Which one of the following statements is false ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), 'The Eastern tip of main land India is Kibithu in Assam,' is the false statement, and it is false for exactly one reason: the state. Kibithu is a real place and it genuinely is India's easternmost point on the mainland, but it lies in the Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh, not Assam. The village sits in the Mishmi Hills near the trijunction of India, China and Myanmar, close to where the Lohit river enters Indian territory, and it is administered from the district headquarters at Hawai — all of that is Arunachal Pradesh geography, roughly 70 km from Hawai and only about 15 km from the Line of Actual Control. Assam borders Arunachal Pradesh to its south and shares a long and often-discussed foothill boundary with it, which is exactly the kind of neighbouring-state confusion this question is built to catch: a candidate who correctly remembers 'Kibithu is the easternmost point' but loosely files the north-eastern hill states together as one block will read past the word 'Assam' without noticing it is wrong. The other three statements survive scrutiny. Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu is the accepted southern tip of mainland India (distinct from Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island, which is the southernmost point of Indian territory as a whole, not of the mainland). Guhar Moti, near Narayan Sarovar in Kutch district, Gujarat, is the accepted western tip. The northern tip is conventionally given as Indira Col, a mountain pass in the Karakoram range in Ladakh near the Siachen Glacier — the paper's 'Defdar in Ladakh' names the same north Ladakh, Siachen-adjacent frontier that Indira Col occupies, and since the state given (Ladakh) is the one every standard reference agrees on, this card treats the state attribution in option (1) as correct along with the other two, leaving Kibithu-in-Assam as the one statement a careful reading finds false.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Not the false statement — the Union Territory named is correct. India's conventional northernmost point, Indira Col, is a Karakoram mountain pass in the Siachen Glacier sector of Ladakh, close to the trijunction with Pakistan and China, and this option's state attribution matches every standard reference on the point. A candidate scanning for an error in an unfamiliar-sounding name can be tempted to mark this one, but the question turns on a state mismatch elsewhere, not on this line.  (b) Not the false statement — this is the standard, uncontested fact. Kanniyakumari, also called Cape Comorin, at the confluence of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, is universally cited as the southern tip of the Indian mainland. It is worth keeping distinct from Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island, which is the southernmost point of India's territory overall — but the question specifically asks about the mainland, and on that qualifier this statement is exactly right, so it cannot be the false one the question is asking for.  (d) Not the false statement — Guhar Moti (also spelt Ghuar Mota), near Narayan Sarovar in the Kutch district of Gujarat, is the standard western extremity of the Indian mainland, close to the Pakistan border in the Rann of Kutch. The state and the location both check out against every reference on India's extreme points, so this line offers no error for the question to hinge on.

Concept: India's four extreme points on the mainland are a fixed set of facts tested repeatedly across state and central services exams: Indira Col (Ladakh, Karakoram range) in the north, Guhar Moti near Narayan Sarovar (Kutch, Gujarat) in the west, Kanniyakumari (Tamil Nadu) in the south, and Kibithu (Anjaw district, Arunachal Pradesh) in the east. A second, related set — the extreme points of Indian territory as a whole rather than the mainland alone — swaps in Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island for the south, since it lies further south than Kanniyakumari once the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are counted. Keeping 'mainland' and 'territory' as two different lists, each with its own southern point, is the single most useful distinction to carry out of this topic.

State PCS 2025 Q21 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q21 — Geography PYQ with Answer