Indian Geography

Geography
Acid precipitation (Acid
Rainfall): is now regarded as a
serious problem in some
European and Asian countries,
the main cause and source of
which is emissions of sulphur
oxides and nitrogen oxides from
thermal power plants and burn-ing of fossil fuels.  These oxides

dissolve in atmospheric water
vapour and fall back on earth as
acid rainfall. Acid rainfall can
cause destruction of crops and
trees; destruction of fish; and
damage to buildings.
Agronomy: Soil manage-ment and production of field
crops is known as Agronomy.
Aleurone layer: is that part
of the grain in cereals where
much of the protein lies.
Alluvial soil: is the richest
and most fertile soil of India
spread over large areas in north-ern plains of India.
Arakan Yoma: is the exten-sion of the Himalayas located in
Myanmar.
Asthamudi Lake : is locat-ed in Kerala State.
Bailadila: in Bastar district
of Madhya Pradesh, is known
for its wealth of Manganese.
Barhara (Tribes): The
Barhara tribes mentioned in the
Mahabharata who had settled in
the north-western regions of
India, are associated with—(1)
Ambashthas (a mixed
Mongolian Aryan race); (2)
Gandharas (Afghans); (3) Pavas
(Parthians); (4) Sakas
(Scythians); (5) Yavanas
(Greeks).
Bhabhar region:  in south
of the Shivaliks, is an example of
Piedmont situation  i.e., belong-ing to or related to the foot of a
mountain.
Bushmen (Tribes):  They
live in the Kalahari desert. They
are probably the descendants of
the earliest inhabitants of Africa.
They rank among the most
uncivilized and backward peo-ples in the world. Their food
consists almost entirely of meat,
often raw or decomposed, and
in times of scarcity they will eat
insects, snakes etc.
Cardamom: Karnataka is
the largest producer of car-damom. India is the largest
exporter of cardamom in the
world.
Chinook: Warm, dry wind
experienced along the eastern
side of the Rocky Mountains in
Canada and the U.S.A.
Climograph: is a graphical
representation of the differentia-tion between various types of
climate. It reveals the type of cli-mate at a glance—a climograph
showing wet bulb temperatures
and relative humidities  which
are  high, for instance, depicts a
constantly hot damp climate.
Coastline of India, Length
of: The length of India’s coast-line is 7,516 km and its territory
includes 1,256 islands. Tamil
Nadu has the longest coastline
in India.
Cosmic year: One cosmic
year is equal to the time taken
by the sun to complete one orbit
around the galactic centre.
Cotopaxi:  is the highest
volcano in the world. It is situat-ed in Ecuador.
Date Line, International:
International Date Line is an
internationally agreed line
drawn parallel to the 180°
meridian. It divides the Pacific
Ocean into two equal parts. A
crossing of the International
Date Line entails repeating one
day when travelling westwards.
Detroit of India:
Pithampur in Madhya Pradesh,
where a large number of auto-mobile industries have been set
up, is called the “Detroit of
India”.
Doldrums Belt: is a zone of
the tropics where the calm last-ing for some weeks prevails,
broken at times by erratic
squalls and baffling winds. It is
an area of low pressure. The
wind system in the Equatorial
areas is known as doldrums.
Dust Devil: is a dusty
whirlwind normally a few feet
in diameter and about 100 feet
tall, sometimes also wider and
higher.
Earth mass:  The mass of
the earth is about 81 times that
of the moon.
Earth’s core: is mainly
composed of iron and nickel.
Lithosphere is the innermost
layer of the earth.
El Nino:  is the weather
phenomenon brewing in the
tropical Pacific Ocean. It is the
largest climate event of the 20th
century setting off more global
disasters than ever before. El
Nino is warming of the waters
off Equatorial South America
which  causes climate abnor-malities  around the world.
The impact can be flooding
drought in California, Brazil,
Africa and Australia, severe
storms in the Central Pacific and
a decline in hurricanes hitting
the south-eastern United States.
Exfoliation: This type of
weathering is common both in
the cold as well as in the hot cli-mate regions.
Fertilizer plant, First:  The
first fertilizer plant in India was
set up at Sindri (Bihar).
