Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 29

The correct answer is D, West Bengal. West Bengal had a Legislative Council in the years after independence but abolished it in 1969, and its legislature has been unicameral since then, consisting of the Governor and the Legislative Assembly alone. Proposals to revive the Council have been moved but a revival needs a resolution of the Assembly followed by an Act of Parliament under Article 169. Option A is wrong because Bihar has a Vidhan Parishad, one of the oldest in the country. Option B is wrong because Karnataka has a Vidhan Parishad, as does the southern neighbour Telangana. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra has a Vidhan Parishad, and it is one of the six states with a second chamber along with Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.

The correct answer is B, the Calcutta High Court. It was established in July 1862 under the Indian High Courts Act of 1861, which allowed the Crown to replace the old supreme courts and sadar courts of the Presidency towns with High Courts. Its jurisdiction today extends over West Bengal and the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Option A is wrong because the Bombay High Court, although also created in 1862, was established in August, a few weeks after Calcutta, and it now covers Maharashtra, Goa and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Option C is wrong because the Madras High Court was likewise established in August 1862 and is the third of the group, serving Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Option D is wrong because the Allahabad High Court came later, in 1866, sitting first at Agra and moving to Allahabad, now Prayagraj, in 1875.

The correct answer is A, Nagaland. The Hornbill Festival is held each December at the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama near Kohima, where all the major tribes of Nagaland put up their morungs and present their dances, songs, crafts, wrestling and food, which is why it is called the festival of festivals. It is named after the hornbill, the bird that appears in Naga folklore and headgear. Option B is wrong because Manipur's festivals are Yaoshang, Lai Haraoba, Ningol Chakouba and the Sangai Festival, the last named after its state animal. Option C is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh has Losar, Nyokum, Solung and Mopin, each belonging to a particular tribe. Option D is wrong because Sikkim has Saga Dawa, Pang Lhabsol and Losoong. Note the distinction from Arunachal Pradesh, whose state bird is the great hornbill.

The correct answer is B, the Jhelum. Wular lake lies in Bandipora district of the Kashmir valley and is fed and drained by the Jhelum, which rises at Verinag and is known locally as the Vyeth; the lake acts as a natural flood basin for the river and is a Ramsar site. Option A is wrong because the Chenab flows through the Jammu division and carries the Salal, Baglihar and Dulhasti projects, but feeds no lake of this kind. Option C is wrong because the Indus flows through Ladakh and is associated with Pangong Tso’s region only by proximity, not by drainage, as Pangong is a closed brackish lake. Option D is wrong because the Ravi flows along the Jammu division towards Punjab. The pair to memorise is Wular with the Jhelum, as examiners offer the Indus as the distractor.

The correct answer is B, Article 169. It empowers Parliament by law to abolish an existing Legislative Council or to create one where none exists, but only if the Legislative Assembly of the state first passes a resolution supported by a majority of the total membership of the House and by not less than two-thirds of the members present and voting. Such a law is not treated as a constitutional amendment under Article 368. Option A is wrong because Article 168 merely says what a state legislature consists of, the Governor with one house or two. Option C is wrong because Article 171 lays down the size and composition of a Council once it exists. Option D is wrong because Article 172 fixes the duration of the houses, giving the Assembly five years and making the Council a permanent body that is not subject to dissolution.

The correct answer is B, Digboi. Digboi in the Tinsukia district is where oil was first struck in India in the late nineteenth century, and the refinery built there is the oldest in the country still working. Option A, Duliajan, is wrong but is closely related, because it is the headquarters of Oil India Limited, the public sector company that produces crude in upper Assam. Option C, Numaligarh, is wrong; its refinery was commissioned much later as part of the Assam Accord commitments. Option D, Bongaigaon, is wrong since that refinery and petrochemical complex in lower Assam also belongs to a later period. For the first public sector refinery in India, the answer is Guwahati, commissioned in the early nineteen sixties, so Assam supplies the answer to three separate refinery questions and the place names must be kept apart.

The correct answer is A, Telangana. Bathukamma is celebrated for nine days around Mahalaya Amavasya in the monsoon, when women of Telangana stack seasonal flowers in the shape of a temple tower, sing round it in a circle each evening, and on the last day set it afloat in a tank or stream. It was adopted as the state festival of Telangana and is the usual first question on that state's culture. Option B is wrong because Karnataka's great festival is the Mysuru Dasara, with the Jamboo Savari elephant procession. Option C is wrong because Odisha has Raja Parba, Nuakhai and the Puri Rath Yatra. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh is known for the Khajuraho Dance Festival and the Tansen Samaroh at Gwalior. Keep Bathukamma and Bonalu together as the two festivals of Telangana most asked about.

