Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The USA leads in aluminium and aluminium products.

Although the bauxite is mined elsewhere - Australia and Guinea are the largest sources - smelting needs enormous quantities of electricity, so it concentrates where power is cheap and industry can absorb the metal.

Answer: B

The autumnal equinox falls on 23 September.

The sun is again overhead at the Equator, moving southward, and day and night are equal everywhere. It reaches the Tropic of Capricorn at the winter solstice on 22 December.

Answer: C

Both statements are true.

The Indian plate, drifting north after breaking from Gondwana, met the Eurasian plate roughly 45 to 50 million years ago. The sediments of the intervening Tethys Sea were crushed and folded upward, and the collision continues, which is why the Himalayas still rise by about a centimetre a year and the region is seismically active.

Answer: B

II and IV - afforestation and limiting shifting cultivation.

Tree roots bind the soil and the canopy breaks the force of rain, while shifting cultivation strips cover and leaves slopes bare. Crop rotation should be encouraged, not avoided, and chemical fertilisers do nothing for soil structure - overuse degrades it.

Answer: A

The Salal project is on the Chenab.

It is in Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir and was India's first hydroelectric project on the Chenab, commissioned in 1987. The Indus Waters Treaty allots the Chenab to Pakistan but permits India run-of-the-river schemes on it.

Answer: C

Delhi has the highest density among the Union Territories.

It records about 11,300 persons per sq km, against 9,250 for Chandigarh and 2,100 for Lakshadweep. Delhi's density is a consequence of its being effectively a single urban agglomeration.

Answer: A

Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie are in Australia.

They lie in Western Australia and were the sites of the gold rush of the 1890s. The Golden Mile at Kalgoorlie has been called the richest square mile of gold-bearing earth in the world, and the Super Pit still works there.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Rice

Rice is the principal kharif crop. Kharif crops are sown with the onset of the southwest monsoon in June and harvested in September and October, and they depend on the monsoon rain. The other kharif crops are maize, jowar, bajra, ragi, cotton, groundnut, soyabean, sugarcane and jute. Wheat, mustard and gram are all rabi crops, sown in October and November as the monsoon withdraws and harvested in March and April. They grow through the cool dry season on residual soil moisture, winter rain from western disturbances, and irrigation. Barley and peas belong to the same group. A third short season, zaid, runs between the two in the summer months and produces watermelon, cucumber and fodder entirely under irrigation. The names come from Arabic: kharif means autumn and rabi spring, each referring to the season of harvest rather than of sowing.

Answer: D

India occupies about 2.4 per cent of the world's land area.

Its 3.28 million sq km make it the seventh largest country, after Russia, Canada, the United States, China, Brazil and Australia - yet it supports about 17 per cent of the world's people.

Answer: A

Selvas are the dense tropical rain forests of South America.

The word is Portuguese and Spanish for forest, and refers to the Amazon basin. The forest is evergreen, multi-layered and extremely rich in species, growing where rainfall exceeds 200 cm and temperature stays near 27 °C all year.