Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 1

The correct answer is D, 1953. Andhra State came into being on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras province. The immediate cause was the death of Potti Sriramulu on 15 December 1952 after a fast unto death for a Telugu state, and the agitation that followed forced the Government's hand.

Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, when Andhra State was enlarged with the Telugu areas of Hyderabad and renamed Andhra Pradesh, so it marks a later step and is the commonest wrong choice. Option A, 1950, is the year the Constitution came into force, when the map still carried the Part A to Part D classification. Option B, 1947, is independence, five years before the agitation began. The order to remember is 1952 death, 1953 Andhra State, 1956 Andhra Pradesh.

The correct answer is D, Akbar. He built Fatehpur Sikri in the Agra district of present day Uttar Pradesh in the sixteenth century and made it his capital, naming it after his victory in Gujarat. The city holds the Buland Darwaza, the Jama Masjid, the Panch Mahal and the tomb of Salim Chishti, and it was abandoned after a few years, which is why it survives so completely. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Option A, Babur, founded the dynasty after the first battle of Panipat in 1526 and ruled from Agra, not from Sikri. Option B, Humayun, lost the empire to Sher Shah Suri and regained it shortly before his death, and built nothing of this kind. Option C, Jahangir, was Akbar's son and was born at Sikri, which is the reason the place is often wrongly credited to him; he ruled from Agra and Lahore.

The correct answer is A, 22 March. On 22 March 1912 the province of Bihar and Orissa was carved out of the Bengal Presidency, which gave Bihar a separate administrative identity for the first time. The day is observed every year as Bihar Diwas with cultural programmes in the state and among people from Bihar living elsewhere.

Option B, 15 November, is the day Jharkhand was created out of the southern districts of Bihar in 2000, and is observed as Jharkhand's formation day. Option C, 1 November, is the formation day of several states created by the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, among them Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Option D, 26 January, is Republic Day and belongs to the nation, not to any single state.

The correct answer is B, 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. It is bounded by Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and it has the longest stretch of India's international border with Pakistan.

Option A, Madhya Pradesh, is the second largest state and was the largest before Chhattisgarh was carved out of it. Option C, Maharashtra, is third by area but first among these in population. Option D, Uttar Pradesh, is the most populous state of India but stands fourth in area. Candidates who remember the population order rather than the area order pick Uttar Pradesh, which is the trap the question is built on.

The correct answer is D, Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of the Madras province on 1 October 1953, the first time independent India accepted language as the ground for a new state, and in 1956 it was enlarged and renamed Andhra Pradesh. Every later linguistic state followed this precedent.

Option A, Karnataka, was formed in 1956 as Mysore State by bringing Kannada-speaking areas together and was renamed Karnataka only in 1973, so it came later. Option B, West Bengal, existed from 1947 as a product of the partition of Bengal rather than of a linguistic reorganisation. Option C, Punjab, was reorganised on a linguistic basis much later, in 1966, when Haryana was separated and hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh. Learn 1953 as the single date for the first linguistic state.

The correct answer is A, Ayodhya. The city stands on the Sarayu in eastern Uttar Pradesh and is one of the oldest towns named in Indian literature. The Sarayu is fed by waters coming down from the Himalaya through the Ghaghara system and joins the Ganga further east, and the ghats of Ayodhya lie along it.

Option C, Kanpur, is also in Uttar Pradesh but stands on the Ganga, which makes it the closest wrong answer in the list. Option D, Haridwar, is in Uttarakhand and is the town where the Ganga leaves the hills for the plain. Option B, Bhopal, is the capital of Madhya Pradesh and is known for its lakes rather than for a river. The pairs worth holding are Varanasi and Prayagraj on the Ganga, Agra and Mathura on the Yamuna, Lucknow on the Gomti and Ayodhya on the Sarayu.

The correct answer is C, 2000. Jharkhand was created on 15 November 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, out of the southern plateau districts of Bihar. It was one of three states formed that year, along with Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh and Uttaranchal, now Uttarakhand, out of Uttar Pradesh. The separation took away most of Bihar's coal, iron ore and heavy industry.

