Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 22

The correct answer is A, natural rubber. Kerala grows most of the natural rubber produced in India, with the Kottayam region at its centre, and the Rubber Board of India works from Kottayam. Option B is wrong because cotton is a crop of the black soil tracts of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana, and the climate of Kerala does not suit it. Option C is wrong because sugarcane is grown mainly in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the plains and the irrigation suit the crop. Option D is wrong because wheat is a rabi crop of the north and is not grown in Kerala at all. The other crops to link with Kerala are coconut, black pepper, cardamom, cashew, tea and coffee, which is why it is called the Spice Garden of India.

The correct answer is B, Operation Vijay. Indian air, land and naval forces moved into Goa, Daman and Diu from 17 to 19 December 1961 in Operation Vijay, and 19 December is observed as Goa Liberation Day. The name is also carried by the Kargil operation of 1999, which is the trap in this question, so read the year in the stem. Option A, Operation Polo, was the police action of September 1948 by which Hyderabad was integrated into India. Option C, Operation Meghdoot, was the occupation of the Siachen glacier in 1984. Option D, Operation Cactus, was the Indian intervention in the Maldives in 1988 to put down a coup attempt. All four are real Indian operations, which is why only the date and the place fix the answer.

The correct answer is C, the Zuari. Mormugao harbour, a natural harbour on the Goan coast, stands at the mouth of the Zuari, the largest river of the state, with the town of Vasco da Gama beside it; the port was developed for the export of iron ore brought down by barge. Option A, the Mandovi, is wrong, though ore barges used it too and the capital Panaji stands on it. Option B, the Terekhol, is wrong; that small river marks the northern boundary with Maharashtra and carries only a fort at its mouth. Option D, the Talpona, is wrong; it is a short river in the far south of Goa near Canacona. Mormugao is the port to remember for Goa, as Kandla is for Gujarat and Paradip for Odisha.

The correct answer is D, Blackbuck. The blackbuck, called Krishna Jinka in Telugu, is the state animal of Andhra Pradesh. It is an antelope of open grassland and scrub; the male turns dark brown to black with age and carries long spiral horns, while the female stays fawn coloured and usually hornless. It is among the fastest Indian animals and is protected under Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972. Punjab and Haryana also carry the blackbuck as their state animal. A is wrong because the mithun, a domesticated bovine of the hills, is the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh and of Nagaland. B is wrong because the ox is a domestic draught animal and is not named as any state animal. C is wrong because the one-horned rhinoceros is the state animal of Assam, where Kaziranga protects most of its population. Exam tip: blackbuck for Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana; rhinoceros for Assam; mithun for Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.

The correct answer is B, Dispur. Dispur is the seat of the Assam government and lies within the larger city of Guwahati, which is why the two are so often confused. Option A, Guwahati, is the commonest wrong answer; it is the largest city of the state and of the whole north-east, the seat of the Gauhati High Court and the site of the Kamakhya temple, but it is not the capital in name. Option C, Jorhat, is wrong; it is known for the Tocklai Tea Research Institute and as the gateway to Majuli. Option D, Silchar, is wrong because it is the chief town of the Barak valley in southern Assam. A useful way to hold this is that Dispur is a locality of Guwahati, so the capital sits inside the largest city.

The correct answer is B, Bengaluru. ISRO has its headquarters at Antariksh Bhavan in Bengaluru, which also holds the U R Rao Satellite Centre and the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network. Bengaluru is in addition the seat of the Indian Institute of Science, founded in 1909, of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and of Bharat Electronics Limited. Option A is wrong because Thiruvananthapuram holds the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, where launch vehicles are developed, and the Thumba equatorial rocket launching station. Option C is wrong because Hyderabad holds the National Remote Sensing Centre, which is an ISRO centre but not the headquarters. Option D is wrong because Ahmedabad holds the Space Applications Centre and the Physical Research Laboratory. The question asks for the headquarters and not for any centre, so each of the other three cities is a real ISRO location and still the wrong answer here.

