Post-Independence India — Constitutional Development

Why This Chapter Matters

IBPS and SBI Clerk General Awareness papers pull 3 to 5 questions from Indian geography almost every single attempt, and the pattern repeats year after year: a state-capital pair, a river-origin question, a mountain range fact, sometimes a natural resource location. That is easy, bankable score if you know where to look, and it is thrown away marks if you walk in thinking "geography is for UPSC, not for bank exams." It is not deep geography they want. It is fast-recall geography.

The single biggest mistake aspirants make here is treating this chapter like a school textbook to be read start to finish, memorizing contour lines and rock formations. Banking exams do not care about your ability to describe a fold mountain in geological terms. They care whether you know Kanchenjunga is in Sikkim, the Narmada flows west, and Chhattisgarh's capital is Raipur. This chapter is built exactly for that filter: what gets asked, not what looks impressive in a geography degree. Read it once with attention, revise the tables twice, and this becomes one of your most reliable scoring zones in the GA section.

1. India's Physical Divisions — The Five-Part Skeleton

Think of India's landmass as a building with five structural sections stacked from north to south. Once this skeleton is fixed in your head, every state and river you learn later slots into a mental shelf instead of floating loose.

The Himalayan Mountain System forms the northern wall — the youngest and tallest mountain range on Earth, still rising a few millimetres every year because the Indian tectonic plate keeps pushing into the Eurasian plate. This range runs about 2,400 km from Jammu & Kashmir in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east, and it has three parallel sub-ranges running west to east: the Himadri (Greater Himalayas) with the tallest peaks including Kanchenjunga (India's highest point at 8,586 m, located in Sikkim), the Himachal (Lesser Himalayas) with hill stations like Shimla and Darjeeling, and the Shiwaliks (Outer Himalayas), the youngest and lowest foothill range closest to the plains.

The Northern Plains lie just south of the Himalayas, built entirely from silt dropped by three river systems: the Indus, the Ganga, and the Brahmaputra. This is the most densely populated and most fertile stretch of the country, often called the food bowl of India, and it stretches from Punjab through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal into Assam.

The Peninsular Plateau occupies the entire southern triangle of India and is one of the oldest and most stable landmasses on the planet — a piece of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, far older than the Himalayas. It splits into the Malwa Plateau, the Deccan Plateau (the largest single block, covering much of Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh), and the Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand, which is India's mineral treasure chest.

The Coastal Plains run along both edges of the peninsula. The Western Coastal Plain, squeezed between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, is narrow and broken, home to Kerala's backwaters and Goa's beaches. The Eastern Coastal Plain, between the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal, is wider and is where India's major rivers form large deltas before meeting the sea.

The Indian Desert (Thar) covers the western edge, mostly in Rajasthan, extending slightly into Gujarat and Haryana. It is one of the most densely populated deserts in the world for its harsh climate, because of centuries of adapted agriculture and the Indira Gandhi Canal bringing irrigation.

Memory hook: Picture a five-storey house facing north to south — roof (Himalayas), first floor (Northern Plains), a huge old basement slab (Peninsular Plateau), a garden strip on each side (Coastal Plains), and a sandy courtyard in the west (Thar Desert). "H-N-P-C-T" — House Needs Proper Coastal Terrace.

2. Mountain Ranges Beyond the Himalayas

Exam-setters like to test whether you can tell the Himalayas apart from India's other mountain ranges, so keep these four firmly separate in memory.

The Western Ghats (also called the Sahyadri) run parallel to the west coast from Gujarat down to Kanyakumari, about 1,600 km long. They are older and more continuous than the Eastern Ghats, and they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site for extraordinary biodiversity. The Western Ghats force moisture-laden monsoon winds to rise and drop heavy rainfall on the western coast, which is exactly why Kerala and coastal Karnataka are so lush while the interior Deccan just behind the Ghats stays comparatively dry — a rain-shadow effect worth remembering.

The Eastern Ghats run along the east coast but are older in geological age, more broken, and lower than the Western Ghats, cut through by major rivers like the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri as they flow to the Bay of Bengal.

