Indian States Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ernakulam

Kerala, which is perhaps the only Indian state to have Human Development Indices comparable to those of Western nations, also boasts of a 90% plus level of literacy. With its lagoons, idyllic beaches and lush paddy fields, it is often called "God's own country" and attracts a lot of tourists year round. Yet, it also suffers from high suicide rates, unemployment and a low economic growth, which is stymied by militant trade-unionism.

However, Ernakulam district in Kerala, will always carry with it the tag of first fully literate district in India, and that is some hope for the future.

Answer: Hoysalas

The Hoysalas, were centred in Belur, in what is now Karnataka, while all the others had capitals in what is now Tamil Nadu state. The Pallavas had their capital in Kanchi, the Pandyas in Madurai and the Cholas were also located in Tamil Nadu, but had their capitals at varius places. Tamil Nadu is famous for everything from the finest silks to the best in automobile engineering. Weavers in the city of Kanchipuram turn out some of India's best silks, 16 yards of which, can even fit into a matchbox.

At the same time, Ford, GM, and Japanese companies, flock to the TV Sundaram company to purchase auto parts, which are considered among the best in the world. Tamil Nadu is also the place where a movie actor, his wife, his co-starring actress in a lot of his movies, and the scriptwriter of most of his movies, have all become Chief Ministers of the State, at one point or another in the state's history.

Answer: Hills

The name Karnataka, comes from the word "Karu-nadu" in the local tongue, Kannada, which means, "hilly land". Karnataka, itself is composed of three distinct regions, the Coastal, Southern and Northern regions, each of which bear a distinct identity, under the common Kannadiga identity. Northern Karnataka, is more influenced by Maratha and Hyderabadi culture, whereas Southern Karnataka, is more influenced by Tamil and Andhra culture. Coastal Karnataka is quite unique its own way from the other two regions. Karnataka, of late, has become well known as the IT hub of India.

This is mainly because of the plethora of IT, Bio-tech and BPO companies which are clustered around the city of Bangalore, giving it the nick-name of "Silicon Plateau". Bangalore also is probably the only city in India to have entered English lexicon in two different ways, namely the "Bangalore Torpedo", used by engineers to destroy fortifications, and of late, as a pseudonym for having lost one's job to outsourcing, i.e., "being Bangalored".

Answer: no

With a coastline of around 1500 miles, Andhra Pradesh does have one of the longest coastlines for the states in India, but the longest belongs to Gujarat. Andhra Pradesh, like Karnataka, is composed of three distinct regions, Telengana, to the north, Rayalseema in the south and Coastal Andhra. Andhra Pradesh, like Karnataka, was created out of parts of independent princely states, and the British provinces of Bombay and Madras.Andhra Pradesh is well known for its spicy food, and also the Hyderabadi Biriyani which attracts food lovers from across the world.

A small note of caution: Andhra food, vegetarian or otherwise, is spicy enough to cause your hair to burn on contact with your tongue;). Its capital Hyderabad, is second only to Bangalore in terms of IT development, and was also home to the richest man in the world till the forties, the Nizam of Hyderabad.

Answer: Bhubaneshwar

Bhubaneshwar, pronounced as Bhuvaneshwar, is the capital of one of India's most impoverished states. Orissa, however, is rich in the cultural and historical sense, having several beautiful temples and other monuments which bring lots of tourism money.

A must see is the Sun Temple at Konark, which is built in the shape of the chariot of the Sun-God, with 24 wheels and 7 stone horses. Orissa is also the home of Asia's largest fresh water lagoon, Chilka lake, home to a breathtaking variety of fish and birds. Chandipur, a seaside town, is also only a few miles away from India's missile testing range, where all the latest missiles in India's armoury are tested by the military.

Answer: Tata

Jamshedji Naoriji Tata, was a visionary to say the least, and the city of Jamshedpur, which is also home to the huge Tata Iron and Steel Co. Plant, is an apt tribute for the builder of one of India's largest business empires. Jharkhand was created out of the southern districts of Bihar state, with its capital at Ranchi, as it was primarily a tribal area, but very rich in mineral resources.

It teems with coal and iron deposits, which have been mined since ancient times, apart from other deposits of manganese, bauxite, etc.

Answer: jute

The jute fibre is very important to the packaging industry all over the world, for its strength, cost factor, durability and environmental friendliness. Bengal, undivided, was the world's largest grower and supplier of jute in the world, but upon Partition, the jute-fields went to the then East Pakistan, while the mills stayed in India. Kolkata, or Calcutta as it is better known, is the capital of West Bengal and one of the largest cities in India.

