Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 11

The correct answer is C, Ropar. Ropar, the modern Rupnagar on the left bank of the Sutlej, was the first Harappan site excavated after Independence, and its trenches showed a sequence of occupation from the Harappan period through Painted Grey Ware to later historical levels. Option A is wrong because Sanghol in Fatehgarh Sahib district is known chiefly for its Kushana period Buddhist stupa and the carved railing pillars found there. Option B is wrong because Rohira in Sangrur district is a Harappan settlement but a later excavation, not the first. Option D is wrong because Bara near Ropar gives its name to the Bara culture, a late Harappan pottery tradition of the Sutlej Yamuna divide, and was dug after Ropar itself. Ropar also has a Ramsar wetland of the same name.

The correct answer is C, 9 November 2000. On that day the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 came into force and separated the Garhwal and Kumaon hill districts from Uttar Pradesh to form the twenty seventh state of the Union, then named Uttaranchal. Option A is wrong because 1 November 2000 is the foundation day of Chhattisgarh, created out of Madhya Pradesh. Option B is wrong because 15 November 2000 is the foundation day of Jharkhand, carved out of Bihar; the three states of 2000 are asked together and their order is Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand. Option D is wrong because 1 January 2007 is the date on which the state was renamed Uttarakhand, not the date on which it was created. Nityanand Swami became its first Chief Minister.

The correct answer is D, Rudraprayag. The Mandakini flows down the Kedarnath valley and meets the Alaknanda at Rudraprayag, the town that gives its name to the district; the pair Mandakini with Rudraprayag is the most asked row of the Panch Prayag table. Option A is wrong because Nandprayag is the confluence of the Alaknanda with the Nandakini. Option B is wrong because Karnaprayag is the confluence with the Pindar, which comes from the Pindari glacier in the Kumaon hills. Option C is wrong because Devprayag is where the Bhagirathi joins the Alaknanda and the river takes the name Ganga. Vishnuprayag, on the Dhauliganga, completes the five. All except Devprayag lie on the Alaknanda in Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts. Rudraprayag is also remembered as the place where Jim Corbett shot the man eating leopard, and the Kedarnath pilgrim road turns north from the town.

The correct answer is C, 25 January 1971. The State of Himachal Pradesh Act, 1970 came into force on that day and Indira Gandhi inaugurated the new state at Shimla, with Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar as its first Chief Minister. Option A is wrong because 15 April 1948 is the day about thirty princely hill states were merged into a chief commissioner province, which the state marks as Himachal Day, not as statehood. Option B is wrong because 1 November 1956 is the day the unit became a Union Territory under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Option D is wrong because 1 November 1966 is the day the Punjab Reorganisation Act transferred the Punjab hill districts to Himachal Pradesh, nearly doubling it while it was still a Union Territory.

The correct answer is A, Kullu. The Great Himalayan National Park lies in the upper Beas basin of Kullu district and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014 for its alpine biodiversity; it protects the western tragopan, the monal and the Himalayan brown bear. Option B is wrong because Chamba holds the Kalatop Khajjiar sanctuary and the Chamera dam, not this park. Option C is wrong because Kinnaur holds Reo Purgyil and the Nathpa Jhakri project, while Pin Valley National Park lies in the Spiti part of Lahaul and Spiti. Option D is wrong because Sirmaur holds Renuka lake and the Simbalbara National Park. Nanda Devi with the Valley of Flowers is the other Himalayan natural site on the list. The Kalka Shimla railway is the cultural World Heritage Site of the state, listed among the Mountain Railways of India.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Kolathunadu, Valluvanad and Thekkumkoor were small medieval kingdoms, or swaroopams, of Kerala. Kolathunadu, ruled by the Kolathiri rajas, lay in north Malabar around present-day Kannur; Valluvanad spread over the Palakkad and Malappuram area and is remembered for the Mamankam festival at Tirunavaya; Thekkumkoor lay in the Kottayam region and was absorbed by Travancore under Marthanda Varma in the eighteenth century. Before unification, Kerala was split among such chiefdoms along with Travancore, Cochin and Calicut, and the present state was formed on 1 November 1956 from Travancore-Cochin and the Malabar district of Madras. Option A is wrong because Karnataka's old kingdoms were the Kadambas, Hoysalas and Vijayanagara. Option C is wrong because ancient Bihar was home to Magadha, Anga and Videha. Option D is wrong because Gujarat was ruled by the Solankis of Anhilwada and the Chaulukyas. Exam tip: names ending in nadu or koor in this list point to the medieval chiefdoms of Kerala.

