Geography (incl. West Bengal): previous-year questions

Answer: (C) Krishnanagar

The Tropic of Cancer ($23^\circ 26'$ N, roughly $23.5^\circ$ N) crosses West Bengal through Purulia, Bankura, Bardhaman and Nadia, passing just north of Krishnanagar (about $23.4^\circ$ N), which makes it the closest of the four towns. Durgapur (about $23.5^\circ$ N) is also near the line but slightly farther from it, Baharampur lies well to the north (about $24.1^\circ$ N) and Chandannagar well to the south (about $22.9^\circ$ N). The Tropic passes through eight Indian states from west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram; the Mahi is the only Indian river that crosses it twice.

Answer: (A) Andaman

The Jarawas are a Negrito hunter-gatherer tribe living on the western side of South and Middle Andaman; the Andaman Trunk Road runs along their reserve. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have six Scheduled Tribes, five of them Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups: the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese (Negrito groups of the Andamans) and the Shompen (a Mongoloid group of Great Nicobar), besides the Nicobarese. Majuli (B) is the Brahmaputra river island of Assam, home of the Mising tribe and of Vaishnavite satras; Sagar (C) is the island in South 24 Parganas where the Gangasagar Mela is held; Lakshadweep (D) has a largely Muslim Scheduled Tribe population.

Answer: (A) Alipurduar district

The Totos live almost entirely in Totopara, a village near Madarihat in Alipurduar district, beside the Torsa river and the Bhutan border, on the edge of Jaldapara National Park. Numbering only about 1,600, they are among India's smallest tribes; their Tibeto-Burman language got its own script through Dhaniram Toto (Padma Shri, 2023). West Bengal has three Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups: Toto (Alipurduar), Birhor (Purulia) and Lodha (Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur). Alipurduar became the state's 20th district on 25 June 2014, carved out of Jalpaiguri. The districts in options B, C and D are home to Santhal, Munda, Lodha and Sabar communities but not the Totos.

Answer: (A) the number of females per 1000 males.

The Census of India defines sex ratio as the number of females per 1,000 males, so option A is correct. Census 2011 figures: India 943, Kerala highest at 1,084, Haryana lowest among states at 879, and West Bengal 950. Option C resembles the child sex ratio, which is girls per 1,000 boys in the 0-6 age group (919 for India in 2011); option B is closer to a fertility measure; and option D is just a difference in numbers. Note that the UN and many countries express sex ratio the other way round, as males per 100 females. Laws to link: the PCPNDT Act, 1994 and the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme (2015).

Answer: (C) Mangrove forest as found in Sunderbans

Per hectare, mangroves store more carbon than any land forest, typically three to five times as much, because besides the trees themselves their waterlogged, oxygen-poor mud locks away large amounts of organic carbon to a depth of several metres. This is called 'blue carbon'. So the Sundarbans mangrove outranks the dry sal forest of Paschim Medinipur, the moist deciduous forest of Buxa and the temperate evergreen forest of Lava. Exam links: blue carbon ecosystems are mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows; the Indian Sundarbans is a National Park, World Heritage Site (1987), Biosphere Reserve and Ramsar site (2019); West Bengal has the largest mangrove cover in India (over 40% of the total), followed by Gujarat; the MISHTI scheme (Budget 2023) promotes mangrove plantation.

Answer: (C) Ramsar Site

The East Kolkata Wetlands, about 12,500 hectares of sewage-fed fish ponds (bheris), farms and garbage gardens on the eastern edge of the city, were declared a Ramsar site (Wetland of International Importance) on 19 August 2002. Known as the 'kidneys of Kolkata', they treat much of the city's wastewater naturally while producing fish and vegetables; ecologist Dhrubajyoti Ghosh brought them to notice, and they are protected by the East Kolkata Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Act, 2006. West Bengal's second Ramsar site is the Sundarban Wetland (2019), the largest in India. The Ramsar Convention was signed in Iran in 1971 and India joined in 1982; World Wetlands Day is 2 February. West Bengal's World Heritage Sites (option B) are Sundarbans National Park, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Santiniketan.

Answer: (D) (I) and (III)

Only pairs I and III are right. Rihand Dam (Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar) is on the Rihand, a tributary of the Son, in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, and Rana Pratap Sagar Dam is on the Chambal at Rawatbhata, Rajasthan. Massanjore (Canada) Dam on the Mayurakshi stands in Dumka district of Jharkhand, although it was built with Canadian aid in 1955 mainly to irrigate Birbhum and is operated by West Bengal, a favourite trap in WBCS papers. Hirakud, the world's longest earthen dam, is on the Mahanadi near Sambalpur in Odisha, not Chhattisgarh. Chambal project sequence: Gandhi Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Rana Pratap Sagar, Jawahar Sagar and Kota Barrage (Rajasthan).

