NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 117 of 149

Correct — D, 3 only. Three of the four belts are cotton textile country and one is not. Mumbai and Pune form the oldest mill belt in the country, the region where India's modern cotton industry began. Coimbatore, with Madurai and the towns around them, is the spinning heartland of Tamil Nadu and is called the Manchester of South India. Indore and Ujjain sit in the Malwa cotton tract of Madhya Pradesh and grew mills on the back of that cotton. The Dhanbad and Jamshedpur belt is different in kind — Dhanbad is the Jharia coalfield and Jamshedpur is the iron and steel city built by Tata, so the pairing belongs to heavy industry, not to textiles. Only item 3 fails the test.

• (a)1 and 3 — It correctly rejects the Dhanbad and Jamshedpur belt but also rejects Mumbai and Pune, which is the original home of the Indian cotton mill industry — the first cotton mill of British India began production in Bombay in 1856.
• (b)2 and 3 — It rejects the Madurai and Coimbatore belt, which is precisely the spinning centre of the south; Coimbatore alone accounts for a large share of the country's cotton spinning capacity.
• (c)1, 2 and 4 — This is the exact inversion of the answer. It names the three belts that are cotton regions and leaves out the one that is not, which is what happens when the word NOT is read too quickly.

Cotton textile mills cluster where several advantages meet — raw cotton nearby, a humid climate that keeps the yarn from snapping, power, cheap and skilled labour, transport and a market. Western India had all of these first, which is why the industry began around Bombay and spread to Ahmedabad, Sholapur and Nagpur. The south developed a second concentration around Coimbatore, drawing on the black cotton soil of the interior, hydel power and a large body of skilled workers. Central India's Malwa belt around Indore and Ujjain grew as a smaller third cluster on locally grown cotton.

This is a NOT question, so the answer is the item that does not belong rather than the ones that do. The quickest route is to ask what each region is famous for, and a single clear association is enough — Jamshedpur means steel and Dhanbad means coal, so item 3 is out and nothing else needs checking. Option (c), which lists the other three, is the punishment for missing the word NOT. One small note on the printed page: the line for one of the regions carried an extra gap between words where the type was justified, and it has been set as a single space here; nothing about the question changes.

• The first cotton mill of British India began production in Bombay in 1856, and the Mumbai-Pune belt remains the oldest textile region.
• Coimbatore is called the Manchester of South India and holds a large share of the country's cotton spinning capacity.
• Dhanbad is the centre of the Jharia coalfield and Jamshedpur is the iron and steel city founded by the Tatas.
• Black cotton or regur soil, developed on the Deccan lava, is the soil most associated with cotton cultivation in India.

• Missing the word NOT and choosing the option that lists the genuine textile regions.
• Associating any large industrial city with textiles; Jamshedpur and Dhanbad belong to steel and coal.
• Confusing the cotton growing tract with the cotton milling centre; the two often, but not always, coincide.

NDA asks which region or city is known for which industry, or which city-industry pair is not correctly matched.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Coimbatore is popularly known as the

  • (a)Manchester of South India
  • (b)Steel city of India
  • (c)Coal capital of India
  • (d)Silk city of India

  Answer(a) Manchester of South India — the name comes from its concentration of cotton spinning mills.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Jamshedpur in Jharkhand is best known for which industry?

  • (a)Cotton textiles
  • (b)Iron and steel
  • (c)Paper
  • (d)Cement

  Answer(b) Iron and steel — the plant founded by the Tatas gave the city its name and its character.