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Q93 (IAS/2023) Geography › Maps & Locations › Conflict and strategic regions Official Key

Consider the following pairs: | Regions often mentioned in news | Reason for being in news | | ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | 1. North Kivu and Ituri | War between Armenia and Azerbaijan | | 2. Nagorno-Karabakh | Insurgency in Mozambique | | 3. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia | Dispute between Israel and Lebanon | How many of the above pairs are correctly matched?

Result
Your answer:  ·  Correct: D
Explanation

The correct answer is Option 4 (None) because all three pairs are incorrectly matched based on contemporary geopolitical conflicts.

  • Pair 1: North Kivu and Ituri are provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known for long-standing internal conflict involving various rebel groups, not the Armenia-Azerbaijan war.
  • Pair 2: Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus that was the center of a decades-long ethnic and territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, not related to the insurgency in Mozambique (which primarily affects the Cabo Delgado region).
  • Pair 3: Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are strategic regions in Ukraine that have been major focal points of the Russian invasion since 2022. They are not related to the maritime or territorial disputes between Israel and Lebanon.

Since none of the regions are correctly matched with their respective reasons for being in the news, Option 4 is the right choice.

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Q. Consider the following pairs: | Regions often mentioned in news | Reason for being in news | | -------------------------------…
At a glance
Origin: Mostly Current Affairs Fairness: Low / Borderline fairness Books / CA: 0/10 · 3.3/10
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This is a classic 'Column Shuffle' trap. The examiner took the three biggest global conflict headlines of the year (Ukraine, Caucasus, DRC) and simply rotated the descriptions. It is a high-fairness question; missing this implies a lack of basic geographic literacy regarding front-page international news.

How this question is built

This question can be broken into the following sub-statements. Tap a statement sentence to jump into its detailed analysis.

Statement 1
Were North Kivu and Ituri (Democratic Republic of Congo) mentioned in 2023 news reports as locations of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan?
Origin: Web / Current Affairs Fairness: CA heavy Web-answerable

Web source
Presence: 4/5
"the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic State-linked armed group commonly called the ADF, are abducting and killing civilians with alarming frequency, and abusing women and girls as sexual slaves in North Kivu and Ituri provinces."
Why this source?
  • Explicitly names North Kivu and Ituri as provinces affected by an ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • Shows these provinces are referenced in coverage of a DRC conflict (Allied Democratic Forces), not in relation to Armenia–Azerbaijan.
Web source
Presence: 4/5
"The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Including neighboring Ituri province"
Why this source?
  • Identifies North Kivu and Ituri as parts of the Kivu/Ituri conflicts in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • Positions these provinces clearly within DRC-related conflicts rather than any Armenia–Azerbaijan context.

Contemporary World Politics, Textbook in political science for Class XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 1: The End of Bipolarity > Tensions and Conflicts > p. 10
Strength: 5/5
“Most of the former Soviet Republics are prone to conflicts, and many have had civil wars and insurgencies. Complicating the picture is the growing involvement of outside powers. In Russia, two republics, Chechnya and Dagestan, have had violent secessionist movements. Moscow's method of dealing with the Chechen rebels and indiscriminate military bombings have led to many human rights violations but failed to deter the aspirations for independence. In Central Asia, Tajikistan witnessed a civil war that went on for ten years till 2001. The region as a whole has many sectarian conflicts. In Azerbaijan's province of Nagorno-Karabakh, some local Armenians want to secede and join Armenia.”
Why relevant

States that the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis concerns Nagorno-Karabakh, a province of Azerbaijan, establishing the usual geographic locus of that war.

How to extend

A student could combine this with a map to note that Nagorno-Karabakh lies in the South Caucasus (not in Africa), making mentions of African provinces in that context less likely.

India and the Contemporary World - I. History-Class IX . NCERT(Revised ed 2025) > Chapter 2: Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution > 2.1 The Russian Empire in 1914 > p. 30
Strength: 4/5
“In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire. Besides the territory around Moscow, the Russian empire included current-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It stretched to the Pacific and comprised today's Central Asian states, as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The majority religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity – which had grown out of the Greek Orthodox Church – but the empire also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Buddhists. India and the Contemporary World”
Why relevant

Lists Azerbaijan as part of the Caucasus region within the former Russian Empire, reinforcing the Caucasus (Eurasia) as the regional setting for Azerbaijan-related conflicts.

How to extend

Using a basic world map, one could contrast the Caucasus location with the Democratic Republic of Congo's African location to assess plausibility of DRC provinces being reported as sites of an Armenia–Azerbaijan war.

Environment and Ecology, Majid Hussain (Access publishing 3rd ed.) > Chapter 12: Major Crops and Cropping Patterns in India > Countries on Equator > p. 79
Strength: 4/5
“Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Gabon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia, Kiribati.”
Why relevant

Names the Democratic Republic of Congo among countries on or near the equator, confirming DRC's identity and African location.

How to extend

A student could use this to place North Kivu and Ituri within the DRC in Africa and compare distances to the Caucasus to judge the likelihood of those provinces being battle sites in an Armenia–Azerbaijan war.

Environment, Shankar IAS Acedemy .(ed 10th) > Chapter 29: Environment Issues and Health Effects > Coalition for Rainforest Nations > p. 426
Strength: 3/5
“# srjANKAre ,\ a-\ ...." ffi (yi, Aptruw' (]# ( ) * • At September 2011, the group included Argentina, Bangladesh, Belize, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chile, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Fiji, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Thailand, Uruguay, Uganda, Vanuatu and”
Why relevant

Includes the Democratic Republic of Congo in a list of nations (demonstrating DRC's distinct geopolitical grouping), which underscores that DRC is part of African regional lists rather than Eurasian/Caucasus groupings.

How to extend

One could extend this by noting typical regional grouping patterns in news reporting—wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan are normally reported within Caucasus/Eurasian contexts, not African regional lists.

Statement analysis

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Statement analysis

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