Which of the following statements is/are correct with respect to Time Zone in India? 1. There is one standard time for the whole country. 2. Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep Islands have different Time Zones. 3. Indian Standard Time (IST) is five and half hours behind GMT. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)1 and 2 only
- (d)1 and 3 only
Correct — A, 1 only. Statement 1 is the settled position: India keeps a single clock for the whole country, set by the standard meridian of 82°30′ East, which runs near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh. Statement 2 fails on the same fact — the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep are administered on Indian Standard Time like everywhere else, even though the Andamans lie about 10 degrees of longitude east of the standard meridian and Lakshadweep about 10 degrees west of it, so that sunrise in Port Blair comes roughly an hour and a half before sunrise in Kavaratti while both clocks read the same. Statement 3 gets the arithmetic right and the direction wrong. Longitude converts to time at 15 degrees to the hour, so 82°30′ divided by 15 is five and a half hours — but the meridian is east of Greenwich, so Indian Standard Time runs five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, not behind it. Only statement 1 survives.
- (b)2 only — Takes statement 2 alone, and it is the false one — the islands do not run separate time zones. It also throws away statement 1, which is true.
- (c)1 and 2 only — Keeps the true statement 1 but adds the island claim, which is wrong; both island groups keep Indian Standard Time.
- (d)1 and 3 only — Keeps the true statement 1 but adds the 'behind GMT' claim. The sign is inverted: an eastern meridian puts a country ahead of Greenwich.
A country's standard time is a clock agreed by convention for civil use, set by one chosen meridian rather than by the true solar time of each place. India's mainland spans roughly 68° East to 97° East, close to 30 degrees of longitude and therefore about two hours of true solar time, and it settles that spread by adopting a single meridian at 82°30′ East. The conversion is fixed: 15 degrees equals one hour, one degree equals four minutes, one minute of arc equals four seconds.
The item is built so that the easy statement is true and the two that look technical are wrong. Statement 3 is the classic sign trap — the number five and a half is right, so a candidate reading quickly ticks it. Read the direction word, not the number. Statement 2 preys on a reasonable intuition, that far-flung islands must keep their own time; they do not, and that is exactly why the far east of the country has long complained about early sunsets. As of now India still runs one clock, and proposals for a second time zone for the north-eastern States have been argued for and not adopted; tea estates in Assam have long worked to an informal garden time set ahead of the official clock, which is a working custom rather than a legal time zone.
- The standard meridian of India is 82°30′ East, passing near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.
- Indian Standard Time is five hours thirty minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, written as UTC+5:30.
- Longitude converts to time at 15 degrees to the hour, so 82.5 divided by 15 gives 5.5 hours.
- The Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep both keep Indian Standard Time; India has no second civil time zone.
- The Indian mainland stretches from about 68° East to about 97° East, a spread of nearly two hours of true solar time.
The number in statement 3 is right; the word 'behind' is what makes it wrong.
- Reading the figure five and a half and ticking the statement without checking whether it says ahead or behind.
- Assuming distant island territories must have their own time zone.
- Confusing the standard meridian, 82°30′ East, with the longitude at which India first sees the sunrise, which lies far to the east in the Andaman group.
As a statements-and-code item on India's time zone, or as a single-line question naming the standard meridian.
CDS_GK_2021_I_Q702021Which one of the following longitudes is the standard meridian of India?
- (a) 83°30' E
- (b) 82°30' E
- (c) 82°30' W
- (d) 83°30' W
Answer(b) 82°30' E
The same fact, asked six months earlier in the other session of the same year. Knowing that the standard meridian is 82°30′ East settles both the single-clock claim and the five-and-a-half-hour offset in this question.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Indian Standard Time is calculated from a meridian passing close to which one of the following towns?
- (a)Mirzapur
- (b)Nagpur
- (c)Bhopal
- (d)Kakinada
Answer(a) Mirzapur — the 82°30′ East standard meridian runs near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh.
- practice — not a real PYQ
A place lies on the 60° East meridian. Its local mean solar time differs from Greenwich Mean Time by how many hours?
- (a)Two hours behind
- (b)Two hours ahead
- (c)Four hours behind
- (d)Four hours ahead
Answer(d) Four hours ahead — 60 divided by 15 gives four hours, and an eastern meridian runs ahead of Greenwich.