‘Nuakhai’ is the state festival of:

Correct — A. Nuakhai is the new-rice harvest festival of Odisha, strongest in the western districts around Sambalpur.

The name states the ritual: nua means new, khai means to eat. The season's first harvested rice is offered to the presiding deity, taken as prasad, and only then eaten at home.

It falls the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, in the month of Bhadrab, which places it squarely in the Odia calendar — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Tamil Nadu — Tamil Nadu's harvest festival is Pongal, a four-day January observance tied to the Tamil month of Thai. Nuakhai is not a Tamil festival.
• (c)
  Meghalaya — Meghalaya's principal harvest festival is Wangala, the Garo thanksgiving to Saljong, the sun god of fertility. The state's festival calendar has nothing named Nuakhai.
• (d)
  Bihar — Bihar's signature festival is Chhath, a sun-worship observance on river ghats. It is a devotional rite, not a first-harvest one.

Nuakhai belongs to the family SSC likes most in the culture section: a state harvest festival whose name literally describes the ritual.

Odisha's agricultural year turns on the kharif paddy crop. Nuakhai marks the moment the new grain becomes fit to eat, and the offering to the deity comes before any household eats.

Western Odisha treats it as the year's biggest social occasion, with the greeting nuakhai juhar exchanged between households.

Key facts

• Nuakhai is Odisha's new-rice harvest festival, centred on western Odisha and Sambalpur.
• It is observed on the day after Ganesh Chaturthi, in the month of Bhadrab.
• At Sambalpur the first rice of the season is offered to Maa Samaleswari, the presiding deity.
• Nua means new and khai means to eat.

Common traps

• Reading Nuakhai as a north-eastern tribal festival because of how the name sounds.
• Confusing it with Odisha's Raja festival, which marks the earth's monsoon rest rather than the harvest.

No directly related past PYQ was found.