UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Seleucus was the Macedonian general who took over Alexander's eastern conquests and tried to recover the Indian provinces around 305 BCE.

The census of 1881 was the first in which the count was taken across the country on one reference date, and W. C. Plowden served as the first Census Commissioner of India; from then on a census has been held every ten years.

The census is taken under the Census Act of 1948, which gives the Union Government power to notify the exercise, appoint census officers and require every person to answer their questions, while making the answers confidential and not usable as evidence.

Ghaziabad, which lies on the edge of Delhi and is almost entirely built up, recorded the highest density of population among the districts of Uttar Pradesh in 2011, far above the state figure of 829 persons per square kilometre.

Allahabad district, renamed Prayagraj in 2018, was the most populous district of Uttar Pradesh in 2011 with about 59.5 lakh people, and Mahoba in Bundelkhand was the least populous.

Gautam Buddha Nagar, the district of Noida and Greater Noida, had the highest literacy rate in the state in 2011, which follows from its industrial and service economy and the educated workers it attracts.

The literacy rate of Uttar Pradesh in 2011 was 67.68 per cent, with male literacy at 77.28 per cent and female literacy at 57.18 per cent, so the gap between men and women was about twenty percentage points.

Uttar Pradesh had 912 females for every 1,000 males in 2011, below the national figure, and its child sex ratio for the age group of nought to six years was 902.

Uttar Pradesh had 829 persons on every square kilometre in 2011, more than twice the national density, because the alluvial plain of the Ganga and the Yamuna supports a very dense rural population.

The exact count was 19,98,12,341 persons, which is usually rounded to twenty crore in discussion, and candidates should recognise both the rounded and the exact form.

The Census of 2011 counted about 19.98 crore persons in Uttar Pradesh, roughly 16.5 per cent of the population of the country, which is the largest share of any state and more than the population of most countries of the world.

Sambhar, the large saline lake west of Jaipur, is the biggest inland source of salt in the country, where brine is drawn into shallow pans and left to evaporate; Didwana in Nagaur and Pachpadra in Barmer are the other salt works of the state, while most Indian salt otherwise comes…

Phad is painted at Shahpura in Bhilwara district, traditionally by the Joshi family of chiteras, on a long cloth scroll that a singer priest unrolls at night while reciting the epics of Devnarayan and Pabuji; the figures are flat, in profile and in strong red, yellow and green.

The potters of Molela, a village in Rajsamand district, make flat clay plaques in low relief showing Dharmaraj, Devnarayan, Nagaraja and other folk gods, which pilgrims from the tribal districts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh carry home to their shrines; Molela clay work carries a geographical indication tag.

Thewa is the craft of a single family line of Pratapgarh in southern Rajasthan, where a thin sheet of gold is cut into a pattern and fused on to coloured glass to make pendants, boxes and plates; the craft carries a geographical indication tag.

Kota Doria is woven at Kaithun and nearby villages in Kota district from cotton and silk yarn in a chequered weave so fine and open that the cloth is almost weightless, and the sarees made from it carry a geographical indication tag.

Blue pottery reached Jaipur through Persian and Afghan craftsmen in the Mughal period and was revived in the twentieth century by the artist Kripal Singh Shekhawat; its paste is made of quartz, fuller's earth and ground glass instead of clay, and the pieces are painted in cobalt blue and fired…

The Khetri copper complex in Jhunjhunu district, run by Hindustan Copper Limited, works the copper ore of the Khetri and Kolihan mines, and Kho-Dariba in Alwar is the other copper belt of the state.

Hindustan Zinc smelts zinc and lead at Debari near Udaipur and at Chanderiya in Chittorgarh district, and it also has works at Dariba in Rajsamand; the ore comes from the mines of Zawar, Rampura Agucha and Rajpura Dariba.

Kishangarh in Ajmer district holds the largest marble market in Asia, where slabs from the quarries of Rajasthan and imported blocks are cut, polished and sold, which is why the town is called the marble city.