Indian States & UTs GK Questions with Answers – Page 23

Kalbelia is the dance and song tradition of the Kalbelia community of snake charmers of Rajasthan. The women dance in black swirling skirts with movements that recall a serpent, to the be en and the khanjari played by the men, and the songs are composed on the spot.

The Battle of Haldighati was fought in June 1576 in the hills near Gogunda in Mewar between Maharana Pratap of Mewar and the Mughal army sent by Akbar under Man Singh of Amber.

Kalibangan, in Hanumangarh district, stands on the dry bed of the Ghaggar, the river many identify with the Saraswati of the texts.

Acting on the report of the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee, Rajasthan became the first state to introduce Panchayati Raj, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated it at Nagaur on 2 October 1959, Gandhi Jayanti.

Sambhar Lake lies west of Jaipur, spread over parts of Jaipur, Nagaur and Ajmer districts. It is the largest inland saline lake in the country, a major source of common salt, a Ramsar site, and a winter feeding ground for flamingos and other migratory birds.

The Luni rises in the Aravallis near Ajmer, flows south west across the desert districts of Marwar, grows saline as it picks up salts from the soil, and ends in the marshes of the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat without reaching open sea.

The Chambal enters Rajasthan from Madhya Pradesh and flows north and then east through deep ravines, carrying water through the year, which makes it the only perennial river of the state and also its longest.

Guru Shikhar, about 1,722 metres high, stands on Mount Abu in Sirohi district and is the highest point both of the Aravallis and of Rajasthan.

Rajasthan covers about 342,239 square kilometres, roughly a tenth of the area of India, and has been the largest state since Madhya Pradesh was divided in 2000.

Sher Shah Suri was born in this town of the Rohtas district and his octagonal tomb of red sandstone stands on a platform in the middle of an artificial lake, one of the finest works of Indo Islamic architecture of the period.

The Shahi litchi of the Muzaffarpur belt in northern Bihar is known for its thin skin, small stone and high sugar, and it received a Geographical Indication tag in recognition of the link between the fruit and the alluvial soil and climate of that tract.

The sanctuary covers a stretch of the Ganga in the Bhagalpur district and is set aside for the Gangetic dolphin, which is the national aquatic animal of India and is nearly blind, hunting by echolocation.

Sonepur in Saran district stands at Harihar Kshetra, where the Gandak comes down from the north and joins the Ganga opposite Patna.

It was the capital of the Licchavi clan, the leading member of the Vajji confederacy, and its assembly of clan heads is the reason it is described as one of the earliest republics in the world.

Known to the state as Shri Babu, he became the first Chief Minister of Bihar and held the office for many years after independence.

Gandhi went to Champaran in northern Bihar in 1917 at the repeated request of the cultivator Raj Kumar Shukla, to look into the tinkathia system under which peasants had to grow indigo on a fixed part of their holding for European planters.

The Buddha attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree on the bank of the Falgu at Bodh Gaya in the Gaya district.

It lies in the West Champaran district on the border with Nepal, in the basin of the Gandak, and forms the core of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve, the only tiger reserve of the state.

The Kosi rises in Nepal, carries an enormous load of Himalayan silt and keeps raising its own bed, so it spills over and abandons its channel again and again.

Jharkhand was created on 15 November 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, out of the southern plateau districts of Bihar.