SSC CHSL GK Questions 2026

The correct answer is D, Kashmir. Lalitaditya Muktapida was the most powerful king of the Karkota dynasty of Kashmir in the eighth century, ruling roughly from 724 to 760 CE. He is remembered for building the Martand Sun Temple near Anantnag, whose ruins still stand, and for founding the town of Parihaspora as his capital. Almost everything we know about him comes from Kalhana's Rajatarangini, the twelfth-century Sanskrit chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, which credits him with campaigns against Yashovarman of Kannauj and with wide conquests. The words Karkota, Martand and Rajatarangini all point to Kashmir, so any one of them settles the question. A, Gujarat, was ruled at that time by the Maitrakas of Valabhi and later the Chaulukyas. B, Sikkim, had no such king; its Namgyal kingdom began only in 1642. C, Kerala, was under the Cheras and never had a Karkota ruler. Exam tip: Lalitaditya, Karkota, Martand temple, Rajatarangini all mean Kashmir.

The correct answer is A, Alauddin Khalji – Jalaluddin Khalji. Jalaluddin Khalji founded the Khalji dynasty in 1290, and in 1296 his nephew and son-in-law Alauddin had him killed at Kara and took the throne. Alauddin then ruled till 1316, fixed market prices, kept a large standing army and sent Malik Kafur into the Deccan. In the pair, the first name is the ruler and the second is the person who ruled just before him, so you only need to check who came first. B is wrong because Balban came after Iltutmish: Iltutmish ruled from 1211 to 1236 and Balban from 1266 to 1287. C is wrong because Firuz Shah Tughluq succeeded Muhammad Tughluq in 1351, so he is the successor, not the predecessor. D is wrong for the same reason in reverse: Ghiyasuddin Tughluq founded the dynasty in 1320 and Muhammad Tughluq followed him in 1324. Exam tip: Jalaluddin to Alauddin 1296, Ghiyasuddin to Muhammad 1324, Muhammad to Firuz 1351.

The correct answer is D, Rajput dynasties, Khalji dynasty, Tughluq dynasty. This is the only option in which every dynasty comes after the one before it. The full order of the rulers of Delhi, as the NCERT table gives it, is: Rajput dynasties, the Tomaras and the Chauhans, in the early twelfth century; Early Turkish Rulers from 1206 to 1290, starting with Qutbuddin Aibak; the Khalji dynasty from 1290 to 1320; the Tughluq dynasty from 1320 to 1414; the Sayyid dynasty from 1414 to 1451; and the Lodi dynasty from 1451 to 1526, ending with Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat. A is wrong because the Sayyids ruled before the Lodis, not after. B is wrong because the Khaljis came before the Tughluqs. C is wrong because the Rajput rulers of Delhi came before the Turkish rulers, not after. Exam tip: remember the chain Rajput, Turk (Slave), Khalji, Tughluq, Sayyid, Lodi with the years 1206, 1290, 1320, 1414, 1451, 1526.

The correct answer is B, Article 279A. It empowers the President to constitute the Goods and Services Tax Council, a joint forum of the Centre and the States. The Article was inserted by the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, the same amendment that brought GST, and the Council was set up in September 2016. The Union Finance Minister is its Chairperson, the Union Minister of State for Finance and the finance or taxation ministers of all States are its members, and decisions need a three-fourths weighted majority in which the Centre holds one-third of the votes and the States together two-thirds. A, Article 246A, gives Parliament and the State legislatures the power to make laws on GST. C, Article 269A, deals with the levy and collection of GST on inter-State trade, that is, IGST. D, Article 323A, provides for administrative tribunals and has nothing to do with tax. Exam tip: 246A power to tax, 269A inter-State GST, 279A GST Council; all three came with the 101st Amendment.

The correct answer is B, Article 61. It lays down the procedure for impeachment of the President, the only ground being "violation of the Constitution". The charge may be started in either House by a resolution signed by at least one-fourth of its members, with fourteen days' notice, and must be passed by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the total membership of that House. The other House then investigates, the President may appear and be represented, and if it too passes the resolution by a two-thirds majority the President stands removed. No Indian President has ever been impeached. A, Article 51, is a Directive Principle on promoting international peace and security. C, Article 63, simply says there shall be a Vice-President of India. D, Article 54, is about the election of the President by the electoral college. Exam tip: 54 election, 56 term, 61 impeachment, 63 Vice-President.

