Geography

The scheduled languages are grouped by the number of speakers. Sanskrit, Bodo and Manipuri are spoken by the fewest people, so they form the smallest group.
Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bangla, Gujarati etc. each have crores of speakers.
Common mistake: do not confuse 'oldest/classical' (Sanskrit) with 'most spoken'.

Chain stores buy in very large quantities for many outlets. They can therefore go straight to the manufacturer and get goods made to their own specification, which lowers the purchase cost.
They often employ highly skilled specialists for executive tasks as well.

Chemical-based industries use natural chemical minerals or chemicals derived from petroleum. Synthetic fibres, plastics, salt, sulphur etc. are their products.
Mineral-based = iron and steel, cement; forest-based = paper, furniture; animal-based = leather, wool.

The Indira Gandhi Canal command area lies in north-west Rajasthan, including Ganganagar, Hanumangarh and Bikaner districts.
The other pairs are swapped: the Hill Area Development Programme covered 15 hilly districts, while the Drought Prone Area Programme was for arid and semi-arid tracts. The Integrated Tribal Development Project example in NCERT is Bharmaur (Himachal Pradesh).

The 2015 policy aims to provide an umbrella framework to all skilling activities, align them to common standards and link skilling with demand centres.
Improving literacy rates is not its objective (that belongs to education/literacy missions), so statement I is wrong.

Farming that depends only on rainfall is called rainfed or barani farming. It is further divided into dryland and wetland farming depending on the amount of rain.
'Protective' and 'productive' are types of irrigated farming; Zaid is a short summer cropping season.

Namami Gange aims to clean and protect the Ganga: sewage treatment in towns, monitoring industrial effluents, river-front development, afforestation along the banks, cleaning the river surface and public awareness.
Diverting the river away from cities is not one of its aims.

NW-1 is on the Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hugli system from Prayagraj to Haldia (about 1620 km).
Sadiya–Dhubri = NW-2 (Brahmaputra); Kottapuram–Kollam = NW-3 (West Coast Canal); Kakinada–Puducherry = part of NW-4.

After 1947 several old towns around big cities developed as satellite towns, e.g. Ghaziabad, Rohtak and Gurugram around Delhi.
So statement I is true and Delhi is a correct example of such a metropolis.

In the dry regions of Rajasthan water is scarce, so people live close together around the available water source (ponds, wells) to use it best.
Security is the reason in places like Bundelkhand or Nagaland, not in Rajasthan.

Indian Railways has one of the longest networks in the world, carries both freight and passengers and is the biggest government undertaking in the country.

In the functional classification of towns, Ankaleshwar (oil), Singrauli (coal) and Digboi (oil) are mining towns.
Kandla, Kochchi, Kozhikode = ports; Mumbai, Salem, Modinagar = industrial; Varanasi, Roorki, Aligarh = educational/religious.

NCERT lists leather, pulp and paper, textiles and chemicals as the main industries that pour polluting effluents into water bodies.
Among the options, only (A) contains a fully correct group as per the textbook.

The WTO (set up in 1995, replacing GATT) sets the rules for the global trading system and settles disputes between member nations. It also covers trade in services.

In stage 2 better health and sanitation reduce the death rate while the birth rate is still high. The gap between births and deaths gives a large net addition to population.
Stage 1 (both high) and the last stage (both low) have slow growth.

Population of an area changes only through births (adds), deaths (subtracts) and migration (in or out).
Density, literacy, age structure and sex ratio are attributes of population, not components of change.

Stage 1: high birth rate is cancelled by high death rate → slow growth.
Last stage: both birth and death rates are low → population stable or slow-growing.
Only stage 2 has fast growth.

(18.1) Any one: grocery shop or laundry – these low-order services are found everywhere.
(18.2) Corporations set up under State and Union (central) laws supervise and control the marketing of services like transport, telecommunication, energy and water supply.
(18.3) Services are geared at different levels: some serve industries, some serve people, and some like transport serve both industry and people. Also, common low-order services (barber, grocer) are widespread, while high-order specialised services (consultants, physicians) are fewer.

