Indian States & UTs Mixed Quiz: Set 7

The correct answer is B, 70. The Delhi Legislative Assembly has seventy seats, all filled by direct election, and the Council of Ministers may not be larger than a tenth of that strength, which means at most seven ministers including the Chief Minister. Delhi also elects seven members to the Lok Sabha and its assembly elects three members to the Rajya Sabha.

Option A, sixty, is the strength of the assemblies of Goa, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, which is why it feels plausible. Option C, ninety, is the strength of the Chhattisgarh assembly and close to that of Haryana. Option D, forty, is the strength of the Sikkim assembly and of Puducherry's elected members. The pair to fix in memory is Delhi seventy seats and seven Lok Sabha members.

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 B, Ahmednagar. Kalsubai stands in the Sahyadri range in the Ahmednagar district, at about one thousand six hundred and forty six metres, which makes it the highest point in Maharashtra, and a small temple at the summit draws a steady stream of trekkers along the route from Bari village. The range here is the Sahyadri, the local name of the Western Ghats, which UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2012.

Option A, Satara, holds Mahabaleshwar, where the Krishna rises, and the hill station of Panchgani. Option C, Raigad, is the district of Shivaji's capital fort and of the Konkan coast. Option D, Nashik, is where the Godavari rises at Trimbakeshwar and where several other Sahyadri peaks stand, which is why it is a strong distractor. The peak itself, however, is in Ahmednagar district.

The correct answer is C, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The Delhi Metro was the first metro and rail based system in the world to be certified by the United Nations for earning carbon credits, because its regenerative braking returns electricity to the grid each time a train slows. It also built solar plants at its stations and depots and uses rainwater harvesting and green buildings, which is why it is described as the first completely green metro.

Option A, the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, and option B, the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit, are both older and efficient systems but did not take the carbon credit route first. Option D, the London Underground, opened in 1863 and is the oldest underground railway in the world, which makes it the natural trap for a candidate who reads first as oldest. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation itself was set up in 1995 and its first stretch opened in December 2002.

The correct answer is C, 1911. At the Delhi Durbar held on 12 December 1911, King George V, who had come to India for his coronation durbar, announced that the capital of British India would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. The reasons were that Delhi lay closer to the centre of the empire's Indian territories and had been the seat of earlier rulers, and that Bengal had become the storm centre of the national movement after the partition of 1905.

Option A, 1877, was the durbar at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, held under Lord Lytton during a famine. Option B, 1903, was Lord Curzon's durbar for the coronation of Edward VII. Option D, 1919, is the year of the Rowlatt Act, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, and no durbar was held then.

The correct answer is B, 1 May 1960. On that day the bilingual Bombay State was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat under the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960, after the Samyukta Maharashtra movement had pressed for a separate state for Marathi speakers. The day is observed every year as Maharashtra Day, and Gujarat Day falls on the same date.

Option A, 1 November 1956, is the day the States Reorganisation Act came into force, which created many states on a linguistic basis but left Bombay State bilingual, and it is the commonest wrong answer here. Option C, 1 April 1936, is the day Odisha was carved out as a separate province. Option D, 1 November 2000, is the day Chhattisgarh was created. Only 1960 belongs to Maharashtra.

The correct answer is A, Buldhana. Lonar Lake lies at Lonar in the Buldhana district of the Vidarbha region. It was formed when a meteorite struck the basalt of the Deccan trap, which makes it one of very few crater lakes anywhere formed in basaltic rock, and both its water and its ecology are of interest to scientists. It has been designated a Ramsar site as a wetland of international importance.

Option B, Chandrapur, is the district of the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. Option C, Solapur, has the Nannaj sanctuary known for the great Indian bustard and the temple town of Pandharpur nearby. Option D, Jalgaon, lies in Khandesh on the Tapi and is known for bananas. All four are Maharashtra districts, so the pairing of the lake with Buldhana is the fact being tested.

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 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 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 A, Waghora. The Ajanta Caves were cut into a steep scarp above a horseshoe bend of the Waghora river, a small stream in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district. They are Buddhist caves, both chaityas and viharas, and their wall paintings on themes from the Jataka stories are the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian painting. UNESCO inscribed them on the World Heritage List in 1983.

Option B, the Godavari, is the longest river of the state but flows well away from the site. Option C, the Tapi, runs westward through Khandesh to the Arabian Sea. Option D, the Bhima, is a tributary of the Krishna that flows past Pandharpur. The distractors are all real Maharashtra rivers, which is why the small Waghora must be remembered by name.

The correct answer is B, Bhagwat Dayal Sharma. He took office as the first Chief Minister when the state was created on 1 November 1966, and Dharma Vira was its first Governor. Sharma later served as Governor of other states as well, and a medical university at Rohtak carries his name, which is a useful way to fix the fact in memory.

Option A, Bansi Lal, became Chief Minister later and is remembered for the electrification and irrigation drive in the state, but he was not the first. Option C, Devi Lal, was Chief Minister in the nineteen seventies and eighties and afterwards Deputy Prime Minister of India. Option D, Rao Birender Singh, was the second Chief Minister of Haryana, which makes him the closest trap in this question. The order to remember is Sharma first, then Rao Birender Singh.