The correct answer is A, Part V. Part V is titled "The Union" and its first chapter, "The Executive", covers the President, the Vice-President, the Council of Ministers and the Attorney-General. Part V runs from Article 52 to Article 151 and also contains Parliament, the legislative powers of the President, the Union Judiciary (Supreme Court) and the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Article 52 is the opening line: "There shall be a President of India." Whatever belongs to the Centre as an institution lives in Part V. B, Part III, is Fundamental Rights, Articles 12 to 35. C, Part IV, is the Directive Principles of State Policy, Articles 36 to 51. D, Part VI, is "The States", Articles 152 to 237, which has the Governor, the state legislature and the High Courts, the state mirror of Part V. Exam tip: Part V is the Union, Part VI is the States; Part III rights, Part IV directives.

The correct answer is D, Article 247. It gives Parliament the power to provide by law for additional courts so that laws made by Parliament, or older laws on Union List subjects, are administered better. The Article sits in Part XI, Chapter I, which deals with the division of law-making power between the Union and the States (Articles 245 to 255). The word to catch in the question is "additional courts": only Article 247 talks about courts in this chapter, the neighbouring Articles talk about subjects and lists. A, Article 246, distributes subjects among the Union List, State List and Concurrent List of the Seventh Schedule. B, Article 248, gives the residuary power, that is, power over any matter not in the State or Concurrent List, to Parliament. C, Article 253, lets Parliament make laws for the whole country to implement treaties and international agreements. Exam tip: 246 three lists, 247 additional courts, 248 residuary power, 253 international agreements.

The correct answer is D, Article 141. It says that the law declared by the Supreme Court shall be binding on all courts within the territory of India. This Article is the constitutional base of the doctrine of precedent: a ruling of the Supreme Court becomes the law for every High Court and lower court until the Supreme Court itself changes it. Note the exact words, because they are lifted straight into exam questions: "law declared", "binding on all courts", "within the territory of India". A, Article 143, is the advisory jurisdiction under which the President may seek the opinion of the Supreme Court. B, Article 142, lets the Court pass any order needed to do complete justice in a case. C, Article 144, directs all civil and judicial authorities to act in aid of the Supreme Court. Exam tip: remember the run 141 binding law, 142 complete justice, 143 advice to the President, 144 authorities act in aid.

The correct answer is A, stagflation. Stagflation is a blend of the words stagnation and inflation: output stops growing, unemployment rises, and yet prices keep climbing. Normally inflation and unemployment move in opposite directions, as the Phillips curve shows, so stagflation is a puzzle for policy makers, because raising interest rates to cool prices worsens unemployment while spending to create jobs pushes prices higher. The classic example is the 1970s, when the oil price shocks of 1973 and 1979 hit western economies with slow growth and double-digit inflation at the same time. B is wrong because an inflation premium is the extra return lenders demand to make up for expected inflation. C is wrong because an inflationary gap is the amount by which total demand exceeds full-employment output, a situation of too much demand, not of high unemployment. D is wrong because reflation is a deliberate policy of boosting demand to lift an economy out of a slump. Exam tip: stagflation equals high inflation plus high unemployment plus stagnant growth, remembered by the 1970s oil crisis.

The correct answer is B, Harsha. Ratnavali is one of three Sanskrit plays attributed to Emperor Harshavardhana of Kannauj, who ruled from 606 to 647 CE; the other two are Priyadarshika and Nagananda. Ratnavali tells how Princess Ratnavali of Simhala, living in disguise as Sagarika, wins the love of King Udayana of Vatsa. Harsha was a great patron of learning as well as a writer: Banabhatta lived at his court and wrote Harshacharita and Kadambari, the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang visited him, and he held assemblies at Kannauj and Prayag. A is wrong because Kalidasa, of the Gupta age, wrote Abhijnanashakuntalam, Meghaduta and Raghuvamsha. C is wrong because Bhavabhuti, in the court of Yashovarman, wrote Uttararamacharita and Malatimadhava. D is wrong because Vishakhadatta wrote Mudrarakshasa about Chanakya and Chandragupta Maurya. Exam tip: Harsha's three plays are Ratnavali, Priyadarshika and Nagananda; his biographer was Banabhatta.