Garo (Tribes): Garos are
the tribe of Garo Hills in
Meghalaya.
Glacial lake—example in
India: Dal Lake in Srinagar.
Great Circle: A circle on
the earth’s surface whose plane
passes through its centre, and
bisects it into two hemispheres.
Two opposing meridians
together form a Great Circle.
The shortest distance between
any two points on the earth’s
surface is the arc of the Great
Circle which passes through
them. 0° latitude forms a Great
Circle. (The latitude or longi-tude 75°W should be combined
with 75°E to obtain the Great
Circle).
Horse Latitudes: Sub-trop-ical belts of high atmospheric
pressure over the oceans situat-ed in both hemispheres. These
are called Belts of Calm between
regions of the Trade Winds and
Westerlies of higher latitudes.
Hydroponics: means culti-vation of the plants without use
of soil.
Hyetology:  is the study of
rainfall.
Indira Point: in Andaman
and Nicobar Islands is the
southern-most tip of India.
Irrigated area, Indian
State having largest: The Indian
State with the largest irrigated
area is Uttar Pradesh.
Jhum: It is a slash and burn
method of shifting cultivation
(called jhum) practised on rain-fall-bed slopes of forest hills and
dales in Arunachal Pradesh.
Kandla: is a sea port situat-ed at the head of the Gulf of
Kuch in Gujarat State. It was the
first port to be developed after
independence. It has a free trade
zone.
Khonds (Tribes):  were
primitive tribes living in Orissa.
Kikuyu (Tribes) : are a race
of Bantu negroes who live to the
north of Mount Kenya. These
people combine agriculture
with pastoralism.
Kirghiz (Tribes): of
Central Asia are an example of
people adapted to a grassland
environment. The Kirghiz are
pastoral nomads who move
from pasture to pasture with the
flocks and herds of horses,
camels, oxen, sheep and goats.
Meat forms only a small portion
of their food. The Kirghiz are
fearless horsemen, and even
their children are expert riders
Lambadies (Tribes): are
concentrated in Karnataka.
Lapse Rate:  is the rate of
change in temperature with
increase of altitude.
Laterite soils: Laterite soils
are formed by the weathering of
laterite rocks. These can be dis-tinguished from other soils by
their acidity.  Laterite soils are
generally poor on the higher
levels and cannot retain mois-ture. In the plains, however,
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SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
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Quick Revision Notes
they consist of heavy loams and
clay and can retain moisture.
Laterite soils occur in Madhya
Pradesh, Assam and along the
eastern and western Ghats.  Tea
plantation require acidity
which is there in the laterite soil.
It is, therefore, common in these
areas.
Loams (loamy soil): A mix-ture of sand, clay and silt is
known as loamy soil. Loams are
formed where the soils have
equal proportion of sand, silt
and clay.
Local winds and their
areas: Khamsin—Egypt;
Zonda—Argentina; Santa
Ana—California; Simoon—Iran.
Lushais (Tribes): are tribes
of Mizoram.
Mansarover Lake: is in
Tibet. Near it, the rivers having
their source are the
Brahamputra, the Sutlej and the
Indus.
Maoris (Tribes): are the
original inhabitants of New
Zealand.
Masai (Tribes): of the East
African plateau are the example
of pastoral peoples. They are a
tall, strong, warlike race, partly
negroid in type. They treat their
cattle with great respect and
affection and do not kill them
for food or for sale as meat.
Monsoon in India: is relat-ed to differential heating and
cooling of the huge landmass of
Asia and the Indian Ocean and
the origin of cyclones in the Bay
of Bengal. The term Monsoon
was introduced by the Arabs.
Munda (Tribes): are most-ly located in Madhya Pradesh.
Negritos (Tribes): are the
ancient tribes of Andamans.
Nutrification: is the
process of conversion by action
of bacteria, of nitrates in the soil.
Onges: are tribes of
Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Oraon (Tribes): are aborig-inal people of the Chhota
Nagpur region in the State of
Bihar. They call themselves
Kurukh  and speak a Dravidian
language.
Pangong Tso: is one of the
world’s highest and brackish
lakes in Jammu & Kashmir.
