Geography Mixed Quiz: Set 50

The correct answer is B, the Krishna. The Nagarjuna Sagar dam is built across the Krishna at Nandikonda, on the border of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and is one of the largest masonry dams in the country. The reservoir submerged the Buddhist site of Nagarjunakonda, whose remains were shifted to an island museum, a detail examiners like to pair with the dam. Option A is wrong because the Kaveri carries the Krishnaraja Sagar and Mettur dams. Option C is wrong because the Tungabhadra, itself a tributary of the Krishna, carries the Tungabhadra project at Hospet shared by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Option D is wrong because the Penna carries the Somasila and Gandikota projects. The Krishna basin also holds Srisailam, Almatti and Narayanpur. Examiners also ask for the state in which the dam stands, so remember Nandikonda on the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh border, and keep Srisailam, further upstream on the same river, separate from it.

The correct answer is D, Polar type. Koeppen grouped climates by temperature and rainfall and gave each group a capital letter, and E stands for the polar group, where the mean temperature of the warmest month stays below 10 degrees Celsius. In India this type is met only in the high Himalaya, in Ladakh and the upper reaches of Jammu and Kashmir, where snow lies for much of the year and the vegetation is tundra-like. Option A is wrong because tropical savannah is Aw in the scheme and covers most of the peninsular interior. Option B is wrong because the hot desert of western Rajasthan is marked BWhw. Option C is wrong because monsoon with a dry summer is As, the climate of the Coromandel coast of Tamil Nadu, which gets most of its rain from the retreating monsoon. Exam tip: Koeppen's first letters are A tropical, B dry, C warm temperate, D cold snow forest and E polar.

The correct answer is B, Barren Island. Barren Island lies in the Andaman Sea to the east of Middle Andaman and carries the only active volcano in India and in South Asia; it has erupted several times in recent decades. Option A is wrong because Narcondam Island, also volcanic and also east of Great Andaman, carries a dormant volcano, and is remembered instead as the only home of the Narcondam hornbill. Option C is wrong because North Sentinel Island is known for the Sentinelese, an uncontacted tribal community, and has no volcano. Option D is wrong because Baratang, between Middle and South Andaman, has mud volcanoes and limestone caves; a mud volcano is a vent of gas and slurry and is not a volcano in the igneous sense, which makes it a favourite distractor.

The correct answer is D, 2.4%. India covers about 32.87 lakh square kilometres, which is roughly 2.4 per cent of the world's total land area.

That small share supports about 17 to 18 per cent of the world's people, and this gap between land and population is what the question is really testing. By area India is the seventh largest country in the world, after Russia, Canada, the United States, China, Brazil and Australia. Its mainland runs from about 8 degrees 4 minutes North to 37 degrees 6 minutes North, and from 68 degrees 7 minutes East to 97 degrees 25 minutes East, giving a north to south length of about 3,214 km and an east to west width of about 2,933 km.

A is wrong: 2.8 per cent is higher than India's actual share. B is wrong: 3.9 per cent overstates that share by more than half. C is wrong: 4.2 per cent is nearly double the correct figure.

Exam tip: India has 2.4 per cent of the world's land area and about 17 per cent of its population, and is the seventh largest country.

The correct answer is B, Jharkhand. Sahibganj lies on the Ganga in the north-eastern corner of Jharkhand and its terminal was built to move coal and stone chips from the Rajmahal belt by water instead of road. Option A is wrong because Bihar's stretch of NW-1 is served by terminals and jetties at places such as Patna and Kalughat, not Sahibganj. Option C is wrong because the West Bengal end of the waterway is Haldia, which has both a port and a multi-modal terminal. Option D is wrong because Uttar Pradesh has the Varanasi terminal at Ramnagar and the Prayagraj end of the waterway. Remembering the three terminals of the Jal Marg Vikas Project as Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia, in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal, answers several versions of this question.

The correct answer is B, Black. On Survey of India topographical sheets, railway lines, telegraph and telephone lines, settlement names and boundaries are printed in black, so black is the colour of such man-made linear features.

These sheets follow a fixed colour code, which lets a reader tell features apart at a glance: metalled roads and grid lines appear in red, contours in brown, rivers, canals and tanks in blue, open scrub, grass and cultivated land in yellow, and woodland in green.

Option A, yellow, stands for cultivated land and open fields, not railways. Option C, blue, is kept for water features. Option D, red, is used for roads, grid lines and some settlement symbols.

Exam tip: black for railways and telephone lines, blue for water, green for forest, brown for contours, yellow for cultivated land.