Option A, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, which redrew boundaries on linguistic lines but did not create Jharkhand. Option B, 1972, is the year Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full states. Option D, 2014, is the year Telangana was separated from Andhra Pradesh, and it is the commonest wrong choice for candidates who remember only that a state was created that year.

The correct answer is A, Sirohi. 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. Mount Abu is the only hill station in the state and also holds the Dilwara Jain temples, famous for their marble carving, and the Nakki Lake.

Option B, Udaipur, has the Aravalli hills around it and the Zawar zinc mines, but not the highest peak. Option C, Ajmer, has Taragarh hill and the source region of the Luni, and is well below Guru Shikhar. Option D, Rajsamand, contains Kumbhalgarh and the Khamnor hills where the Banas rises, and lies close to Haldighati. Remember the chain: Guru Shikhar on Mount Abu in Sirohi district. Sirohi also borders Gujarat, and the Aravallis reach their broadest spread in this southern part of the state.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Hukam Singh. The Parliamentary Committee headed by Sardar Hukam Singh, then Speaker of the Lok Sabha, examined the demand for a Punjabi-speaking state and recommended the division of Punjab. The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 followed, and on 1 November 1966 Haryana became a separate state while the hill districts went to Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh was made a Union Territory serving as the shared capital.

Option A, Lal Bahadur Shastri, was Prime Minister until January 1966 and did not head such a committee. Option B, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister when the Act was passed but again headed no committee on the question. Option D, Sir Chhotu Ram, was a peasant leader of the region who died in 1945, long before the reorganisation. A related name worth keeping is the Shah Commission, which drew the actual boundaries after the committee reported.

The correct answer is B, 1950. The province was called the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh and then simply the United Provinces, and the name was changed to Uttar Pradesh on 24 January 1950, two days before the Constitution came into force. The new name was welcomed partly because it kept the initials of the old one, so that existing seals and records did not have to be redone.

Option A, 1947, is the year of independence, when the province still carried its old name. Option C, 1956, is the year of the States Reorganisation Act, which redrew many boundaries but did not rename this state. Option D, 2000, is the year the hill districts of the state were separated to form Uttarakhand, then called Uttaranchal, which is a division rather than a renaming.

The correct answer is B, Kosi. 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. It has shifted its course far to the west over the last two centuries and floods a wide belt of northern Bihar almost every year, which is how it earned the name.

Option A, the Sone, joins the Ganga from the south and is the largest southern tributary in the state; it does not behave in this way. Option C, the Falgu, flows past Gaya and is famous for the Pitrapaksha rites rather than for floods. Option D, the Punpun, is another southern river of the Ganga basin. Note the parallel names asked in the same papers: the Damodar is the Sorrow of Bengal and the Hwang Ho the Sorrow of China.

The correct answer is C, Chambal. 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. The Rana Pratap Sagar and Jawahar Sagar dams stand on it, and the Chambal ravines are a protected area for the gharial.

Option A, the Luni, dries in stretches and is saline in its lower course. Option B, the Banas, flows entirely within Rajasthan but is seasonal, filling after the monsoon and thinning in summer. Option D, the Ghaggar, is a lost river whose dry bed passes Kalibangan and disappears in the sands of Hanumangarh and Sriganganagar. Rajasthan's dependence on the Chambal and on canal water follows directly from this.

The correct answer is C, Article 3. It allows Parliament to form a new state by separation of territory, to unite two or more states, to increase or diminish the area of a state and to alter its boundaries or its name. Such a bill may be introduced only on the recommendation of the President, who must first refer it to the legislature of the state affected for its views, and those views do not bind Parliament.

Option A, Article 1, only describes India as a Union of States and names the territory. Option B, Article 2, lets Parliament admit into the Union or establish new states, which concerns territory not already part of India, and is the trap in this question. Option D, Article 5, deals with citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution and has nothing to do with the map. Remember Article 4 as well, which is why a reorganisation law needs only a simple majority.

