With which of the three districts given below the State of Nagaland was formed?

Concept

When a state is newly created, only the administrative districts that exist on its formation date are its founding districts. Districts carved out afterwards are not part of the state at its birth, even though they lie within the same territory today. So the test is purely chronological: which districts already existed on the date the state came into being.

Application

Nagaland became the 16th State of India on 1 December 1963. It was formed out of the Naga Hills-Tuensang Area, which at that time was organised into exactly three administrative districts:

• Kohima

• Mokokchung

• Tuensang

Hence the state was formed with the three districts Kohima, Mokokchung and Tuensang.

Cross-check

Every other district named in the choices came into existence only after 1963: Wokha (1973), Dimapur (1997), Kiphire (2004) and, more recently, Noklak, Tseminyu and Niuland. Since none of these existed in 1963, any trio containing them cannot be the founding set, confirming that only Kohima, Mokokchung and Tuensang qualify.