(19.1) Work out the change for each: Forests 23.3 − 17 = +6.3 (largest); non-agricultural uses +5.5; net area sown +3.8; current fallow +1.2; pasture +1.0. So Forests.
(19.2) Barren land 13.4 − 5.5 = −7.9 (largest fall); misc. tree crops −5.9; culturable waste −4; other fallow −2.5. So Barren and unculturable waste land.
(19.3) Culturable wasteland has fallen because (i) it has been brought under cultivation due to pressure from agriculture, and (ii) it has been used for houses, roads, industries etc. (pressure from non-agricultural activities).
Common mistake: read the change (difference), not the bigger bar.

Any three points:
1. People worried about the effects of free trade and economic globalisation oppose it.
2. Free trade has not made the lives of ordinary people more prosperous.
3. It widens the gap between rich and poor countries, making the rich richer.
4. Influential member nations focus only on their own commercial interests.
5. Many developed countries have not fully opened their markets to goods from developing countries.
6. Issues like health, workers' rights, child labour and environment are neglected.

Meaning (1): Balance of trade records the volume/value of goods and services a country exports to and imports from other countries.
Characteristics (any two):
1. If the value of imports is more than the value of exports, the balance of trade is negative or unfavourable.
2. If the value of exports is more than imports, the balance is positive or favourable.
3. A long-run negative balance can drain a country's financial reserves.

Any three:
1. The decades 1921–1951 are called the period of steady population growth.
2. General improvement in health and sanitation across the country lowered the mortality rate.
3. Better transport and communication improved the distribution system (e.g. of food during scarcity).
4. The crude birth rate remained high, so the growth rate was higher than in Phase I.

Any three points:
1. Environmental determinism is the stage when primitive human society interacted with very strong forces of nature and was dominated by them.
2. Humans 'listened' to nature and adjusted to its dictates because their technology was very low.
3. They were afraid of nature's fury and worshipped it as a powerful force.
4. Example: an economically primitive household (like Benda in the NCERT story) depends directly on the forest for food, medicine and shelter; nature is revered and conserved.

Any three points:
1. Nature and human beings are so closely intertwined that they cannot be separated.
2. Geography must therefore study them holistically.
3. Physical features are described using metaphors from the human body – 'mouth' of a river, 'neck' of an isthmus, 'profile' of soil, 'face' of the earth, 'eye' of a storm.
4. Human features are described using natural/biological ideas – roads, railways and waterways are 'arteries of circulation'; regions, villages and towns are described as 'organisms'.

Any three:
1. Slums are residential areas of the least choice with dilapidated houses and poor hygiene.
2. They lack ventilation and basic amenities such as drinking water, electricity and toilets.
3. Open defecation and unregulated drainage are common.
4. Streets are narrow and overcrowded, causing fire and health hazards.
5. Residents suffer from many diseases due to poor nutrition and sanitation.
6. Social evils like drug abuse, alcoholism and crime are widespread.

Measurement (2):
• The HDI ranks countries by their performance in three key areas – health, education and access to resources.
• Each country gets a score between 0 and 1; the closer to 1, the higher the human development.
Key areas (3):
1. Health – measured by life expectancy at birth.
2. Access to knowledge – measured by adult literacy rate and gross enrolment ratio.
3. Access to resources – measured by purchasing power (in US dollars).

Name (1): Panama Canal.
Features (any four):
1. Built across the Isthmus of Panama between Panama City and Colon by the US government.
2. It is about 72 km long.
3. It has a six-lock system, so ships are lifted and lowered through different levels.
4. It greatly shortens the sea distance between New York and San Francisco.
5. It also shortens routes between Western Europe and the west coast of the USA, and between north-eastern/central USA and East/South-East Asia.
6. It is very important for the economies of Latin America.