The Aravalli Range, running through Rajasthan into Delhi and Haryana, is the oldest fold mountain range in India — so old it has been worn down by erosion over hundreds of millions of years into low, rounded hills. Its highest peak, Guru Shikhar in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, stands at just 1,722 m, a fraction of Himalayan heights but a useful contrast fact examiners enjoy testing.

The Vindhya and Satpura Ranges run roughly parallel to each other across central India and are traditionally treated as the symbolic boundary between North India and South India, with the Narmada River flowing in the valley between them.

Exam trap: Students frequently confuse the Aravallis (oldest, most eroded, lowest) with the Himalayas (youngest, still rising, tallest). If a question calls a range "the oldest fold mountains in India," the answer is always Aravalli, never Himalayas.

3. The River Systems — India's Lifelines

Indian rivers split neatly into two families based on where they originate and how they behave, and this single distinction answers a huge share of river-based questions.

Himalayan rivers are perennial, meaning they flow all year round, because they are fed by both monsoon rain and melting glacier snow. The three giants are the Ganga, originating from the Gangotri glacier (Gaumukh) in Uttarakhand, flowing through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal before entering Bangladesh and meeting the Bay of Bengal; the Indus, originating near Mansarovar Lake in Tibet, flowing mostly through Pakistan today though its upper course runs through Ladakh; and the Brahmaputra, also originating near Mansarovar in Tibet (there it is called the Tsangpo), entering India through Arunachal Pradesh, flowing through Assam, and eventually joining the Ganga system in Bangladesh.

Peninsular rivers are seasonal, swelling in the monsoon and shrinking drastically in summer, because they depend entirely on rainfall rather than snowmelt. Most of them flow west to east and drain into the Bay of Bengal — the Godavari (called the Dakshin Ganga, the longest peninsular river, originating in Maharashtra's Nashik and flowing through Telangana and Andhra Pradesh), the Krishna (originating near Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra), the Kaveri (originating in Karnataka's Coorg, flowing through Tamil Nadu, famous for the Sivasamudram Falls), and the Mahanadi (flowing through Chhattisgarh and Odisha).

Two peninsular rivers break the eastward rule and flow west into the Arabian Sea instead: the Narmada and the Tapi, both flowing through rift valleys rather than carving their own path over time. This is one of the most repeated single facts in banking GA papers, so lock it in hard.

Memory hook: "Narmada and Tapi Take the West Turn" — NT going West while everyone else in the peninsula heads East, like two friends leaving a train station platform in the opposite direction from the crowd.

Exam trap: Do not confuse the source of the Ganga (Gangotri, Uttarakhand) with the source of the Yamuna (Yamunotri, Uttarakhand) — both begin in Uttarakhand from separate glaciers, a pairing examiners love to swap in options.

4. Climate Zones of India

India's climate is officially classified as a monsoon type of climate, shaped by seasonal wind reversal. The country experiences four broad seasons that examiners test directly: the cold weather season (winter, roughly December to February), the hot weather season (summer, March to May), the southwest monsoon season (June to September, bringing about 75% of India's annual rainfall), and the season of retreating monsoon (October to November).

The southwest monsoon is the one to know cold. Moisture-laden winds from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Sea sweep across India starting around late May or early June, hitting Kerala first (the monsoon is officially said to "hit" or "break" over Kerala around June 1 each year) before advancing north and east across the subcontinent. This single wind system explains why Kerala gets rain first and why Rajasthan, sitting in the rain-shadow zone of these currents, stays largely dry.

India also hosts extreme climate contrasts within short distances — a real, tested fact examiners like. Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, both in Meghalaya, rank among the wettest places on Earth, receiving over 11,000 mm of annual rainfall on average, while the Thar Desert in Rajasthan can receive under 250 mm a year. Two places within the same country, separated by a few thousand kilometres, at opposite ends of the rainfall spectrum — a fact worth remembering the way you'd remember that Delhi's summer heat and Ladakh's winter cold exist under the same national flag.

