Quizzing in India

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.

Origin of quizzing in India

Quizzing in India began when Neil O'Brien conducted the first well organized, formal 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 quiz culture there, started quizzing; it first became popular among the Anglo Indian community before it became popular among a wider audience. The concept of live rounds in quizzing was introduced by another quizmaster Alban Scolt, who passed away in 2006.

Quizzing by region

Indian quizzers are generally concentrated in the major cities of India. Each city has, over time, evolved its own peculiar brand of quizzing.

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. Another large quizzing group is the Bangalore Quiz group, with a membership of nearly 1500 quizzers. The Bangalore Quiz Group [http://www.bangalorequizgroup.com] conducts online quizzes.

Under the Peepal Tree is a festival of quizzing that first started in 1999.

Kolkata

Open quizzing has been 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.

In open quizzing, the Eddie Hyde Memorial Open Quiz is the oldest annual open quiz in the country but 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. The Saturday Club Quiz is another long running quiz whose 2007 edition was held on 7th July 2007.

A popular school-college-university level quiz is Qriosity, organized by "Enquiry", the quiz club of Jadavpur University.

"Jonakee" a quiz group from Garden Reach celebrating their 25th year of quizzing anniversary at Badartala Public Library in 2008. Every year "Jonakee" used to organize a junior and sub-junior level quiz every year (on the first Sunday after 15th August).

There is a little magazine "Chintan" also celebrating their 25th year in 2008. They are starting their celebration by a open-to-all quiz at Badartala Public Library.

Allahabad

National Institute of Technology, Allahabad has been organizing [Gnosiomania http://gnosiomania.mnnit.ac.in] , a national level knowledge festival with dedicated quizzes and other mind games. The fest is going into its 6th year, christened as THE SIXTH AVATAR in 2009. NIT, Allahabad has a passionate quizzing culture and apart from this dedicated festival, also keeps organizing quizzes round the year.It is one of the biggest and grandest knowledge festival of the country which also has tremendous international and corporate participation to boast about. [http://gnosiomania.mnnit.ac.in]

Durgapur

National Institute of Technology, Durgapur is one of the famous hotspots for quiz freaks in the Eastern part of the country. Quizinc. NIT Durgapur regularly organizes quizzes at the college circuit. Be it the Bulls' Eye or the Quiz Grand Prix last year, it has always drawn large crowds. These intra college quizzes are followed by Grand Finale to declare the champion team of the college. This year round, it's titled The Quizzitch Cup. Exquizzit the biggest quizzing extravaganza in Eastern India is also organized every year during Aarohan, the annual techno-management festival of the college. The 2008 edition of the festival added to the flavor of quizzing the "Final Frontier" a running championship trophy for the Six premier institutes of Eastern India (IIM C, IIT Kgp, BIT Mesra, NIT D, NIT J, ISM Dhanbad). The top quizzing team from these institutes came down to NIT Durgapur for the fierce battle. Ultimately it went down to the wire between IIM C and the home team. But the former walked away victorious.
Final Frontier 2008 - Winner IIM C

Kerala

The main event of the Kerala college quizzing calendar is Crossroads, the annual quiz festival of NIT Calicut. Other prestigious events include the SBT Intel Teens, DC Kizhekkamuri Quiz (which offers the highest cash prize in the state) and the Babu Chazhikkadan Trophy. DC Quiz Club (DCQC) of DC School of Management and Technology (DCSMAT) conducts an annual inter-collegiate quiz competition called, DC Kizhakemuri Memorial All India Inter-Collegiate General Knowledge Quiz. Kerala has an active schools quiz circuit, with several quizzes held in Trivandrum, Cochin, Trichur and Calicut. The TCS IT quiz, being conducted here since 2000 in Trivandrum ( Kochi since 2006) deserves special mention. The Hindu Young World School quiz is also a main event in the school quizzing circuit.

There is also a community for quizzers and quiz lovers called "Dreamz" centered Calicut.

Nagpur

This city has seen a steady rise in quizzing over the past few years. The main hub of the quizzing activities being Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology's Quiz Club - Quiz Pro Co. It has been organizing QUIZFEST since 2006 along with numerous other quizzing events around the year.The 2008 edition of QUIZFEST had ace quizmaster Mr.Gautam Bose CEO,GREYCELLS conducting the general and the business quiz.

New Delhi

Delhi has an eclectic range of quizzes. Engineering colleges such as IIT Delhi, NSIT and Delhi College of Engineering, and Hindu College are known for their quizzes and quizzing talent. Hindu College was the only general college to qualify for the inaugural University Challenge Quiz conducted by Siddhartha Basu and it has an active quiz club called Manthan.

