Which of the following pairs is/are NOT correctly matched ?
(Pass) – (State/Union Territory)
1. Lipulekh – Ladakh
2. Nathu La – Sikkim
3. Bomdila – Arunachal Pradesh
4. Shipki La – Himachal Pradesh
Se

Question

Which of the following pairs is/are NOT correctly matched ?
(Pass) – (State/Union Territory)
1. Lipulekh – Ladakh
2. Nathu La – Sikkim
3. Bomdila – Arunachal Pradesh
4. Shipki La – Himachal Pradesh
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Only 1. Exactly one pair in the list is wrong, and it is the first. Lipulekh is not in Ladakh; it lies in Uttarakhand, in the far north-east of Pithoragarh district, on the border with Tibet close to the point where India, Nepal and China meet. It is the pass through which pilgrims have long crossed for the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, it is one of India's designated border trade points with China, and it sits inside the Kalapani tract whose ownership Nepal disputes — all of which places it firmly in the Kumaon Himalaya and nowhere near Ladakh. The other three pairs are all correct. Nathu La is in Sikkim, on the Sikkim–Tibet border at about 4,310 metres, and is the pass that reopened for India–China border trade in 2006 after more than four decades of closure. Bomdila is in Arunachal Pradesh, in West Kameng district. Shipki La is in Himachal Pradesh, in Kinnaur district, and is the pass by which the Sutlej — rising in Tibet as the Langqên Zangbo — enters India. Since only the first pair is mismatched, the answer is (d), Only 1. There is a tidy pattern hiding here worth carrying away: three of the four passes named — Nathu La, Shipki La and Lipulekh — are precisely India's three designated border trade points with China, one each in Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Correctly identifies Lipulekh as misplaced but then wrongly adds Nathu La. Nathu La genuinely is in Sikkim — it is the best-known pass in that state, sitting on the old Silk Route link to the Chumbi Valley and Lhasa, and it was the site of the ceremonial reopening of India–China border trade in July 2006. There is nothing wrong with pair 2, and a candidate marking this has almost certainly confused Nathu La with Jelep La, which is also in Sikkim, rather than with any pass outside it.  (b) Adds Bomdila to the previous error. Bomdila is unambiguously in Arunachal Pradesh, in West Kameng district on the road towards Tawang, and the town of the same name is the district headquarters. Rejecting three of the four pairs suggests a candidate who spotted the Lipulekh error and then lost confidence in the whole list — a costly instinct in a 'which are NOT correctly matched' question, where the examiner usually plants just one or two errors.  (c) The mirror image of the answer, and the option this question was designed to catch you with. It names the three pairs that ARE correctly matched and leaves out the only one that is wrong. Any candidate who works out the geography perfectly and then forgets that the question asks which pairs are NOT correctly matched will mark this with full confidence. Whenever a stem carries a negation, write the direct answer in the margin first — here 'correct pairs = 2, 3, 4' — and then take its complement before touching the options.

Concept: The Himalayan passes are the historic doorways through an otherwise impassable wall, and in the exam they matter for three reasons at once: as physical geography, as trade routes, and as points of strategic and boundary sensitivity. Read west to east, the standard roster runs Karakoram, Aghil, Khardung La, Chang La and Zoji La in the Ladakh region; Shipki La, Rohtang, Bara-lacha la and Kunzum in Himachal Pradesh; Lipulekh, Mana and Niti in Uttarakhand; Nathu La and Jelep La in Sikkim; and Bomdila, Sela and Diphu in Arunachal Pradesh. Three of them — Nathu La, Shipki La and Lipulekh — carry a further label, being the border trade points formally agreed with China. Several also mark the sensitive points of the boundary question: Lipulekh sits inside the Kalapani area claimed by Nepal, and Diphu lies at the eastern trijunction with Myanmar and China.

State PCS 2025 Q135 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q135 — Geography PYQ with Answer