5. Natural Resources and Where They Sit

Banking exams frequently test "which state produces/mines the most of X," so anchor these locations firmly rather than trying to memorize production percentages, which change yearly and are not reliably testable.

Coal is concentrated heavily in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal, largely because these states sit on the ancient, stable Chota Nagpur Plateau, formed from Gondwana-era rock layers rich in carbon deposits. Iron ore is abundant in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh, with Karnataka also a significant producer. Bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is extracted, is mined heavily in Odisha, which is India's leading producer, followed by Gujarat and Jharkhand. Petroleum and natural gas come mainly from Assam (India's oldest oil-producing region, home to Digboi, Asia's first oil well), Gujarat, and offshore fields like Mumbai High in the Arabian Sea. Mica, used in electronics and insulation, is concentrated in Jharkhand's Koderma belt, sometimes called the mica capital of India.

Think of the Chota Nagpur Plateau region (Jharkhand-Odisha-Chhattisgarh-West Bengal) as India's mineral warehouse, the way a city has one industrial zone packed with factories while the rest stays residential — it is a happy geological accident that most of India's coal, iron, and bauxite sit clustered in roughly the same eastern belt.

6. States and Union Territories — The Bank of Facts

India currently has 28 states and 8 Union Territories. Banking exams love testing capitals, especially of states that recently changed status or split (Telangana from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, and Jammu & Kashmir's reorganization into two Union Territories — Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh — in 2019). Below is the complete capital reference; do not try to cram all 28 in one sitting, revise ten a day using the table.

State	Capital
Andhra Pradesh	Amaravati
Arunachal Pradesh	Itanagar
Assam	Dispur
Bihar	Patna
Chhattisgarh	Raipur
Goa	Panaji
Gujarat	Gandhinagar
Haryana	Chandigarh
Himachal Pradesh	Shimla
Jharkhand	Ranchi
Karnataka	Bengaluru
Kerala	Thiruvananthapuram
Madhya Pradesh	Bhopal
Maharashtra	Mumbai
Manipur	Imphal
Meghalaya	Shillong
Mizoram	Aizawl
Nagaland	Kohima
Odisha	Bhubaneswar
Punjab	Chandigarh
Rajasthan	Jaipur
Sikkim	Gangtok
Tamil Nadu	Chennai
Telangana	Hyderabad
Tripura	Agartala
Uttar Pradesh	Lucknow
Uttarakhand	Dehradun
West Bengal	Kolkata

Exam trap: Chandigarh is the shared capital of both Punjab and Haryana, yet it is itself a separate Union Territory, not part of either state. This exact trap is recycled every exam cycle in one form or another.

Among Union Territories, remember: Delhi (National Capital Territory), Puducherry, Jammu & Kashmir (capital Srinagar in summer, Jammu in winter — dual capital), Ladakh (no legislature, administered directly), Chandigarh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands (capital Port Blair), Lakshadweep (capital Kavaratti), and Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu (a merged UT since 2020, capital Daman).

7. Borders and Neighbours — Quick Geography, Big Marks

India shares land borders with seven countries: Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Afghanistan (a small stretch through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir near the Wakhan Corridor, often debated but still listed in the standard exam narrative). India's coastline runs along the Arabian Sea in the west and the Bay of Sea in the east, meeting the Indian Ocean at the southern tip near Kanyakumari — the point where all three water bodies visually converge, a favourite trivia fact.

The state with the longest coastline is Gujarat, and the state bordering the maximum number of other Indian states is often cited as Uttar Pradesh or Madhya Pradesh depending on the exact count used, though this specific superlative is asked less often than capitals and rivers, so do not over-invest time memorizing it.

8. Lakes, Wildlife Reserves, and Forest Cover

Banking GA papers occasionally slip in a lake or a national park question, usually tied to a state, so treat this as bonus territory worth a quick pass rather than deep study.

Among India's lakes, Wular Lake in Jammu & Kashmir is the largest freshwater lake in India, formed by tectonic activity, while Chilika Lake in Odisha is the largest coastal lagoon in the country and one of the largest in Asia, famous as a wintering ground for migratory birds including flamingos arriving from as far as Siberia. Sambhar Lake in Rajasthan is India's largest saltwater lake, a major source of salt production for centuries, and Dal Lake in Srinagar, though smaller, is the most photographed lake in India thanks to its houseboats and floating gardens.

