Madhya Pradesh GK: Rivers, Parks, Heritage and Facts

The correct answer is B, Bhopal. Bhopal is the capital of Madhya Pradesh and the seat of its Vidhan Sabha and secretariat. It is called the city of lakes because of the Upper and Lower Lakes at its centre, and it holds the Van Vihar National Park within the city limits. It is also remembered for the gas leak on the night of 2 and 3 December 1984, the worst industrial disaster in the country.

Option A, Indore, is the largest city of the state and its commercial centre, which is why many candidates mark it. Option C, Jabalpur, is the seat of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh and lies on the Narmada near the marble rocks of Bhedaghat. Option D, Gwalior, is known for its hill fort and for the tomb of Tansen. Only Bhopal is the capital, and the pair to remember is Bhopal for government and Jabalpur for the High Court.

The correct answer is C, 2000. Chhattisgarh became a separate state on 1 November 2000, taking sixteen districts from the eastern part of Madhya Pradesh, with Raipur as its capital. Two other states were created in the same year, Uttarakhand out of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand out of Bihar. After the division Madhya Pradesh lost its place as the largest state of India by area and became the second largest, after Rajasthan.

Option A, 1956, is the year Madhya Pradesh itself was formed under the States Reorganisation Act, on 1 November. Option B, 1972, is the year Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full states. Option D, 2014, is the year Telangana was separated from Andhra Pradesh. Note that both the formation of Madhya Pradesh and the creation of Chhattisgarh fall on 1 November, which is the detail a paper setter uses.

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, Barasingha. Kanha National Park, spread over the Mandla and Balaghat districts, is famous for bringing the hard ground barasingha, or swamp deer, back from the edge of extinction. The barasingha is the state animal of Madhya Pradesh, and Kanha is the only home of this particular hard ground variety. The park is also a well known tiger reserve and its forests are associated with the setting of the jungle book stories.

Option A, the Asiatic lion, survives in the wild only in the Gir forest of Gujarat. Option C, the one horned rhinoceros, is found in Kaziranga and other parks of Assam and in the Terai. Option D, the snow leopard, lives in the high Himalaya, in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim. None of these three is linked with the forests of central India.

The correct answer is B, Chandela. The Khajuraho group of monuments in Chhatarpur district was built by the Chandela rulers of Bundelkhand between the tenth and the twelfth century. The temples are built in the Nagara style, standing on a high platform with a curving tower over the sanctum, and the Kandariya Mahadeva is the largest of them. The group was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1986.

Option A, the Paramara dynasty, ruled Malwa from Dhar and is linked with king Bhoja and with the Bhojeshwar temple at Bhojpur. Option C, the Bundela rulers, came much later and built Orchha on the Betwa, with its palaces and cenotaphs. Option D, the Holkars, were the eighteenth century Maratha rulers of Indore, and Ahilyabai Holkar ruled from Maheshwar on the Narmada. Only the Chandelas match Khajuraho.

The correct answer is A, Raisen. The rock shelters of Bhimbetka lie in Raisen district, in the foothills of the Vindhya range not far from Bhopal. They hold paintings that begin in the prehistoric period and continue over thousands of years, showing hunting scenes, animals, dancing figures and later horses and riders. The site was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2003, and it is one of the earliest traces of human life in the subcontinent.

Option B, Umaria, is the district of the Bandhavgarh National Park. Option C, Sheopur, is the district of the Kuno National Park, which received cheetahs in September 2022. Option D, Chhatarpur, is the district of the Khajuraho temples. A useful link is that the Buddhist monuments of Sanchi are also in Raisen district, so two of the three World Heritage Sites of the state share one district.

The correct answer is B, Ashoka. The Great Stupa at Sanchi in Raisen district was first raised in brick by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the third century before the common era, to hold relics of the Buddha. It was later enlarged in stone by the Shungas, and the four carved gateways, called toranas, were added by the Satavahanas. Ashoka also set up one of his polished sandstone pillars at the site. The monuments were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1989.

Option A, Chandragupta Maurya, was the grandfather of Ashoka and the founder of the Mauryan empire, but no stupa at Sanchi is credited to him. Option C, Kanishka, was a Kushana ruler linked with the fourth Buddhist council and with the Gandhara and Mathura schools of art. Option D, Harshavardhana, ruled in the seventh century from Kanauj, far later than the building of the stupa.

