Consider the following statements : He was an Indian journalist, editor and author. He was associated with the Statesman, the Guardian, the Times of India etc. He received the Ramnath Goenka Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. He died in June 2016. The person referred to above is
- (a)B K Karanjia
- (b)K M Mathew
- (c)Inder Malhotra
- (d)Nanasaheb Parulekar
Correct — C, Inder Malhotra. Every clue in the stem fits him and only him. Born on 1 February 1930, he was resident editor of The Statesman in New Delhi from 1965 to 1971, India correspondent of the London Guardian from 1965 to 1978, and editor of The Times of India from 1978 to 1986, after which he wrote a widely syndicated political column for decades. He received the Ramnath Goenka Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, and he died on 11 June 2016, three months before this paper was set. He is also remembered as the author of a political and personal biography of Indira Gandhi, whose career he covered at close quarters.
- (a)B K Karanjia — Berjis Karanjia was a distinguished journalist, but of film rather than politics — he edited Filmfare and Screen and founded the film magazine Movie. His papers are not the ones named in the stem, and he died in 2012, not June 2016.
- (b)K M Mathew — K. M. Mathew was the long-serving chief editor of the Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama, a very different publishing world from The Statesman, The Guardian and The Times of India. He died in 2010.
- (d)Nanasaheb Parulekar — Parulekar founded and edited the Marathi daily Sakal and is a pioneer of Marathi journalism. He belongs to a much earlier generation and died in 1973, decades before the award and the death date given in the stem could apply.
The Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards are given by the Indian Express group in memory of Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express, and include a lifetime achievement category. The 2013 lifetime award went to Inder Malhotra, one of the last of the generation of Delhi political correspondents who covered Indian politics continuously from the Nehru years through the Emergency and after.
The item is built as a clue-elimination puzzle rather than a memory test, and it can be cracked without knowing the answer outright. Each wrong name is a real and eminent editor, but each belongs to a different language or a different beat, so matching the person to the newspapers named in the stem does most of the work. The Statesman, The Guardian and The Times of India together point to an English-language political journalist working out of Delhi with an international byline, which excludes a Malayalam editor, a Marathi editor and a film-magazine editor at once. The death date is the second filter and rules out three of the four immediately. This anchoring to a specific recent death is typical of NDA's obituary questions, and it is worth noting how narrow the reading window is — the death and the paper are barely three months apart.
- Inder Malhotra lived from 1 February 1930 to 11 June 2016.
- He was resident editor of The Statesman in New Delhi from 1965 to 1971 and editor of The Times of India from 1978 to 1986.
- He served as the India correspondent of the Guardian of London from 1965 to 1978.
- The Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards are instituted by the Indian Express group in memory of its founder; Malhotra received the lifetime achievement award in 2013.
The three English-language national papers named in the stem fit only Inder Malhotra, and the June 2016 death date rules the other three out on its own.
- Recognising the award without checking the death date; the year of death eliminates three of the four options by itself.
- Confusing regional-language editors with the English-language national press when the stem names specific papers.
NDA reliably includes an obituary item on someone who died within a few months of the exam, described by clues rather than named, so read the year's who-was-who along with the newspapers or fields each person is identified with.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards are instituted by which media group?
- (a)The Times Group
- (b)The Indian Express group
- (c)The Hindu group
- (d)The Anandabazar Patrika group
Answer(b) The Indian Express group — the awards honour Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Nanasaheb Parulekar is remembered as the founder-editor of which newspaper?
- (a)Kesari
- (b)Sakal
- (c)Maratha
- (d)Navakal
Answer(b) Sakal — the Marathi daily he founded, which made him a pioneer of modern Marathi journalism.