CDS (II) 2020 GK Q26: Which one of the following countries had chosen the name

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2020 GK Q26?

B. Correct — B, Bangladesh. Cyclones in the north Indian Ocean are named by the India Meteorological Department, which acts as the regional specialised meteorological centre for the basin, drawing from a list of names contributed in advance by the member countries of the regional panel. Nisarga was the name Bangladesh had contributed. The system formed as a low-pressure area over the eastern Arabian Sea on 31 May 2020, was named around noon on 2 June when it reached cyclonic storm strength, intensified into a severe cyclonic storm and made landfall near Alibag in Maharashtra at about half past twelve on 3 June with winds of 110 km per hour. It was the strongest June storm to hit Maharashtra since 1891 and the first to affect Raigad and Mumbai since Phyan in 2009.

CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 26 of 120

Question text verified against the official CDS question paper.

Which one of the following countries had chosen the name 'Nisarga' for the cyclone which devastated the coastline of Maharashtra and Gujarat in June 2020?

(a)Maldives
(b)Bangladesh
(c)Thailand
(d)Japan

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Bangladesh. Cyclones in the north Indian Ocean are named by the India Meteorological Department, which acts as the regional specialised meteorological centre for the basin, drawing from a list of names contributed in advance by the member countries of the regional panel. Nisarga was the name Bangladesh had contributed. The system formed as a low-pressure area over the eastern Arabian Sea on 31 May 2020, was named around noon on 2 June when it reached cyclonic storm strength, intensified into a severe cyclonic storm and made landfall near Alibag in Maharashtra at about half past twelve on 3 June with winds of 110 km per hour. It was the strongest June storm to hit Maharashtra since 1891 and the first to affect Raigad and Mumbai since Phyan in 2009.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Maldives — The Maldives is a member of the regional panel and contributes names, but not this one.
(c)Thailand — Also a panel member whose names appear in the north Indian Ocean list, but Nisarga is not among them.
(d)Japan — Japan is not in the north Indian Ocean naming panel at all. The Japan Meteorological Agency names storms in the western North Pacific, a different basin.

Concept

Naming a cyclone is an operational convenience: a short distinctive name travels through warnings, broadcasts and disaster messaging far more reliably than a technical designation. For the north Indian Ocean the names come from lists supplied by the countries of the region and are used in rotation, so the country that supplied a name is a matter of record rather than of the storm's track. In 2020 the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal were both unusually active, and Nisarga followed Cyclone Amphan, which had struck West Bengal barely a fortnight earlier.

The trap here is to reason from geography — Nisarga sounds Indian and hit Maharashtra, so a candidate may look for a country near the track. The naming list does not work that way, and the reliable elimination is Japan, which belongs to a different ocean basin altogether and therefore cannot have contributed to this list. Present-day position: cyclone naming in this basin continues on the same system, with a fresh list of names released in 2020 for use over the following years, so any question of this type is really asking whether you know that the contributing country and the affected country are unrelated.

Key facts

Nisarga formed as a low-pressure area over the eastern Arabian Sea on 31 May 2020 and was named on 2 June.
The name was contributed by Bangladesh; the India Meteorological Department assigns names for the north Indian Ocean.
Landfall was near Alibag, Maharashtra, at about 12.30 p.m. on 3 June 2020, with winds of 110 km per hour.
It was the strongest storm to strike Maharashtra in June since 1891, and the first to affect Raigad and Mumbai since Phyan in 2009.
Six people were killed and the Government of Maharashtra put the total damage at about Rs 60.48 billion.

Study next

How tropical cyclones are named in the north Indian Ocean, and which countries contribute to the listThe India Meteorological Department's role as regional specialised meteorological centreCyclone classification by wind speed, from depression to super cyclonic stormWhy the Bay of Bengal produces more cyclones than the Arabian Sea, and how that balance has been changingThe National Disaster Management Authority and cyclone preparedness on India's coasts

Common traps

Assuming the naming country must be near where the storm struck. The two are unconnected.
Including Japan in the north Indian Ocean panel. It names storms in the western North Pacific.
Confusing Nisarga with Amphan, which hit West Bengal two weeks earlier in the same season.

As a which-country-named-it item on a recent cyclone, or as a matching item pairing cyclones with the seas and States they affected.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Tropical cyclones in the north Indian Ocean are named by which one of the following agencies?
- (a)The Japan Meteorological Agency
- (b)The India Meteorological Department
- (c)The National Hurricane Center at Miami
- (d)The National Disaster Management Authority
Answer(b) The India Meteorological Department — it is the regional specialised meteorological centre for this basin and assigns names from a list contributed by the panel's member countries.
practice — not a real PYQ
Cyclone Nisarga of June 2020 made landfall on the coast of which State?
- (a)Gujarat
- (b)Maharashtra
- (c)Odisha
- (d)West Bengal
Answer(b) Maharashtra — it crossed near Alibag in Raigad district; Amphan, a fortnight earlier, was the storm that struck West Bengal.