The correct answer is B, Mahakaleshwar and Omkareshwar. Mahakaleshwar stands at Ujjain on the bank of the Shipra, the city where the Simhastha fair is held, and Omkareshwar stands on an island in the Narmada in Khandwa district. These are the only two of the twelve jyotirlingas that lie in Madhya Pradesh, which is a fact asked in both state and national papers.

Option A, Somnath and Nageshwar, are both in Gujarat, on the coast of Saurashtra. Option C, Bhimashankar and Trimbakeshwar, are both in Maharashtra, which holds more jyotirlingas than any other state. Option D pairs Kedarnath in Uttarakhand with Vishwanath at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, so the two lie in different states. Learning the jyotirlingas state by state is the quickest way to answer this family of questions.

The correct answer is C, Jabalpur. The High Court of Madhya Pradesh has its principal seat at Jabalpur, with benches at Indore and at Gwalior. Madhya Pradesh is one of the states where the capital and the seat of the High Court are different cities, a pattern it shares with Uttar Pradesh, where the capital is Lucknow and the High Court sits at Prayagraj, and with Kerala, Gujarat and Rajasthan among others.

Option A, Bhopal, is the capital and holds the Vidhan Sabha and the secretariat, but not the High Court. Option B, Indore, holds only a bench, and it is the largest city and the commercial centre of the state. Option D, Gwalior, also holds a bench. Questions on this topic usually test whether a candidate assumes that the High Court must sit in the capital, so the exception is worth marking.

The correct answer is B, 29. Madhya Pradesh sends twenty nine members to the Lok Sabha and elects eleven members to the Rajya Sabha, while its own Vidhan Sabha has two hundred and thirty seats. The number of Lok Sabha seats of a state has been frozen on the basis of the census of 1971 until the first census taken after the year 2026, so these figures have stayed unchanged for decades.

Option A, twenty five, is the strength of Rajasthan in the Lok Sabha. Option C, forty, is the strength of Bihar. Option D, forty eight, is the strength of Maharashtra, the second largest after Uttar Pradesh, which sends eighty. A quick way to hold the Madhya Pradesh figures together is the set twenty nine, eleven and two hundred and thirty for the Lok Sabha, the Rajya Sabha and the Vidhan Sabha.

The correct answer is A, Pachmarhi. Pachmarhi lies in the Satpura range and is the only hill station of Madhya Pradesh. Dhupgarh, the highest point of the state, rises near it, and the Satpura National Park and the Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve lie around it. The place is also known for its caves and waterfalls, and it is sometimes called the queen of the Satpura.

Option B, Amarkantak, is a pilgrim town on the Maikal range and the source of both the Narmada and the Son, but it is not counted as the hill station of the state. Option C, Maheshwar, stands on the bank of the Narmada and was the capital of Ahilyabai Holkar. Option D, Orchha, lies on the Betwa and was the seat of the Bundela rulers, known for its palaces and cenotaphs. None of these three is in the Satpura heights.

The correct answer is A, Panna. The Panna belt in Madhya Pradesh holds the only working diamond mines of India, and the town gives its name both to the diamond field and to the Panna National Park, which lies on the Ken river beside it. Diamonds occur there in kimberlite pipes and in the gravels of streams, and the output is small but it is the sole regular source in the country.

Option B, Malanjkhand in Balaghat district, is a large copper deposit, one of the biggest in India, not a diamond field. Option C, Singrauli, sits on a coalfield and is known for its thermal power stations, which is why it is sometimes called the energy capital of the country. Option D, Katni, is known for limestone and for its position as a railway junction. Keeping Panna for diamonds and Malanjkhand for copper apart is the point of the question.

The correct answer is B, Gwalior fort. The fort at Gwalior stands on a steep sandstone hill and has been called the Gibraltar of India for its strength. Man Singh Tomar built the Man Mandir palace within it in the late fifteenth century, and the fort also holds the Sas Bahu temples, the Teli ka Mandir and early Jain rock carvings. The tomb of the musician Tansen, one of the nine jewels of the court of Akbar, is in the same city, and the Tansen Samaroh is held there.

Option A, the fort inside Bandhavgarh National Park, is an old hill fort but carries no such title. Option C, Asirgarh in Burhanpur district, guarded the route into the Deccan and was called the key to the Deccan, a different phrase. Option D, Mandu, is a fortified city of the Malwa sultans, known for the Jahaz Mahal and the tomb of Hoshang Shah, the earliest marble building in India.