Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: B

India's first atomic power plant is at Tarapur.

The Tarapur Atomic Power Station in Maharashtra was commissioned in 1969 with two American-built boiling water reactors, under an agreement with General Electric. Kalpakkam, commissioned in 1984, was the first built entirely to Indian design.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Assam

Assam is by a wide margin India’s largest tea-producing state, accounting for roughly half the national crop, and the Brahmaputra valley is the largest contiguous tea-growing region in the world. The conditions suit the plant exactly: heavy rainfall, high humidity, warm temperatures and well-drained alluvial soil on gently sloping land, since tea will not tolerate standing water at its roots. West Bengal is second, with the Darjeeling and Dooars districts, and Darjeeling tea - grown at altitude and giving a distinctive light liquor - holds a geographical indication. Tamil Nadu and Kerala follow, with the Nilgiris and Munnar. India is the world’s second largest producer after China and among the largest consumers, so a smaller share of its crop is exported than the figures might suggest. Commercial cultivation began in Assam in the 1830s, when the indigenous Camellia sinensis assamica was found growing wild there.

Answer: A

The Diesel Locomotive Works is at Varanasi.

Set up in 1961 with American collaboration, it built diesel-electric locomotives for the Indian Railways and for export. It has since been renamed Banaras Locomotive Works and now builds electric locomotives as well.

Answer: A

Bihar and Orissa are the richest in iron ore.

The Singhbhum-Keonjhar-Mayurbhanj belt straddling the two holds high-grade haematite of over 60 per cent iron, and feeds the steel plants at Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Rourkela. The Bihar portion has lain in Jharkhand since 2000.

Answer: D

Granite and basalt are igneous rocks.

Both solidify from molten material, and they differ only in where. Granite cools slowly at depth, so its crystals are large and visible; basalt cools quickly at the surface, so it is fine-grained. Granite is intrusive, basalt extrusive.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Wular Lake

Wular Lake in Jammu and Kashmir is the largest freshwater lake in India, fed by the Jhelum. It is a natural flood-absorption basin for the Kashmir valley and is designated a Ramsar site of international importance. The distractors are all significant lakes of other kinds, which is what makes the question worth care. Chilika in Odisha is the largest brackish water lagoon in India and the second largest coastal lagoon in the world, famous for its migratory birds and Irrawaddy dolphins. Vembanad in Kerala is the longest lake in India, part of the backwater system, and also brackish. Sambhar in Rajasthan is the largest inland saline lake and a major source of salt. Reading the qualifier - freshwater, saltwater, lagoon, longest, largest - is what separates these four, and examiners rely on it. Wular has shrunk considerably through siltation and encroachment.

Answer: C

The Yarlung Tsangpo is known in India as the Brahmaputra.

It rises near Mansarovar in Tibet and flows east for some 1,700 km before turning south through the Great Bend and entering Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang, becoming the Brahmaputra in Assam and the Jamuna in Bangladesh.

Answer: A

Gold is mined in Karnataka.

The Kolar Gold Fields worked for over a century until they closed in 2001, and Hutti in Raichur district is still producing. Karnataka accounts for almost all of India's very small domestic gold output; the country imports the great bulk of what it consumes.

Answer: C

Gneiss is a coarse-grained metamorphic rock.

It forms when granite or sedimentary rock is subjected to high temperature and pressure, and its light and dark minerals separate into alternating bands - the foliation that distinguishes it. The Dharwar gneisses of peninsular India are among the oldest rocks on earth.

Answer: A

All three statements are true.

Jhum is the shifting cultivation of the north-east, practised in Assam and the neighbouring hill states. The forest patch is cleared and burnt - hence 'slash and burn' - and the ash fertilises the soil. That fertility is exhausted in two or three years, so the plot is abandoned and another cleared.