The correct answer is B, Meghalaya. The name is Sanskrit for the home of the clouds and was chosen for the new state in 1972 because of the rainfall of its southern slopes, which face the moist air coming off the Bay of Bengal and receive the heaviest rain in the country at Mawsynram and Cherrapunji. Option A is wrong; Mizoram is called the land of the highlanders or the land of the blue mountains, from Phawngpui, its highest peak. Option B being correct, option C is wrong; Manipur is called the jewelled land or, in a phrase of Jawaharlal Nehru, the jewel of India, from the valley ringed by hills. Option D is wrong; Sikkim is often described as the land of the thunderbolt or, in the Lepcha phrase, the valley of rice, and its mountain Kanchenjunga is the highest in India. These epithets are a standard source of questions in this part of the syllabus.

The correct answer is A, Chandigarh. Chandigarh is the capital of both Punjab and Haryana and is itself a union territory, and the common High Court for the two states and for the union territory sits there. A common High Court of this kind is permitted by Article 231, under which Parliament may establish one High Court for two or more states or union territories; the Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Kerala and Guwahati High Courts cover more than one territory in the same way. Option B is wrong because Amritsar has no High Court, though it is the site of the Harmandir Sahib. Option C is wrong because Gurugram is an industrial and corporate centre of Haryana with district courts only. Option D is wrong because Patiala was once the capital of PEPSU but has no High Court today.

The correct answer is B, Chalukyas of Badami. Pattadakal on the Malaprabha river was a ceremonial centre of the Chalukyas of Badami, who built there a group in which the northern nagara style and the southern dravida style stand side by side, the Virupaksha temple being the largest. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the same dynasty built the cave temples at Badami and the experimental temples at Aihole. Option A is wrong because the Hoysalas built at Belur, Halebidu and Somanathapura, whose ensembles were inscribed separately in 2023. Option C is wrong because the Kadambas ruled from Banavasi and are the earliest dynasty native to Karnataka, but Pattadakal is not theirs. Option D is wrong because the Western Gangas held Talakad and are linked with Shravanabelagola.

The correct answer is A, Tripura. Hojagiri is danced by the women of the Reang community of Tripura, who balance on the rim of an earthen pitcher and keep a bottle with a lit lamp steady on the head while moving only the lower half of the body, so the upper body stays almost still. It is performed at the Laxmi Puja held after Durga Puja. Option B is wrong because Mizoram's signature dance is Cheraw, the bamboo dance. Option C is wrong because Assam's dances are the Bihu, Bagurumba of the Bodos and the Sattriya of the monasteries. Option D is wrong because Meghalaya has the Nongkrem dance and the Garo Wangala. The balancing dances are a small family worth learning together: Hojagiri on a pitcher in Tripura, the Kuchipudi Tarangam on a brass plate in Andhra Pradesh and the Bhavai with pots in Rajasthan.

The correct answer is B, 39. Tamil Nadu elects 39 members to the Lok Sabha and 18 to the Rajya Sabha, and its Legislative Assembly has 234 seats; the Legislative Council was abolished in 1986, so the legislature is unicameral. Option A is wrong because 28 is the number of Lok Sabha seats of Karnataka, a neighbouring state, and this swap is the usual trap. Option C is wrong because 42 is the strength of West Bengal, and in the south Andhra Pradesh has 25 and Kerala 20. Option D is wrong because 48 is the number of seats of Maharashtra, which is second only to Uttar Pradesh with 80. The Union Territory of Puducherry, which lies inside Tamil Nadu, sends one member of its own to the Lok Sabha. These seat totals have not changed since the delimitation of 1976 was frozen, so they are safe facts to memorise.

The correct answer is D, Jabalpur. The principal seat of the Madhya Pradesh High Court is at Jabalpur, with benches at Gwalior and Indore, while the capital of the state is Bhopal. The pattern repeats in the neighbouring state carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000: the capital of Chhattisgarh is Raipur but its High Court sits at Bilaspur. Option A is wrong because Bhopal is the capital, where the Governor and the legislature sit, and candidates who assume the court follows the capital lose this mark. Option B is wrong because Indore, the largest city of the state, hosts a bench and not the principal seat. Option C is wrong for the same reason: Gwalior hosts a bench of the High Court, a legacy of the princely state, but the principal seat remains at Jabalpur.

