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 Suez Canal connects which two water bodies?
The Suez Canal was cut across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt and opened in 1869.
Read the full explanation →The eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway is
The line begins in European Russia and runs eastward across the whole of Siberia, and Vladivostok is both its terminus and the principal Russian naval and commercial port on the Pacific.
Read the full explanation →Which is the longest railway line in the world?
It runs across Russia from St Petersburg and Moscow in the west to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast, a distance of about 9,289 km from Moscow, and no other single railway line in the world is as long.
Read the full explanation →The southernmost port in India is located in the state of:
The southernmost of India's major ports is V. O. Chidambaranar Port, long known as Tuticorin, which lies on the Gulf of Mannar in the Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is the main reason why meiosis is important for sexually reproducing organisms?
If gametes carried the full chromosome number, fertilisation would double it in every generation. Meiosis halves the number when gametes are formed, so that the union of two gametes restores the original diploid number and keeps it constant from one generation to the next.
Read the full explanation →The term mitosis was coined by
His detailed drawings of the stages are the basis of the account still given in textbooks.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is the longest phase of the cell cycle?
Interphase occupies more than ninety-five per cent of the duration of the cell cycle, because in it the cell must grow to a sufficient size, synthesise proteins and RNA, duplicate its entire DNA and prepare the structures needed for division.
Read the full explanation →In anaphase I of meiosis, unlike in the anaphase of mitosis,
This single difference is the reason meiosis I is called the reduction division. In anaphase I the two homologous chromosomes of each bivalent are pulled to opposite poles, but each of them still consists of two sister chromatids joined at an undivided centromere.
Read the full explanation →The pairing of homologous chromosomes during prophase I is called
In the zygotene sub-stage of prophase I the two members of each pair of homologous chromosomes come to lie side by side along their whole length, matching point for point, and the structure that forms between them and holds them together is called the synaptonemal complex.
Read the full explanation →Crossing over between homologous chromosomes takes place in which sub-stage of prophase I?
By this sub-stage the homologous chromosomes have already paired in zygotene and are held together as bivalents or tetrads, each made of four chromatids.
Read the full explanation →How many daughter cells are produced at the end of meiosis in one parent cell, and of what kind?
Meiosis begins with a single round of DNA replication and is then followed by two successive nuclear divisions. Meiosis I is the reduction division, in which homologous chromosomes separate and the two cells formed already carry half the parental chromosome number.
Read the full explanation →Cytokinesis in a plant cell differs from that in an animal cell because
An animal cell divides its cytoplasm by a cleavage furrow, in which the plasma membrane is pulled inward around the middle until the cell is pinched into two.
Read the full explanation →The splitting of the centromere and the movement of sister chromatids to opposite poles occurs in
Once the chromosomes are aligned on the metaphase plate and every kinetochore is attached to a spindle fibre, the centromere holding the two sister chromatids together splits.
Read the full explanation →At which stage of mitosis do the chromosomes line up at the equator of the cell?
In this stage the condensed chromosomes, each consisting of two sister chromatids, are moved by the spindle fibres until their centromeres lie in one plane across the middle of the cell, known as the metaphase plate or equatorial plate.
Read the full explanation →Mitosis is called the equational division because
In mitosis each centromere splits in anaphase and one chromatid of every chromosome goes to each pole, so the two daughter cells receive exactly the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell had, and exactly the same genetic information.
Read the full explanation →In which phase of the cell cycle does DNA replication take place?
During this phase the DNA of the cell is copied so that the amount of DNA in the nucleus doubles, while the number of chromosomes remains unchanged because each chromosome now simply consists of two identical sister chromatids joined at the centromere.
Read the full explanation →Which statement about the codification of parliamentary privileges in India is correct?
Article 105(3) authorises Parliament to define its privileges by law, but Parliament has never passed such a law, so the privileges remain uncodified and are drawn from the Constitution, the rules of the Houses, their precedents and the practice followed before the Forty-fourth Amendment.
Read the full explanation →Under Article 105(4), parliamentary privileges are also available to which of the following persons who is not a member of the House?
Article 105(4) extends the privileges of the House to persons who have the right to speak in and otherwise take part in the proceedings of a House or any of its committees without being members.
Read the full explanation →Article 122 of the Constitution provides that:
Article 122 says that the validity of any proceedings in Parliament shall not be called in question in any court on the ground of an alleged irregularity of procedure, and that an officer or member in whom power over procedure or order is vested is not subject to the jurisdiction…
Read the full explanation →In which case did a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court hold in 2024 that a legislator who accepts a bribe for a vote is not protected by parliamentary privilege?
In 2024 a seven-judge bench held that the immunity in Article 105(2) and Article 194(2) covers only what is essential to the functioning of the House, so a legislator who takes a bribe for a vote or a speech can be prosecuted; the offence is complete when the bribe is…
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