Banking GK Questions 2026

The correct answer is the Watershed Development Component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana in its third phase. The release states that the guidelines under preparation will be used for future generation watershed development in the country under that component, which is why the meeting spent its time on validating claims in the draft and on data from the two participating states. The crop insurance scheme in the second option is wrong, as it compensates farmers for crop loss and has no role in framing watershed guidelines. The sustainable agriculture mission in the third option is wrong; it is a separate programme and is not named anywhere in the release. The agriculture development scheme in the fourth option is wrong for the same reason. Remember the pairing of the guidelines with the watershed component and its version number, because the phase is itself examinable.

The correct answer is Dr Chandra Shekhar Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of the National Rainfed Area Authority. The release names him as presiding over the meeting and records his instruction that claims in the draft guidelines be validated against data actually collected under the programme. The Deputy Director General for natural resource management at ICAR is wrong; he attended and spoke on integrating the land resource inventory with hydrology, but did not preside. The Joint Secretary for watershed management in the Department of Land Resources is wrong as well; his contribution was the suggestion to shorten the time taken to prepare detailed project reports. The Commissioner of the watershed department in Karnataka is wrong because he joined the meeting online as a state participant. Aspirants should remember who said what, since questions on such meetings often attach a specific proposal to the wrong officer.

The correct answer is Rejuvenating Watersheds for Agricultural Resilience through Innovative Development, the expansion given in the release for the programme under which the technical committee met at the NASC Complex in New Delhi. The second option is wrong; it is built from plausible words but does not match the expansion, and in particular it drops the idea of resilience, which is central to the programme's purpose. The third option is wrong for the same reason and adds terms about ecology and drylands that do not appear in the name. The fourth option is wrong because the programme is not an employment scheme, and confusing it with rural employment programmes is a common error. Candidates should also link the programme with the body running it, the National Rainfed Area Authority, which functions under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, since acronym questions are often paired with the parent ministry.

The correct answer is 77 countries. The declaration was one of the chief outcomes of the first edition of the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit, held in Mumbai, and the backgrounder lists it alongside the other results of the event, including the business transactions generated by the WAVES Bazaar. The first option is wrong; no such count appears anywhere in the document. The second option is wrong, and is a trap, because that number belongs to the registrations drawn by the Create in India Challenges from creators abroad, not to the countries adopting the declaration. The fourth option is wrong for a similar reason: a three-figure count of countries is mentioned in the summary of the summit's participation, not in connection with the declaration. Aspirants should separate the three tallies carefully, since the summit description packs several country counts into a few lines.

The correct answer is 23 March 2026. MyWAVES was opened inside the existing streaming platform on that date, and it changed the service from something people only watched into something they could contribute to, by letting citizens make, upload and share original short, vertical and episodic content. The first option is wrong because that is the date the streaming platform itself was launched at the film festival in Goa, not the date the creator section appeared. The second option is wrong because that is when the first edition of the summit opened in Mumbai. The fourth option is wrong because that is the day the Gems of India Challenge pilot began, which runs through the creator section but is a later and separate step. This question rewards candidates who keep a small timeline of the four dates rather than remembering them one at a time.

The correct answer is the 55th International Film Festival of India in Goa, where the platform was unveiled in November as the public broadcaster's public-service streaming service. The first WAVES Summit in Mumbai is wrong, and is the most tempting distractor because the summit carries the same name: it was held later, in May of the following year, and the streaming platform already existed by then. The India International Trade Fair is wrong, as the backgrounder connects the launch to a film festival and not to a trade exhibition. The Kolkata International Film Festival is wrong as well; although it is also a film festival, the release names the national festival held in Goa and gives its edition number. The safe way to carry this is as a set: the broadcaster, the festival with its edition number, the venue state and the launch date, since a question may supply any one of them and ask for another.

The correct answer is imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of up to fifty lakh rupees, or both. The prohibition itself sits in Section 42(3)(c) of the Act, which bars tampering with telecommunication identifiers, while the neighbouring clause covers obtaining SIMs or identifiers through fraud, cheating or impersonation. The first option is wrong because it understates both the jail term and the maximum fine laid down. The third option is wrong because the statute plainly provides for imprisonment as well as a fine, and indeed allows both together. The fourth option is wrong on two counts: it stretches the term of imprisonment beyond what the Act prescribes and it wrongly removes the fine. Two further points are worth carrying: such offences are cognizable and non-bailable under Section 42(7), and under Section 42(6) a person who abets or promotes the offence is liable to the same punishment as the offender.

