quiz that covers the seven IITs and six IIMs in India. The first Nihilanth was held at IIM Indore during 2003, followed by quizzes at IIT Delhi (Nihilanth 2005) and IIM Calcutta (Nihilanth 2006).
BITS Pilani has couple of quizzes that are conducted during its annual academic festival, APOGEE. OHT - OverHead Transmission - is a quiz open for all. BOB - Brain of BITS - is a quiz which is exclusively for BITS Pilani student. Apart from these two, a sports quiz is conducted during its annual sports event, BOSM. Additionally, OQ (Oasis Quiz) takes place during its cultural extravaganza OASIS. All the quizzes receive an overwhelming response of enthusiastic quizzers.
IMS Quotient is an all India inter collegiate quiz, held across 8 cities.
[edit] Quizzing by Topic
[edit] Business
Extremely popular among Business School students and some IT professionals, these quizzes test you on knowledge about advertising, financial and business terms, history of famous businesses, corporate bigwigs and other such fields. The prize money in Business Quizzes is more than that in other quizzes. Prizes in Business Quizzes may include Cars and MP3 Players among other things. The Brand Equity Quiz, the Business Today Acumen Quiz and the Tata Crucible Quiz are three big Business quizzes held in India every year.
[edit] Indian Heritage
An innovative and popular annual contest that is organised by the Central Board of Secondary Education- the CBSE Heritage India Quiz- sees upwards of a thousand schools participating across the nation. First organised in 2001, the quiz has a pyramidal structure and involves a preliminary written test paper, followed by regional semi-finals and finals (stage shows conducted at various locations) followed by a National level contest- including pre-finals as well as a grand finale. This quiz was conducted by S.Mohanty in its first two years of inception, and has subsequently been conducted by Adittya Nath Mubayi and Kunal Savarkar (of Quizcraft).
[edit] TV Quizzes
[edit] Discover India
This was an all India solo quiz based on Indian culture and heritage, conducted by the Tourism Department on the National Television Channel DD1 in the 80s. Nagesh, from Calicut, Kerala, was the proud winner of the then princely sum of 50,000 rupees.
[edit] Quiz Time
QuizTime was an intercollegiate quiz that ran in the national channel Doordarshan in 1985, 1986 and 1988. It was hosted by Siddhartha Basu in all three seasons. It was the enormous success of QuizTime that made quizzing a popular form of entertainment for the general public.
A college was represented by a two member team. Teams were selected for the zonal preliminaries from the East, West, North and South Zones after a written test. Each quiz brought four teams against each other. Winners of the zonal preliminaries met in the zonal final, and the winners of these contested the national final.
Kavita Agarwal in 1985, Radha Seth in 1986 and Vandana Mohan in 1988 assisted Basu as scorers, and became famous in their own rights. Loy Mendonsa and Gussy Rikh composed the title music for the '85 series, Louis Banks composed the title music for the '86 series, and Loy Mendonsa again in 1988. IIT Kanpur won the title in 1985, AFMC, Pune in 1986 and R. A. Podar College, Mumbai in 1988.
After QuizTime, Basu hosted the Spectrum Quiz which brought together quizzers from the seven SAARC countries, and was won by an India-Bangladesh team.
[edit] Mastermind India
Mastermind India is based on the British television quiz Mastermind. Each round saw four contestants taking the black chair one by one, and facing rapid fire questions on subjects of their own choosing in the first half, and on general knowledge in the second half. One of the hallmarks of the Indian show was the staging of the contest at heritage sites across the country. Mastermind India was hosted by Siddhartha Basu, and had five seasons, telecast on BBC World, the last one being in 2002.
Winners over years are - Dayita Datta, Ajai Banerjee - both schoolteachers from Dehra Dun, K.E.Priyamvada, a copy editor from Delhi, Archana Garodia, a businesswoman from Noida, and Ramanand Janardhan, a software engineer from Pune. A Champion of Champions round was held to launch the fifth series, pitting the first four title holders together, which was won By Archana Garodia.