It is also the only one to have an underground railway and tram system in the country. West Bengal, like Kerala, was ruled predominantly by the Leftist parties, whose policies till recently nearly killed all industrial activity in the state, before wiser counsel prevailed and economic development picked up pace in the state.

The village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, was also the site of an armed peasant rebellion against the upper castes, which gave rise to the word naxalism, which is used to describe such movements across the country.

Answer: Bangladesh

Sikkim, India's smallest state, till Delhi was given statehood, is tucked away in the Himalayas, between Nepal, China and Bhutan, with only a slender sliver of land connecting it to India. Sikkim was given statehood only in 1989, and till recently was a cause for dispute between India and China, over India's claim to it. Recent talks have seen tacit recognition of Indian suzeranity over Sikkim, in return for India's recognition of Tibet as a part of China. Sikkim is also one of the most economically developed states in India; its low population growth rate and scenic landscape being definite bonuses. Sikkim is also the home of India's football captain, Baichung Bhutia.

Answer: Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh, with 84,000 sq km in area, is the largest of the 7 north eastern states, followed by Assam. Arunachal Pradesh, is also a bone of contention between India and China, though efforts are on to try and solve the dispute right now. It attained statehood in 1987, and has its capital at Itanagar. Like the other North Eastern states, it lies at the foothills of the Himalayas, and hence is mostly hilly and forest covered.

Answer: Brahmaputra

The river, Brahmaputra, whose name literally means, son of Bramha the God of Creation in Hinduism, is also India's longest, though it flows most of its course in China. Assam has a long history and culture in the Indian subcontinent, and unlike most other northeastern states, has a predominantly Hindu population. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, Assamese separatists fought Indian troops in order to try and establish a separate country, but the insurrection has now wound down.

Answer: Meghalaya

The name itself is a dead give-away. Meghalaya means the land of the cloud, and this state gets a LOT of rain. The previous record was held by Cherrapunji which recieved an 1027 amazing inches of rain in a year, but the record was beaten by the nearby village of Mawsynram which got approximately 1100 inches of rain.

Answer: Portugal

Portugal was the first European country to colonize India, with the capture of Goa and, subsequently, Daman and Diu in the 16th century. Goa was retaken in 1957 by Indian forces in a more or less bloodless invasion, but it did cause a bit of an international uproar. Nonetheless, Goa is famous for its luxuriant beaches and friendly people.

Answer: Hill

Shivaji's campaign against the Mughals was coloured by his stance against what he believed was the invasion of the foreign, non-Hindu outsiders. Alone, of all peoples in India, the Marathas led by Shivaji would rally under a kind of primitive nationalism, which cut across the barriers of caste and class to fight the imperial invaders. Shivaji's campaign against the Muslim Bahmani kings and the imperial Mughals, is often seen as a the first religion based clash between Hindus and Muslims, but it must be remembered that Shivaji was ultimately defeated by a Hindu general, Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, who led the Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb's army against Shivaji. Shivaji also had a Turkish officer in charge of his artillery, like most of India's Hindu kings.

Answer: Death

Gandhi was born in the coastal city of Porbandar to Karamchand Gandhi and Putliba in 1869. He was married at the age of 14 (as was the custom then) to Kasturba, and went to England to pursue higher education in law. The rest of Gandhi's life, upon his return from England, is, of course the stuff of which legends are made of and are better documented elsewhere and in far greater detail.

His death, by an assassin's bullet, in the gardens of Birla House in Delhi, managed to do something which he had been trying in the last years of his life; end communal tension in the country. Gujarat, is also one of India's most prosperous state, and also the state of origin for the ubiquitous Patels, who are now spread across the globe from Newfoundland to Fiji, as Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and even parliamentarians, cricketers and artistes!

Answer: True

Madhya Pradesh, with an area, making it larger than France was also the fifth most populated state, before the state of Chattisgarh was carved out of it. MP has the largest forest cover in India and also is the home state of Bhopal, the site of the world's worst Industrial disaster, when a tank containing deadly Methyl Isocyanate in the Union Carbide plant in the city exploded, releasing a toxic cloud, which so far has claimed close to 40,000 lives and injured at least 200,000 more. For those interested in a moving account of this catastrophe, I would recommend Dominique Lapierre and Xavier Moro's "It was two past midnight...".