The correct answer is D, The People of India. The Preamble opens with the words WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, which declare that the Constitution draws its authority from the people, not from any king, court or legislature. It goes on to promise Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, and ends by recording that the Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave the Constitution to ourselves on 26 November 1949. The Preamble is based on Nehru's Objectives Resolution of 1946; the words Socialist, Secular and Integrity were added by the 42nd Amendment in 1976; and in the Kesavananda Bharati case (1973) the Supreme Court held that the Preamble is a part of the Constitution. A is wrong because the Supreme Court is created by the Constitution and cannot be its author. B is wrong because Parliament too gets its powers from the Constitution. C is wrong because the Central Government is only an organ that works under the Constitution. Exam tip: Preamble begins We the People, adopted 26 November 1949, amended once in 1976.

The correct answer is A, Ganga. The Ganga basin is the most populous river basin on earth, home to more than 600 million people across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and a small part of Tibet. In India alone it covers about 8.6 lakh square km, roughly a quarter of the country, across Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana, Delhi and parts of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and it supports about 40 percent of India's population. Fertile alluvial soil, plentiful groundwater and a long farming history explain the dense settlement. B is wrong because the Nile, though the longest river, flows mostly through desert and its basin holds far fewer people. C is wrong because the Mississippi basin lies in the thinly populated interior of the USA. D is wrong because the Amazon has the largest discharge and basin area but its rainforest is among the least populated regions on earth. Exam tip: Ganga is the most populated basin; Amazon is the largest by area and water; Nile is the longest river.

The correct answer is C, Open market operations. Open market operations, or OMO, are the buying and selling of government securities by the central bank in the open market to control the money supply. When the RBI buys government bonds it pays money to banks, so liquidity in the system rises and interest rates tend to fall; when it sells bonds it pulls money out, tightening liquidity and pushing rates up. OMO is a quantitative tool of monetary policy, used along with the cash reserve ratio, the statutory liquidity ratio, the repo rate and the bank rate, and the RBI also uses it to manage the government's borrowing programme. A is wrong because national market operations is not a term used in monetary policy. B is wrong because closed market operations does not exist; the whole point is that the trades happen in the open market. D is wrong because international market operations would refer to foreign exchange dealings, not government securities. Exam tip: RBI buys securities means more money, RBI sells securities means less money; that is OMO.

The correct answer is C, Article 360. Article 360 lets the President proclaim a financial emergency when the financial stability or credit of India, or of any part of it, is threatened. Such a proclamation must be approved by both Houses of Parliament within two months, after which it continues indefinitely until revoked; there is no maximum period. During it the Union can direct states to follow canons of financial propriety, and salaries of government servants, including Supreme Court and High Court judges, can be reduced. No financial emergency has ever been declared in India, though it was discussed during the 1991 crisis. D is wrong because Article 352 is the national emergency on grounds of war, external aggression or armed rebellion, imposed in 1962, 1971 and 1975. A is wrong because Article 356 is President's rule, imposed when a state's constitutional machinery fails. B is wrong because Article 359 only suspends the enforcement of fundamental rights during a national emergency. Exam tip: 352 national, 356 state, 360 financial; only 360 has never been used.

The correct answer is C, 277. Water is densest at about 4 degrees Celsius, and 4 plus 273 gives roughly 277 kelvin. Most liquids keep shrinking as they cool, but water behaves oddly: below 4 degrees Celsius it starts to expand again because its molecules begin forming the open, hexagonal pattern of ice. This anomalous expansion is why ice is lighter than water and floats, and why a lake freezes from the top while the 4-degree water sinks to the bottom, letting fish survive the winter. Its density at that point is very close to 1 gram per cubic centimetre. D is wrong because 273 kelvin is 0 degrees Celsius, the freezing point, where water is already less dense than at 4 degrees. A is wrong because 0 kelvin is absolute zero, where no liquid water can exist. B is wrong because 227 kelvin is about minus 46 degrees Celsius, far below freezing. Exam tip: maximum density of water at 4 degrees Celsius equals 277 K; freezing at 273 K, boiling at 373 K.

