Tamil Nadu GK: Formation, Geography and Culture

The correct answer is B, 1969. Madras State was created on 1 November 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act, and the change of name to Tamil Nadu took effect on 14 January 1969 under the Madras State Alteration of Name Act. Option A is wrong because 1956 is the year the state was formed under its old name, and confusing formation with renaming is the standard trap in this topic. Option C is wrong because 1973 is the year Mysore State was renamed Karnataka, a neighbouring state, which is why that year is offered here as a distractor. Option D is wrong because 1996 is the year the capital city Madras was renamed Chennai, a change of the city's name and not of the state's. Pairing 1956, 1969 and 1996 correctly settles most questions from this part of the syllabus.

The correct answer is B, the Nilgiris. Doddabetta, about 2,637 metres high and close to Udhagamandalam or Ooty, is the highest point in Tamil Nadu and the highest in the Nilgiri range, where the Western and Eastern Ghats meet. Option A is wrong because the Anamalai hills lie further south in the Western Ghats, carry Valparai and the Indira Gandhi national park, and their highest summits fall in Kerala. Option C is wrong because the Javadi hills belong to the Eastern Ghats in the north of the state and are far lower. Option D is wrong because the Shevaroy hills, which carry the hill station of Yercaud, are also part of the Eastern Ghats and rise to only about sixteen hundred metres. Doddabetta also has an observatory that makes it a favourite with paper setters.

The correct answer is B, Rajaraja Chola I. The Brihadeeswarar or Peruvudaiyar temple at Thanjavur, also called the Big Temple, was completed about 1010 CE by Rajaraja Chola I, and its tall vimana of granite is the high point of Dravidian temple architecture; it is the core of the Great Living Chola Temples inscribed as a World Heritage Site. Option A is wrong because Rajendra Chola I, his son, built the temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the usual confusion in this question. Option C is wrong because Narasimhavarman I was a Pallava king of the seventh century associated with Mahabalipuram, three centuries earlier and a different dynasty. Option D is wrong because Karikala Chola belongs to the early Sangam age Cholas and is remembered for the Kallanai across the Kaveri. The granite vimana of the Thanjavur temple rises to about sixty six metres and was the tallest tower in India when it was raised.

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 C, the Kaveri. The Kallanai, called the Grand Anicut by the British, was built across the Kaveri near Tiruchirappalli by the early Chola king Karikala, and it still spreads the river's water across the delta of Thanjavur, which is why that delta is called the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu. Option A is wrong because the Vaigai, the river of Madurai, carries the Vaigai dam of the twentieth century and no ancient anicut of this kind. Option B is wrong because the Thamirabarani flows through Tirunelveli in the far south and is associated with the Papanasam dam. Option D is wrong because the Palar, which enters the state from Karnataka and passes Vellore, is a seasonal river. On the Kaveri the Mettur dam and its Stanley Reservoir are the modern works.

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 A, the Nilgiri tahr. The Nilgiri tahr, a wild goat found only on the higher slopes of the Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, is the state animal of Tamil Nadu, and the Mukurthi national park and the Anamalai hills are its strongholds. Option B is wrong because the gaur or Indian bison is the state animal of Goa and of Bihar, though it does live in the forests of Tamil Nadu. Option C is wrong because the blackbuck is the state animal of Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. Option D is wrong because the Indian elephant is the state animal of Kerala, Karnataka and Jharkhand, and is the national heritage animal of India. The state bird of Tamil Nadu is the emerald dove, its tree the palmyra palm and its flower the glory lily.

The correct answer is B, Nilgiri. The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, notified in 1986, was the first biosphere reserve in India and spreads across Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, taking in Mudumalai, Mukurthi, Bandipur, Wayanad and Silent Valley. Option A is wrong because the Gulf of Mannar, also in Tamil Nadu, came later and holds a different distinction, that of being the first marine biosphere reserve in the country. Option C is wrong because the Sundarbans reserve in West Bengal was notified in 1989 along with several others. Option D is wrong because the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve in Uttarakhand was notified in 1988. Harder papers test the order of the early reserves, so Nilgiri in 1986, Nanda Devi in 1988 and Sundarbans and Gulf of Mannar in 1989 should be remembered as a sequence.

The correct answer is A, 1806. On 10 July 1806 the Indian sepoys of the garrison at Vellore in present day Tamil Nadu rose against their British officers over new regulations on dress, beards and caste marks, and the rising, though crushed within a day, is remembered as the first major mutiny of Indian soldiers, half a century before 1857. Option B is wrong because 1824 is the year of the Barrackpore mutiny in Bengal, a later and smaller rising of the same kind. Option C is wrong because 1857 is the year of the great revolt, which the Vellore Mutiny preceded by fifty one years, and this is the standard trap. Option D is wrong because 1799 is the year of the fall of Seringapatam and of the execution of Veerapandiya Kattabomman, not of the Vellore rising.

The correct answer is B, Thiruvalluvar. The Thirukkural of the poet Thiruvalluvar has 1,330 couplets arranged in 133 chapters of ten each, grouped into three parts on virtue, wealth and love, and the 133 foot statue of Thiruvalluvar off Kanyakumari records those 133 chapters. Option A is wrong because Ilango Adigal wrote Silappadikaram, one of the five great epics of Tamil, built around the story of Kannagi. Option C is wrong because Subramania Bharati was the great modern Tamil poet of the national movement, far later in time. Option D is wrong because Sathanar, also called Sithalai Sathanar, wrote Manimekalai, the Buddhist epic that continues the story of Silappadikaram. Tolkappiyam, by contrast, is the oldest surviving grammar of Tamil. The Kural is among the most widely translated works of Indian literature, and its couplets are often set as quotation based questions.

The correct answer is B, the Manchester of South India. Coimbatore, on the Noyyal river below the Palakkad Gap, earned the name from its cotton mills, textile machinery works and pump industry, and the nearby Tiruppur is the knitwear and hosiery centre. Option A is wrong because the Detroit of India is Chennai, for the car and commercial vehicle plants clustered around it. Option C is wrong because Little Japan is the nickname of Sivakasi, the town of fireworks, matches and printing presses in the south of the state. Option D is wrong because the sea gateway of Tamil Nadu is Thoothukudi or Tuticorin, the port on the Gulf of Mannar known for salt pans and pearl fishery. Examiners like to shuffle these four nicknames, so each should be fixed to its own town.

The correct answer is B, Kalpakkam. Kalpakkam, on the coast south of Chennai, carries the Madras Atomic Power Station with its two indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors and the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, the centre of India's fast breeder reactor programme under the Department of Atomic Energy. Option A is wrong because Kudankulam in the far south of the state is the site of the other nuclear station of Tamil Nadu, built with Russian collaboration and using light water reactors. Option C is wrong because Neyveli is the lignite field and thermal power complex of NLC India, which burns coal rather than splitting atoms. Option D is wrong because Mahendragiri holds the propulsion complex of the Indian Space Research Organisation, where rocket engines are tested. Kalpakkam also carries the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor project, which makes it the centre of the second stage of India's three stage nuclear programme.