India's forest cover, as tracked through periodic government surveys, sits at roughly one-fifth to one-fourth of the country's total geographical area, a figure that examiners sometimes probe indirectly by asking which state has the largest forest cover by area (usually cited as Madhya Pradesh) versus which state has the highest forest cover by percentage of its own area (usually cited as Mizoram or another northeastern state, since the entire northeast is heavily forested hill terrain). Do not memorize exact percentages, since these shift with each biennial survey; instead remember the pattern that northeastern states dominate percentage-wise while large central states like Madhya Pradesh dominate in absolute forest area because of their sheer size.

Project Tiger, launched in 1973, remains India's flagship wildlife conservation programme, and its tiger reserves are a frequent GA topic. Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand holds the distinction of being India's oldest national park, established in 1936 (originally under a different name, later renamed after the hunter-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett), and it was also the first reserve declared under Project Tiger. Kaziranga National Park in Assam is world-famous as the home of the one-horned rhinoceros, a species found overwhelmingly in this single park more than almost anywhere else on Earth, making Kaziranga and the rhino something of a paired fact examiners like to test together. Sundarbans National Park, spread across West Bengal at the delta of the Ganga and Brahmaputra, is the world's largest mangrove forest, shared with Bangladesh, and is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site and Tiger Reserve simultaneously, home to the Royal Bengal Tiger uniquely adapted to swim through tidal creeks.

Treat wildlife reserves the way you would treat a mental postcard collection: Kaziranga means rhino, Sundarbans means mangrove tiger, Corbett means "the first and the oldest," Gir Forest in Gujarat means the last natural home of the Asiatic lion outside captivity anywhere in the world. Pin one clear image per park and the state-park pairing becomes almost automatic under exam pressure.

Exam trap: Students often assume tigers roam every major Indian forest reserve equally, but the Gir Forest National Park in Gujarat is specifically and famously the sole surviving natural habitat of the Asiatic lion, not the tiger. Any question pairing "lion" with a state should point you straight to Gujarat, never Assam or West Bengal, where the associated big cat is the tiger.

9. Soil Types — A Quick Practical Layer

Banking exams occasionally test soil type and its associated crop or region, useful because it connects geography to the agriculture-based economy questions that also appear in GA sections. Alluvial soil, found across the Northern Plains, is the most fertile soil type in India, ideal for wheat, rice, and sugarcane, renewed constantly by river silt deposits. Black soil (also called Regur soil or "cotton soil"), found predominantly across the Deccan Plateau in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, retains moisture exceptionally well and is ideally suited for cotton cultivation, a fact tied directly to why Maharashtra and Gujarat remain major cotton-producing states. Red soil, found in parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Odisha, gets its colour from iron oxide content and supports crops like groundnut and millets. Laterite soil, found in high-rainfall regions like Kerala and parts of the Western Ghats, forms through intense leaching of nutrients under heavy rain and supports plantation crops like tea, coffee, and rubber. Desert soil, found in Rajasthan, is sandy, low in moisture, and low in organic content, supporting only hardy, drought-resistant crops.