The correct answer is A, the Tennessee Valley Authority of the United States. The Damodar Valley Corporation was created by an Act of 1948 as an autonomous body for an entire river basin, with flood control, irrigation, power and navigation under one management, exactly on the pattern of the Tennessee Valley Authority set up in America in 1933. Its dams at Tilaiya, Konar, Maithon and Panchet lie in Jharkhand and West Bengal, and they tamed a river long called the sorrow of Bengal. Option B is wrong because the Rhine Commission deals with navigation on an international river, not basin development. Option C is wrong because no Volga authority served as the Indian model. Option D is wrong because the Chinese projects on the Yangtze came decades later than the Indian corporation.

The correct answer is A, Tube well. Tube wells irrigate the largest share of the net irrigated area of Rajasthan, and groundwater drawn through tube wells and wells together waters the greater part of the state's fields. The reason is the climate: rainfall is low and uncertain over most of the state and perennial rivers are few, so a farmer who wants a second crop has to pump water. This heavy drawing of groundwater has pushed many blocks of Rajasthan into the over-exploited category, which is why drip and sprinkler irrigation are pressed in the state. B is wrong because ponds and tanks serve only small pockets, mostly in the south and south-east. C is wrong because open wells, once the mainstay, now water a much smaller area than tube wells. D is wrong because canals, led by the Indira Gandhi Canal, come second and are limited to the north-west and the Chambal command. Exam tip: in Rajasthan groundwater leads, tube wells first and canals second.

The correct answer is C, North Andaman. Saddle Peak rises to about 732 metres in North Andaman and is the highest point of the whole union territory; a national park of the same name surrounds it. Option A is wrong because the highest point of Great Nicobar, and of the Nicobar group, is Mount Thullier at about 642 metres, which is a common pairing in matching questions. Option B is wrong because South Andaman carries Port Blair and Mount Harriet, now called Mount Manipur, which is much lower than Saddle Peak. Option D is wrong because Little Andaman, lying south of the Duncan Passage, is low and flat compared with the northern islands. Remember the pair Saddle Peak with North Andaman and Mount Thullier with Great Nicobar.

The correct answer is A, Dhubri and Sadiya. National Waterway 2 follows the Brahmaputra for 891 km inside Assam, from Dhubri on the Bangladesh border to Sadiya in the upper valley, and its principal terminal is Pandu near Guwahati. Option B names the two ends of National Waterway 1 on the Ganga system. Option C names the ends of National Waterway 3, the West Coast Canal in Kerala. Option D names the ends of National Waterway 16 on the Barak river, which serves the Barak valley of southern Assam and is often confused with NW-2 because both lie in the same state. Through the inland water transit protocol with Bangladesh, cargo on NW-2 can reach Kolkata and Haldia and ports in Bangladesh. Dhubri also serves as a port of call under the protocol with Bangladesh, which is how Assam is linked by water to Kolkata.

The correct answer is A, 1917. The Inland Vessels Act, 2021 replaced the Inland Steam Vessels Act of 1917, a colonial law under which every state registered vessels separately. The new Act provides a single certificate of registration valid across the country, a central database of vessels and crew, and uniform rules on safety and pollution, so that a vessel registered in one state can sail on the waterways of another without fresh paperwork. Option B is wrong because 1934 belongs to the Aircraft Act and to the Reserve Bank of India Act, not to inland vessels. Option C is wrong because the Merchant Shipping Act of 1958 governs sea-going ships, which is the likeliest confusion here. Option D is wrong because 1985 is the year of the Act that created the Inland Waterways Authority of India.

The correct answer is A, Little Andaman and Car Nicobar. The Ten Degree Channel runs along the tenth parallel of north latitude and is the dividing line between the Andaman group and the Nicobar group; Little Andaman is the southernmost island of the Andaman group and Car Nicobar the northernmost of the Nicobar group, so the channel lies between them. Option B is wrong because North Andaman and Middle Andaman are not divided by a named channel at all; together with South Andaman they form the single landmass called Great Andaman. Option C is wrong because the water between Great Nicobar and Sumatra is the Great Channel, also called the Six Degree Channel, which is India's maritime boundary with Indonesia. Option D is wrong because Minicoy is separated from the Maldives by the Eight Degree Channel, and from the rest of Lakshadweep by the Nine Degree Channel.

The correct answer is B, Article 262. Article 262 allows Parliament to make a law for the adjudication of any dispute about the use, distribution or control of the waters of an inter-state river or river valley, and to bar the Supreme Court and all other courts from such disputes. Parliament used this power to enact the River Boards Act, 1956 and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, under which tribunals are appointed. Option A is wrong because Article 252 lets Parliament legislate for two or more consenting states on a State List subject. Option C is wrong because Article 263 provides for an Inter-State Council, which discusses common subjects but does not adjudicate. Option D is wrong because Article 280 provides for the Finance Commission, which deals with the sharing of taxes, not of water.

