Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 24

The correct answer is A, silk weaving. Sualkuchi, a weaving town near Guwahati on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, is called the Manchester of Assam for its handloom weaving of Muga, the golden silk produced only in Assam, along with Pat and Eri silk. Option B, brass metalwork, is wrong; the brass and bell metal craft of Assam is associated with Sarthebari rather than Sualkuchi, which makes it the sharpest distractor in this set. Option C, bamboo crafts, is wrong because bamboo and cane work is widespread across the north-east and is not the identity of this particular town. Option D, terracotta pottery, is wrong; the well-known pottery village of Assam is Asharikandi in the Dhubri district. Muga silk carries a geographical indication tag.

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, Mithun. The mithun, Bos frontalis, is a semi-domesticated bovine of the hill forests and is the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh, where it is counted as wealth and used in marriage and ceremonial exchange; it is also the state animal of Nagaland, a point examiners enjoy. Option B, Sangai, is wrong; the sangai or brow-antlered deer is the state animal of Manipur and lives on the floating meadows of Keibul Lamjao. Option C, the one-horned rhinoceros, is wrong; it is the state animal of Assam and the emblem of Kaziranga. Option D, the clouded leopard, is wrong; it is the state animal of Meghalaya, though it is indeed found in Namdapha. The state bird of Arunachal Pradesh is the great hornbill and the state tree is hollong.

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, Imphal. Imphal lies in the valley at the centre of Manipur, surrounded by hills, and holds the Kangla Fort, the old seat of the Meitei kings, and Ima Keithel, the market run entirely by women. Option A is wrong; Aizawl is the capital of Mizoram, which stands on a long ridge and from which the Tropic of Cancer passes close by. Option C is wrong; Shillong is the capital of Meghalaya and was the capital of undivided Assam until 1972, when Meghalaya was separated and Assam moved its capital to Dispur. Option D is wrong; Kohima is the capital of Nagaland and is remembered for the battle fought there in 1944, though its nearness to Manipur makes it a natural distractor. Imphal is also where the Indian National Army campaign of 1944 was directed, and Moirang in the same state saw the flag raised in April of that year.

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, Kohima. Kohima stands in the hills of the Angami country and has been the seat of government since before statehood; the Kohima War Cemetery recalls the battle fought here in 1944, and the Hornbill Festival is held each December at Kisama, a short distance away. Option A is wrong, and is the commonest wrong answer: Dimapur is the largest city of the state, the commercial centre and the only place with a railway station and an airport, but it is not the capital. Option C is wrong; Mokokchung is the chief town of the Ao country and an important district headquarters, but no more. Option D is wrong; Agartala is the capital of Tripura, placed here because the two states are often studied together. Remember the pairing as Kohima for government and Dimapur for trade and transport, which is exactly the distinction the question is testing.

The correct answer is B, Mollem National Park. It is the single national park of Goa and lies within the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary on the border with Karnataka, in the belt of the Western Ghats where the Dudhsagar Falls also stand. Options A, C and D name real protected areas of Goa, but all three are wildlife sanctuaries and not national parks: Bondla is the small sanctuary near Ponda with a well known zoo and botanical garden, Cotigao lies in the far south near Canacona, and Netravali is in the Sanguem taluka, famous for its bubbling springs. The state's other protected area is the Dr Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary on Chorao island in the Mandovi. Examiners test the difference between a national park and a sanctuary, so fix Mollem as the only park.

The correct answer is C, Sela. The Sela pass, in the high country of the Tawang sector, carries the road from Dirang and Bomdila into Tawang town and is the best known pass of Arunachal Pradesh; Bum La, on the boundary with Tibet, and Pangsau Pass, on the Myanmar border, are the other two worth remembering. Option A, Nathu La, is wrong; it is the trading pass between Sikkim and Tibet, reopened in 2006. Option B, Zoji La, is wrong; it lies on the Srinagar–Leh road in the Ladakh region and connects the Kashmir valley with Dras and Kargil. Option D, Rohtang, is wrong; it lies above Manali in Himachal Pradesh and leads to the Lahaul and Spiti valleys. Se La is also remembered as one of the places where the fighting of 1962 took place.

