BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 98 of 144

Correct — B, Baghelkhand. Two lines are named and each has an exact value you can put on a map. The Tropic of Cancer is the parallel of 23°26′ N — the northern limit of the overhead Sun, rounded to 23°30′ in most textbooks. The Indian Standard Time line is the meridian of 82°30′ E, chosen because 82.5 ÷ 15 gives IST its clean UTC+05:30 offset, and it is the meridian conventionally said to pass through Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. Their intersection is therefore a single point at roughly 23°26′ N, 82°30′ E, and that point falls in Sonhat tahsil of Koriya district in northern Chhattisgarh — the Koriya upland that forms the south-eastern shoulder of the Baghelkhand plateau. The safer exam route reaches the same place without pinpointing anything, because only one of the three plateaus offered extends far enough east. Follow the IST meridian south from Mirzapur (25°09′ N, 82°30′ E): it leaves Uttar Pradesh at about 24°40′ N, runs the whole length of Singrauli district in eastern Madhya Pradesh, and crosses into Koriya district of Chhattisgarh near 23°48′ N — Baghelkhand country the entire way. Sonbhadra and Sidhi are often put on this list and neither belongs: Sonbhadra lies east of the meridian and Sidhi west of Singrauli, so the line passes between them. Now run the Tropic of Cancer eastward: at about 75°48′ E it is in Ujjain district in the heart of Malwa, at 77° E in Shajapur, at 78°30′ E in Raisen, at 80° E in Jabalpur, at 81° E in Umaria — a Baghelkhand district — and at 82° E in Manendragarh-Chirimiri-Bharatpur in northern Chhattisgarh. The two traverses converge in one region only. The asymmetry between the two lines is worth carrying on its own, because it is what makes the question answerable. The Tropic of Cancer crosses eight states; the IST meridian crosses five — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh — going Mirzapur, Singrauli, Koriya, Janjgir-Champa, Mahasamund, Gariaband, Nabarangapur, Koraput, Alluri Sitharama Raju and Kakinada before it leaves the coast into the Bay of Bengal near 17° N. It touches neither Jharkhand nor West Bengal, both of which the Tropic does cross. The two lists overlap in exactly two states, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, so the crossing has to be in one of them; it falls in Chhattisgarh, in Koriya, roughly 40 km south of the Madhya Pradesh border. Where the medium confidence sits: no official document publishes "the plateau on which the Tropic and the IST line cross". The crossing itself lies in Koriya, and the cultural region of Baghelkhand, defined by Bagheli speech and usually listed as Rewa, Satna, Sidhi, Singrauli, Shahdol, Umaria, Anuppur, Maihar and Mauganj in Madhya Pradesh with Sonbhadra and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh, does not formally include a Chhattisgarh district. Physiographically the same plateau continues south-east into Koriya and Surguja, and a question that asks about a plateau is asking for the physiographic reading. On that reading (b) is secure, and it has no rival: Bundelkhand's eastern edge is more than 150 km west of the crossing, and Malwa's Tropic crossing near Ujjain is close to 700 km west.

• (a)Bundelkhand — Bundelkhand lies roughly between 78° and 81° E and 24° and 26° N — Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Mahoba and Banda in Uttar Pradesh, Datia, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur, Panna, Sagar and Damoh in Madhya Pradesh — and it fails on both coordinates at once. Its eastern edge stops well short of 82°30′ E, and it sits almost wholly north of 23°26′ N, so the Tropic never enters it: carry the Tropic east at Bundelkhand's own longitude of 78°30′ E and you are in Raisen district, south of the region altogether. This is the trap for the candidate who files Bundelkhand under "central Indian plateau" without ever fixing it on a grid.
• (c)Malwa — Malwa is the volcanic upland of west-central Madhya Pradesh and south-eastern Rajasthan, north of the Vindhya Range, averaging about 500 m and drained by the Mahi, the Chambal and the headwaters of the Betwa. Its meridians run about 74° to 78° E. The Tropic of Cancer genuinely does cross it — through Ujjain district, near 75°48′ E — and Ujjain's association with the Tropic is well enough known to make this option feel right. But the IST meridian is roughly 700 km further east; the two lines cannot meet anywhere in Malwa.
• (d)None of the above — This would be correct only if the crossing fell outside all three plateaus, and it does not. At 23°26′ N, 82°30′ E the point lies in the Koriya upland of northern Chhattisgarh — the south-eastern continuation of the same plateau that carries the IST meridian down from Mirzapur through Singrauli. The only ground for choosing (d) is to insist on the narrow cultural definition of Baghelkhand as a Bagheli-speaking district list, which is not what a question about a plateau is asking for.

Two of the most heavily used reference lines on any map of India are one parallel and one meridian, and both have values worth memorising to the minute. The Tropic of Cancer is 23°26′ N, the latitude at which the Sun stands overhead at the June solstice and the northern boundary of the tropics; Indian textbooks conventionally round it to 23°30′. It crosses eight states, west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram. The Indian Standard Time line is 82°30′ E, adopted because it converts to an exact 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich, and it is identified with Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. The three plateaus in the options all belong to the Central Highlands, the northern block of the Peninsular plateau, and they lie in a west-to-east row: Malwa, a Deccan-basalt upland averaging about 500 m; Bundelkhand, an ancient granite and gneiss surface between the Yamuna and the Vindhyas; and Baghelkhand in the east, limestone and sandstone in its western part and granite in the east, threaded in the north by the Son — the river that gives Sonbhadra district its name.