Pressure zones on earth:
are created due to differential
heating of the earth’s surface by
the sun.
Proxima Centauri: is a star
nearest to the earth.
Rare earths (Or Lignite
and Monazite) : are found on
the beaches of Kerala and Tamil
Nadu. Monazite is an ore of tho-rium.
Roaring Forties: are west-erly winds.
Saddle peak: is the highest
peak of Andaman and Nicobar
islands, located in Great
Nicobar.
Savannas: are found
between latitudes 5° and 20°
North and South of Equator.
These are tropical grasslands
bordering the equatorial forests
in each hemisphere. The Llanos
and Pampas of South America
are chief examples of Savannas
but extensive Savannas are in
Africa.  Savanna grasslands are
also found in Australia. The
three-tier growth of vegetation
is found in these regions.
The natural vegetation of
Savannas consists of tall grass.
Selvas: The rain forest of
Amazon basin is called Selvas.
These are rainy tropical forests..
Semangs (Tribes): are trib-al people living in Malaysia.
Spring Tides: are caused
when the sun and the moon are
in a straight line. The tide on its
maximum height is known as
Spring Tide.
Taiga Belt: lies between the
Tibet-type climate and the
Tundras.
Telegu Ganga Project: in
Tamil Nadu envisages optimal
use of surplus water of the
Krishna river. It is a joint ven-ture of Tamil Nadu, Andhra
Pradesh and Karnataka.
Time Zone:  A zone on the
terrestrial globe that is 15° longi-tude wide and extends from
pole to pole and within which a
uniform clock time is used. Time
zones are the functional basis of
standard time. The world is
divided into 24 time zones.
Tsunamis: are huge sea
waves caused by earthquakes.
Willy Willy: is a tropical
cyclone of the north-west
Australia.
History
Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan: He lived during the
reign of Akbar.  He translated
Babur’s Memoirs from Turkish
to Persian.
Abdussamad: He was hon-oured with the award of  “zari-qalam” by Akbar.
Ages, Chronological order
of:  Palaeolithic, Mesolithic,
Neolithic, Chalcolithic
Agrahara: Tax-free villages
granted to the learned
Brahmanas in ancient India
were known as Agrahara.
Akot:  is a town, about 42
km from Akola, from where a
stone idol of Lord Adinath, the
first Jain Teerthankara, was
found in 1993.
Alien Powers in India,
chronological sequence of:
Indo-Greeks, Scythians,
Kushanas, Huns.
Amarasimha:  was one of
the nine gems in the court of the
legendary Vikramaditya. His
work Amarkosha occupies a
dominant position in Sanskrit
lexicography.
Amoghavarsha-I:  was the
long ruling Rashtrakuta king
(A.D. 814-78). He represented
the height of development of his
dynasty.
Asanga: was a Buddhist
philosopher. He was the origi-nator of Buddhist Yogachara
idealism.
Ashvaghosha:  was the
spiritual adviser of Kanishka
(the Kushan emperor) who took
a leading part in the Fourth
Buddhist Council at Srinagar
which was presided by
Vasumitra. He was a renowned
Mahayana Sanskrit scholar and
author of  Sariputra-prakarana
and  Buddha Charitam. He was
the greatest literary figure at
Kanishka’s court.
Atisa Dipankara: was the
most famous teacher of
Vikramasila university founded
in A.D. 810 by king Dharmapala
of Pala dynasty.
Battle of San Thomas: This
battle during the Carnatic Wars
(1746-61) definitely proved for
the first time the superiority of
European arms and discipline
over the traditional Indian
methods of warfare.
Battle of Waihand: was
fought between Mahmud
Ghaznavi and Anandpala.
Bhaskaravarman:  was the
king of Kamarupa (Upper
Assam). He was a contempo-rary of king Sasanka of Gauda
and was his arch-enemy.
Bhaskaravarman was the east-ern ally of king Harsha.
Bilhana:  was a Sanskrit
historian and poet born in
Kashmir.  He left Kashmir about
A.D. 1065 and became the court
poet at Kalyana where he wrote
an epic,  Vikramadeva-charita to
celebrate the reign of
Vikramaditya-VI, the Chalukya
king of Kalyana.