Any five:
1. The Rhine flows through Germany and the Netherlands.
2. It is navigable for about 700 km from Rotterdam (Netherlands) at its mouth to Basel (Switzerland).
3. The Ruhr river joins it from the east; the Ruhr coalfield region lies along it.
4. It is the most heavily used inland waterway in the world.
5. Every year more than 20,000 ocean-going ships and about 2,00,000 inland vessels exchange cargo on it.
6. It connects the industrial areas of Switzerland, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands with the North Atlantic sea route.

Any five:
1. Introduced by Europeans in their colonies in the tropics.
2. Main crops: tea, coffee, cocoa, rubber, cotton, oil palm, sugarcane, bananas and pineapples.
3. Large estates or plantations.
4. Large capital investment.
5. Managerial and technical support are needed.
6. Scientific methods of cultivation are used.
7. Cheap labour is required.
8. Single-crop specialisation.
9. A good transport system links the estates with factories and markets for export of products.

Any five:
1. Practised in the interior parts of semi-arid lands of the mid-latitudes.
2. Wheat is the principal crop; corn, barley, oats and rye are also grown.
3. Farms are very large in size.
4. All operations from ploughing to harvesting are mechanised.
5. Yield per acre is low but yield per person is high.
6. Best developed in the Eurasian Steppes, the Canadian and American Prairies, the Pampas of Argentina, the Velds of South Africa, the Australian Downs and the Canterbury Plains of New Zealand.

Any five:
1. India is surrounded by sea on three sides and has a long coastline.
2. India has a long tradition of seafaring, and ports have been in use since ancient times.
3. Water offers a smooth, cheap and eco-friendly surface for transport.
4. India has ports on both the east and west coasts; the west coast has more ports. Ports vary in size and quality.
5. Ports act as suction points of resources from their hinterlands.
6. Extension of railways linked ports with local, regional and national markets.
7. Indian ports handle large volumes of domestic and overseas trade and are being equipped with modern infrastructure.
8. India has 12 major ports and about 200 minor/intermediate ports.

Any five:
1. Sustainable development needs economic development to be combined with environmental concerns.
2. Traditional ways of using resources produce huge amounts of waste and other environmental problems.
3. Sustainable development calls for protecting resources for future generations, so minerals must be conserved.
4. Inexhaustible alternatives like solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy should be developed to replace exhaustible ones.
5. For metallic minerals, using scrap enables recycling; this is especially important for copper, lead and zinc, whose reserves in India are small.
6. Using substitutes for scarce metals reduces their consumption.
7. Export of strategic and scarce minerals should be reduced so that existing reserves last longer.

Advantages (any points):
1. They are renewable and inexhaustible – solar, wind, hydro-geothermal, biomass.
2. They are abundantly available and more equitably distributed.
3. They are environment-friendly and give more sustained energy.
4. They are cheaper in the long run.
5. They have the potential to replace conventional (fossil fuel) sources.
Solar energy example:
• Photovoltaic cells and solar thermal technology are becoming cost-competitive.
• It is clean and easy to set up even in remote areas.
• Used in appliances like water heaters, crop dryers, cookers and coolers.
• The western part of India – Gujarat and Rajasthan – has the greatest potential.

A: The Velds of South Africa are temperate grasslands where wheat is grown on large mechanised farms.
B: The Suez Canal (Port Said–Suez) links the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
C: Perth (Fremantle) is the main port of Western Australia.
D: Tokyo (Narita/Haneda) is the major international airport of Japan (Osaka also accepted).
E: Rio de Janeiro is a major port of Brazil.
F: Tropical/equatorial Africa (Congo Basin) – gathering of forest products.
G: The St. Lawrence Seaway – Great Lakes waterway of North America.

(30.1) Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) is on the south-east coast of Tamil Nadu, near the Gulf of Mannar.
(30.2) Khetri copper mines are in the Jhunjhunu district of north-east Rajasthan.
(30.3) Amritsar (Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport) in Punjab.
(30.4) West Bengal – shade the whole state.
(30.5) Bihar – shade the state (highest density as per Census 2011).
(30.6) Mathura oil refinery in western Uttar Pradesh.
(30.7) Jharia coalfield in Dhanbad district, Jharkhand.
Tip: use a dot for places and shading for states, and write the name next to each.