Bengaluru: The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, emerged as the champions of ConQuest 2019, India’s premier national quiz on the Indian Constitution, history and politics, with the institution not only bagging the first spot but also sharing the second spot with IIT-Kharagpur.
The fourth edition of ConQuest was organised by the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR), a not-for-profit trust, and its final round hosted by one of Bengaluru’s most prestigious educational institutions, School of Law at Christ, a private deemed-to-be university, Friday.
The winners were Animesh Singh, Dhrishaj Suresh and Pallavi Khatri of NLSIU. The second spot, meanwhile, was shared by Dhanush Dinesh, Amandeep Bor Thakur and Anushree Jain of NLSIU and Piyush Kedia, Shubham and Devika Narayanan of IIT-K.
IIT-Kharagpur attained the second rank after a tie-breaker landed them the same score, 130, as the runner-up NLSIU team. The winning team scored 160.
The final round was preceded by zonal contests in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune and Delhi, which were held in collaboration with regional partners. The other finalists were West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, BITS-Goa, and Ramjas College and Campus Law Centre in Delhi.
“An activity like ConQuest is not a quiz where we are looking at anointing a person who knows a lot about the Constitution or is an expert,” said Sudhir Krishnaswamy, the co-founder and managing trustee at CLPR.
“We are actually looking for common layman understanding and the ability to read and understand the Constitution through this exercise,” he added, “This is our motivation, that any educated person in the country needs to know all that we asked questions about,” he added.
The mind-benders
Questions in the quiz included mind-benders that only a deep understanding of Indian history, politics and the Constitution could conquer.
Sample this: The practitioners of ‘dubhash’, an important profession during the British Raj, amassed a lot of wealth. But what exactly did they do?
Answer: They were translators! The word “dubhash” has been derived from the Hindi terms for “two (do)” and “language (bhasha)”.
Another question centred on the Constituent Assembly debates, and referred to an amendment that some said would violate the federal nature of the Constitution.
It was argued that the amendment was necessary, as it was believed that if ———— were left to the states , there could be instances of discrimination and exclusion. The assembly subsequently accepted the amendment, paving the way for a central organisation. How do we know this organisation or what is its role?
Answer: Election Commission, which is responsible for holding assembly and Lok Sabha polls around the country.
An interesting question during a ‘Connect the Picture’ round saw organisers displaying the flags of Australia, India, UK, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Nigeria with a specific year. The finalists had to answer what the year and the flag signified.
The finalists were quick to answer: The years depicted the dates of demonetisation exercises undertaken by each of the countries and the EU.
One question that none of the finalists could answer was based on former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan’s book The Third Pillar: What is the “third pillar” that Rajan’s book revolves around?
The answer finally came from an audience member, who answered “community/society” and earned herself a round of applause.
A question drawn from recent headlines received an animated audience response, with a loud round of claps ensuing as one of the teams gave the answer even before the quiz master could finish reading out the question, which was also displayed on a screen.
The question was : ___________ & _________ in Junglemahal is a collection of essays that examines the conflict in the Red Corridor… It also studies the government’s role and failure to achieve peace with these communities, offering a wide range of perspectives on the same with discussions about the autonomy of the grassroots movements and the meaning of living in a democracy. The book recently found itself in the spotlight after having been mistaken for a classic work of literature. What is the work in question?
Answer: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
Fr Jose CC, the pro vice-chancellor at Christ University lauded the high level of competitiveness and the quality of questions asked.
CLPR drafted the quiz questions with the help of a Bengaluru-based quizzing company called Walnut Knowledge Solutions.
ThePrint is a digital partner for ConQuest 2019