The correct answer is B, the Eastern Ganga dynasty. The Sun Temple at Konark was raised in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, conceived as the chariot of the sun god with twenty four carved wheels drawn by seven horses. It is the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Odisha, inscribed in 1984, and European sailors called it the Black Pagoda. Option A is wrong because the Somavamshi rulers belong to an earlier phase and are remembered for the Lingaraja temple at Bhubaneswar. Option C is wrong because the Gajapatis came later, in the fifteenth century, after the Eastern Gangas. Option D is wrong because the Chalukyas ruled in the Deccan from Badami and Kalyani and built nothing in Odisha. Remember the pair that papers set together: Chodaganga Deva and the Jagannath temple at Puri, Narasimhadeva I and the Sun Temple at Konark.

The correct answer is C, Manipur. Keibul Lamjao lies in the southern part of Loktak Lake and rests on phumdis, floating mats of soil, roots and decaying vegetation thick enough to carry animals and even huts; nowhere else in the world is a national park built on such a surface. It was created to protect the sangai, the brow-antlered deer that is the state animal of Manipur. Option A is wrong; the national parks of Meghalaya are Nokrek and Balphakram, both in the Garo hills and both on solid ground. Option B is wrong; Assam has Kaziranga and Manas, famous for the one-horned rhinoceros and for the tiger reserve on the Bhutan border, but no floating park. Option D is wrong; Mizoram has Phawngpui Blue Mountain National Park and Murlen National Park, which lie in high hill country.

The correct answer is B, Kuchipudi. Kuchipudi is named after the village of Kuchipudi, or Kuchelapuram, in the Krishna delta, where the dance drama tradition of the Bhagavata Mela was carried on; Siddhendra Yogi is remembered as the figure who gave it its form, and the Tarangam, danced on the rim of a brass plate, is its best known piece. Option A is wrong because Bharatanatyam belongs to Tamil Nadu and grew in the temples of the Kaveri delta. Option C is wrong because Odissi is the classical dance of Odisha, linked with the Jagannath temple at Puri and the maharis. Option D is wrong because Mohiniyattam is the classical solo dance of Kerala, which is also home to Kathakali. Kuchipudi is counted among the eight classical dances of India.

The correct answer is A, 1 December 1963. Nagaland was created under the State of Nagaland Act 1962 out of the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area and became the sixteenth state of India on that day, the first of the north-eastern states to be formed after independence and well before the general reorganisation of the region. Option B is wrong for Nagaland but is the date on which Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura became full states under the North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act. Option C is wrong; 16 May 1975 is the day Sikkim became the twenty-second state, under the thirty-sixth amendment. Option D is wrong; 20 February 1987 is the day Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth states. The four dates 1963, 1972, 1975 and 1987 cover the whole making of the modern north-east and are worth learning together.

The correct answer is A, Urdu. Telugu is the first official language of Telangana and Urdu is the second. The place of Urdu goes back to the Hyderabad state of the Nizams, where it was the language of administration and education, and a large Urdu speaking population still lives in Hyderabad and the surrounding districts. State government notifications and many public signs in the capital therefore appear in Telugu and Urdu together.

Option B, Tulu, is spoken in coastal Karnataka and northern Kerala and has no official standing in Telangana. Option C, Hindi, is an official language of the Union and of several northern states, and candidates often pick it by habit, but Telangana has not given it that place. Option D, English, is used for official work across India as an associate language of the Union, yet the second official language named by the state is Urdu.

