GEOGRAPHY OF INDIA
1. Physical Setting:
1. Physical Setting:
- Space relationship of India with neighboring countries
- Structure and relief
- Drainage system and watersheds
- Physiographic regions
- Mechanism of Indian monsoons and rainfall patterns
- Tropical cyclones and western disturbances
- Floods and droughts
- Climatic regions
- Natural vegetation
- Soil types and their distributions.
2. Resources:
- Land, surface and ground water, energy, minerals, biotic and marine resources
- Forest and wild life resources and their conservation
- Energy crisis.
3. Agriculture:
- Infrastructure: irrigation, seeds, fertilizers, power
- Institutional factors: land holdings, land tenure and land reforms.
- Cropping pattern, agricultural productivity, agricultural intensity, crop combination, land capability
- Agro and social-forestry
- Green revolution and its socio- economic and ecological implications;
- Significance of dry farming
- Livestock resources and white revolution
- aqua - culture
- sericulture, apiculture and poultry
- agricultural regionalisation
- agro-climatic zones
- agroecological regions.
4. Industry:
- Evolution of industries
- Locational factors of cotton, jute, textile, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilizer, paper, chemical and pharmaceutical, automobile, cottage and agro-based industries
- Industrial houses and complexes including public sector undertakings;
- Industrial regionali-sation
- New industrial policies
- Multinationals and liberalization
- Special Economic Zones
- Tourism including eco - tourism.
5. Transport, Communication and Trade:
- Road, railway, waterway, airway and pipeline networks and their complementary roles in regional development;
- Growing importance of ports on national and foreign trade
- Trade balance
- Trade Policy
- Export processing zones;
- Developments in communication and information technology and their impacts on economy and society
- Indian space programme.
6. Cultural Setting:
- Historical Perspective of Indian Society
- Racial, linguistic and ethnic diversities
- Religious minorities
- major tribes, tribal areas and their problems
- cultural regions
- Growth, distribution and density of population
- Demographic attributes: sex-ratio, age structure, literacy rate, work-force,dependency ratio, longevity
- Migration (inter-regional, intra- regional and international) and associated problems
- Population problems and policies
- Health indicators.
7. Settlements:
- Types, patterns and morphology of rural settlements
- Urban developments
- Morphology of Indian cities
- Functional classification of Indian cities
- Conurbations and metropolitan regions
- urban sprawl
- Slums and associated problems
- town planning
- Problems of urbanization and remedies.
8. Regional Development and Planning:
- Experience of regional planning in India
- Five Year Plans
- Integrated rural development programmes
- Panchayati Raj and decentralised planning
- Command area development
- Watershed management
- Planning for backward area, desert, drought prone, hill, tribal area development
- multi-level planning
- Regional planning and development of island territories.
9. Political Aspects:
- Geographical basis of Indian federalism
- State reorganisation
- Emergence of new states
- Regional consciousness and inter state issues
- international boundary of India and related issues
- Cross border terrorism
- India’s role in world affairs
- Geopolitics of South Asia and
- Indian Ocean realm.
10. Contemporary Issues:
- Ecological issues: Environmental hazards: landslides, earthquakes, Tsunamis, floods and droughts, epidemics
- Issues relating to environmental pollution
- Changes in patterns of land use
- Principles of environmental impact assessment and environmental management
- Population explosion and food security
- Environmental degradation
- Deforestation, desertification and soil erosion
- Problems of agrarian and industrial unrest
- Regional disparities in economic development
- Concept of sustainable growth and development
- Environmental awareness
- Linkage of rivers
- Globalisation and Indian economy.