Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Both shifts occurred.

The green revolution raised wheat and rice yields sharply, but the gains were concentrated in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, where irrigation was assured. Non-food crops also advanced, while the eastern regions, dependent on rainfall and with smaller holdings, largely missed the benefit - which widened regional inequality.

Answer: C

Mumbai is India's largest port.

It is a natural deep-water harbour sheltered by the mainland and the island, handling a large share of the country's general cargo. Jawaharlal Nehru Port across the bay was built to relieve it and now handles most container traffic.

Answer: C

Correct answer: The Thar, in Rajasthan

The Thar, or Great Indian Desert, lies chiefly in western Rajasthan and extends into Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab and across the border into Pakistan. It covers about 200,000 square kilometres. The other three deserts named are on other continents entirely: the Gobi in Mongolia and China, the Kalahari in southern Africa, and the Atacama in Chile. The Thar is unusual for being the most densely populated desert in the world, supporting pastoralism and, since the Indira Gandhi Canal brought Sutlej water south, irrigated agriculture. India does have a cold desert as well, in Ladakh and the Spiti valley of Himachal Pradesh, arid because it lies in the rain shadow of the Himalaya. A desert is defined by low precipitation rather than by heat, which is what admits it. The Thar holds the Desert National Park, refuge of the great Indian bustard, and India’s best conditions for solar and wind generation.

Answer: C

This zone is the pyrosphere.

Also called the mantle, it lies between the crust and the core, is about 2,880 km thick, and has an average density around 5.6. It is solid rock but deforms plastically over long periods, and its slow convection drives the movement of the plates above it.

Answer: B

Xinhua is the official news agency of China.

Founded in 1931 as the Red China News Agency, it is a state institution under the State Council and is both the country's largest news organisation and its principal channel for official announcements.

Answer: A

This is the river's catchment area, or drainage basin.

It is the whole area from which rain drains into a river and its tributaries, bounded by a divide or watershed along the surrounding high ground. The Ganga's catchment covers about a quarter of India's land area.

Answer: A

The Radcliffe Line is the boundary between India and Pakistan.

Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew it in five weeks in 1947, dividing Punjab and Bengal, and it was published on 17 August, two days after independence. He had never visited India before. The India-China boundary is the McMahon Line.

Answer: B

The Pochampad project lies on the Godavari.

Officially the Sri Ram Sagar project, it is in Nizamabad district of Telangana and irrigates a large part of the Telangana districts along the river.

Answer: B

It runs from the Rajmahal hills to a point near Delhi.

The northern edge of the peninsular block runs roughly north-west from the Rajmahal hills in Jharkhand, along the southern margin of the Ganga plain, to the Delhi ridge, which is the northernmost extension of the Aravallis.

Answer: A

This is Wien's displacement law.

\[\lambda_{max}T = b = 2.898\times10^{-3}\ \mathrm{m\,K}\] So the hotter a body, the shorter the wavelength at which it radiates most. It is why an iron heated in a fire glows red, then orange, then white, and why the sun's peak is in the visible while ours is in the infrared.