Union Territories of India: Articles, Capitals and Facts

The correct answer is A, Article 239. It lays down the basic rule that a Union Territory is administered by the President acting through an Administrator appointed by him with such designation as the President may specify, which is why some Administrators are styled Lieutenant Governor. Option B is wrong because Article 239A, inserted by the Fourteenth Amendment Act of 1962, lets Parliament create a legislature and a Council of Ministers for Puducherry. Option C is wrong because Article 240 gives the President power to make regulations for the peace, progress and good government of the named Union Territories. Option D is wrong because Article 241 allows Parliament to constitute a High Court for a Union Territory, failing which the Territory falls under a neighbouring State’s High Court. All four lie in Part VIII of the Constitution.

The correct answer is B, Barren Island. Barren Island, in the Andaman Sea about one hundred and forty kilometres north-east of the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, is the only active volcano in India and in South Asia, and it has erupted several times in recent decades. Option A is wrong because Narcondam Island, further north-east, is a dormant volcano and is also known for the Narcondam hornbill, found nowhere else. Option C is wrong because Saddle Peak in North Andaman is the highest point of the Territory and not a volcano. Option D is wrong because Indira Point at the southern tip of Great Nicobar is the southernmost point of India. Papers pair Barren with active and Narcondam with dormant, so keep the two names apart.

The correct answer is A, the Andaman group from the Nicobar group. The Ten Degree Channel runs roughly along the tenth parallel of north latitude, between Little Andaman to its north and Car Nicobar to its south, and it is a busy shipping lane. Option B is wrong because the Eight Degree Channel separates Lakshadweep from the Maldives. Option C is wrong because the Nine Degree Channel separates Minicoy from the rest of Lakshadweep. Option D is wrong because the Coco Channel lies between North Andaman and the Coco Islands of Myanmar. Learn the four channels as a ladder by latitude: Eight Degree between Lakshadweep and the Maldives, Nine Degree around Minicoy, Ten Degree between Andaman and Nicobar, and the Duncan Passage between South Andaman and Little Andaman.

The correct answer is C, Kavaratti. Kavaratti is the capital and administrative headquarters of Lakshadweep, which is India’s smallest Union Territory by area and its only group of coral atolls. Option A is wrong because Androth is the largest island of the group and the nearest to the mainland, but not the capital. Option B is wrong because Agatti is the island with the airport, which makes it the gateway for air travellers, again not the capital. Option D is wrong because Minicoy, known as Maliku, is the southernmost inhabited island and is distinct in language, its people speaking Mahl written in the Thaana script while the rest of Lakshadweep speaks the Jeseri dialect of Malayalam. Judicially the Territory falls under the Kerala High Court.

The correct answer is C, Mahe. Puducherry is made up of four non-contiguous districts, and Mahe is the one on the Malabar coast surrounded by Kerala. Option A is wrong because Karaikal lies on the Coromandel coast within Tamil Nadu, south of Puducherry town. Option B is wrong because Yanam lies within Andhra Pradesh, on the Godavari delta. Option D is wrong because the Puducherry district itself lies within Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel coast and is the seat of the Union Territory’s government. All four were French settlements, transferred de facto in 1954 and in law by the Treaty of Cession of 1962, after which the Fourteenth Amendment Act of 1962 provided for the legislature and Puducherry became a Union Territory in 1963. Tamil is its official language, French retains a special place, and Pondicherry was renamed Puducherry in 2006.

The correct answer is B, Le Corbusier. The first plan for Chandigarh was prepared by Albert Mayer with Matthew Nowicki, and after Nowicki died in an air crash the work passed to the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, assisted by Pierre Jeanneret, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. His Capitol Complex, with the Secretariat, the Assembly, the High Court and the Open Hand monument, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016. Option A is wrong because Edwin Lutyens planned New Delhi, with the Viceroy’s House and the National Archives building. Option C is wrong because Herbert Baker worked with Lutyens on New Delhi’s Secretariat blocks. Option D is wrong because Charles Correa was a later Indian architect, known for Bharat Bhavan at Bhopal and Jawahar Kala Kendra at Jaipur.

