Answers to the India IT Quiz Dated 12th May 2006

The response to the India IT quiz was very encouraging as revealed below

No of People who viewed the Quiz : 232
No of People who sent in their entries : 152
Entries that got atleast 50% right : 35 (shows that the quiz was on the tougher side :-))

Best Entry : Kaps who got 16 of the attempted 18, right.
Other noteworthy entries : Paurna , Soumya, Icarus, Krithiga

Congratulations all of you. You deserve a toast !!

A BIG Thanks to everyone who participated and be on the lookout for the next surprise activity right here on this blog.

1. Which state in India was the first one to put forth a dedicated Information Technology policy and when was it? Karnataka in 1997
2. Which prominent IT city in India is nicknamed Cyberabad? Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh
3. Expand STPI. Software Technology Parks of India. Special IT zones created with all the necessary infrastructure for IT companies planning to open offices in India.
4. A MNC that outsources to India is colloquially said to have been..........Bangalored - Coined after the city of Bangalore
5. Of what significance is the phone number 1551 in India? It is the first of its kind toll free number dedicated to the farmers of the nation, inaugurated by erstwhile Prime Minister, A B Vajapayee in 2004. Read more about it here
6. What was the famous Indian Auction site that Ebay bought over and re-christened it as ebay.co.in when it wanted to make its presence felt in India? Baazee.com - www.ebay.co.in
7. Which was the first Indian movie to release its soundtrack on the Internet for sale before it being released offline via cassettes and CDs? Allaipayuthey. It was available at www.Fabmall.com
8. What is the name of India's indigenous accounting package that has thwarted attempts by international software packages like Mircosoft Money to gain control of the Indian market? Tally
9. What is the name of the Microsoft spearheaded project that aims to empower major Indian languages in the computing arena? BhashaIndia - Surf more on it here.
10. Drishya, Tarang, bFone, CallNow are all names of ICT (Information communication and Technology) related services provided by which ICT company in India ? BSNL
11. Which global IT company re-entered India in 1992 after having been banned (along with another MNC Coca Cola) from conducting business in India in the 1970s? IBM - International Business Machines
12. What famous item in South Indian hotel menus often gets abbreviated on the computerized bill to spell a famous Operating System? Masala Dosa - Abbreviated as MS DOS on the computerized bill.
13. Which Indian IT company's name when expanded stands for Western India Products? Wipro - A company that diversified from vegetable oil production initially to IT and consumer care products.
14. What famous Linux based hand held is used by Bangalore traffic cops to book traffic rule offenders? Simputer - Read about the Simputer here
15. What did India's C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Pune develop after US placed heavy hardware embargo on India following its first nuclear test way back in 1974? PARAM series of SuperComputers - Read more about it here
    
16. A conversation with a CEO of an Indian IT major helped Thomas L Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist, realize that the 'The World is Flat' (he subsequently penned a book with that very phrase as its title). Who is the CEO in question ? Nandhan Nilekani of Infosys
17. What is common between the IT companies American Management Systems (AMS), NerveWire, The Reference ? They all are American IT companies acquired recently by Indian IT majors. The first two by Wipro and the last one by Patni computers.
18. Which Indian IT company adopted a painting made by a spastic child as its logo? MindTree - Adopted from the cerebral palsied child, Chetan's creation. Read more about it here
    
19. What is the name of the ambitious satellite program envisaged by the Karnataka government to create IT employment opportunities for the thousands of engineers passing out of its colleges? VTracU ( We Track You ) - Read more about VTracU here
20. What do you think is India's single most important contribution to IT? Zero - Without which there would have been no Binary system and everything IT, as we know it, would have come crashing down ( Bit of a Googly !!! - I had to prove the title of this quiz right, you know ;-)).