Blue Water Policy:  The
“Blue Water” policy is attrib-uted to Don Francisco de
Almeida, the first Viceroy of the
Portuguese possessions in
India. His “Blue Water” policy
was to be powerful at the sea
instead of building fortresses on
Indian land.
Boghaz Koi inscriptions:
are important in Indian history
because inscriptions of the four-teenth century B.C. discovered
here mention the names of Vedic
gods and goddesses.
Brahmagupta:  (598-660) of
Ujjain, was a great mathemati-cian of his time.
Brahui:  is a language of
Baluchistan. Linguistically, it is
Dravidian.
Busa Munda Revolt:
occurred in Bihar.
Catching the butterflies
and setting them free: was the
prominent feature of the foreign
policy of Samudragupta.
Chandernagore:  was a
French possession before its
merger with India.
Charvaka: is known as the
greatest of the materialistic
philosophers of ancient India.
Chauth: was a tax levied
by Marathas—a contribution
exacted by a military leader,
which was justified by the exi-gencies of the situation.
Coinage in Ancient India:
Coins in ancient India were
made of metal—copper, silver,
gold, or lead.  Nishka and
Satamana in the Vedic texts were
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taken to be names of coins, but
they seem to be only prestige
objects. Coins made of metal
first appeared in the age of
Gautama Buddha. The earliest
were made largely of silver
though a few copper coins also
appear. Coins made of burnt
clay belong to the Kushan peri-od i.e., the first three Christian
centuries.
Dadu: was the saint from
Gujarat who preached non-sec-tarianism in medieval times. He
founded the “Brahma-Sampardaaya” (the sect of
Brahma).
Dahar (or Dahir):  was the
Brahmana  king of Sind who
was defeated by the Arab inva-sion in A.D. 712 by Mohammad-bin-Kasim, nephew and son-in-law of al-Hajjaj, governor of
Irak. The Indian ruler (Dahar)
offered a brave resistance in the
battle near Raor but was defeat-ed and killed.
Darius:  was the Iranian
ruler who penetrated into
north-west India in 516 B.C. and
annexed Punjab, west of Indus,
and Sindh.
Devapala:  (A.D. 830-850)
was successor to Dharmapala,
the famous Pala ruler. He estab-lished the third important Pala
university of Somapura. He
shifted his capital to Monghyr
from where he maintained
diplomatic relations with the
Sailendra kings of Sumatra.
Dhammapada:  was the
first major work to say that sal-vation by means of devotion is
open to humans regardless of
birth, gender or station in life.
Dharmachakra: In the
Gandhara art, it is the preaching
mudra associated with the
Buddha’s First Sermon at
Sarnath.
First Congress Split:  took
place in 1907 at Surat.
First metal used by man:
Copper.
First Muslim invaders of
India:  Arabs were the first
Muslim invaders of India.
First Sultan of Delhi:  was
Qutb-ud-din who succeeded
Muhammad Ghuri as sovereign
of the new Indian conquests,
and from 1206 may be reckoned
as the first Sultan of Delhi.
First to issue gold coins in
India: Mauryas.
First to set up department
of agriculture: Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq was the first to set up a
department of agriculture in
India.
First to start sea trade with
India: Portugal.
Gautamiputra Satakarni:
was the great king of
Satavahana dynasty.
Gayatri mantra:  is con-tained in Rig Veda.
Gopuram:  It has been the
main feature of the South Indian
temple architecture.
Hasan Gangoo: entitled
Zafar Khan was founder of the
Bahmani kingdom in Deccan.
Ibadat Khana: is a build-ing  at Fatehpur Sikri where
Akbar held discussions on reli-gious matters.
Ibn-Batuta: was a great
scholar and traveller from South
Africa who came to India in
A.D. 1333 during the reign of
Mohammad Tughlak and wrote
about him.
Iqta:  It was the land-grant
system adopted by Ala-ud-din
Khilji to grant his officers as
reward for services rendered.
Qutabuddin Aibak was
assigned the first iqta in India by
Mohd of Ghor.
Jimutavahana:  was a
famous jurist of medieval India
(fifteenth century). His work
Dayabhaga is a commentary on
the srutis, specially on Manu.