There are 6 volumes of Mastermind India books, featuring all the questions and answers of each series, one for each year, including a hardback volume for series 1-3.
[edit] University Challenge India
University Challenge India is based on the British University Challenge. It is hosted by Siddhartha Basu. It follows the American College Bowl format. There were two seasons, in 2003-2004 and in 2004-2005. The first season was won by the Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai and the concluding season '04,'05 was won by NSIT, Delhi.
[edit] India Quiz on DD2
This was an India specific quiz run on the Doordarshan National network and the Doordarshan Metro Channel. It was hosted by Siddhartha Basu.The last season was in 1997 and was won by Law College,Ernakulam,Kerala.
[edit] Kaun Banega Crorepati
Kaun Banega Crorepati was a television show that aired on Star Plus starting from 2000. It was based on the popular British show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It gained popularity and attracted a large number of viewers primarily due to its quizmaster, Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan, whose resonant baritone voice, down-to-earth manner, and characteristic dialogue (which would later become pop-culture catch-phrases) had appealed to the public.
In 2005, the show was restarted after a four-year hiatus, and renamed Kaun Banega Crorepati Dwitiya (KBC the Second) in which the prize amount was doubled. This season came to a premature end when Amitabh Bachchan had to be hospitalized for surgery.
Research for this quiz was provided by Siddhartha Basu and his team. Regional language variations of KBC have been produced for other TV channels, particularly in Tamil, with local actors and TV personalities taking over the quizmaster role.
[edit] The Bournvita Quiz Contest
The Bournvita Quiz Contest (BQC) started as a radio show on the 12th of April, 1972 on Vividh Bharati. Fifty-two schools from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai each sent a three member team to the quiz. The first quizmaster was Hamid Sayani, who was followed by his brother, the popular DJ and talk show host Ameen. [5] In the 1990s, a new, televised version was broadcast on Zee TV hosted By Derek O'Brien. The TV series changed from the three-member team format of the radio show to a two-member team format. Telecast on Indian cable TV channels, (first on Zee TV and now on Sony TV) is the longest running school quiz show on television in India. [6]
[edit] India's Child Genius
India's Child Genius is another Siddhartha Basu creation. This quiz involved schoolchildren who competed for the title of India's Child Genius, and was broadcast on Star World. The final began at Rastrapati Bhavan, with President Kalam felicitating the dozen children vying for the title. The winner was a 12 year old, Shubham Prakhar from Muzzafarpur, in Bihar. Second came Shachit Iyer a 12 year old from Mumbai and Ashwath Rabindranath of Chennai was a close third.
[edit] National Parliamentary Quiz
National Parliamentary Quiz was hosted on DD1 by Bhaskar Bhattacharya in 1994. There was a glitch in the program due to the politically incorrect statement that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was the 'Showman of Indian Freedom Struggle'. But, the controversy was tided over, and the reconstituted team representing Kerala with Sojan Baby from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune and Joseph Alex, of IIT, Chennai won the prestigious event.
[edit] Other Quizzes
[edit] North Star Quiz
[edit] The Official SAARC quiz
A quiz that appeared on television, it was produced by Rupavahini (SLBC) in 1994, and hosted by Ravi John, a well known host from Sri Lanka, and the next year by Synergy Communications (for DD) and hosted by the Grand Old Man of TV quizzing - Siddhartha Basu. It then went off the air, and has not reappeared on TV till date. In 1994, India were represented by Hari Menon and Aditya Mubayi. In the spirit of SAARC cooperation, contestants from different countried were paired up, removing the country-specific jingoism.
This was only held once , as part of the SAARC countries youth festival hosted by India at Gulbarga in 1999.Anjay M A, Rajmohan V (both medicos) and Faizal( law) from Calicut University represented India as winners of the official National Inter University Quiz.The Indian team won the first place beating Sri Lanka to second place by a whopping margin
