States PCS: West Bengal GK Questions for WBPSC Examinations

Notes:
Chhokra Dance featured youths playing the roles of women on alkap songs. This dance is
performed on a canopied stage in an open field. It is directed by a sarkar who leads a fairly large team of singers, musicians and players. Some parts of the alkap song and the Chhokra dance can be quite vulgar and this is why, performances are held late at night, for adult audiences.

Notes:
Hiralal Sen is credited with being one of the first directors of Bengal and India. He is also credited as one of the pioneers of advertisement films in India. The first
Bengali language movie was the silent feature film Billwamangal.

Notes:
Aparna Sen was born on 25th October, 1945 in Kolkata. She is a renowned name in Bengali as well as Indian cinema. She has excelled both as an actress in film and theatre and as a director of parallel
cinema. In 1981, she made her debut as a film director with 36 Chowringhee Lane which won National and International
Awards. Since then, she has directed a
series of films on a wide variety of
subjects.

Notes:
Kanan Devi was born on 22nd April, 1916 in
Howrah district. She was an actress and famous singer in early 1930s. She
received her initial musical training under
Alla Rakha, and later from Bhishmadev
Chatterjee. She sang Bengali and Hindi film music and also Rabindra Sangeet. She was a very popular singer at that time. She was awarded with Padma Shri
and Dadasaheb Phalke Award (1976). She died on 17th July, 1992.

Notes:
Besides a classical singer, Sandhya
Mukhopadhyay is the most popular female playback singer in Bengal. She has done playback in hundreds of films and has over three thousand and five hundred records to her credit. Hemanta and Sandhya became known as the most popular pair for the Bengali
superstar Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen.

Notes:
Geeta Dutta was born on 23rd November, 1930
in Faridpur district, now in Bangladesh.
She was a prominent Bengali singer
who was very popular as a playback
singer in Hindi cinema. She sang in many Indian regional languages
including Hindi, Marathi, Bengali,
Maithili, Bhojpuri and Punjabi. She
started her career in Hindi cinema in 1947 with the film ‘Do Bhai’ and it ended with ‘Anubhav’ in 1971. She died
on 20th July, 1972.

Notes:
Fort William is situated on the bank of river Hooghly in Kolkata. It was
established in 1696 during the tenure of British Raj. It is a delight for lovers of
history and architecture. There is a Maidan in front of the fort, which used to be a part of the fort earlier and is the largest urban park in Kolkata today. There are six
gates and are the most striking feature of the fort. These gates are named
Chowringhee, Plassey, Calcutta, Water Gate, St Georges and the Treasury Gate.

Notes:
Vishnupur or Bishnupur festival is held every year between 27th and 31st December, near the Madanmohan temple. The local sculptures, handicrafts,
handmade fabrics and handprint clothes are simply exquisite and attract domestic as well as international tourists.

Notes:
In 1911, the Bengal Gymkhana played its first match at Woodlands against an opposition fielded by the
Maharaja of Kashmir. Some famous cricketers from West Bengal are Sourav Ganguly, Gopal Bose, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manoj Tiwari, etc.

Notes:
The history of local self government included the Bengal Village Chowkidari Act, 1870, the Bengal Local Self-Government Act 1885 and West Bengal Panchayat Act,
1957. These three acts governed the rural administration of West Bengal until 1957.
After it, the four tier panchayat system took place in 1964 which was later replaced by three tier system according to the Panchayat Act, 1973.