SSC GK Questions 2026

The Kallanai, known in English as the Grand Anicut, is a dam built across the Kaveri to divert water into the delta channels, and tradition assigns it to Karikala, a king of the early Cholas of the Sangam age who ruled from Uraiyur.

Ayyavole, also called the Five Hundred of Ayyavole, along with Manigramam and Nanadesi, were associations of traders who handled inland and overseas commerce, financed temples, maintained their own guards and left inscriptions in South India and as far away as Sumatra.

Jayangondar, a court poet of Kulottunga I, composed the Kalingattuparani, a war poem in the parani form that describes the Chola campaign against Kalinga.

Parantaka I had extended Chola power over the Pandya country and taken the title Maduraikonda, but his advance was stopped at Takkolam, in present-day Tamil Nadu, where the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III defeated the Chola army and the crown prince Rajaditya was killed in the fighting.

In this method, called cire perdue, the image is first modelled in wax, then covered with clay to form a mould; the wax is melted and drained out, molten metal is poured into the hollow, and the clay is broken away to reveal a single solid image that cannot be…

The Chola empire was divided into mandalams, the largest provinces, which were frequently placed under royal princes or senior officers.

The inscriptions on the temple walls at Uttaramerur in Tamil Nadu, of the tenth century, set out in detail how the sabha of that brahmadeya village chose the members of its committees: who was qualified by landholding, house, learning and age, who was disqualified, and how name-tickets were drawn from…

Rajendra I, who ruled from 1014 to 1044, sent a fleet across the Bay of Bengal against the Sailendra kingdom of Srivijaya, in the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, and defeated its ruler Sangrama Vijayottunga Varman.

Vijayalaya, about the middle of the ninth century, took Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyar chiefs who held the Kaveri delta as subordinates of the Pallavas, and from that base the imperial Chola line grew.

The temple at Thanjavur, known both as the Rajarajesvara temple after its builder and as the Brihadisvara temple, was completed in 1010 during the reign of Rajaraja I. Its vimana is one of the tallest of any medieval Indian temple and its walls carry long inscriptions recording grants, servants and…

Rajaraja I, who ruled from 985 to 1014, is regarded as the most powerful Chola ruler.

The Reserve Bank asked banks in 2005 to offer a no-frills account with nil or very low minimum balance so that poor households would not be kept out by charges, and in 2012 the product was renamed the Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account, with a free debit card and a…

Regional Rural Banks were set up from 1975 on the recommendation of a working group chaired by M. Narasimham, to provide credit to small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans, and the Regional Rural Banks Act followed in 1976.

The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System lets a customer withdraw or deposit cash, check a balance or transfer money at a micro ATM held by a business correspondent, identifying himself with the bank name, the Aadhaar number and a biometric such as a fingerprint, so neither a card nor a cheque…

NPCI was incorporated in 2008 as a not-for-profit umbrella organisation for retail payments, promoted by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks' Association under the framework of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

The Atal Pension Yojana, launched in 2015 and administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, admits subscribers between eighteen and forty years of age so that every subscriber contributes for at least twenty years before the pension begins at sixty.

The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana is a one-year renewable life insurance cover of two lakh rupees on death from any cause, open to holders of a savings bank account between eighteen and fifty years of age, with the premium debited from the account.

The expression describes the three pieces that together make a cash transfer possible: a bank account opened under the Jan Dhan Yojana to receive the money, the Aadhaar number to identify the beneficiary and remove duplicate names, and the mobile phone through which the beneficiary is informed and can transact.

Real Time Gross Settlement is designed for large-value transfers, each settled singly and immediately in the books of the Reserve Bank, and the minimum amount for a customer transaction is two lakh rupees with no upper ceiling.

MUDRA loans to non-farm micro enterprises are graded in three named categories: Shishu for loans up to fifty thousand rupees, Kishore for loans above fifty thousand and up to five lakh, and Tarun for loans above five lakh and up to ten lakh, with a higher slab added later for…