Think of India's soil map as a simple colour-coded story: black soil hugging the cotton belt of the Deccan, red soil scattered through the drier peninsula, alluvial soil blanketing the fertile north like a repeated gift from the rivers every monsoon, and laterite soil sitting wherever rain never really stops falling.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• India's highest peak is Kanchenjunga (8,586 m), located in Sikkim.
• The Himalayas have three parallel ranges: Himadri, Himachal, and Shiwaliks.
• The Aravalli Range is India's oldest fold mountain range; its highest point is Guru Shikhar, Mount Abu.
• The Western Ghats are older and more continuous than the Eastern Ghats.
• The Narmada and Tapi are the only major peninsular rivers flowing west into the Arabian Sea.
• The Ganga originates at Gangotri (Gaumukh), Uttarakhand.
• The Yamuna originates at Yamunotri, Uttarakhand.
• The Brahmaputra is called the Tsangpo in Tibet before entering India via Arunachal Pradesh.
• The Godavari is the longest peninsular river, called the Dakshin Ganga.
• India's monsoon officially breaks over Kerala around June 1.
• Mawsynram and Cherrapunji, both in Meghalaya, are among the wettest places on Earth.
• The Thar Desert, mostly in Rajasthan, is one of the most densely populated deserts globally.
• India has 28 states and 8 Union Territories.
• Chandigarh is the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana but is itself a separate UT.
• Jammu & Kashmir has a dual capital: Srinagar (summer) and Jammu (winter).
• Andaman & Nicobar Islands' capital is Port Blair; Lakshadweep's capital is Kavaratti.
• India shares land borders with seven countries.
• Gujarat has India's longest coastline among states.
• The Chota Nagpur Plateau (Jharkhand) is India's richest coal and mineral belt.
• Digboi, Assam, hosts Asia's first oil well.
• Odisha is India's leading producer of bauxite.
• The Deccan Plateau is the largest plateau block in the Peninsular Plateau.
• Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014; Hyderabad served as joint capital for a fixed transition period.
• Ladakh, since 2019, is a Union Territory without its own legislature.
• India's peninsular rivers are seasonal; Himalayan rivers are perennial.
• The Sivasamudram Falls lie on the Kaveri River in Karnataka.
• The Vindhya and Satpura ranges are considered the traditional dividing line between North and South India.
• Mumbai High is a major offshore petroleum field in the Arabian Sea.
• Koderma, Jharkhand, is known as India's mica belt.
• Kanyakumari marks the meeting point of the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Indian Ocean.
• Wular Lake, Jammu & Kashmir, is India's largest freshwater lake.
• Chilika Lake, Odisha, is India's largest coastal lagoon and a major migratory bird habitat.
• Sambhar Lake, Rajasthan, is India's largest saltwater lake.
• Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand, is India's oldest national park, established in 1936.
• Kaziranga National Park, Assam, is globally known for the one-horned rhinoceros.
• Sundarbans, West Bengal, is the world's largest mangrove forest, shared with Bangladesh.
• Gir Forest, Gujarat, is the only natural habitat of the Asiatic lion.
• Black (Regur) soil, found across the Deccan, is best suited for cotton cultivation.
• Alluvial soil, found in the Northern Plains, is India's most fertile soil type.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Major Rivers — Origin, Flow Direction, and States

River	Origin	Flow Direction	Key States Covered
Ganga	Gangotri, Uttarakhand	East	UP, Bihar, West Bengal
Yamuna	Yamunotri, Uttarakhand	Southeast (joins Ganga)	Delhi, UP
Brahmaputra	Near Mansarovar, Tibet	West then South	Arunachal Pradesh, Assam
Indus	Near Mansarovar, Tibet	Northwest	Ladakh (upper course)
Godavari	Nashik, Maharashtra	East	Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh
Krishna	Mahabaleshwar, Maharashtra	East	Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, AP
Kaveri	Coorg, Karnataka	East	Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
Narmada	Amarkantak, MP	West	Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat
Tapi	Betul, MP	West	Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat
Mahanadi	Chhattisgarh	East	Chhattisgarh, Odisha

Table 2: Physical Divisions and Their Defining Feature

Division	Defining Feature	Example Location
Himalayan Mountains	Youngest, tallest, still rising	Kanchenjunga, Sikkim
Northern Plains	River-deposited silt, most fertile	Punjab to West Bengal
Peninsular Plateau	Oldest, most stable landmass	Deccan, Chota Nagpur
Coastal Plains	Narrow (west) vs wide (east)	Kerala coast, Odisha coast
Thar Desert	Arid, densely populated for a desert	Western Rajasthan

Practice MCQs

Q1. Which mountain range is considered the oldest fold mountain range in India? (a) Himalayas (b) Western Ghats (c) Aravalli Range (d) Eastern Ghats

