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UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

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.

UPSC Civil Services GK Questions with Answers

Q9301.Banking & Financial AwarenessMedium

Credit information companies in India are regulated under which Act?

  1. A.The SEBI Act, 1992
  2. B.The Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005
  3. C.The Banking Regulation Act, 1949
  4. D.The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934
Show answer
Correct answer: B. The Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005

This Act created the framework for credit bureaus, requiring them to register with the Reserve Bank of India, obliging banks and other credit institutions to become members and to furnish data, and giving borrowers the right to see and correct their own records.

Q9302.Banking & Financial AwarenessEasy

Credit rating agencies in India are registered with and regulated by:

  1. A.The Reserve Bank of India
  2. B.The Securities and Exchange Board of India
  3. C.IRDAI
  4. D.The Ministry of Finance directly
Show answer
Correct answer: B. The Securities and Exchange Board of India

Credit rating agencies rate securities offered to the public, so they fall within the securities market and work under the SEBI (Credit Rating Agencies) Regulations of 1999, framed under the SEBI Act of 1992; no agency may rate a public issue of debt without registration with SEBI.

Q9303.Awards & HonoursMedium

The National Akademi Awards for painting, sculpture and graphic art are given by:

  1. A.Sangeet Natak Akademi
  2. B.Lalit Kala Akademi
  3. C.Sahitya Akademi
  4. D.Indian Council for Cultural Relations
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Lalit Kala Akademi

The national academy of art, set up in 1954 and working from Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi, holds the National Exhibition of Art and gives the National Akademi Awards to the works selected in it, covering painting, sculpture, graphic art and allied forms; it also elects its own Fellows.

Q9305.Awards & HonoursHard

The first Tansen Samman, in 1980, was conferred on which musician?

  1. A.Krishnarao Shankar Pandit
  2. B.Kumar Gandharva
  3. C.Bhimsen Joshi
  4. D.Amjad Ali Khan
Show answer
Correct answer: A. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit

The vocalist of the Gwalior gharana, the oldest of the Hindustani khayal gharanas, received the first Tansen Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 1980, a fitting choice because the samman is presented near Gwalior at Tansen's memorial.

Q9307.Awards & HonoursHard

The Sangita Kalanidhi, the highest honour in Carnatic music, is conferred by:

  1. A.The Sangeet Natak Akademi
  2. B.The Music Academy, Madras
  3. C.The Government of Tamil Nadu
  4. D.The Kalakshetra Foundation
Show answer
Correct answer: B. The Music Academy, Madras

The Academy, founded in 1928 in the wake of the Madras session of the Indian National Congress, began conferring the title Sangita Kalanidhi in 1929, and it is bestowed at the Academy's annual conference during the Margazhi music season on the musician who presides over that conference.

Q9308.Awards & HonoursMedium

The Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar is given to artists who have not completed what age?

  1. A.Thirty years
  2. B.Thirty-five years
  3. C.Forty years
  4. D.Forty-five years
Show answer
Correct answer: C. Forty years

The Sangeet Natak Akademi instituted the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2006, naming it after the shehnai player Ustad Bismillah Khan, to recognise promise in music, dance, theatre, the traditional and folk arts and puppetry, and the eligibility condition is that the artist has not completed forty years of…

Q9309.Awards & HonoursMedium

Which is the highest honour conferred by the Sangeet Natak Akademi?

  1. A.Akademi Puraskar
  2. B.Akademi Ratna, the Akademi Fellowship
  3. C.Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar
  4. D.Tagore Akademi Puraskar
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Akademi Ratna, the Akademi Fellowship

The Fellowship is the Akademi's highest honour and is deliberately scarce: not more than forty living persons hold it at any one time, which is why it is reserved for masters and senior scholars of the performing arts.

Q9310.Awards & HonoursMedium

The Tansen Samman is given for achievement in which field?

  1. A.Hindustani classical music
  2. B.Carnatic vocal music
  3. C.Kathak dance
  4. D.Theatre direction
Show answer
Correct answer: A. Hindustani classical music

The samman is named after Tansen, the singer of Akbar's court who is counted among the nine jewels of that court, and the Government of Madhya Pradesh gives it for Hindustani classical music at the Tansen Samaroh at Behat near Gwalior.

Q9313.Art & CultureHard

The headquarters of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations is located at:

  1. A.Azad Bhavan, New Delhi
  2. B.Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi
  3. C.Jaipur House, New Delhi
  4. D.Teen Murti Bhavan, New Delhi
Show answer
Correct answer: A. Azad Bhavan, New Delhi

The building is named after Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who founded the Council on 9 April 1950 and was its first President, and it houses the body that runs India's cultural centres abroad, the scholarship schemes for foreign students and the chairs of Indian studies in foreign universities.

Q9317.Art & CultureEasy

Who was the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, founded in 1861?

  1. A.James Prinsep
  2. B.Alexander Cunningham
  3. C.John Marshall
  4. D.Mortimer Wheeler
Show answer
Correct answer: B. Alexander Cunningham

The Archaeological Survey of India was created in 1861 and Cunningham, an army engineer turned archaeologist who had surveyed Buddhist sites following the accounts of Chinese travellers, became its first Director-General; he is often called the father of Indian archaeology.

Q9319.Art & CultureMedium

The National School of Drama was set up in 1959 by which body?

  1. A.Sangeet Natak Akademi
  2. B.Lalit Kala Akademi
  3. C.Indian Council for Cultural Relations
  4. D.Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Show answer
Correct answer: A. Sangeet Natak Akademi

The Akademi created the National School of Drama in New Delhi in 1959 as one of its own training units, and the school became an independent autonomous body in 1975; it trains students in acting, direction, stage design and allied crafts, and it runs a repertory company.