Consider the following pairs: Medieval Indian State : Present Region 1) Champaka : Central India 2) Durgara : Jammu 3) Kuluta : Malabar Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?

Only the second pair is correct, so the answer is B. Here is how each pair stands.

• Champaka and Central India (wrong): Champaka was a hill state in the western Himalayas, with Champavati as its capital. Its modern successor is Chamba in Himachal Pradesh, not Central India.
• Durgara and Jammu (correct): Durgara is the old name for the Jammu hill region, the area later ruled by the Dogra dynasty. The pair holds.
• Kuluta and Malabar (wrong): Kuluta is the Kullu valley on the upper Beas in Himachal Pradesh. Malabar is the Kerala coast, which has no link to Kuluta.

The core concept is the identification of medieval Indian political units with their present-day regions, mostly through inscriptions, Chinese travellers' accounts and Sanskrit texts such as the Rajatarangini. For Mains, it helps in tracing the political geography of the Himalayan states and how the Himachal hill kingdoms later became Indian states.

Trap: Candidates tend to treat Champaka as a Bihar or Central India name because of the Champa kingdom in the east. Champaka in this question is the Himalayan state, which is a different place.