The correct answer is A, Jim Corbett National Park. It was notified in 1936 in the Nainital and Pauri Garhwal hills as Hailey National Park after the then Governor, was renamed Ramganga National Park and finally, in 1957, named after the hunter and naturalist Jim Corbett; Project Tiger was launched here on 1 April 1973. Option B is wrong because Kanha in Madhya Pradesh was constituted in 1955 and is famous for the hard ground barasingha. Option C is wrong because Rajaji, near Haridwar and Dehradun, was formed in 1983 by joining three sanctuaries and is known for its elephants. Option D is wrong because the Valley of Flowers, reached by Frank Smythe in 1931, became a national park only in 1982. Corbett spreads over the Ramganga valley and its reservoir at Kalagarh, and it was one of the nine reserves with which Project Tiger began.

The correct answer is D, Tripura. The Manikya dynasty ruled Tripura for centuries, and its kings all took the title Manikya. Their history is recorded in the Rajmala, a chronicle in Bengali verse first compiled in the fifteenth century under Dharma Manikya. The Ujjayanta Palace at Agartala, built by Radha Kishore Manikya at the beginning of the twentieth century, was their seat and now houses a state museum, and the lake palace Neermahal was raised by Bir Bikram Kishore Manikya, the last ruling king, after whom Agartala's airport is named. The princely state signed the merger agreement and joined the Indian Union in October 1949. Option A is wrong because Gujarat was ruled by the Solanki or Chaulukya line. Option B is wrong because Rajasthan had the Sisodia, Kachwaha and Rathore houses. Option C is wrong because Manipur was ruled by the Ningthouja or Meitei dynasty. Exam tip: Manikya means Tripura, its chronicle is the Rajmala, and it merged with India in 1949.

The correct answer is B, Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar. Parmar led the hill states movement from the 1940s, headed the government through the Union Territory years and took office as the first Chief Minister of the full state on 25 January 1971; the horticulture university at Nauni near Solan is named after him. Option A is wrong because Acharya Diwakar Datt Sharma is credited with giving the state its name, Himachal, the lap of snow, but held no such office. Option C is wrong because Raja Sansar Chand was the Katoch ruler of Kangra who patronised the Kangra school of painting. Option D is wrong because Samuel Evans Stokes introduced improved apple varieties at Kotgarh and shaped the horticulture of the state, not its politics.

The correct answer is C, Lakshadweep. With an area of only about 32 square kilometres, Lakshadweep is the smallest Union Territory of India. It is a group of 36 coral islands in the Arabian Sea, of which only ten are inhabited, and its capital is Kavaratti. Being coral atolls, the islands are tiny and low lying, which is why the total land area stays so small even though the lagoons and waters around them stretch very wide. Option A is wrong because Daman and Diu covers about 112 square kilometres, more than three times Lakshadweep, and since 2020 it is part of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Option B is wrong because Ladakh is the largest Union Territory by area. Option D is wrong because Jammu and Kashmir is also far larger and is the Union Territory with the biggest population. Exam tip: Lakshadweep is the smallest by area, Ladakh the largest.

The correct answer is C, Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers. The Nanda Devi National Park was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1988 and the Valley of Flowers National Park was added as an extension in 2005, so the two are listed together as one site in Chamoli district. Option A is wrong because neither Rajaji nor Jim Corbett carries the World Heritage tag, although Corbett is the oldest national park in the country. Option B is wrong because Gangotri and Govind Pashu Vihar are ordinary national parks of the upper Bhagirathi and Tons basins. Option D is wrong because it pairs a listed park with an unlisted one. The Great Himalayan National Park in Himachal Pradesh is the other Himalayan site on the list.

The correct answer is D, Gujarat. Its coast runs for about 1,600 km, longer than that of any other state, because the Saurashtra peninsula and the Kachchh region give it two deep gulfs, the Gulf of Kachchh in the north west and the Gulf of Khambhat in the south east. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu has a long eastern coastline but a shorter one than Gujarat. Option B is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has the longest coastline on the eastern seaboard yet still less than Gujarat. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra, with the Konkan coast, comes after both in length. Note the trap in the wording: among union territories and islands the answer would change, and the longest coastline of any state remains Gujarat.

The correct answer is B, Beas Kund near the Rohtang Pass. The Beas, the Vipasha of the Vedas, rises at Beas Kund on the southern side of the Rohtang Pass, flows past Manali, Kullu and Mandi, is dammed at Pandoh and Pong in Kangra and finally joins the Sutlej at Harike in Punjab. Option A is wrong because Bara Bhangal in Kangra is the source of the Ravi, the Iravati. Option C is wrong because the Chandra and the Bhaga meet at Tandi in Lahaul to form the Chandrabhaga, which becomes the Chenab. Option D is wrong because Renuka is the largest natural lake of the state and a Ramsar site, not a river source. The Yamuna only enters the state in Sirmaur. Of the five rivers, only the Beas rises and ends its Himachal course wholly within the state, which is why its source is asked so often.

