According to the Census of 2011, the literacy rate of Chandigarh was closest to:

The correct answer is B, Punjab and Haryana. When Haryana was carved out of Punjab on 1 November 1966, the new state had no capital of its own, so the existing capital city was made a Union Territory and declared the joint capital of both states. The Capitol Complex in Sector 1 houses the assemblies and secretariats of the two states, and the common Punjab and Haryana High Court sits in the same city.

Option A is wrong because the capital of Himachal Pradesh is Shimla, which also served as the summer capital of British India. Option C fails for the same reason, and Haryana has no capital other than Chandigarh. Option D is wrong because the capital of Rajasthan is Jaipur. Remember the unique feature: Chandigarh is the only Union Territory that is the capital of two states while belonging administratively to neither, which is why its administration is run by the Centre and not by either state government.

The correct answer is B, Le Corbusier. The Swiss-French architect, whose real name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, took charge of the project after the first team broke up and gave the city its grid of sectors, its hierarchy of roads and the monumental buildings of the Capitol Complex. He worked with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret and the English architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew.

Option A, Albert Mayer, is the closest wrong answer: the American planner did prepare the first plan, with the Polish architect Matthew Nowicki, but after Nowicki died in an air crash in 1950 Mayer withdrew and the commission passed to Le Corbusier. Option C, Edwin Lutyens, with Herbert Baker, designed New Delhi, a very different imperial city of avenues and vistas. Option D, Patrick Geddes, was a Scottish town planner who worked on Indian city reports in the early twentieth century but had no part in Chandigarh.

The correct answer is C, 1 November 1966. On that day the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 came into force, Haryana was created as a separate state out of Punjab on a largely linguistic basis, parts of the hill areas went to Himachal Pradesh, and the capital city was constituted a Union Territory and made the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

Option A, 15 August 1947, is Independence Day, when the city did not even exist; its construction began in the early 1950s. Option B, 26 January 1950, is the day the Constitution came into force. Option D, 1 November 2000, is a tempting distractor because three states, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand, were created in that year, and Chhattisgarh indeed came into being on 1 November 2000; but that has nothing to do with Chandigarh. Note the coincidence of dates that examiners exploit: 1 November is also the day Haryana was formed and the day Karnataka marks its formation.

The correct answer is C, 2016. In that year the Capitol Complex was added to the World Heritage List as part of a transnational serial property titled The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement, which brings together his buildings in several countries. The Chandigarh complex is the only component of that property located in India, which is the point the question usually turns on.

Option A, 2004, is the year the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai was inscribed, and candidates sometimes attach it here. Option B, 2010, is associated with the Jantar Mantar at Jaipur. Option D, 2021, is linked with the Kakatiya Rudreshwara or Ramappa temple in Telangana and the city of Dholavira. A further fact worth holding: this is India's only World Heritage inscription for twentieth-century modern architecture, all the others being ancient, medieval, colonial or natural sites.

The correct answer is A, Nek Chand Saini. A road inspector in the public works department, he began collecting discarded stones, broken crockery, bangles, tiles and electrical waste in the 1950s and built a secret garden of sculptures on land that was officially a forest buffer. When the authorities found it in the 1970s they chose to protect rather than demolish it, and it was opened to the public in 1976. It is also called the Fifteen Acres and stands near Sukhna Lake.

Option B, Pierre Jeanneret, was Le Corbusier's cousin and the chief architect who stayed on in the city for years, but he designed buildings and furniture, not the Rock Garden. Option C, Jane Drew, was one of the English architects on the planning team. Option D, Satish Gujral, was a noted Indian painter, sculptor and architect best known for designing the Belgian Embassy in New Delhi. The Rock Garden is a favourite example of outsider or self-taught art in general knowledge papers.