Kalachuri  era:  counted
from A.D. 248, it was mostly
current in Central India. Their
capital was Tripuri near
Jabalpur. Kalachuris were the
feudatories of the Pratiharas but
soon acquired independence.
Karshapana:  was the most
commonly used coin in the
Chola kingdom.
Khiraj:  was the land tax
imposed by Mohd-bin-Qasim
after the Arabs’ occupation of
Sind.
Magazines started by
National leaders: Young India
(M.K. Gandhi);  Kesari (B.G.
Tilak); New India (Annie Besant);
Bengali (S.N. Bannerji).
Maski Rock edict:  This
minor Rock-edict is the only
edict in which Ashoka refers
to himself as the king of
Magadha.
Moplah Rebellion:  broke
out in Malabar (Kerala) in
August 1921.
Nastaliq:  was a Persian
script used in medieval India.
Nauroj festival in India:
Balban introduced the famous
Persian festival of Nauroj in
India.
Nicolo Conti:  was the
Italian foreign traveller who vis-ited Vijayanagar about A.D.
1420 during the reign of Deva
Raya-II.
Palas: who controlled most
of Bengal and Bihar, was the
third power involved in the
three-sided conflict between
Rashtrakutas and Pratiharas
over the control of Kanauj. Pala
dynasty was established by
Gopala in the eighth century
A.D. He attained renown
from the fact that he was not
hereditary king but was
elected.
Paragana:  During the rule
of the so-called Slave dynasty in
India, the empire was divided
into provincial units called
Paraganas placed under the
charge of a military officer.
Prakrit:  This language
received royal patronage during
the reign of  Satavahanas.
Rajsekhar:  was the
Sanskrit poet who lived in the
court of Mahendrapala-I.
Ratika:  or  rati is a weight
between 1.5 to 3  Gunjas;
between 5 to 8 grains of rice. It
was the basic weight (measure)
in ancient India.
Ratnakara:  denoted the
Arabiasn Sea in ancient Indian
historical geography.
Rishabha: is supposed to
be the mythical founder of
Jainism.
Sardeshmukhi: was an
additional levy of 10%, which
Shivaji demanded on the basis
of his claim as the hereditary
Sardeshmukh (chief headman)
of Maharashtra.
Shahrukh:  It was silver
coin of the Mughals.
Sharada script:  The
Kashmiri language was origi-nally written in Sharada script.
Subuktigin:  was the first
Turkish invader of India.
Tanka: was a silver coin of
the Sultanate period of India.
Tehqiq-i-Hind:  Alberuni’s
work on India. It contains obser-vations on Indian civilization
which are remarkably incisive
and acute.
Turushkadanda:  was a tax
collected by the Gahadavalas
during the early medieval India.
Vagbhata:  is regarded as
unrivalled in his knowledge of
the basic principles of
Ayurveda.
Vatapi (or Badami): now in
the Bijapur district of
Karnataka, where Pulakesin I,
founder of the Chalukya
dynasty in the middle of the
sixth century, established him-self as lord of Vatapi or Badami
(capital of Chalukyas). It is well-known for Chalukyan sculpture
found in the cave temples here.
Vidushaka:  the constant
companion and confidant of the
hero in Sanskrit dramas, was
nearly always a Brahmin.
Vikramasila University:
was a great Tantrik University
founded by the Pala king
Dharmapala in A.D. 810. It was
a hotbed of moral corruption,
sorcery and idolatry. In A.D.
1198, the soldiers if Ikhtiar Khilji
raised the structure to the
ground and killed every monk
in the University.
Wood's Despatch of 1854:
It related to educational
reforms. Lord Dalhousie took
measures to carry out the
scheme embodied in the famous
despatch of Sir Charles Wood
(July 1854) which embraced ver-nacular schools throughout the
districts, and above all the glori-ous measures of grants-in-aid to
all schools, without reference to
caste or creed.
Yakshagana: was the south
Indian dance tradition that
appeared for the first time in the
Vijayanagar period.
Zabti System: was intro-duced by Akbar for land rev-enue administration. In Zabti
system, land was measured and
assessment of land revenue was
based upon it.