The correct answer is C, Itanagar. Itanagar stands in Papum Pare district at the foot of the hills and has been the seat of government since the territory was being readied for statehood. Its name comes from Ita Fort, a brick fort of about the fourteenth or fifteenth century that still stands in the town, ita meaning brick. Option A, Pasighat, is wrong; founded in 1911 on the Siang in East Siang district, it is the oldest town of the state, which is why it is offered here. Option B, Tawang, is wrong; it is the home of Tawang Monastery, the largest in India, and of the sector that saw the fighting of 1962, but it is a district headquarters in the far north-west. Option D, Ziro, is wrong; it is the Apatani valley in Lower Subansiri, known for its paddy-cum-fish fields. Naharlagun is the railhead for Itanagar and Donyi Polo Airport at Hollongi serves it.

The correct answer is C, the Pallavas. Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram, the port town of the Pallavas on the Coromandel coast, carries the rock cut Pancha Rathas and the relief called Arjuna's Penance from the reign of Narasimhavarman I, and the structural Shore Temple from that of Narasimhavarman II, Rajasimha; the group was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1984. Option A is wrong because the Cholas, who came later, built at Thanjavur, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Darasuram. Option B is wrong because the Pandyas ruled from Madurai and are known for rock cut shrines in the far south. Option D is wrong because the Nayakas of Madurai belong to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and are known for the gopurams of the Meenakshi temple and the palace of Tirumalai Nayak. At Mahabalipuram the relief of the descent of the Ganges, popularly called Arjuna's Penance, is the largest open air rock relief in the country.

The correct answer is B, the great hornbill. The great hornbill, a large forest bird of the Western Ghats with a heavy yellow bill and a casque above it, is the state bird of Kerala, and the state animal is the Indian elephant, the state flower the golden shower called kanikonna and the state tree the coconut palm. Option A is wrong because the Indian roller is the state bird of several other states, among them Odisha and Karnataka. Option C is wrong because the peacock is the national bird of India and is not used again as a state bird here. Option D is wrong because the Nilgiri flycatcher, though a bird of these hills, carries no such official place. State symbols are a favourite one mark question, so learn all four for Kerala.

The correct answer is A, Patan. Rani ki Vav, the queen's step well, was built in the Solanki period on the bank of the Saraswati at Patan, is carved in seven descending storeys with hundreds of sculptures, and appears on the hundred rupee note. Option B is wrong because Modhera, not far away, has the Sun Temple of the Solankis with its own tank, but the World Heritage step well is at Patan. Option C is wrong because Champaner Pavagadh, inscribed earlier in 2004, is an archaeological park of mosques, temples and fortifications near Vadodara. Option D is wrong because Dholavira, inscribed in 2021, is the Harappan city in Kachchh known for its reservoirs. Patan is also the home of the Patola double ikat sari, which makes the town doubly examinable.

The correct answer is D, Goa. Goa covers about 3,702 square kilometres, less than any other state of the Union; in population too it is among the smallest, ahead only of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Sikkim at the census of 2011. Option A is wrong but is the usual trap: Sikkim, at about 7,096 square kilometres, is the second smallest state by area and the smallest by population. Option B is wrong; Tripura covers about 10,486 square kilometres. Option C is wrong; Nagaland covers about 16,579 square kilometres. Note the difference between a state and a union territory: Lakshadweep is the smallest union territory by area and Delhi and Puducherry are also smaller than Goa, but the question asks for the smallest state. Goa also became a state later than any of these three, on 30 May 1987, which is why it is called the newest of the older states.

The correct answer is B, Beas and Sutlej. Harike, also called Hari ke Pattan, was formed by a barrage built where the Beas joins the Sutlej, and it is the largest wetland of northern India. It was listed as a Ramsar site in 2002, along with Kanjli and Ropar in the same state, and the Indira Gandhi Canal, which carries water to the deserts of Rajasthan, takes off from the Harike barrage. Option A is wrong because the Ravi and the Beas do not meet inside Indian Punjab. Option C is wrong because the Ghaggar drains the south eastern corner of the state and is not a tributary of the Sutlej there. Option D is wrong because the Chenab lies in Pakistan after leaving Jammu and Kashmir and never meets the Ravi in India.