The correct answer is the GSMA, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association. The backgrounder says it oversees the worldwide allocation of the Type Allocation Code, handing codes to manufacturers and brand owners, who then assign unique device identities to individual handsets. TRAI is wrong, because the regulator appears in the release only in connection with the rule restricting messaging for a day after a re-issued SIM is activated, not with code allocation. The Department of Telecommunications is wrong as well; it advises citizens on what to avoid and runs the registration and verification machinery in India, but the global code pool is not its to allocate. The International Telecommunication Union is wrong because the release does not assign it this role. A useful chain to memorise is that the association allocates the code, the manufacturer assigns the full identity, and the Indian portals then register it.

The correct answer is fifteen digits. The International Mobile Equipment Identity is described as a unique number of that length which identifies a mobile device on a telecom network, and the first eight of those digits make up the Type Allocation Code that identifies the model or type of the handset. Ten digits is wrong; that is the length of a mobile telephone number in India and the two are often confused, but a telephone number belongs to the connection while this number belongs to the device. Twelve digits is wrong as well and matches no identifier described in the backgrounder. Eighteen digits is wrong because it overstates the length, and no identifier of that size is named. Candidates should also remember the way to read one off a handset, which is by dialling the short code given in the release, and that a dual-SIM phone normally carries two such numbers, one for each slot.

The correct answer is twelve approved and five operational. The backgrounder states that the government has cleared this many semiconductor projects under the Semicon India programme, and that five commercial semiconductor units were already running by September of that year. The first option is wrong on both counts, understating the approvals as well as the units in production. The third option is wrong because it inflates the approvals and the operating units alike, and no such tally appears in the release. The fourth option is wrong for the same reason and is the furthest from the stated position. The point worth carrying forward is the gap between approvals and operations: a project being approved does not mean a plant is producing, which is why the release reports the two numbers separately. Candidates should also link this with the Production Linked Incentive schemes and the India Semiconductor Mission, the two instruments named as driving this build-up.

The correct answer is more than 600. The backgrounder records that the event brought together this many exhibitors, of whom close to three hundred were international companies, and treats that mix as a sign of the global interest now being shown in the country's semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The first option is wrong because it falls short of the stated count and appears nowhere in the release. The third option is wrong for the opposite reason; it overstates the number, and no such figure is given. The fourth option is wrong as well, since a four-figure count is not claimed anywhere in the document. The useful pairing for an examination is the total against the international share, because a question may supply one and ask for the other, and the second figure is also the one that shows how much of the participation came from outside India.

The correct answer is Amitesh Kumar Sinha, Chief Executive Officer of the India Semiconductor Mission. The backgrounder names him as the moderator of the session, which brought senior representatives of the leading industry associations together to discuss how deeper cooperation could speed up the country's semiconductor and electronics plans. The Chief Executive Officer of NITI Aayog is wrong, as that office is not connected with this session in the release. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India is wrong because the discussion concerned manufacturing and industry coordination rather than monetary policy, and no central bank official is mentioned. The Chairman of ISRO is wrong for the same reason; the space agency has no role in the panel described. Aspirants should remember the mission's name along with the office, because questions often ask which body the moderator headed rather than his name, and the India Semiconductor Mission is itself a frequently tested institution.

The correct answer is that it is the largest healthcare scheme in the world. The Prime Minister said the annual cover now reaches more than sixty crore beneficiaries, and on that basis described the initiative as the biggest of its kind anywhere. The second option is wrong, because nothing in the message speaks of the scheme being wound up or merged; the tone of the anniversary message is the opposite, pointing to expansion and to record savings on medical expenses. The third option is wrong because the message identifies the poor and the middle class as the groups that have gained, not a restricted category of government employees. The fourth option is wrong because the cover described is an annual health cover, and the message separately credits the Ayushman Arogya Mandirs with strengthening primary care, showing that the two parts of the initiative are distinct rather than the cover being limited to outpatient visits.

The correct answer is over 500 crore. The Prime Minister used this figure to argue that healthcare is moving closer to every doorstep, since the centres named Ayushman Arogya Mandirs deliver primary care in neighbourhoods and villages rather than in distant hospitals. The option of over 100 crore is wrong, as the message names a far larger count and this figure only looks plausible to someone recalling the number of beneficiaries instead. Over 300 crore is wrong as well; it appears nowhere in the release and is included to catch a half-remembered answer. Over 700 crore is wrong because it overshoots the stated figure, and no higher count is claimed anywhere in the anniversary message. Candidates should note that this figure counts visits, not people, so it is much larger than the beneficiary count and the two must never be interchanged in an answer.

