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.
Asia's first export processing zone was set up in 1965 at
The Kandla export processing zone, set up in 1965 beside the port of Kandla, was the first such zone in Asia, and it was later converted into a special economic zone under the Act of 2005.
Read the full explanation →The Kiel Canal of Germany joins the North Sea with which sea?
The Kiel Canal, opened in 1895, cuts across the base of the Jutland peninsula in northern Germany and lets ships pass from the North Sea to the Baltic without sailing round Denmark; it is one of the busiest artificial waterways in the world.
Read the full explanation →Which is the largest gulf in the world?
Enclosed by the United States, Mexico and the island of Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico is the largest gulf on earth, and it is the nursery of the hurricanes that strike the American coast as well as the home of the warm Gulf Stream.
Read the full explanation →The Mozambique Channel lies between the African mainland and which island?
The Mozambique Channel is the stretch of the Indian Ocean between Mozambique on the African mainland and the island of Madagascar, and at roughly 1,600 kilometres in length it is counted as the longest channel in the world; the Comoros lie at its northern mouth.
Read the full explanation →The Ten Degree Channel separates which two islands?
The Ten Degree Channel takes its name from the parallel of ten degrees north that runs along it, and it divides the Andaman group of islands from the Nicobar group, lying between Little Andaman in the north and Car Nicobar in the south.
Read the full explanation →The Bab-el-Mandeb strait connects the Red Sea with
Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, lies between Yemen on the Asian side and Djibouti and Eritrea on the African side, and it is the southern doorway of the Red Sea, opening into the Gulf of Aden and then the Arabian Sea; every ship using the Suez Canal on the India-Europe…
Read the full explanation →The Strait of Gibraltar separates which two countries?
The Strait of Gibraltar is the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean, with the Rock of Gibraltar on the European side and Jebel Musa on the African side; the two headlands were known to the ancients as the Pillars of Hercules.
Read the full explanation →The Bering Strait separates which two continents?
The Bering Strait lies between the Chukchi peninsula of Russia and the Seward peninsula of Alaska, joining the Arctic Ocean to the Bering Sea, and the International Date Line passes through it; in the ice ages a land bridge here allowed people and animals to cross into America.
Read the full explanation →Which lake do ships cross while passing through the Panama Canal?
The Panama Canal does not cut through at sea level; ships are lifted by locks into the artificial Gatun Lake, sail across it and through the Culebra or Gaillard Cut, and are then lowered by locks on the other side, which is why the canal needs a large freshwater reservoir.
Read the full explanation →The Suez Canal connects which two water bodies?
The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, runs about 193 kilometres across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt from Port Said on the Mediterranean to the city of Suez on the Red Sea, and because the two seas stand at nearly the same level the canal needs no locks.
Read the full explanation →The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf with which water body?
The Strait of Hormuz runs between the Iranian coast and the Musandam peninsula of Oman and is the only sea route out of the Persian Gulf, leading into the Gulf of Oman and from there into the Arabian Sea; that is why it is the world's most sensitive oil chokepoint.
Read the full explanation →The Palk Strait lies between which two countries?
The Palk Strait lies between the Ramanathapuram coast of Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna region of northern Sri Lanka, and it joins Palk Bay in the north with the Gulf of Mannar in the south; the shoals of Adam's Bridge run across its southern end.
Read the full explanation →Which scientist crystallised the tobacco mosaic virus and showed it to be largely protein?
Wendell Meredith Stanley crystallised the tobacco mosaic virus and showed that the crystals were made chiefly of protein, work that proved a virus could be handled like a chemical substance and won him a share of a Nobel Prize.
Read the full explanation →In the scientific name Panthera tigris, the word Panthera denotes the
In binomial nomenclature the first word of the name is the generic name, the genus to which the organism belongs, and the second is the specific epithet; thus Panthera is the genus that also holds the lion as Panthera leo and the leopard as Panthera pardus, while tigris is the…
Read the full explanation →Which is the largest phylum of the animal kingdom?
Arthropoda is the largest phylum of the animal kingdom, holding more described species than all the others together, because it contains the insects along with the crustaceans, spiders, scorpions and centipedes; its members have a chitinous exoskeleton and jointed legs.
Read the full explanation →A lichen is a symbiotic association between
In a lichen the algal partner, called the phycobiont, photosynthesises and supplies food, while the fungal partner, the mycobiont, gives shelter and absorbs water and minerals; lichens grow on bare rock as pioneers and die in polluted air, so they serve as indicators of air pollution.
Read the full explanation →Bryophytes are called the amphibians of the plant kingdom because they
Mosses and liverworts grow on damp soil, rocks and tree trunks, that is on land, but they have no vascular tissue and their male gametes must swim through a film of water to reach the female gamete, so reproduction fails without water; living on land and breeding in water is…
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is the smallest living cell, having no cell wall?
Mycoplasmas are the smallest living cells known, they lack a cell wall altogether, and because of that they can change shape and are not affected by antibiotics that act on the wall; they cause diseases in plants and animals and are placed in the kingdom Monera.
Read the full explanation →The cell wall of fungi is mainly made up of
The wall of a fungal cell is built of chitin, a nitrogen-containing polysaccharide that is also found in the exoskeleton of insects, and it is one of the main reasons fungi were taken out of the plant kingdom and given a kingdom of their own.
Read the full explanation →Which is the basic unit of biological classification?
A species is a group of organisms that resemble one another in all essential characters and that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring; it is the smallest and the basic unit of classification, and all higher ranks are built by grouping species together.
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