The correct answer is C, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. National Unity Day, or Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, is observed on 31 October, the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel, who was born in 1875 at Nadiad, Gujarat. The day was started in 2014 to honour his role as the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister who brought more than 560 princely states into the Indian Union, earning him the title Iron Man of India. It is marked with a Run for Unity and a unity pledge, and on 31 October 2018 the 182-metre Statue of Unity was unveiled in his memory at Kevadia on the Narmada. A is wrong because Dr Ambedkar's birth anniversary, 14 April, is Ambedkar Jayanti. B is wrong because Indira Gandhi's birthday, 19 November, is observed as National Integration Day. D is wrong because Mother Teresa was born on 26 August, which is not a national day. Exam tip: 31 October means Sardar Patel, National Unity Day and the Statue of Unity.

The correct answer is D, Jyotirao Govindrao Phule. Jyotiba Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj at Pune on 24 September 1873 to fight caste discrimination and the hold of priests over society. The same year he published Gulamgiri (Slavery), attacking Brahmanical domination, and earlier, in 1848, he and his wife Savitribai had opened one of the first schools for girls in Pune. The Samaj promoted education for Shudras, Dalits and women, marriages without priests, and equality; Phule was given the title Mahatma in 1888, and Dr Ambedkar counted him among his three gurus. A is wrong because Savitribai Phule, though a pioneer of women's education and a member of the Samaj, was not its founder. B is wrong because E. V. Ramasamy Periyar led the Self-Respect Movement in Tamil Nadu from 1925. C is wrong because Ayyankali was a Dalit reformer of Kerala who set up the Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham in 1907. Exam tip: Satyashodhak Samaj, Pune, 1873, Jyotiba Phule, book Gulamgiri.

The correct answer is B, 44th Constitutional Amendment 1978. The 44th Amendment, passed by the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai, took the right to property out of Part III of the Constitution. It deleted Article 19(1)(f) and Article 31, which had guaranteed the right to acquire, hold and dispose of property, and put in their place Article 300A, which says no person shall be deprived of property except by authority of law. Property thus became a legal or constitutional right, not a fundamental one, from 20 June 1979, so a citizen can no longer go straight to the Supreme Court under Article 32 for it. C is wrong because the 42nd Amendment of 1976 added the words Socialist, Secular and Integrity and the Fundamental Duties; it did not remove property. A is wrong because the 46th Amendment (actually of 1982) dealt with sales tax on goods. D is wrong because the 48th Amendment (1984) extended President's rule in Punjab. Exam tip: 42nd added Fundamental Duties, 44th removed the fundamental right to property (now Article 300A).

The correct answer is C, Kashmir. Rajatarangini, meaning the river of kings, is a Sanskrit verse chronicle of the rulers of Kashmir written by Kalhana around 1148–1150 CE. It runs to about 8,000 verses arranged in eight books called tarangas, or waves, and traces Kashmir's kings from legendary times down to Kalhana's own day in the reign of Jayasimha. Because Kalhana used inscriptions, coins, older records and his own judgement, it is often called the first real work of history written in India. Later authors Jonaraja, Srivara and Prajyabhatta continued the story into the Mughal period. A is wrong because Bengal's rulers are recorded in works like Ramacharita of Sandhyakara Nandi, not in Rajatarangini. B is wrong because Bihar was the seat of Magadha and the Palas, who are not the book's subject. D is wrong because the Delhi Sultans are covered by Persian chronicles such as Tabaqat-i-Nasiri. Exam tip: Kalhana, Rajatarangini, Kashmir, 12th century, eight tarangas.

The correct answer is C, 30 May 1987. Goa became a full state on 30 May 1987 through the Constitution (56th Amendment) Act and the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, and the day is celebrated every year as Goa Statehood Day. Goa had been freed from Portuguese rule on 19 December 1961 in Operation Vijay and was then run as the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu. In 1987 Goa was separated and raised to statehood, while Daman and Diu stayed a union territory; Konkani was made the official language and Panaji the capital. Earlier the same year, on 20 February 1987, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh had become the 23rd and 24th states, so Goa took the 25th place. B is wrong because in 1986 Goa was still a union territory. D and A are wrong because by 1988 and 1990 Goa had already been a state for one and three years. Exam tip: liberated 1961, state 30 May 1987, 25th state after Mizoram (23rd) and Arunachal Pradesh (24th).