Static GK GK Questions with Answers – Page 37

The Indian Air Force pilot flew aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz T-11 in 1984 under a joint programme and spent about a week on the Salyut 7 space station, becoming the first Indian citizen in space.

He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for Gitanjali and was the first Asian of any nationality to win a Nobel Prize, which is a second fact worth carrying.

He had presided over the Constituent Assembly that framed the Constitution and became the first President when the Constitution came into force in 1950.

He became the first Lieutenant Governor of Delhi in 1966 and held the post until January 1972. Before 1966, Delhi was run by a Chief Commissioner.

The black francolin, known locally as kala teetar, is the state bird of Haryana. It belongs to the pheasant family, and the male is easy to recognise by its black face and breast, white cheek patch and chestnut collar, while the female is mostly brown.

On 24 January 1950, two days before the Constitution came into force, the United Provinces was officially renamed Uttar Pradesh.

Angel Falls, in the Canaima National Park of Venezuela, is the highest uninterrupted waterfall in the world, with a total height of about 979 metres and a single unbroken drop of about 807 metres.

Kolkata earned the name City of Palaces in the colonial era for the grand mansions built by British officials and rich Bengali families along its main streets.

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj is a Union ministry, and like every ministry of the Government of India it works from the national capital, New Delhi.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was formed in 1927 and was recognised by the International Olympic Committee the same year.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) was set up by the Government of India in January 1984 as a registered society under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

It was the first working satellite of the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) system, carried to orbit by the US Space Shuttle Challenger in August 1983.

The Hirakud dam stands on the Mahanadi near Sambalpur in Odisha. Completed in 1957, it was among the first big multipurpose river valley projects after Independence, built to control the Mahanadi's floods and to give irrigation and hydroelectric power.

China's capital hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008 and the Winter Olympics in 2022, which made it the first city ever to stage both.

The motto of the National Cadet Corps is Unity and Discipline, in Hindi Ekta aur Anushasan. The NCC was set up in 1948 under the National Cadet Corps Act, 1948, and works under the Ministry of Defence with its headquarters in New Delhi.

It is the only such force whose administrative control lies with the Ministry of Home Affairs while its operational control lies with the Indian Army.

The Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, known as CIJWS, is at Vairengte in the Kolasib district of Mizoram, close to the Assam border.

The Battle of Rezang La was fought on 18 November 1962 during the India-China war, at a pass about 16,000 feet high near Chushul in Ladakh.

Vini Mahajan, an IAS officer of the 1987 batch of the Punjab cadre, was appointed Chief Secretary of Punjab in June 2020, the first woman to hold the state's top civil service post since Punjab was formed in 1966.

Sucheta Kripalani became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in October 1963 and served till March 1967, making her the first woman to head a state government in India.