There is a decent school quizzing circuit. Amity International Noida, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, DPS RohiNI, Apeejay NOIDA, Apeejay Sheikh Sarai, Vasant Valley, Scindia School, DPS Dwarka, DPS RK Puram, DPS Vasant Kunj, New Era Public School (Mayapuri), Mother's International, Springdales, St Columba's, Manav Sthali School and Father Agnel are the major schools that quiz. Some others include the Doon School Quiz and the JTM Gibson Quiz in Mayo College, Ajmer. The Columban Open Quiz, organised by St. Columba's School ,is one of the biggest inter-school quizzes in North India, with more than 200 teams participating annually.

Amongst the business schools in the National Capital Region (NCR), FMS,CBS, IIFT, IMT Ghaziabad,and have strong business quizzers. 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.

There has been a resurrection in Open Quizzing in Delhi.

Varanasi

Varanasi has emerged as a popular quizzing city in eastern India after Kolkata , largely due to the enthusiasm of the quizzing fraternity of the Banaras Hindu University, which regularly features among the winners at the [http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050123/punjab1.htm National Youth Festival] Quizzes. The awareness about quizzing at the school level is also on the ascent.

Hyderabad

K-Circle, a club dedicated exclusively to quizzing, starting up in 1972, and growing strongly to date. Originally a shortened form of "Knowledge Circle", K-Circle has since stayed with the abbreviated version of its name and has met religiously almost every single Friday at the YMCA in Secunderabad for over 35 years.

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 and the Odyssey Quiz, held on the Indian Independence Day (15 August) and Republic Day (26 January) respectively every year.

There's also the IIT-Madras open quiz and other quizzes held during their annual cultural festival Saarang. There's also the all women [http://www.hindu.com/mp/2006/03/11/stories/2006031101320800.htm Duchess Quiz] , conducted by QFI. Business Quizzes such as [http://www.libachrysalis.com/exquisite.htm LIBA Exquizite] also draw B-School and corporate quizzers.

Coimbatore

The Rotaract club of PSG College Arts and Science organises Coimbatore's biggest open quiz competition QUIZ TRAC which has seen its seventh edition in 2008. Coimbatore Institute of Technology's Brahma, PSG College of Technology's Kriya, IMS Quiz are notable ones conducted in Coimbatore. The Rotary Book Fair has an open quiz programme two days before the valediction every year. There are also many other quizzes conducted by educational institutions and voluntary organisations in the city for the college and school students.

Mumbai

Mumbai though one of the biggest cities of India, had a fairly non-existent quizzing culture. It was mostly localized in colleges like Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), St. Xavier's College, Bombay etc. From 2006 onwards due to initiatives by some local quizzers, "Bombay Quiz Club" (BQC) was founded. It has invigorated quizzing in Mumbai. It now has a quizzing league with quizzes being held bi-weekly. "BQC" maintains a blog [http://bombayquiz.blogspot.com Bombay Quiz] for quizzing reports and announcements. The winner of the 2006 BQC league was A.P.Alagarasamy, and in 2007 it was Rajiv Rai.

Techfest, IIT Bombay's annual and Asia's largest science and technology festival, every year organizes the country's biggest quiz competition SciTech,For more details visit www.techfest.org

Pune

Pune, like Bangalore has a large number of colleges and IT companies, and hence has a very strong quizzing tradition. In this city, 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, 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 are also very strong in the Pune quizzing circuit.

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 TV quiz show in Assam went on air on 24 March 1985 on Doordarshan.

Besides several school quizzes, there is also the "IITG Alcheringa Quiz", organised by the IIT Guwahati as part of their annual festival Alcheringa. Another important quiz is the General quiz in Techniche, the annual techno fest of IITG.The Techniche quiz has been hosted by Mr.Gautam Bose of GREYCELLS,Kolkata in the past.Cop Quest, which has been organised annually since 2004, has turned out to be the biggest quiz in the entire North-Eastern region of the country. The Quiz organised by Junior Doctor's Association, GMCH in memory of the founder principal of Gauhati Medical College during SYNCHISIS every year is also a huge draw. This is being organised annually since 2002 and gives out good prizes.

Rourkela

National Institute of Technology Rourkela has an active tradition of quizzing. Quizzes are held in its tech and spring fests, with participation from all over the country.Renowned faces in the world of quizzing like Parnab Mukherjee, Avinash Mudaliar, Gautam Ghosh have hosted several quizzes.Its official quizzing society Q-Sync has been regularly organising inter and intra-institute quizzes.

