Indigo cultivation in India declined by the beginning of the 20th century because of

The correct answer is D, Kadambas. The Chalukyas of Badami began as feudatories of the Kadambas of Banavasi and broke away as the Kadamba power declined. Pulakeshin I, who ruled in the middle of the sixth century, made Badami, also called Vatapi, his fortified capital, performed the Ashvamedha sacrifice and is counted the first independent Chalukya ruler. The dynasty reached its height under Pulakeshin II, who defeated Harshavardhana on the Narmada and whose court poet Ravikirti wrote the Aihole inscription. A is wrong because the Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra rose much later, around the eleventh and twelfth centuries. B is wrong because the Pandyas of Madurai ruled the far south and were never overlords of Badami. C is wrong because the Pallavas of Kanchi were rivals, not masters, though Narasimhavarman I did sack Badami in 642 CE. Exam tip: link Kadambas of Banavasi to the rise of the Badami Chalukyas under Pulakeshin I.

The correct answer is C, Chalukya - Tanjore. Tanjore, or Thanjavur, was the capital of the Cholas and not of the Chalukyas, so this pair is wrongly matched. The Chalukyas of Badami ruled from Badami, also called Vatapi, in present-day Bagalkot district of Karnataka, and their later branch ruled from Kalyani. Tanjore became famous under Rajaraja Chola I, who built the Brihadeeswara temple there around 1010 CE. A is correctly matched because the Gurjara-Pratiharas ruled from Kannauj, which they won in the long tripartite struggle against the Palas and the Rashtrakutas. B is correctly matched because Kanchi, or Kanchipuram, was the Pallava capital and their temple-building centre. D is correctly matched because the Sena rulers of Bengal had their capital at Lakhnauti, also known as Gauda. Exam tip: fix the pairs Badami with Chalukyas, Tanjore with Cholas, Kanchi with Pallavas and Madurai with Pandyas.

The correct answer is D, Neolithic. Piklihal and Utnur are South Indian Neolithic settlements, famous for the ash mounds their cattle-keeping people left behind. Piklihal lies in Karnataka and Utnur in Telangana, and both were excavated in the 1950s. Their people tamed cattle, used polished stone axes and handmade grey pottery and lived in circular huts, which places them in the Deccan Neolithic phase of roughly 2500 to 1000 BCE. The ash mounds are the burnt remains of heaped cow dung from cattle pens, a feature almost unique to this region. A is wrong because monolithic simply means made of a single large stone and is not an archaeological period. B is wrong because megalithic sites are later burial sites marked by large stones, mostly belonging to the Iron Age. C is wrong because Palaeolithic sites are far older hunting camps with rough unpolished tools and no sign of herding. Exam tip: remember Piklihal, Utnur, Maski, Brahmagiri and Sanganakallu together as the Deccan Neolithic ash-mound sites.

The correct answer is A, 1 and 2 only. The Act of 1813 broke the Company's trade monopoly and asserted the Crown's sovereignty, but left the revenues where they were, so the first two statements stand and the third does not. The Act came at the height of the free trade campaign in Britain: it threw the India trade open to all British merchants, keeping the monopoly only in tea and in the China trade, which was ended by the Charter Act of 1833. It also declared in plain words that the Crown held sovereignty over the Indian territories the Company governed, and it set aside one lakh rupees a year for education and allowed missionaries into India. Statement 3 is wrong because the Company continued to control and spend Indian revenues; Parliament supervised through the Board of Control rather than taking the purse. B and D are wrong because each includes statement 3. C is wrong for the same reason and also drops statement 2. Exam tip: 1813 opened trade except tea and China; 1833 ended the monopoly altogether.

The correct answer is D, neither 1 nor 2. Both statements describe the two offices wrongly, so neither can be accepted. A jagir was an assignment of the land revenue of a tract, given to a mansabdar in place of a cash salary for military and administrative service, not for judicial and police duty; the holder collected the revenue due and kept troops from it. Jagirs were transferable and were shifted every three or four years so that no noble struck roots in one district, and they lapsed to the emperor on the holder's death, so statement 1 is wrong. A zamindar, by contrast, held a hereditary right in the soil of his locality, collected revenue from the peasants and passed on the state's share while keeping a commission called nankar, so the hereditary part of statement 2 is exactly reversed. A, B and C are wrong because each accepts at least one of these two flawed statements. Exam tip: jagir was transferable and not hereditary, zamindari was hereditary and rooted in the locality.