The correct answer is C, because the Suez Canal has no locks at all. It is a sea level canal: the Mediterranean and the Red Sea stand at almost the same height, so ships sail straight through without being raised or lowered. The canal, about 193 km long, was built under Ferdinand de Lesseps and opened in November 1869 across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, separating Africa from Asia. Egypt nationalised it in 1956. Options A, B and D all state facts, so none of them is the answer: the canal did open in 1869, it does join the Mediterranean to the Red Sea through the Gulf of Suez, and it did shorten the voyage from Europe to India by thousands of kilometres, ending the long route round the Cape of Good Hope. Exam tip: Suez is a lock free canal; the Panama Canal is the one with locks, because Gatun Lake lies well above sea level.

The correct answer is C, only II. Statement II is correct: the Lakshadweep Islands are atolls, each a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon, raised on a submarine ridge in the Arabian Sea, and they are the only coral island group of India. Statement I is wrong because the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are of tectonic origin; they are the exposed crests of a submerged fold mountain chain that continues the Arakan Yoma of Myanmar towards Sumatra, which is why they are hilly and why volcanic islands occur among them. Option A is wrong because it accepts the false claim about the Andamans. Option B is wrong for the same reason, since statement I cannot be true. Option D is wrong because statement II is a settled fact of Indian physical geography.

The correct answer is C, Hiralal Chaudhuri. Hiralal Chaudhuri is called the father of the Blue Revolution, the sharp rise in India's fish production. Working as a fishery scientist, he achieved induced breeding of carp by hormone injection in 1957, a method that freed fish farmers from depending on wild seed collected from rivers and allowed hatcheries to supply fingerlings in large numbers. Aquaculture grew from there, and India is today among the largest fish producers in the world. Option A is wrong because Verghese Kurien led the White Revolution in milk, building the Amul model and Operation Flood. Option B is wrong because Sam Pitroda is linked with the telecom revolution and the spread of public call offices. Option D is wrong because M.S. Swaminathan is the father of the Green Revolution in wheat and rice. Exam tip: learn the colour revolutions together, Green for food grains, White for milk, Blue for fish, Yellow for oilseeds, Pink for prawns and Golden for horticulture.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry. The Kaveri rises in Karnataka at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri hills, flows through Tamil Nadu to the delta, receives tributaries from Kerala and serves the Karaikal region of Puducherry, so all four are parties. The tribunal constituted in 1990 gave its final award in 2007, the Supreme Court revised the shares in 2018, and a management authority now supervises releases. Option A is wrong because those four are the parties to the Krishna dispute. Option C is wrong because Goa is a party to the Mahadayi or Mandovi dispute with Karnataka and Maharashtra, not to the Kaveri. Option D is wrong because those states belong to the Mahanadi and Subarnarekha disputes of eastern India.

The correct answer is A, Kavaratti. Kavaratti is the administrative headquarters of Lakshadweep and the seat of its administrator. Option B is wrong because Androth, though the largest island of the territory by area and the one nearest the mainland, is not the capital. Option C is wrong because Agatti is remembered for carrying the only airport of Lakshadweep, which makes it the island most aspirants wrongly promote to capital. Option D is wrong because Minicoy is the southernmost island of the group, separated from the rest by the Nine Degree Channel and distinguished by the Mahl language written in the Thaana script. Keep three pairs apart for this territory: Kavaratti the capital, Androth the largest, Agatti the airport. Lakshadweep, with an area of only about 32 square kilometres, is the smallest union territory of India, and its ten inhabited islands are administered from Kavaratti by an administrator appointed by the President.

The correct answer is A, the Harike barrage. The Indira Gandhi Canal, which was called the Rajasthan Canal when it was begun, starts at the Harike barrage in Punjab, just below the point where the Beas joins the Sutlej, and runs south-west through Haryana into the desert districts of Rajasthan. It is the longest canal in the country and carries both irrigation and drinking water into the Thar. Option B is wrong because the Farakka barrage is on the Ganga in West Bengal and feeds the Hooghly to keep the Kolkata port navigable. Option C is wrong because the Nangal barrage belongs to the Bhakra Nangal system and feeds the Nangal canals. Option D is wrong because the Okhla barrage is on the Yamuna near Delhi, feeding the Agra canal.

The correct answer is C, Swaraj Dweep. In 2018 three islands of the Andaman group were given Indian names to mark the hoisting of the tricolour by Subhas Chandra Bose in these islands: Havelock Island became Swaraj Dweep. Option A is wrong because Shaheed Dweep is the new name of Neil Island, not Havelock. Option B is wrong because Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep is the new name of Ross Island, which lies off Port Blair and holds the ruins of the old British administrative headquarters. Option D is wrong because Vijay Dweep is not among the three names announced; it is a plausible-sounding invention of the kind paper setters add as a fourth option. The three pairs to fix are Ross, Neil and Havelock with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Shaheed and Swaraj.