Trichy

In Trichy, Bishop Heber College is a quiz hub. Since this college has a very good Auditorium, major quizzing organisations such as Economic times classmate business quiz hosted by the famous quiz master Balasubramaniyan, The Hindu jointly organises a grand quiz and many other major and local quizzing agencies also visit this college every year.

Types of Quizzes in India

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 group, and conducted by V.V. Ramanan, is held in 12 cities. T.I.M.E.'s Aqua Regia is reckoned by many to be the largest live quiz for high school students. The 2007 edition of the quiz saw a total of nearly 2,40,000 students taking part across the country.

There is also The Times of India Fun-Da-Mental Quiz, earlier known as Times Newswise Quiz and the Limca Quiz. The Bournvita Quiz Contest 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 Columban Open Quiz, organised by St Columba's School is being held for the last 20 yeas, and is one of the biggest Inter-School Quizzes, in North India.The Hindustan Times-PACE Inquizitive, conducted by Siddhartha Basus, is also one of the major school quizzes.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts two nationwide school quizzes, the CBSE Heritage India Quiz (conducted by Quizcraft- Adittya Nath Mubayi and Kunal Savarkar since 2003) and the CBSE Intel Science Quiz. Each year over a thousand schools participate at over 25 venues across the nation.

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. 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

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.

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 quizzer who met with an untimely end, Shyam Bhatt.

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).

Prerana Business Quiz at NITIE, Mumbai is a Corporate vs Student quiz, held in the last week of October which draws participation form B Schools and Corporate teams across India.

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 students. Apart from these, a sports quiz is conducted during its annual sports event, BOSM. Additionally, OQ (Oasis Quiz) and AVQ (Audio Visual Quiz) take 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.

Quizzing by topic

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 such quizzes may include Cars and foreign holidays among other things. The Brand Equity Quiz, the Business Today Acumen Quiz and the Tata Crucible Quiz are big Business quizzes held in India every year.

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.ConceptTheek he!

TV Quizzes

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 1987. 64 contestants qualified through a written question format that appeared in all leading dailies of the country. India was split into five subjects: Old, Young, Wild, Beautiful and Big.

The themes were carried into the TV rounds also. Though the contestants and the rounds were never planned to be on a zonal basis. Jayant Kriplani, then a popular TV star, was the quizmaster.

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.

After QuizTime, Siddhartha Basu hosted the Spectrum Quiz which brought together quizzers from the seven SAARC countries, and was won by an India-Bangladesh team.

It was a unique concept in the heyday of SAARC. Organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and conducted by Siddhartha Basu (lovingly called as Babu by his admirers), the quiz had two representatives from each country. Maldives could not take part due to a coup in the country.

The two who represented India were selected through a rigorous qualification test. This test pitted (in the India rounds as part of the TV quiz), 18 of the best quizzers of India chosen on their performance on TV quizzes from 1985 onwards. These included winners and finalists of Quiz Time 85, 86 & 88 & Discover India 87.

Mastermind India

This 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.

University Challenge India

This 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.

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.

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.

KBC was again started on Star Plus in 2007 , recently. And it again gained popularity as the host this time was Shah Rukh Khan,Super star of Bollywood at present.

The Bournvita Quiz Contest

In 1972, on April 12, the first programme of the Cadbury Bournvita Quiz Contest went on air with the legendary Hamid Sayani, and later his brother Ameen, as quizmasters. Soon it became the most popular English programme on Vividh Bharati. Teams of three students each from 52 schools from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai participated. Telecast on Indian cable TV channels, (first on Zee TV and then Sony TV) is the longest running school quiz show on television in India. It is hosted by Derek O'Brien, a popular quizmaster in India.

India's Child Genius

This is another Siddhartha Basu creation.

National Parliamentary Quiz

National Parliamentary Quiz was hosted on DD1 by Siddhartha Basu,in 1994.

BSNL Sports Quiz

"BSNL Sports Quiz" hosted by Sumanth C Raman is one of the longest running quizzes in South India.It is being telecasted on Saturdays at 10.10pm on DD Podhigai(a regional version of Doordarshan).It was started with this name wayback in 2002,as a football world cup special.

Other Quizzes

SAARC Inter-University Quiz

This was held as part of the official SAARC countries youth Festival hosted by Government of India at Gulbarga, Karnataka in 1999.The Calicut University team represented India and won the quiz, defeating Sri Lanka by a huge margin.

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 (in which Adittya Mubayi of India came 2nd), 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.