Answer: Bhilai

The town of Bhilai, (pop. 300,000 ) was virtually built from scratch for the steel plant and its workers and is one of the few well planned townships across the country. Its steel plant, constructed with Russian help, was hallmarked by the then PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, as one of India's "modern temples". Although its heydays are clearly over, the plant is still alive and kicking, mainly due to increased local and Chinese demand.
Chattisgarh (the 10th largest state) was created out of Madhya Pradesh.

Answer: Pataliputra

Pataliputra was the capital of the Mauryan Empire, which lasted from the 5th to the 3rd century BC. Founded by the maverick Chandragupta Maurya, aided by the wily Chanakya (to most Indians, Macchiavelli is a shameless plagiarizer of Chanakya's Arthshastra!), it saw a great age under the wise rule of Ashoka, one of the greatest rulers of India.
Jharkhand was carved out of the southern half of Bihar in November 2000.

Answer: Yamuna

Uttar Pradesh, is home to seven out thirteen Prime Ministers elected so far, and also has the largest population among the states. Its massive population actually goes further up once every twelve years when 10 million people and more congregate at Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela. Devout Hindus come from all over the country on this day, endure great hardship and much difficulty in order to take a dip in the holy waters, in the hope of breaking the cycle of Karma and becoming one with God.

Answer: Dehra Dun

Dehra Dun, a sleepy hill-station, is the capital of this state, which according to many studies, is one of the better socially and economically developed states in India. Most of its income comes from tourism and timber logging in the hilly slopes of the Shivalik.
The state of Uttaranchal was created in November 2000 (most of it carved out of the northern areas Uttar Pradesh).

Answer: Jammu

The entire state administration shifts to the winter capital of Srinagar in the cold months between November and April and shifts back in the summer, between May and October. The Kashmir dispute has its roots in a little dodgy cartography in the 1940s, and is too long to be discussed in one small section as this, and is better perhaps as the topic of a full length quiz ;)

Answer: Yamuna

The fiver rivers which gave Punjab its name are the Jhelum, Chenab, Beas, Ravi and Sutlej. As mentioned earlier, Punjab is considered the granary of India and it is one of the most fertile areas in the country. Along with Haryana, it also has the highest per capita GDP among all Indian states.

However, it is also plagued by a low sex ratio due to the preference for male children. Female foetuses are routinely aborted though such abortions are banned under law.

Answer: Haryana

Haryana, along with Punjab is one of India's most propsperous states and ,like Punjab, is primarily agricultural. Both the states share the same capital city, Chandigarh, easily one of India's best planned cities and by far its cleanest and best maintained as well. Haryana was carved out mainly of Punjab mainly to give the Hindu majority areas a separate identity from the Sikh majority areas in the erstwhile Punjab state. Haryana shares most of the characteristics of Punjab, both positive and negative along with a common High Court at Chandigarh as well.

Answer: 7

The city we now call Delhi has a history stretching back to the Vedic times where it is referred to as the capital of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata, Indraprastha. However, the seven cities most historians refer to are Quila Rai Pithora, Mehrauli, Siri, Tughlakabad, Firozabad, Shergarh and Shahjehabanad, built by various rulers from Prithviraj Chauhan to Shah Jahan of the Mughals, including such famous ones as Sher Shah Suri, Firozeshah Lodi among others.
(Official website of Delhi govt. www.delhigovt.nic.in)

Answer: Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Located in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands were originally a penal colony of Britain, infamous for the Cellular Jail, known to the inmates as kalapani or blackwater (In reference to the Hindu ban on travelling overseas or crossing the 'Black Waters'), the southernmost point on the peninsula, is Cape Comorin or Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu state, but the southernmost point for the whole of India is Indira Point in the Nicobar islands, which are closer to Malaysia than mainland India.

Answer: Karaikal

Karaikal is a Union Territory on the Eastern coast, whereas all the others ARE northeastern states. Manipur, which attained statehood in 1972, has its capital at Imphal and has of late been in the news for an uprising by the locals against abuses by Indian troops there. Like Assam it is also a Hindu-majority state with large tribal minorities. Mizoram, with its capital at Aizawl, also attained statehood in 1972, and claims one of the highest literacy rates among all Indian states at a stunning 90% of the population. Tripura, which borders Bangladesh on all sides, has its capital at Agartala. (http://www.dimdima.com/knowledge/state.asp)