Physical Geography
What are the three major river systems?
What is... The Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Indus?
What is one of the most significant characteristics of India?
What is... India's large population size that is mostly rural?
How much of the world's population lives in the Ganges River Valley?
What is... Ten percent (10%) of the world's population?
Define Cottage Industries
What is... a business that employs workers in their homes?
What is the name of the highest mountain ranges in the world?
What is... the Himalayas?
What is the most densely populated area in India and why is it important?
What is... the Gangetic Plain?
What is... an area of fertile soil deposited by river floodwaters that is by the world's longest alluvial plain?
How many languages are spoken in India and how many are official?
What is... The people of India speak more than 1,000 languages, but there are 22 official languages with Hindi being the most widely spoken?
What is Indian's highest dam?
Define Panchayat
What is... A village council?
Why is the Indus River important to India?
What is... irrigation and a major transportation route?
What is India's climate influenced by?
What is... the shape of the subcontinent, its proximity to the Equator, and the Indian Ocean?
Provide an overview of the concept of jati.
What is... A jati is a cast or social position which a person is born into. It determines where a person can live, what kind of job and education he or she may receive and who he or she is able to marry?
Describe what happened in December 1984 in Bhopal, a city in Central India.
What is... A dangerous chemical leaked from a factory that made insecticides. It drifted over densely populated areas around the plant and killed between 15,000 and 20,000 people. Hundreds of thousands of others were blinded or suffered respiratory problems or other injuries?
Define Cyclone
What is... A storm with heavy rains and high winds that blow in a circular pattern around an area of low atmospheric pressure?
How much of India is covered in forest?
What is... 1/4 (one-fourth)?
Name one problem and benefit that summer monsoons bring in?
Answers May Vary:
What is...Rainfall waters crops, but areas outside the path of the monsoon may suffers from droughts.
Large amounts of rain from the monsoons cause flooding in low-lying land, but the floods deposit rich silt on the floodplains which renews soil fertility.
Floods can kill people and livestock, ruin crops, and leave thousands homeless?
How did modern India gain its independence?
What is... After British troops fired on unarmed protest at Amritsar in 1919 Mohandas K. Gandhi led Indians to seek freedom using nonviolent method of civil disobedience?
Why has the green revolution rose to controversy?
What is... Some people argue that excessive use of chemicals pollutes waters, poses health hazards, and leads to pest resistance, requiring farmers to use more and more chemicals to grow crops?
Define Green Revolution
What is... a program that begun in the 1960s to produce higher-yielding, more productive strains of wheat, rice, and other food crops?
What year did India gain independence and how did they do it?
What is... India gained independence in 1947?
Describe the weather patterns and wind patterns in the winter months of India and after those months.
What is...In the winter months, air from the Asian interior in the north is drawn across the subcontinent toward the ocean. The air is dry and cool compared to the wet season.
The weather turns hot and humid with little rainfall from March to mid-June and the winds turn calm. The weather becomes hot with little rainfall but high humidity in the south and dry conditions in the north?
Discuss the effects of British imperialist policy in India. Explain how the eventually push by Indians for self-rule was in response to this policy.
What is... The British Imperialist policy led them to take control of India. Under this policy they employed mercantilism where they took raw goods from India and then forced India to buy back the finished products made with these goods. This led to Indians pushing for self-rule as they were not permitted to have control or use the raw goods of their country under this system?
Summarize efforts taken by the Indian government to address environmental protections since 1976.
What is... The Indian government amended the constitution in 1976 to require government environmental protections. Since then, the Supreme Court has made many decisions to protect air, water, ecosystems, and wildlife, including a ban on the pesticide endosulfan and laws against wildlife poaching and smuggling. In 2006, the government passed the Forest Rights Act which allows people living in forested areas to prohibit forest clearance. These efforts have not been a total success because the needs of the large and growing population have come before environment needs?
Define Monsoon
What is... In Asia, a seasonal wind that brings warm, moist air from the oceans in summer and reverses direction in the winter bringing cold, dry air from Asia's interior?
What is...undergoing reincarnation or rebirth?