The correct answer is B, the Sixty-ninth Amendment Act, 1991. It inserted Article 239AA, renamed the Union Territory of Delhi as the National Capital Territory of Delhi and provided for a Legislative Assembly of seventy seats and a Council of Ministers of not more than ten per cent of the total members, that is seven. The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991 carried it into effect, leaving public order, police and land with the Union. Option A is wrong because the Fourteenth Amendment of 1962 concerned Puducherry’s legislature and the former French territories. Option C is wrong because the Seventy-fourth Amendment of 1992 is about urban local bodies and added the Twelfth Schedule. Option D is wrong because the Tenth Amendment of 1961 added Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the Constitution.

The correct answer is B, 26 January 2020. The Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Act, 2019 merged the two into one Union Territory with effect from 26 January 2020, with Daman as its headquarters and Silvassa as the headquarters of the Dadra and Nagar Haveli district. Option A is wrong because 31 October 2019 is the day the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and of Ladakh came into being. Option C is wrong because 30 May 1987 is the day Goa became a State, after which Daman and Diu continued as a separate Union Territory. Option D is wrong because 1 November 2000 is the day Chhattisgarh was created. Keep 31 October 2019 and 26 January 2020 apart, as papers use them as a pair.

The correct answer is C, the Sentinelese. The Sentinelese live on North Sentinel Island, have avoided contact with the outside world and are one of the particularly vulnerable tribal groups of the Territory, with the island closed to visitors by law. Option A is wrong because the Shompen live in the interior of Great Nicobar, not on North Sentinel. Option B is wrong because the Onge live on Little Andaman, chiefly at Dugong Creek and South Bay. Option D is wrong because the Nicobarese are the largest tribal community of the Nicobar group and are not classed among the particularly vulnerable groups. The five particularly vulnerable tribal groups of the islands are the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, the Sentinelese and the Shompen, and all five are counted among the seventy-five such groups recognised across India.

The correct answer is B, Mirra Alfassa, known as the Mother. She founded Auroville in 1968 as an international township where people of all countries could live in peace, and soil from many nations was placed in an urn at its inauguration; the Matrimandir is its meditation centre. Option A is wrong because Sri Aurobindo, whose vision inspired the township, had died in 1950; the ashram he settled at Puducherry was founded in 1926. Option C is wrong because Annie Besant led the Theosophical Society at Adyar and the Home Rule movement, which is unconnected. Option D is wrong because Roger Anger was the French architect who designed Auroville and the Matrimandir, so he planned the township but did not found it. Founder and architect are the distinction tested here.

The correct answer is B, Great Nicobar. Indira Point lies at the southern tip of Great Nicobar, the largest island of the Nicobar group, and is the southernmost point of the territory of India; it was formerly called Pygmalion Point and also Parsons Point, and its lighthouse subsided during the tsunami of 2004. Option A is wrong because Car Nicobar lies at the northern end of the Nicobar group, just south of the Ten Degree Channel, and is the administrative headquarters of the Nicobar district. Option C is wrong because Little Andaman is the southernmost large island of the Andaman group, north of the Ten Degree Channel. Option D is wrong because Minicoy is the southernmost inhabited island of Lakshadweep, in the Arabian Sea, which is a different sea and a different Union Territory.

The correct answer is B, the Calcutta High Court, which exercises jurisdiction over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and holds a circuit bench at the Territory’s capital. Option A is wrong because the Madras High Court has jurisdiction over Puducherry, not over these islands. Option C is wrong because the Kerala High Court has jurisdiction over Lakshadweep. Option D is wrong because the Orissa High Court is confined to Odisha. Under Article 241 Parliament may create a High Court for a Union Territory, and where it has not done so the Territory is attached to a neighbouring State’s High Court, which is why Chandigarh goes to the Punjab and Haryana High Court and the merged Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu to the Bombay High Court.

The correct answer is B, Swaraj Dweep. In 2018, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose hoisting the tricolour at Port Blair on 30 December 1943, three islands were renamed: Havelock became Swaraj Dweep, Neil became Shaheed Dweep and Ross Island became Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep. Option A is wrong because Shaheed Dweep is the new name of Neil Island, and candidates commonly swap the two. Option C is wrong because that name went to Ross Island, which lies off the capital and holds the ruins of the old British administrative centre. Option D is wrong because no island was given that name; Sri Vijaya Puram is instead the new name of the capital, adopted in September 2024. The three renamed islands all lie in the South Andaman group and are reached by ferry from the capital.