NDA (II) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 101 of 150

Correct — A, Gulf of Mannar, Nokrek, Panchmarhi and Simlipal. India notifies its own biosphere reserves under the national Man and Biosphere programme, but a reserve joins UNESCO's World Network only when UNESCO admits it separately, and every one of these four had been admitted well before the September 2017 exam — Gulf of Mannar in 2001, and Nokrek, Pachmarhi and Simlipal together in 2009. All four names in this set therefore sit on the world list, which is what the question asks for. Nilgiri, admitted in 2000, is on the list too, so it is not the word that spoils the other options — Seshachalam and Panna are.

• (b)Gulf of Mannar, Kanchanjunga, Nokrek and Seshachalam — Two of the four fail. Seshachalam in Andhra Pradesh is an Indian biosphere reserve but has never been admitted to the world network, and Khangchendzonga (Kanchanjunga) joined only in 2018, the year after this paper was set.
• (c)Nilgiri, Nokrek, Panchmarhi and Panna — Panna is the flaw. It became India's newest entrant on the world network in 2020, three years after this exam, so in 2017 this set was not yet complete. Note that Panna does belong to the list today — the option is wrong only for the year the question was asked.
• (d)Nilgiri, Nokrek, Panchmarhi and Seshachalam — Three of these are on the world network, but Seshachalam is not on it at all, in 2017 or now. One name outside the list is enough to reject the set.

A biosphere reserve is a large protected landscape zoned into a strictly guarded core, a buffer where research and limited use are allowed, and a transition zone where people live and farm. India has 18 such reserves declared under its national programme. Membership of UNESCO's World Network of Biosphere Reserves is a separate, later step: the country nominates a reserve and UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere programme admits it. Because the two lists are not the same, a reserve can be Indian and still be absent from the world network — which is the entire trap in this question.

The reliable way through an item like this is to fix the date. As the paper was written in 2017, eleven Indian reserves had made the world network: Nilgiri (2000), Gulf of Mannar and Sundarbans (2001), Nanda Devi (2004), Nokrek, Pachmarhi and Simlipal (2009), Achanakmar-Amarkantak (2012), Great Nicobar (2013) and Agasthyamalai (2016). Two names in the options were outside that set — Seshachalam, which has still not been admitted, and Panna, which was admitted only in 2020. Khangchendzonga, in option (b), came in 2018. Since the count has moved since the exam, treat a question like this as a snapshot of its year rather than a permanent fact.

• India has 18 biosphere reserves under its own programme; 13 of them are on UNESCO's World Network today, the most recent being Cold Desert in 2025.
• At the time of the 2017 exam the count on the world network was eleven — Panna (2020) and Khangchendzonga (2018) had not yet been added.
• Nokrek lies in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya, Pachmarhi in the Satpura country of Madhya Pradesh, and Simlipal in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha.
• Seshachalam, in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, was notified as an Indian biosphere reserve in 2010 but has never been admitted to the world network.
• Nilgiri, declared in 1986, was India's first biosphere reserve and the first to reach the world network, in 2000.

• Assuming every Indian biosphere reserve is automatically on UNESCO's world list — only a subset is.
• Answering from today's list when the paper was set years ago; Panna and Khangchendzonga joined after 2017.
• Confusing Seshachalam, which is only a national designation, with the world-network entrants of the same region.

NDA and the state services ask which reserves are on the world network, which state a named reserve lies in, or which of a list is not a biosphere reserve at all.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Nokrek Biosphere Reserve is located in the

  • (a)Garo Hills of Meghalaya
  • (b)Naga Hills of Nagaland
  • (c)Mikir Hills of Assam
  • (d)Patkai Hills of Arunachal Pradesh

  Answer(a) Garo Hills of Meghalaya — Nokrek joined the world network in 2009.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the correct sequence of zones of a biosphere reserve, from the most strictly protected outwards ?

  • (a)Buffer, core, transition
  • (b)Core, buffer, transition
  • (c)Transition, core, buffer
  • (d)Core, transition, buffer

  Answer(b) Core, buffer, transition — the core is legally protected and undisturbed, the buffer allows research and limited use, and the transition zone carries settlements and farming.