RAS question
The Malabar Coast lies between:
Correct answer: (C) Mangalore and Kanyakumari.
The Malabar Coast lies between Mangalore and Kanyakumari on India's south-western coast.
Explanation
The Malabar Coast is the southern stretch of India's western coastal plain. The cited SATHEE chapter explains that the western coast is a narrow plain between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, divided into Konkan in the north, the Kannad Plain in the central stretch, and the Malabar Coast in the south. Within the options here, that southern Malabar stretch corresponds to Mangalore and Kanyakumari. This fits the standard physiographic division of the Indian coastal plains: Mumbai-Goa is Konkan, Goa-Mangalore is the central western section, and Kanyakumari-Pulicat belongs to the eastern coastal system. The region is also associated with Kerala's backwaters, lagoons, spice-trade history, and heavy south-west monsoon rainfall.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Mumbai and Goa mark the Konkan section of the western coast, not the Malabar section.
- (B) Kanyakumari to Pulicat Lake belongs to the eastern coastal side, where the southern stretch is identified with the Coromandel Coast.
- (D) Goa to Mangalore is the central western coastal stretch, described in the source as the Kannad Plain, not the southern Malabar Coast.
Concept
This tests the physiographic division of India's coastal plains, especially the named stretches of the western and eastern coasts. RAS repeats such map-based location facts because they link physical geography with monsoon, trade and regional settlement patterns.