Static general knowledge is six of the seven lines of the General Studies Paper-I syllabus in the UPSC CSE notice: History of India and the Indian National Movement; Indian and World Geography; Indian Polity and Governance; Economic and Social Development; Environmental Ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change; and General Science. The Commission tests understanding rather than recall, through statements to be judged correct or incorrect, pairs to be matched and assertion-reason items, and it likes the edges of a topic: a lesser-known provision of the Constitution, a river's tributary, a species' conservation status, the mandate of a statutory body. This page holds GK24's topic-wise GK notes for UPSC, written as short facts and tables, in English and Hindi, with each note linked to the current affairs and previous-year questions on the same topic. Start with Polity and Modern History, which carry the most questions, then Geography, the Economy, Environment, Ancient and Medieval culture and Science. Read a note, solve its PYQs, take its quiz, and come back to it in your monthly revision. A candidate who knows these notes and reads the daily current affairs has covered the syllabus the notice prescribes for Paper-I.
The Berlin Wall, which divided the city for twenty-eight years, was pulled down in which year?
The wall was opened and began to be broken up on 9 November 1989, the single most memorable image of the end of the Cold War.
Read the full explanation →Which was the first colony south of the Sahara in Africa to win independence, in 1957?
The Gold Coast became independent as Ghana on 6 March 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah, the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa to do so, and Nkrumah became a leading voice of pan-Africanism and a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Read the full explanation →The term 'non-alignment' is generally credited to which Indian leader, who used it in a speech at the United Nations in 1953?
Krishna Menon, India's best known diplomat of the period and later Defence Minister, is credited with coining the expression non-alignment in a United Nations speech in 1953; he is also remembered for the longest speech ever made at the Security Council, on Kashmir.
Read the full explanation →The five principles of peaceful coexistence, known as Panchsheel, were set out in an agreement signed between India and China in which year?
The five principles were written into the preamble of the agreement on trade and intercourse between India and the Tibet region of China, signed on 29 April 1954 by Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai.
Read the full explanation →The first summit conference of the Non-Aligned Movement was held in 1961 at
The first summit of non-aligned countries met at Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, in September 1961, with twenty-five participating countries, and Jawaharlal Nehru, Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sukarno and Kwame Nkrumah are regarded as the movement's founders.
Read the full explanation →The Asian-African Conference of 1955, an important step towards non-alignment, was held at which place?
The Asian-African Conference met at Bandung in Indonesia in April 1955 with twenty-nine newly independent countries, condemned colonialism and racialism, and endorsed the principles of peaceful coexistence; it is often called the forerunner of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Read the full explanation →The Warsaw Pact, the military alliance of the Soviet bloc, was signed in 1955 in which city?
The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance was signed in the Polish capital on 14 May 1955, which is why the alliance carries that city's name, although its forces were commanded from Moscow.
Read the full explanation →The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was founded in which year?
The North Atlantic Treaty was signed at Washington on 4 April 1949 by twelve countries, during the Berlin blockade, and bound its members to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.
Read the full explanation →In which American city did Winston Churchill deliver his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in March 1946?
Churchill, by then out of office, spoke at Westminster College in Fulton on 5 March 1946 and said that an iron curtain had descended across the continent from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.
Read the full explanation →Bolivia lost its coastline to which country in the War of the Pacific of 1879-83?
Bolivia, fighting alongside Peru, was defeated by Chile and lost the nitrate-rich Atacama coast, so that it has had no access to the Pacific since; the dispute still colours relations between the two countries, and Bolivia observes a Day of the Sea every year and keeps a naval force on…
Read the full explanation →Which is the smallest landlocked country in the world?
The Vatican, about 0.44 square kilometres inside Rome, is both the smallest country in the world and the smallest landlocked country; it is the seat of the Pope and the smallest member of the family of sovereign states.
Read the full explanation →Lesotho is a country entirely surrounded by which single country?
Lesotho lies wholly within South Africa and is one of only three countries in the world surrounded by a single neighbour, the other two being San Marino and Vatican City, both inside Italy.
Read the full explanation →Which is the only landlocked country in South East Asia?
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is the only state in South East Asia without a sea coast; it is bordered by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar, and the Mekong, which forms much of its western boundary, is its chief waterway and source of hydroelectric power.
Read the full explanation →Ethiopia became a landlocked country in 1993 when which neighbouring country became independent?
Eritrea became independent of Ethiopia in 1993 after a long war and took with it the entire Red Sea coast, including the ports of Massawa and Assab, leaving Ethiopia landlocked; Ethiopia is today the most populous landlocked country in the world and routes most of its trade through Djibouti.
Read the full explanation →Bolivia and which other country are the only landlocked countries of South America?
Bolivia and Paraguay are the only two landlocked states in South America. Paraguay has no coast but reaches the Atlantic along the Paraguay and Parana rivers, which carry most of its trade; Bolivia lost its Pacific coast to Chile in the War of the Pacific of 1879 to 1883.
Read the full explanation →Which continent has the largest number of landlocked countries?
Of the forty-four landlocked countries in the world, sixteen are in Africa, among them Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi and Lesotho; the colonial boundaries drawn in the nineteenth century are the reason so many African states were left without a coast.
Read the full explanation →Which is the largest landlocked country in the world by area?
Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world and by far the largest with no sea coast. Its shore on the Caspian does not change this, because the Caspian is the world's largest lake and has no natural connection with the ocean, so Kazakhstan is counted as landlocked.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a doubly landlocked country?
A doubly landlocked country is one that is surrounded only by landlocked countries, so at least two international borders must be crossed to reach the sea.
Read the full explanation →In India, how many States are on the coastline?
The coastal states of India, counted from the west coast round to the east, are Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal; Gujarat has the longest coastline among them.
Read the full explanation →Soldiers are asked to break step while marching across a bridge in order to avoid
If the frequency of the soldiers' rhythmic steps happens to match the natural frequency of the bridge, the bridge is driven at its own frequency and its amplitude of vibration can build up to a dangerous level; breaking step destroys the rhythm and avoids the risk.
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