The correct answer is A, Dudhwa National Park. It lies in Lakhimpur Kheri district along the border with Nepal and protects the tall grassland and sal forest of the Terai. It is the home of the barasingha, the swamp deer that is the state animal of Uttar Pradesh, and also of tigers and rhinoceros. Nearby Pilibhit is a well known tiger reserve of the same belt.

Option B, Jim Corbett, is the trap most often chosen, because it was the first national park of India and lay in Uttar Pradesh before the year 2000; it went to Uttarakhand when that state was formed. Options C and D, Kanha and Bandhavgarh, are both in Madhya Pradesh and are famous tiger parks of the central Indian highlands, far from the Terai.

The correct answer is A, Valmiki National Park. 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. Its forests are the eastern end of the Himalayan foothill belt and hold tiger, leopard, sloth bear and a rich bird life.

Option B, Betla National Park, is in the Palamu district of Jharkhand, which was part of Bihar until 2000, and it is the commonest wrong answer for this reason. Option C, Dudhwa National Park, is in Uttar Pradesh on the same Nepal border, which makes it a natural confusion. Option D, Kanha National Park, is in Madhya Pradesh and is far from the region altogether.

The correct answer is B, the Rann of Kutch. 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. Its name comes from lavanavari, meaning salt water, and it is the main river of western Rajasthan.

Option A is wrong because the Luni is a river of inland drainage and has no mouth on the Arabian Sea. Option C is wrong because the Luni never meets the Chambal, which flows on the other side of the Aravallis; the Banas is the river that joins the Chambal. Option D is wrong because no Rajasthan river drains east to the Bay of Bengal. Sabarmati, Mahi and Luni are the western rivers, and only the Mahi and the Sabarmati reach the Gulf of Khambhat.

The correct answer is B, Fazl Ali. The States Reorganisation Commission was appointed in December 1953 with Fazl Ali as chairman, and it submitted its report in 1955. It accepted language as an important test but not the only one, and recommended that the classification of units into Part A, B, C and D states be given up.

Option A, S. K. Dhar, headed the Linguistic Provinces Commission of 1948, which advised against redrawing provinces on language, so he belongs to the earlier stage of the story. Options C and D, K. M. Panikkar and H. N. Kunzru, were the two other members of the Fazl Ali Commission and are placed here because candidates who remember the three names often cannot say which of them chaired it. The chain to learn is Dhar 1948, JVP 1949, Fazl Ali 1953 to 1955, Act 1956.

The correct answer is B, sarus crane. It is the tallest flying bird in the world, stands over a metre and a half high, has a grey body with a bare red head and neck, and is found in the wetlands and flooded fields of the state. The pair stays together for life, which is why it appears so often in the folklore of the region, and it was chosen as the state bird of Uttar Pradesh.

Option D, the Indian peafowl, is the national bird of India and so is the easiest mistake to make here. Option C, the great Indian bustard, is the state bird of Rajasthan and is now extremely rare. Option A, the Indian roller, is the state bird of some other states and is a smaller blue bird of open country. Along with the sarus crane, remember the barasingha as the state animal, the ashoka as the state tree and the palash as the state flower.

The correct answer is B, Bodh Gaya. The Buddha attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree on the bank of the Falgu at Bodh Gaya in the Gaya district. The Mahabodhi Temple Complex that stands there is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and is the most visited Buddhist site in India.

Option A, Sarnath, near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, is where he preached his first sermon, and its Lion Capital gave India its State Emblem. Option C, Kushinagar, also in Uttar Pradesh, is where he attained mahaparinirvana. Option D, Lumbini, in Nepal, is his birthplace. The four sites are asked together as a set, so fix them in that order: birth at Lumbini, enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, first sermon at Sarnath and death at Kushinagar.

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. 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.

Option B, Gujarat, has Nal Sarovar and the salt flats of the Rann, but these are not the same as Sambhar. Option C, Odisha, has Chilika, which is the largest brackish water lagoon in India, joined to the sea, and therefore not an inland saline lake. Option D, Andhra Pradesh, has Kolleru and Pulicat, both of them freshwater or brackish coastal lakes. The pair to fix is Sambhar as the largest inland saline lake and Chilika as the largest brackish lagoon.