This looks like a memory item and is really a coordinate problem, so solve it as one. Fix the two lines — 23°26′ N and 82°30′ E — and then ask which plateau contains that longitude, because longitude alone settles the question. Malwa spans roughly 74° to 78° E, Bundelkhand roughly 78° to 81° E, and Baghelkhand roughly 80° to 83° E. Only the third reaches the IST meridian, and that single test is the discriminating one; it is far more reliable than trying to recall a crossing point you have probably never been taught. A second, faster version of the same test is to compare state lists rather than longitudes. The Tropic crosses eight states and the IST meridian five, and the two lists share only Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Malwa is entirely in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan but sits far west of 82°30′ E; Bundelkhand straddles Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh is on the meridian's list but not the Tropic's. Baghelkhand is the only one of the three that spans the Madhya Pradesh–Chhattisgarh boundary the crossing actually falls on. The latitude test then confirms the result and kills the two rivals for a second, independent reason. Bundelkhand lies between about 24° and 26° N, entirely north of the Tropic, so the Tropic does not cross it at all — at Bundelkhand's longitudes the Tropic is already down in Raisen or Umaria. Malwa does meet the Tropic, at Ujjain, and that pairing is famous enough to be a trap in its own right, but Ujjain sits at 75°48′ E. Baghelkhand is the only region satisfying both conditions. The rule of thumb worth carrying is the west-to-east order of the Central Highlands — Malwa, Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand — and the fact that only the last of the three is an eastern-meridian region.

• The Tropic of Cancer lies at 23°26′ N (rounded to 23°30′ in Indian textbooks) and crosses eight states west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram
• The Indian Standard Time line is 82°30′ E, which yields IST's UTC+05:30 offset (82.5 ÷ 15 = 5 hours 30 minutes) and passes through Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, at 25°09′ N
• The two lines cross at approximately 23°26′ N, 82°30′ E — inside Sonhat tahsil of Koriya district in northern Chhattisgarh, on the south-eastern shoulder of the Baghelkhand plateau
• Approximate longitudinal spans in the Central Highlands: Malwa about 74°–78° E, Bundelkhand about 78°–81° E, Baghelkhand about 80°–83° E — only Baghelkhand reaches the IST meridian
• Running the Tropic of Cancer eastward across Madhya Pradesh: Ujjain district (Malwa) near 75°48′ E, Raisen district near 78°30′ E, Umaria district (Baghelkhand) at 81° E, Manendragarh in Chhattisgarh at 82° E
• Baghelkhand's core districts are Rewa, Satna, Sidhi, Singrauli, Shahdol, Umaria, Anuppur, Maihar and Mauganj in Madhya Pradesh plus Sonbhadra and Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh; the plateau continues physiographically into Koriya and Surguja in Chhattisgarh
• The 82°30′ E meridian crosses five states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh — running Mirzapur, Singrauli, Koriya, Janjgir-Champa, Mahasamund, Gariaband, Nabarangapur, Koraput, Alluri Sitharama Raju and Kakinada before entering the Bay of Bengal near 17° N; it touches neither Jharkhand nor West Bengal, so its state list overlaps the Tropic's in only Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh
• The Tropic of Cancer's true present value is about 23°26′09″ N and it is creeping south by roughly 0.47 arcsecond a year as the Earth's axial tilt decreases — so the textbook 23°30′ now sits about 7 km north of the real line, which is far too small a difference to move this answer out of Koriya
• Indian Standard Time is maintained by CSIR–National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, the National Metrology Institute of India, which generates and disseminates the national time scale for the 82°30′ E meridian
• Malwa averages about 500 m in elevation, is built on Deccan basalt north of the Vindhya Range, and is drained by the Mahi, the Chambal and the headwaters of the Betwa, Dhasan and Ken

• Assuming the Tropic of Cancer crosses Bundelkhand. Bundelkhand lies between about 24° and 26° N — entirely north of 23°26′ — so it never touches the Tropic.
• Pairing the Tropic with Ujjain and stopping there. Ujjain is genuinely on the Tropic, but at 75°48′ E it is nearly 700 km from the IST meridian, and this question needs both lines.
• Treating 82°30′ E as a central-India meridian. It is an eastern one — Mirzapur, Singrauli, Koriya, Koraput — and it runs east of every part of Malwa and Bundelkhand.
• Adding Sonbhadra or Sidhi to the meridian's traverse. Sonbhadra lies east of 82°30′ E and Sidhi west of Singrauli; the line runs between them, straight from Mirzapur into Singrauli.

BPSC turns coordinate geometry into named-region recall: it gives two reference lines and asks for the plateau, district or state where they meet, and it expects the Tropic and the standard meridian to be memorised to the minute. UPSC does the same work in a softer form — "which city is nearest to the Tropic of Cancer" (2003), "the latitudes that pass through Sikkim also pass through" (2010) — testing whether you can lay a coordinate line across the map rather than whether you can name a plateau. Fix 23°26′ N and 82°30′ E in memory and both styles reduce to arithmetic.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Tropic of Cancer passes through how many Indian States?

  • (a)Six
  • (b)Seven
  • (c)Eight
  • (d)Nine

  Answer(c) Eight — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram, running west to east.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The standard meridian of India, 82°30′ E, is conventionally said to pass through which one of the following towns?

  • (a)Mirzapur
  • (b)Prayagraj
  • (c)Nagpur
  • (d)Bhopal

  Answer(a) Mirzapur, in Uttar Pradesh, at about 25°09′ N. Prayagraj lies near 81°50′ E, Nagpur near 79°05′ E and Bhopal near 77°25′ E — all west of the standard meridian.