The correct answer is C, the Red Fort Complex. Shah Jahan built the fort between 1639 and 1648 as the citadel of his new capital Shahjahanabad, and it was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2007. The Prime Minister raises the national flag and speaks from its ramparts on Independence Day, and its buildings include the Diwan-i-Aam, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Rang Mahal and the Moti Masjid.

Option A, the Qutub Minar and its monuments, and option B, Humayun's Tomb, were both inscribed earlier, in 1993, and are the two older Delhi entries. Option D, the Jantar Mantar of Delhi, is not on the list at all; it is the Jantar Mantar of Jaipur that was inscribed, in 2010. So Delhi has three World Heritage Sites in all, two from 1993 and one from 2007.

The correct answer is A, Amarkantak. The Narmada rises at Amarkantak on the Maikal range in Anuppur district and flows westward through a rift valley lying between the Vindhya range in the north and the Satpura range in the south. Because it flows through a rift rather than over a broad plain, it ends in an estuary in the Gulf of Khambhat instead of building a delta. The Son river also rises at Amarkantak but flows east to join the Ganga.

Option B, Multai in Betul district, is the source of the Tapti, the other large westward flowing river of the peninsula. Option C, the Janapav hills near Mhow in Indore district, is the source of the Chambal, which flows north to the Yamuna. Option D, Bhedaghat near Jabalpur, is not a source at all but the place on the Narmada where the Dhuandhar falls cut through marble rocks.

The correct answer is B, Rashtrakuta. The Kailasa temple, cave sixteen at Ellora, was carved out of a single mass of rock from the top downwards under the Rashtrakuta ruler Krishna I, and it is dedicated to Shiva. Ellora is unusual because Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves stand side by side there, and the whole group was inscribed by UNESCO in 1983.

Option A, the Chalukyas, built at Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal in present-day Karnataka. Option C, the Satavahanas, ruled the Deccan earlier and are associated with the early rock-cut Buddhist sites such as Karla and Bhaja. Option D, the Yadavas of Devagiri, ruled Maharashtra much later, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. All four are Deccan dynasties, and the Kailasa temple belongs to the Rashtrakutas.

The correct answer is A, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand. All three came into being within a fortnight in November 2000: Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh on 1 November, Uttarakhand, then named Uttaranchal, from Uttar Pradesh on 9 November, and Jharkhand from Bihar on 15 November.

Option B swaps one of them for Telangana, which was created much later, on 2 June 2014. Option C names the states of 1987: Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh on 20 February and Goa on 30 May. Option D names the three north-eastern states that became full states together on 21 January 1972 under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971. Group the years in your notes as 1972, 1987, 2000 and 2014, each with its set of states, and keep the parent state beside each name, because a question often asks which existing state a new one was carved out of rather than the year.

The correct answer is B, Qutb-ud-din Aibak. He began the tower, of which only the first storey was raised in his lifetime, and it stands beside the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque he built in the Qutub complex. The minar is named after the Sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, and the Iron Pillar in the same courtyard dates from Gupta times and is far older than the tower.

Option A, Iltutmish, is the ruler who added the next three storeys and completed the tower, so a question worded as who completed it is answered by him. Option C, Alauddin Khalji, built the Alai Darwaza in the same complex and began the unfinished Alai Minar. Option D, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, repaired the top storey after it was damaged by lightning, which is why all four names appear together in the options.

The correct answer is B, Trimbakeshwar. The Godavari rises at Trimbakeshwar in the Nashik district of Maharashtra, in the Sahyadri, and flows east across the Deccan to the Bay of Bengal, which makes it the longest river of peninsular India and the second longest river in the country after the Ganga. Trimbakeshwar is also one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and one of the four Kumbh sites.

Option A, Mahabaleshwar in Satara district, is the source of the Krishna, and that is the classic swap in this question. Option C, Bhimashankar, is the source of the Bhima and another Jyotirlinga. Option D, Amarkantak, in Madhya Pradesh, is the source of the Narmada and the Son. All four are river sources, so the pairing must be exact.

The correct answer is A, Sawai Jai Singh II. The ruler of Amber and founder of Jaipur built the Delhi Jantar Mantar in 1724, the first of the five observatories he raised, the others being at Jaipur, Ujjain, Mathura and Varanasi. Its large masonry instruments, such as the Samrat Yantra, the Ram Yantra, the Jai Prakash and the Misra Yantra, were meant to correct existing astronomical tables and to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets.

Option B, Shah Jahan, built the Red Fort and the Jama Masjid but no observatory. Option C, Muhammad Shah, was the Mughal emperor of the time, and Jai Singh built the observatory during his reign, which makes this a strong distractor. Option D, Raja Man Singh, was the Amber ruler and Mughal general of Akbar's time, a century and a half earlier.

The correct answer is C, Raigad. Shivaji was crowned Chhatrapati at Raigad in 1674, and the fort served as the capital of the Maratha kingdom, with its market street, the Jagadishwar temple and his samadhi still standing on the hill. Raigad district today takes its name from the fort, and the coronation of 1674 is remembered as the formal beginning of Maratha sovereignty.

Option A, Shivneri, near Junnar, is the fort where Shivaji was born, and it is the commonest wrong choice because both facts concern the same person. Option B, Pratapgad, is remembered for the encounter with Afzal Khan in 1659. Option D, Sinhagad, near Pune, is remembered for Tanaji Malusare, who died taking it. Every option is a genuine Shivaji fort, so the question turns on which one saw the coronation.