Which one among the following tributaries of Indus River does not originate in the Himalayas?

Correct — B, Gomal. The Indus picks up its tributaries in two quite different settings, and the textbook treats them as two separate lists. In the mountains it is joined by a set of Himalayan streams — the Shyok, the Gilgit, the Zaskar, the Hunza, the Nubra, the Shigar, the Gasting and the Dras — all of them born in the glaciated ranges of the upper basin. Then the river emerges from the hills near Attock, takes the Kabul river on its right bank, and lower down receives a second group on the same side: the Khurram, the Tochi, the Gomal, the Viboa and the Sangar. That second group all rise in the Sulaiman ranges, the north-south mountain wall along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, which is a separate system from the Himalaya. Gilgit, Hunza and Zaskar are on the first list; Gomal is on the second, and is therefore the exception the stem is looking for.

• (a)Gilgit — Named in the standard list of the Indus's Himalayan tributaries. It joins the Indus in the high mountain country of the upper basin, not on the plains.
• (c)Hunza — Also on the Himalayan list, draining the high glaciated country of the upper Indus basin — the same group as the Shyok, the Shigar and the Nubra.
• (d)Zaskar — The stream that gives the Zaskar Range its name, rising in the Zanskar country of Ladakh and joining the Indus near Nimmu. Firmly in the Himalayan group.

The Indus is one of the world's great river basins, covering about 11,65,000 square kilometres in all, of which 3,21,289 lie in India, with a total length of about 2,880 kilometres, 1,114 of them in India. It rises from a glacier near Bokhar Chu in the Kailash range in Tibet at about 4,164 metres, where it is called Singi Khamban or Lion's Mouth, flows north-west between the Ladakh and Zaskar ranges, cuts the Ladakh Range in a gorge, and enters Pakistan near Chilas. It finally receives the Panjnad — the combined flow of the Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum — a little above Mithankot, and discharges into the Arabian Sea east of Karachi.

The item is really asking whether you have registered that the Indus drains two mountain systems, not one. Everything on its left and upper right in the mountains comes off the Himalaya, Karakoram and Ladakh ranges; everything joining the right bank once the river is on the plains of Pakistan comes off the Sulaiman and Hindu Kush country to the west. The Kabul river is the largest of that western group and the easiest to remember, and the Gomal, Tochi, Khurram, Viboa and Sangar travel with it. If a tributary's name is unfamiliar, ask which side of the river it joins and at what stage of the course — that alone usually decides the answer.

• NCERT lists the Indus's Himalayan tributaries as the Shyok, the Gilgit, the Zaskar, the Hunza, the Nubra, the Shigar, the Gasting and the Dras.
• The Khurram, the Tochi, the Gomal, the Viboa and the Sangar join the Indus on its right bank and all originate in the Sulaiman ranges.
• The Indus emerges from the hills near Attock, where it receives the Kabul river on its right bank.
• The Indus rises near Bokhar Chu in the Kailash range in Tibet at about 4,164 m, where it is known as Singi Khamban.
• The Panjnad, the joint stream of the Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum, joins the Indus a little above Mithankot.

• Assuming every Indus tributary is Himalayan; the whole point of the item is the group that is not.
• Reading Zaskar as a range only and forgetting there is a Zaskar river that joins the Indus at Nimmu.
• Confusing the Gomal with the Ghaggar; the Ghaggar is an Indian seasonal river of the Haryana-Rajasthan plains and no part of this list.

As a 'which one does not' item on a river's tributaries, as a match list pairing tributaries with the range they rise in, or inside a statement item on the Indus basin.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kabul river joins the Indus on its right bank near which one of the following places?

  • (a)Chilas
  • (b)Attock
  • (c)Mithankot
  • (d)Nimmu

  Answer(b) Attock — the Indus receives the Kabul there, just after it emerges from the hills.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Panjnad, which joins the Indus a little above Mithankot, is the combined stream of which of the following?

  • (a)Shyok, Nubra, Hunza, Gilgit and Shigar
  • (b)Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum
  • (c)Khurram, Tochi, Gomal, Viboa and Sangar
  • (d)Zaskar, Dras, Gasting, Shigar and Nubra

  Answer(b) Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum — the five rivers of Punjab, whose united flow is the Panjnad.