On which date were the French settlements that form Puducherry transferred de facto to India?

The correct answer is C, Mahe. Mahe is the smallest of the four regions of Puducherry, about nine square kilometres on the Malabar coast, and it is completely surrounded by the Kannur district of Kerala. The Mahe river, also called the Mayyazhi, runs through it, and Malayalam is its official language. The French took it in 1725.

Option A, Karaikal, lies on the Coromandel coast and is surrounded by Tamil Nadu; the French acquired it in 1739. Option B, Yanam, is an enclave in the Godavari delta of Andhra Pradesh, where Telugu is the official language. Option D, Ariyankuppam, is not a separate region at all; it is a commune inside the Puducherry region itself, best known for the Arikamedu archaeological site beside it. The pairing worth memorising is Puducherry and Karaikal in Tamil Nadu, Yanam in Andhra Pradesh and Mahe in Kerala.

The correct answer is C, the Fourteenth Amendment Act, passed in 1962. It listed Pondicherry in the First Schedule as a union territory after the legal transfer from France, and inserted Article 239A, which empowers Parliament to create by law a legislature and a Council of Ministers for the territory. Parliament exercised that power through the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963.

Option A, the Seventh Amendment of 1956, gave effect to the States Reorganisation Act and redrew states on linguistic lines, which is why candidates confuse it with this one. Option B, the Twelfth Amendment of 1962, incorporated Goa, Daman and Diu into the Union after their liberation; the same year, a different amendment. Option D, the Thirty-sixth Amendment of 1975, made Sikkim a full state. Also keep Article 239A, for Puducherry, apart from Article 239AA, which the Sixty-ninth Amendment inserted for Delhi.

The correct answer is C, 1968. Auroville, the city of dawn, was inaugurated on 28 February 1968. It was founded by Mirra Alfassa, the French-born disciple of Sri Aurobindo whom followers call the Mother, and planned by the French architect Roger Anger as a township where people of every nation could live together; the Matrimandir stands at its centre.

Option A, 1926, is the year the Sri Aurobindo Ashram was founded in the town itself, a different institution that examiners pair with Auroville to create confusion. Option B, 1947, is Indian independence, which did not touch the French settlements. Option D, 1985, is the year Pondicherry University, a central university, was established. Remember the sequence: Aurobindo arrives in 1910, the Ashram in 1926, Auroville in 1968 and the university in 1985.

The correct answer is B, Andhra Pradesh. Yanam is a small region of about seventeen square kilometres in the delta of the Godavari, surrounded by Andhra Pradesh, and Telugu is its official language. The French held it from the eighteenth century until the transfer of 1954.

Option A, Odisha, is a common trap because it also lies on the eastern coast north of Andhra Pradesh, but no part of Puducherry falls in it. Option C, Telangana, was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 and is landlocked, so it could not contain a coastal delta enclave. Option D, Tamil Nadu, does surround two regions of the territory, Puducherry and Karaikal, but not Yanam. The complete list is worth repeating: Puducherry and Karaikal in Tamil Nadu, Yanam in Andhra Pradesh, Mahe in Kerala.

The correct answer is B, the Madras High Court. All four regions of Puducherry, including Mahe in Kerala and Yanam in Andhra Pradesh, come under the Madras High Court, which sits at Chennai. Article 241 of the Constitution lets Parliament extend the jurisdiction of a High Court to a union territory, and that is how the arrangement works.

Option A, the Kerala High Court, has jurisdiction over Kerala and over Lakshadweep, but not over Mahe, even though Mahe is physically inside Kerala, which makes this the most tempting distractor. Option C, the Andhra Pradesh High Court at Amaravati, covers only that state and not the Yanam enclave within it. Option D does not exist; Puducherry has no High Court of its own. Among the union territories only Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir have their own High Courts.