Answer: (A) Kandla — Maharashtra

Kandla, officially Deendayal Port since 2017, lies on the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat, not Maharashtra; it is a tidal port developed after Partition to make up for the loss of Karachi. The other pairs are correct: Paradip (Odisha, near the mouth of the Mahanadi), Tuticorin, now V.O. Chidambaranar Port (Tamil Nadu), and Cochin, a natural harbour on the Vembanad backwaters (Kerala). Maharashtra's major ports are Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru Port (Nhava Sheva), with Vadhavan approved as a new major port. West Bengal has the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (Kolkata-Haldia), India's only riverine major port.

Answer: (A) Murshidabad

Murshidabad is the historic home of Bengal's silk industry: mulberry silkworm rearing and reeling around Kasimbazar, Jiaganj and Islampur, which drew the English, Dutch and French trading companies in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Baluchari sari originated at Baluchar in Murshidabad (it is woven today mainly at Bishnupur in Bankura), and Malda is the state's other big producer of mulberry raw silk. The distractors are known for other things: Purulia for lac, tasar and Chhau masks; Nadia (Shantipur, Phulia) for cotton handloom 'tant' saris; and Howrah for engineering and jute. Karnataka is India's leading silk-producing state.

Answer: (B) Frezerganj

West Bengal's wind energy demonstration project was set up at Frazerganj on the Bay of Bengal coast in Namkhana block, South 24 Parganas, by the state renewable energy agency WBREDA; the place is named after Sir Andrew Fraser, a Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Sagar Island nearby is known for its solar and wind-diesel hybrid systems. Bakkhali (A) is the adjoining beach resort, Digha (C) is the seaside resort of Purba Medinipur and Haldia (D) is the port and petrochemical centre. Nationally, wind power is concentrated in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (the Muppandal wind farm near Kanyakumari).

Answer: (B) Cauvery (Kaveri)

Both dams are on the Kaveri. Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) Dam is in Mandya district near Mysuru, Karnataka, built between 1911 and 1931 under engineer M. Visvesvaraya, with the Brindavan Gardens below it; Mettur Dam (Stanley Reservoir) is in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, completed in 1934. The Kaveri rises at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri hills of Kodagu, forms the Shivanasamudra falls and builds a fertile delta around Thanjavur before entering the Bay of Bengal. Dams on the other rivers: Krishna, Nagarjuna Sagar, Srisailam and Almatti; Mahanadi, Hirakud; Godavari, Jayakwadi and Polavaram. The name 'Krishna Raja' refers to the Mysore ruler Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, not the river Krishna.

Answer: (B) Main Central Thrust

The Main Central Thrust (MCT) is the great fault along which the crystalline rocks of the Greater Himalaya (Himadri) have been pushed over the Lesser Himalaya (Himachal). The Himalayan divisions and their boundaries from north to south: Trans-Himalaya, Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone, Greater Himalaya, MCT, Lesser Himalaya, Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), Shiwalik, Main Frontal Thrust (MFT, also called the Himalayan Frontal Fault), and the Ganga plain. So option A divides the Lesser Himalaya from the Shiwaliks and option D divides the Shiwaliks from the plains. 'Main Mantle Thrust' (C) is not a boundary within the Indian Himalayan sequence.

Answer: (A) A valley between Lesser Himalaya and Shivalik

A 'dun' (doon) is a flat-floored longitudinal valley lying between the Lesser Himalaya and the Shiwalik range. Duns formed when the rising Shiwaliks blocked rivers and created temporary lakes, which later filled with gravel and alluvium and drained; so option D describes how a dun originated, but the word itself means the valley, option A. Examples: Dehra Dun (the largest), Patli Dun and Kotli Dun; the corresponding features in the eastern Himalaya are called 'duars' (Dooars of North Bengal and Assam). Dehradun is the winter capital of Uttarakhand, Gairsain (Bhararisain) being the summer capital.

Answer: (B) Jalpaiguri

Jalpaiguri town stands on the Teesta, and the smaller Karala (Karola) river flows through the middle of the town before joining the Teesta; it is fondly called the 'Thames of Jalpaiguri'. The other towns: Malda (English Bazar) is on the Mahananda, Baharampur on the Bhagirathi, and Darjeeling on a hill ridge with no river flowing through it. More West Bengal town-river pairs for revision: Siliguri, Mahananda; Cooch Behar, Torsa; Alipurduar, Kaljani; Balurghat, Atrai; Raiganj, Kulik; Krishnanagar, Jalangi; Suri, Mayurakshi; Bankura, Gandheswari and Dwarakeswar; Medinipur, Kangsabati; Durgapur and Asansol, Damodar.