The correct answer is Rs 5 lakh. In his anniversary message the Prime Minister said that more than sixty crore beneficiaries now have access to an annual health cover of this amount, and that the reach of the cover is what makes the initiative the largest healthcare scheme in the world. Rs 1 lakh is wrong; no such figure appears in the message, and a cover that small would not carry a family through a serious hospital admission, which is the burden the scheme was designed to lift. Rs 3 lakh is wrong for the same reason and is offered only as a plausible-looking lower figure. Rs 10 lakh is wrong because the cover named is half that amount, though aspirants sometimes confuse it with other insurance products. The safest way to hold this is to remember the pair together: the cover amount on one side and the beneficiary count on the other, because examiners frequently ask for one and supply the other.

The correct answer is Rajkumar Periasamy, who won the Best Direction award for Amaran at the 72nd National Film Awards. Randeep Hooda is wrong because he was praised for stepping behind the camera for the first time with Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, but the direction prize did not go to him. Shivadhwaj Shetty is wrong because he directed IMBU, which was honoured as the Best Tulu Film, one of the awards that brought languages outside the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution onto the national stage. Dinesh P. Bhonsle is wrong because he directed Dholi, chosen as the Best Garhwali Film. A related fact worth remembering is that the Best Debut Film of a Director went to Angen, a Santhali film directed by Ravi Raj Murmu. The Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Chanchal Kumar, said the edition drew 400 feature films in 34 languages and 161 non-feature films in 24 languages.

The correct answer is Article 370. The film was judged the Best Feature Film at the 72nd National Film Awards, and Yami Gautam won the Best Actress in a Leading Role award for the same film, which made it the evening's biggest winner. Chandu Champion is wrong because Kartik Aaryan won a share of the Best Actor award for it, while the film itself did not take the top feature prize. Kalki 2898 AD is wrong because it was named the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, a separate category meant for mainstream entertainers. Amaran is wrong because Rajkumar Periasamy won the Best Direction award for it, again a different category. Aspirants should also note Captain Miller, honoured as the best feature promoting national, social and environmental values, and that the Best Actor award this year was shared between Mammootty for Bramayugam and Kartik Aaryan.

The correct answer is Ekta Nagar, Kevadia. The 72nd National Film Awards were conferred there, in Gujarat, and it was the first time the ceremony had been taken out of the national capital. The site was chosen for its association with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and with national unity, and the President said the choice suited a ceremony that celebrates the cultural and national unity of the country. The Governor of Gujarat, Acharya Devvrat, and Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel both described hosting the event as a matter of pride for the state. New Delhi is wrong because this edition deliberately moved away from Delhi, where earlier ceremonies were held. Mumbai is wrong because, although it is the centre of the Hindi film industry, it did not host this ceremony. Gandhinagar is wrong because it is the capital of Gujarat, while the awards were given at Ekta Nagar in Kevadia.

The correct answer is Anant Nag. President Droupadi Murmu presented the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2024 to the veteran Kannada actor at the 72nd National Film Awards at Ekta Nagar, Kevadia, in Gujarat. Accepting it, Anant Nag spoke of a childhood in an ashram, a move to Mumbai where the stage gave him his first role, and a run of nearly 50 plays before he turned to cinema. He later worked with the director Shyam Benegal, chose Kannada films and made Bengaluru his karmabhoomi, and he had received the Padma Bhushan from the same President a year earlier. Mammootty is wrong because he shared the Best Actor award for Bramayugam. Sanjay Mishra is wrong because he was named Best Supporting Actor for Bhakshak. Randeep Hooda is wrong because he was praised for his first film as a director, Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, and not for a lifetime honour.

The correct answer is 17 September to 2 October. The Ministry of Textiles stated that the campaign is being celebrated across all its organisations over this period, and the activities reported by other departments, such as the Swachhata pledge taken on the opening day, fit the same window. The closing date is easy to remember because it falls on Gandhi Jayanti, the day the Swachh Bharat Mission itself is associated with. Option A is wrong because the campaign does not begin at the start of the month. Option B is wrong because that window belongs to a different period altogether and does not match the reported pledge dates. Option D is wrong because the campaign ends, rather than begins, in the first days of October. Fixing the start and close dates together is the safest way to answer such questions.