Match the following :
Glacier
(a) Siachin
(b) Rimo
(c) Gangotri
(d) Zemu
Place
(i) Kashmir
(ii) Karakoram
(iii) Uttarakhand
(iv) Sikkim

Question

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Correct — option (2), which reads (a) - (i), (b) - (ii), (c) - (iii), (d) - (iv). Begin with the two pairs that admit no argument. The Gangotri glacier at (c) lies in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand and is the source of the Bhagirathi, which emerges from its snout at Gaumukh and becomes the Ganga at Devprayag; it can only take Uttarakhand at (iii). The Zemu glacier at (d) lies at the base of Kangchenjunga in Sikkim, is about 26 km long and is the largest glacier of the eastern Himalaya; it can only take Sikkim at (iv). That leaves Siachen at (a) and Rimo at (b) to be matched with Kashmir at (i) and Karakoram at (ii). Note what the paper has done here: the second column is headed 'Place', but it mixes two states, a mountain range and a region, so the four entries are not the same kind of thing. Both remaining glaciers lie in the Karakoram and both lie in the Ladakh region of the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, so the pair has to be assigned as a set of two rather than one at a time. The Siachen glacier is the item that every general source locates by its region — 76 km long, the longest glacier in the Karakoram and the second longest outside the polar regions, running down from Indira Col to feed the Nubra and so the Shyok and the Indus, and known worldwide through the Kashmir dispute and Operation Meghdoot of 1984. Rimo is the obscurer one, named for and identified by its range: it forms the northern boundary of the Rimo Muztagh, one of the remotest subranges of the Karakoram, and drains east into the upper Shyok. So Siachen takes Kashmir at (i) and Rimo takes Karakoram at (ii), completing (a) - (i), (b) - (ii), (c) - (iii), (d) - (iv), which is option (2).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This row sends Siachen to Uttarakhand and Gangotri to Karakoram, which relocates both glaciers to the wrong side of the country. Gangotri is a Himalayan glacier of Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand and is famous for one reason above all others — the Bhagirathi rises at its snout at Gaumukh — so it can never belong to the Karakoram, a range that lies far to the north-west beyond the Himalaya proper. Siachen is not in Uttarakhand at all; it is in Ladakh, in the eastern Karakoram. The row also gives Rimo to Sikkim and Zemu to Kashmir, so all four pairs fail. It is included to catch a candidate who reads the two columns as unordered lists and picks a row without testing a single pair against what they know.  (c) This is the near-miss row, and it differs from the correct one in exactly one respect: it keeps Gangotri with Uttarakhand and Zemu with Sikkim, and then swaps the other two, giving Siachen to Karakoram and Rimo to Kashmir. Geographically both glaciers sit in the Karakoram and both sit in the same region, so the swap cannot be settled by asking where each glacier is; it is settled by asking which label the question is using for which glacier. The paper's column offers exactly one range name and one regional name, and Siachen is the glacier the world identifies by its region — it is the Kashmir glacier of the Siachen dispute — while Rimo is identified by the Rimo Muztagh subrange of the Karakoram. This row is worth remembering as a warning that a matching column headed 'Place' may hold entries of different kinds, and that the deciding cell is then the one where two entries compete.  (d) This row runs the second column almost backwards against the first: Siachen is sent to Sikkim, Rimo to Uttarakhand, Gangotri to Kashmir and Zemu to Karakoram. Every pair is wrong and two of them are wrong by the width of the country — Siachen is in Ladakh in the far north-west and Zemu is at the foot of Kangchenjunga in the far north-east, and this row exchanges them. Gangotri, the source of the Bhagirathi, is in Uttarakhand and not in Kashmir. The quickest way to kill a row like this is to test the pair you are surest of, which for most candidates is Gangotri and Uttarakhand; any row that breaks it is finished, and that single test removes both this row and the first.

Concept: India's glaciers lie in three belts and the question draws from two of them. The Karakoram, north of the Ladakh range and beyond the Himalaya proper, carries the largest ice mass outside the polar regions and the great valley glaciers — Siachen at 76 km, the longest in the Karakoram and the second longest outside the polar regions, running from Indira Col to a snout at about 3,620 m and feeding the Nubra, which joins the Shyok and so the Indus; and its neighbours Rimo, in the remote Rimo Muztagh, and Chong Kumdan, which also drain to the upper Shyok. The Great Himalaya of Uttarakhand carries the Gangotri system in Uttarkashi district, source of the Bhagirathi at Gaumukh, along with Satopanth, Milam, Pindari and Chorabari. The eastern Himalaya carries the Zemu, about 26 km long at the base of Kangchenjunga in Sikkim, the largest glacier of that section. Two further ideas belong with the list. First, these glaciers are the perennial store that keeps the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra flowing through the dry season, which is why their retreat is a water-security question and not only a climate one. Second, glaciers are also landscape sculptors: cirques, aretes, horns, U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys and moraines are their work.

State PCS 2021 Q24 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2021 Q24 — Geography PYQ with Answer