Answer: (C) Only three

PSC's final answer key gives (C), 'Only three'. Two pairs are beyond doubt: sal (Shorea robusta) is the dominant natural tree of the lateritic forests of Bankura, and sundari (Heritiera fomes) is the mangrove that gives the Sundarbans of South 24 Parganas its name. Pine, however, is naturally a tree of the Darjeeling-Kalimpong hills and not of the Cooch Behar plains, and the baobab (Adansonia) is an African species found in India only as an introduced tree, so by standard forest geography only two pairs look correct; the PSC has not said which third pair it accepts. For revision: North Bengal plains, sal, sissoo, khair and simul; hills, oak, pine, rhododendron and magnolia; Sundarbans, sundari, garan, gewa, keora and hental; coastal Purba Medinipur, casuarina (jhau).

Answer: (A) Ten Degree Channel

The Ten Degree Channel, about 150 km wide and lying along $10^\circ$ N latitude, separates the Andaman group (Little Andaman) from the Nicobar group (Car Nicobar). Other channels to remember: Duncan Passage, between South Andaman and Little Andaman; Coco Channel, between North Andaman and Myanmar's Coco Islands; the Great Channel (Six Degree Channel), between Great Nicobar and Sumatra; the Eight Degree Channel, between Minicoy and the Maldives; and the Nine Degree Channel, between Minicoy and the rest of Lakshadweep. Options B and D are not real channels. Related facts: Saddle Peak is the highest point of the islands, Indira Point the southernmost tip of India, and Barren Island India's only active volcano.

Answer: (B) Alipurduar district

Jaldapara National Park, on the flood plain of the Torsa river with its entry point at Madarihat, lies in Alipurduar district, the district carved out of Jalpaiguri on 25 June 2014; older books place it in Jalpaiguri, which is the basis of the distractors. A wildlife sanctuary since 1941 and a national park since 2012, it holds the largest population of the one-horned rhinoceros in West Bengal and the second largest in India after Kaziranga. West Bengal's six national parks: Sundarban (South 24 Parganas), Singalila (Darjeeling), Neora Valley (Kalimpong), Gorumara (Jalpaiguri), Buxa (Alipurduar) and Jaldapara (Alipurduar).

Answer: (B) K2

K2 (Godwin-Austen, 8,611 m), the second highest mountain in the world, stands in the Karakoram Range in Gilgit-Baltistan, not in the Himalaya; the Karakoram, with the Ladakh and Zaskar ranges, belongs to the Trans-Himalaya and contains the Siachen and Baltoro glaciers. The other three are Himalayan peaks: Kangchenjunga (8,586 m, on the Sikkim-Nepal border), the third highest in the world and the highest peak in India; Nanda Devi (7,816 m, Uttarakhand), the highest peak lying wholly within India; and Kamet (7,756 m, Garhwal, Uttarakhand). Mount Everest (8,849 m) is on the Nepal-China border.

Answer: (C) Eastern part of Peninsular India

From October to December the south-west monsoon withdraws from North India. The retreating winds, now blowing from the north-east, pick up moisture over the Bay of Bengal and bring rain to the eastern side of the Peninsula: the Tamil Nadu (Coromandel) coast, southern Andhra Pradesh and the adjoining interior. Tamil Nadu receives about half of its annual rainfall in this season, which is also the season of Bay of Bengal cyclones. North-west India (A) gets its winter rain from western disturbances; the North-East (B) receives its heavy rain from the Bay of Bengal branch of the advancing monsoon; and the western coast (D) is drenched by the Arabian Sea branch from June to September. West Bengal's pre-monsoon thunderstorms are the Kalbaisakhi (Nor'westers).

Answer: (D) Manas Biosphere Reserve

Manas is in Assam, along the Bhutan border: a National Park, Tiger Reserve, Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site (1985), known for the pygmy hog, golden langur and Bengal florican. The other three are in the hills and Dooars of North Bengal: Singalila National Park in Darjeeling district (Sandakphu, the highest point of West Bengal, and the red panda); Chapramari Wildlife Sanctuary in Jalpaiguri district near Gorumara; and Namthing Pokhari near Kurseong, a Biodiversity Heritage Site protecting the Himalayan salamander. West Bengal's only biosphere reserve is the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve (1989).