Which of the following places has the lowest rainfall during the South West Monsoon?

The answer is C) Chennai. Chennai gets most of its rain from the North East monsoon (October to December), not the South West monsoon, because it lies on the east coast in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats. Its June to September rainfall is therefore among the lowest of these four cities.

• Mangalore (B) is wrong: it sits on the windward western coast, where the Western Ghats force the moist SW monsoon winds to drop very heavy rain, often above 3000 mm a year.
• Kolkata (A) is wrong: it lies in the Ganga delta, in the path of the Bay of Bengal branch of the SW monsoon, and receives most of its roughly 1600 mm in June to September.
• Delhi (D) is wrong: its annual rainfall is low, but around 80 percent of it falls in the SW monsoon, from the Bay of Bengal branch moving up the Gangetic plain. This is a close comparison with Chennai, so the question tests the rain-shadow logic rather than absolute totals.

The core concept is the regional rainfall distribution of the two monsoons, which connects to the Indian Geography and climate units and to Mains questions on the monsoon's regional variation and the rain-shadow effect.

Trap: aspirants often assume that the driest city in India must be the driest in every season. Always check which monsoon is being asked about.