The correct answer is B, 1985. Kaziranga, which holds the largest population of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros, was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985, the same year as Manas National Park on the Bhutan border. Option A, 1974, is the strongest distractor because that is the year Kaziranga was declared a national park, having earlier been a reserve forest and a game sanctuary. Option C, 2006, is wrong; that is the year it was declared a tiger reserve, which it is in addition to being a World Heritage Site. Option D, 2002, is wrong because that is the year Deepor Beel near Guwahati was designated a Ramsar site. Four dates of Assam's protected areas thus sit close together and are regularly swapped in the options.

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, 1987. Under the State of Arunachal Pradesh Act, 1986 the Union Territory became the twenty-fourth state of India on 20 February 1987, the same day on which Mizoram became the twenty-third state. Option A, 1972, is the commonest wrong answer; on 20 January 1972 the North East Frontier Agency was merely renamed Arunachal Pradesh and raised to a Union Territory, not a state. Option B, 1975, is wrong; that is the year the Union Territory received a Legislative Assembly and Prem Khandu Thungan became its first Chief Minister. Option C, 1986, is wrong because it is the year Parliament passed the Act, which came into force only in February of the next year. Goa followed as the twenty-fifth state on 30 May 1987, so the three entries are usually tested together.

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, the Palakkad Gap. It is the broad low break in the Western Ghats, about thirty kilometres wide, through which road and rail run between Kerala and Tamil Nadu and through which the summer winds blow inland, which is why the rainfall pattern on either side of it differs. Option A is wrong because the Thal Ghat is a pass in Maharashtra, on the route from Mumbai towards Nashik. Option B is wrong because the Bhor Ghat is also in Maharashtra, on the route towards Pune. Option D is wrong because the Shencottah Gap is a real but much smaller gap further south, and it is not the main break of the range. Learn the Palakkad Gap with Palakkad district and the Bharathappuzha river.

The correct answer is B, Chorao. The Dr Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary lies on Chorao island in the Mandovi river near Panaji and is a stretch of mangrove forest and mudflat known for its herons, egrets, kingfishers and migratory waterbirds; it is named after the ornithologist Salim Ali, the author of the standard handbooks on Indian birds. Option A, Divar, is wrong; it is a neighbouring island in the Mandovi known for the Bonderam flag festival. Option C, Vanxim, is wrong; it is a small island of the same estuary with no sanctuary on it. Option D, Anjediva, is wrong; it is a small island off the Karwar coast to the south. Fix the pair, Mollem for the only national park and Chorao for the bird sanctuary. Salim Ali was awarded the Bharat Ratna, and several sanctuaries across India carry his name, so read the state in the stem before answering.

The correct answer is B, Lachit Borphukan. Saraighat was a naval battle fought on the Brahmaputra near Guwahati in 1671, in which the Ahom commander Lachit Borphukan defeated the Mughal force led by Ram Singh, and it ended Mughal ambitions in the Brahmaputra valley. Option A, Sukaphaa, is wrong; he founded the Ahom kingdom in 1228, more than four centuries before this battle, and Assam Day on 2 December commemorates him. Option C, Chilarai, is wrong because he was the general of the Koch kingdom in the sixteenth century, a different state and an earlier period, which makes him the most plausible wrong choice. Option D is wrong as it is not the name of a historical commander of this battle. The National Defence Academy awards a gold medal named after Lachit Borphukan.

The correct answer is B, Siang. The Yarlung Tsangpo of Tibet turns round the Namcha Barwa massif and enters India in Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang, also written Dihang; in Assam, after it is joined by the Lohit and the Dibang near Sadiya, it takes the name Brahmaputra, and in Bangladesh it is the Jamuna. Option A, Lohit, is wrong but is a real river of the state; it is one of the two tributaries that join the Siang to form the Brahmaputra, and Parasuram Kund stands on it. Option C, Barak, is wrong; the Barak, also called the Surma, drains southern Assam around Silchar and belongs to a different system altogether. Option D, Teesta, is wrong; it rises in Sikkim, flows through north Bengal and joins the Brahmaputra only in Bangladesh. The chain Tsangpo, Siang or Dihang, Brahmaputra, Jamuna is worth memorising as a single line.