The correct answer is C, the Seventy-first Amendment Act, passed in 1992, which added Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali to the Eighth Schedule, taking the number of scheduled languages from fifteen to eighteen. Option A is wrong but closely related: the Fifty-sixth Amendment Act of 1987 inserted Article 371-I, the special provision for Goa, in the year Goa became a state. Option B is wrong; the Sixty-first Amendment Act of 1988 lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen years. Option D is wrong, and it is the other trap: the Ninety-second Amendment Act of 2003 added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali to the Eighth Schedule, the next set of languages after Konkani's group. Konkani in the Devanagari script is also the official language of Goa under the Official Language Act of 1987.

The correct answer is A, Meghalaya. Wangala is the post-harvest thanksgiving festival of the Garo people of Meghalaya, offered to Misi Saljong the sun god, and it is called the hundred drums festival because long drums are beaten together in lines while dancers in feathered headgear move in formation. Meghalaya also has Ka Pomblang Nongkrem and Shad Suk Mynsiem of the Khasi and Behdienkhlam of the Jaintia, so the state has one famous festival for each of its three main communities. Option B is wrong because Nagaland's harvest festivals are Moatsu of the Ao and Tsungrem Mong, and its great gathering is the Hornbill Festival. Option C is wrong because Mizoram's festivals are Chapchar Kut, Mim Kut and Pawl Kut. Option D is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh has Solung, Mopin, Nyokum and Losar. Match the tribe to the festival and the state follows.

The correct answer is B, China. The McMahon Line was drawn at the Simla Convention of 1914 between British India and Tibet and is named after Sir Henry McMahon, then foreign secretary of the Government of India. It runs along the crest of the eastern Himalaya and forms the northern boundary of Arunachal Pradesh with Tibet, now part of China; China has never accepted it, and the war of 1962 was fought along it at Namka Chu, Se La and Walong. Option A, Myanmar, is wrong; the eastern boundary of Arunachal Pradesh with Myanmar is a different line, crossed at Pangsau Pass on the old Stilwell Road. Option C, Bhutan, is wrong; Bhutan lies to the west of the state and its boundary has its own history. Option D, Nepal, is wrong; Nepal does not touch Arunachal Pradesh at all, Sikkim and West Bengal lying between them.

The correct answer is B. Under the Nagpur Pact of 1953, agreed when the Vidarbha region joined the new bilingual Bombay State and later Maharashtra, Nagpur was made the second capital of the state and at least one session of the legislature each year, the winter session, is held there. Option A is wrong because the capital of Maharashtra is Mumbai, where the Governor and the Secretariat sit. Option C is wrong because the principal seat of the Bombay High Court is at Mumbai; Nagpur hosts one of its benches, along with Aurangabad and Panaji. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has only one capital, Bhopal, and no summer capital; among the states, Himachal Pradesh uses Dharamshala for its winter session and Uttarakhand declared Bhararisain in the Gairsain area its summer capital in 2020.

The correct answer is A, Jammu and Kashmir. The hangul is a subspecies of the red deer found in the Kashmir valley, and its last substantial population survives in the Dachigam National Park near Srinagar, which is why hangul and Dachigam are always asked together. It is the state animal of Jammu and Kashmir and is listed as critically endangered. Option B is wrong because the state animal of Himachal Pradesh is the snow leopard and its state bird the western tragopan, locally the jujurana or king of birds. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand has the musk deer as state animal and the Himalayan monal as state bird. Option D is wrong because Sikkim has the red panda as state animal and the blood pheasant as state bird. Hill species cluster in this question, so pair each one with its state and its best known park.

The correct answer is C, Amaravati. When the old High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad was bifurcated with effect from the first of January 2019, the Telangana High Court continued at Hyderabad and a separate High Court for Andhra Pradesh began functioning at Amaravati. Until then the two states had shared a single High Court, just as they shared Hyderabad as a joint capital under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014. Option A is wrong because Hyderabad is now the seat of the Telangana High Court only. Option B is wrong because Visakhapatnam, the largest city and port of Andhra Pradesh, has no High Court. Option D is wrong because Kurnool was the capital of Andhra State in the years from 1953 to 1956, and the High Court of that short-lived state sat at Guntur, but neither is the position today.

The correct answer is A, Sikkim. The red panda, a small reddish-brown mammal of the eastern Himalayan bamboo forests, is the state animal of Sikkim, which also has the blood pheasant as state bird, the rhododendron as state tree and the noble orchid as state flower. The Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is among its habitats. Option B is wrong because the state animal of Meghalaya is the clouded leopard and its state bird the hill myna. Option C is wrong because Arunachal Pradesh has the mithun, a semi-domesticated bovine used in tribal exchange and feasts, as state animal, and the great hornbill as state bird. Option D is wrong because Nagaland also has the mithun as state animal, with Blyth's tragopan as state bird. Note the overlap: two north eastern states share the mithun, but only Sikkim has the red panda.