The correct answer is C, North East Frontier Agency. NEFA, as it was called, was administered by the Governor of Assam on behalf of the Ministry of External Affairs rather than by the Assam government, a reflection of its position on the frontier; it was renamed Arunachal Pradesh and made a Union Territory on 20 January 1972. Option A, the Lushai Hills District, is wrong; it was renamed the Mizo Hills and became the Union Territory of Mizoram in 1972 and a state in 1987. Option B, the Naga Hills–Tuensang Area, is wrong; that was the unit from which Nagaland was created as a state in 1963. Option D, North Cachar Hills, is wrong; it is an autonomous district of Assam, today called Dima Hasao. The name Arunachal means the dawn-lit mountains.

The correct answer is B, Vijayanagara. Hampi in Vijayanagara district, on the south bank of the Tungabhadra, was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire founded in 1336, and its ruins, including the Virupaksha temple and the stone chariot of the Vittala temple, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Option A is wrong because the Hoysala capital was Dwarasamudra, the modern Halebidu, where the Hoysaleswara temple stands. Option C is wrong because the Chalukyas of Badami ruled from Badami and built the monuments at Aihole and Pattadakal. Option D is wrong because the Rashtrakutas ruled from Manyakheta, the modern Malkhed in Kalaburagi district, and are remembered in Karnataka for the Kailasa temple they cut at Ellora in present Maharashtra. Hampi lies in Vijayanagara district, which takes its name from the empire, and the Tungabhadra guarded the capital along its northern side.

The correct answer is A, phumdi. A phumdi is a mat of soil, plant matter and organic debris in various stages of decay that floats on the surface of Loktak Lake in Manipur; the largest of them carries Keibul Lamjao National Park, and fishermen build circular enclosures called athaphums from them. Option B is wrong; a beel is an oxbow lake or a wetland of the Brahmaputra and Ganga floodplains, the word used in Assam and Bengal, as in Deepor Beel near Guwahati. Option C is wrong; a chaur is a seasonal waterlogged depression of north Bihar, such as the Kabar Taal in Begusarai. Option D is wrong; jheel is only the general Hindi word for a lake or a marsh and names no particular formation. The specific vocabulary of each region is exactly what this kind of question tests.

The correct answer is B, Nagaland. Article 371A, inserted by the thirteenth amendment when the state was created, lays down that no Act of Parliament about Naga religious or social practices, Naga customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice where decisions follow Naga customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land and its resources shall apply to Nagaland unless the Legislative Assembly so resolves; it also gives the Governor a special responsibility for law and order. Option A is wrong; Sikkim is covered by Article 371F, inserted in 1975. Option C is wrong; Mizoram has Article 371G, which was drafted on the pattern of 371A and is therefore the hardest distractor here. Option D is wrong; Tripura has no article of its own in this series, its tribal areas being protected instead by the Sixth Schedule through an autonomous district council.

The correct answer is A, 21 January 1972. The North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act 1971 took effect on that day, turning Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura into full states and creating the Union Territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, then called the North East Frontier Agency; the day is observed as statehood day in all three states. Option B is wrong for these three but is the date on which Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh became states, fifteen years later. Option C is wrong; 1 December 1963 is the day Nagaland became the sixteenth state of India, the first of the north-eastern states to be created after independence. Option D is wrong; 16 May 1975 is the day Sikkim became the twenty-second state under the thirty-sixth amendment. Learning these four dates in order answers most questions set on the north-east.

The correct answer is A, Nagaland. The Hornbill Festival runs from the first to the tenth of December at the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama, a short distance from Kohima, and brings all the major tribes of the state together to present their dances, songs, crafts, food and games; it is called the festival of festivals because it gathers in one place what each tribe otherwise celebrates separately, and it takes its name from the bird whose feathers appear in Naga headgear. Option B is wrong; the festivals of Sikkim are Losoong, Saga Dawa, Pang Lhabsol and Bumchu, all tied to the Buddhist calendar. Option C is wrong; Tripura holds Garia Puja, Kharchi Puja of the fourteen gods and Ker Puja, and the orange festival of the Jampui hills. Option D is wrong; the great festivals of Assam are the three Bihus, of which Rongali Bihu in April is the best known.