The correct answer is D, Chenab. The name Punjab joins the Persian words panj, five, and ab, water, for the land watered by the Sutlej, the Beas, the Ravi, the Chenab and the Jhelum. Partition in 1947 divided the region along the Radcliffe Line and left the Chenab and the Jhelum in Pakistan, so the Chenab does not touch Indian Punjab at all; it flows through Jammu and Kashmir before crossing the border. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 confirmed the split by allotting the eastern rivers to India and the western rivers, including the Chenab, to Pakistan. Options A, B and C are wrong because the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi all flow through or along Indian Punjab and feed its canal system, the Sutlej past Ludhiana, the Beas past Kapurthala and the Ravi along the Pakistan border.

The correct answer is A, Chamoli. The movement began in 1973 at Mandal in Chamoli district, when villagers stopped a sporting goods firm from felling ash trees, and it is remembered above all for Reni village in the same district, where Gaura Devi led the women who embraced the trees in 1974. Chandi Prasad Bhatt of the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh organised the first protests. Option B is wrong because Almora, in Kumaon, was a centre of the Chand rulers and of later social reform, not of Chipko. Option C is wrong because Tehri Garhwal is linked with Sunderlal Bahuguna and the anti Tehri dam campaign. Option D is wrong because Pithoragarh, the border district, had no part in the first protests. Chipko won a fifteen year ban on green felling in the higher Uttarakhand Himalaya, and the Appiko movement of Karnataka followed it in 1983.

The correct answer is A, Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. After the 1911 announcement the two British architects planned the new capital, Lutyens designing the Viceroy's House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan, and laying out the central vista, while Baker designed the two Secretariat blocks on Raisina Hill and the circular Council House that became Parliament House. The city was formally inaugurated in 1931.

Option B, Le Corbusier with Pierre Jeanneret, planned Chandigarh in the 1950s. Option C names two of India's best known modern architects, of whom Charles Correa planned Navi Mumbai's central business district, but neither worked on New Delhi. Option D names planners associated with Bhubaneswar and with the early Chandigarh plan. Only Lutyens and Baker belong to New Delhi, whose central area is still called Lutyens Delhi.

The correct answer is B, Bilaspur. The Bhakra Dam stands at the Bhakra gorge in Bilaspur district, impounds the Gobind Sagar and is the tallest concrete gravity dam in India; the old town of Bilaspur was submerged by the reservoir and a new town built above it. Jawaharlal Nehru called Bhakra a temple of modern India. Option A is wrong because Kinnaur holds the Nathpa Jhakri project, the largest hydel station on the Sutlej in the state. Option C is wrong because Mandi holds the Pandoh dam on the Beas and the Shivratri fair. Option D is wrong because Una, carved out in 1972, is a low lying district with no major dam. Pong on the Beas lies in Kangra. Bhakra Nangal is a joint project of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, and the Gobind Sagar is named after Guru Gobind Singh.

The correct answer is D, Nanda Devi. Nanda Devi in Chamoli district rises to 7,816 metres and is the highest peak of Uttarakhand as well as the highest mountain wholly inside India, since it lies far from any international boundary; the sanctuary around it is a World Heritage Site. Option A is wrong because Kamet, also in Chamoli, is about 7,756 metres and stands second in the state. Option B is wrong because Trishul, 7,120 metres, is lower and is the peak first climbed by Tom Longstaff in 1907. Option C is wrong because Kanchenjunga, 8,586 metres, is the highest peak in India but sits on the border of Sikkim with Nepal, so it is not entirely within India. Mount Everest is not in India at all, and among Indian peaks the order Kanchenjunga, Nanda Devi, Kamet is worth memorising.

The correct answer is B, western tragopan. The western tragopan, known locally as jujurana or the king of birds, is a rare pheasant of the western Himalayan forests and the state bird of Himachal Pradesh; the Great Himalayan National Park is its best refuge. Option A is wrong because the Himalayan monal is the state bird of Uttarakhand and the national bird of Nepal, and the swap between monal and tragopan is the trap in this question. Option C is wrong because the Himalayan snow cock is a high altitude bird with no state status. Option D is wrong because the chir pheasant, or cheer, is another Himalayan pheasant but is not a state symbol. The state animal here is the snow leopard and the state tree the deodar.

The correct answer is A, Bhagirathi. The Tehri Dam stands near the old town of Tehri where the Bhilangana joins the Bhagirathi, rises about 260 metres and is the tallest dam in India and one of the tallest earth and rockfill dams in the world; Sunderlal Bahuguna led a long campaign against it. Option B is wrong because the Alaknanda carries other projects such as Vishnuprayag and Srinagar but not Tehri. Option C is wrong because the Yamuna in this state is used at Dakpathar and Ichari, far smaller works. Option D is wrong because the Ramganga is dammed at Kalagarh on the edge of the Corbett park. Remember Bhakra on the Sutlej as the tallest concrete gravity dam. The Tehri project submerged the old town of Tehri and a new town was built above the reservoir, while Koteshwar lies just downstream of the main dam.