Consider the following statements regarding the rivers of India: 1. The Barak River, the head stream of the Meghna, rises in the hills of Meghalaya. 2. The Ghaggar River does not drain out to the sea and gets lost in the Rajasthan desert. 3. Puthimari and Manas are important tributaries of the Brahmaputra. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Statement 1 is incorrect because the Barak River, the headstream of the Meghna, rises in the Manipur hills (specifically near Liyai Kullen in Senapati district), not the hills of Meghalaya [5]. It flows through Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Assam before entering Bangladesh [3]. Statement 2 is correct as the Ghaggar is an ephemeral inland drainage river that rises in the Shiwaliks and eventually gets lost in the sands of the Thar Desert near Hanumangarh, Rajasthan [4]. Statement 3 is correct because both the Puthimari and Manas are significant tributaries of the Brahmaputra in the Assam valley [3]. The Manas is a major transboundary right-bank tributary originating in Bhutan [3]. Therefore, only statements 2 and 3 are accurate.

Sources

1. [1] https://asmenvis.nic.in/Database/Hindi/Hazards_840.aspx?format=Print
2. [4] https://indiawris.gov.in/wiki/doku.php?id=barak_and_others
3. [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barak_River
4. [3] INDIA PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, Geography Class XI (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 3: Drainage System > The Brahmaputra System > p. 23