Q2. India's highest peak, Kanchenjunga, is located in which state? (a) Uttarakhand (b) Himachal Pradesh (c) Sikkim (d) Arunachal Pradesh

Q3. Which two major peninsular rivers flow westward into the Arabian Sea? (a) Godavari and Krishna (b) Kaveri and Mahanadi (c) Narmada and Tapi (d) Krishna and Tapi

Q4. The Ganga River originates from which glacier? (a) Yamunotri (b) Gangotri (c) Siachen (d) Zemu

Q5. What is the capital of Chhattisgarh? (a) Bhopal (b) Raipur (c) Ranchi (d) Bhubaneswar

Q6. Which Indian state has the longest coastline? (a) Tamil Nadu (b) Kerala (c) Gujarat (d) Andhra Pradesh

Q7. Which of the following rivers is called the "Dakshin Ganga"? (a) Kaveri (b) Krishna (c) Godavari (d) Mahanadi

Q8. Mawsynram and Cherrapunji, among the wettest places on Earth, are located in which state? (a) Assam (b) Meghalaya (c) Sikkim (d) Mizoram

Q9. How many states currently make up the Republic of India? (a) 26 (b) 27 (c) 28 (d) 29

Q10. Chandigarh serves as the capital of which two states, while remaining a separate Union Territory itself? (a) Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (b) Punjab and Haryana (c) Punjab and Himachal Pradesh (d) Haryana and Rajasthan

Q11. The Chota Nagpur Plateau, known for rich mineral deposits, lies mainly in which state? (a) Odisha (b) Jharkhand (c) Chhattisgarh (d) West Bengal

Q12. Which country does NOT share a land border with India? (a) Bhutan (b) Myanmar (c) Sri Lanka (d) Nepal

Q13. Digboi, associated with Asia's first oil well, is located in which state? (a) Gujarat (b) Assam (c) Rajasthan (d) Tripura

Q14. The southwest monsoon typically makes its first landfall over which Indian state? (a) Tamil Nadu (b) Karnataka (c) Kerala (d) Goa

Q15. Which range is traditionally regarded as the geographic dividing line between North India and South India? (a) Aravalli and Satpura (b) Vindhya and Satpura (c) Western and Eastern Ghats (d) Himalayas and Vindhya

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(c) Aravalli Range	The Aravallis are heavily eroded over hundreds of millions of years, unlike the still-rising Himalayas.
2	(c) Sikkim	Kanchenjunga (8,586 m) sits on the Sikkim-Nepal border, India's tallest point.
3	(c) Narmada and Tapi	Both flow through rift valleys westward, unlike almost every other peninsular river that drains east.
4	(b) Gangotri	The Ganga's source is the Gangotri glacier at Gaumukh, Uttarakhand, distinct from the Yamuna's Yamunotri source.
5	(b) Raipur	Raipur became Chhattisgarh's capital after the state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000.
6	(c) Gujarat	Gujarat's long, indented coastline along the Arabian Sea exceeds every other Indian state's.
7	(c) Godavari	Called Dakshin Ganga for its length and significance among peninsular rivers, originating near Nashik.
8	(b) Meghalaya	Both towns sit on the windward side of the Khasi Hills, forcing monsoon clouds to release record rainfall.
9	(c) 28	India has 28 states and 8 Union Territories after the 2019 reorganization of Jammu & Kashmir.
10	(b) Punjab and Haryana	Chandigarh is a joint capital for both states yet administratively an independent Union Territory.
11	(b) Jharkhand	Jharkhand holds the largest share of the Chota Nagpur Plateau's coal, iron, and mica deposits.
12	(c) Sri Lanka	Sri Lanka is separated from India by the Palk Strait; India's seven land neighbours do not include it.
13	(b) Assam	Digboi in Assam hosted Asia's first commercial oil well, marking the start of Indian petroleum extraction.
14	(c) Kerala	The southwest monsoon strikes India's southwestern tip first, around June 1 each year.
15	(b) Vindhya and Satpura	These parallel ranges, with the Narmada valley between them, form the conventional North-South divide.