Three liquids are given to you. One is hydrochloric acid, another is sodium hydroxide and third is a sugar solution.

Turmeric is yellow in colour. When a base is added to it, the solution turns into pink colour. However turmeric remains yellow when an acid or neutral solution is added to it. We shall perform the following steps to identify the solution is base, acid or neutral.

1. Take few drops from each solution and test it with turmeric solution. If the solution turns into pink colour that solution is base i.e. Sodium Hydroxide. Mark that beaker (containing solution) as base.
2. Take a test tube and add few drops of base solution and second solution. Check if test tube becomes warm and then add turmeric solution to it. If the colour does not change, it means the solution added is acidic (HCl). The test tube becomes warm due to neutralization.
3. If the test tube of the above solution does not warm and it does show pink colour when turmeric is added, the second solution is neutral.

Following steps are taken to test the given liquids:

1. Place a drop of each liquid on turmeric indicator. The solution which changes the colour of the indicator to red is basic in nature, i.e., it is sodium hydroxide.
2. Now put a drop of sodium hydroxide on the other two liquids separately to obtain two mixtures.
3. One by one place the drop of each mixture on turmeric indicator. The mixture that changes the colour of indicator red contains neutral sugar solution. While the mixture which does not show any colour change in indicator contains hydrochloric acid which was neutralised on addition of sodium hydroxide.