UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

The name is Sanskrit for the home of the clouds and was chosen for the new state in 1972 because of the rainfall of its southern slopes, which face the moist air coming off the Bay of Bengal and receive the heaviest rain in the country at Mawsynram and Cherrapunji.

The North-Eastern Areas Reorganisation Act 1971 took effect on that day, turning Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura into full states and creating the Union Territories of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, then called the North East Frontier Agency; the day is observed as statehood day in all three states.

A phumdi is a mat of soil, plant matter and organic debris in various stages of decay that floats on the surface of Loktak Lake in Manipur; the largest of them carries Keibul Lamjao National Park, and fishermen build circular enclosures called athaphums from them.

Keibul Lamjao lies in the southern part of Loktak Lake and rests on phumdis, floating mats of soil, roots and decaying vegetation thick enough to carry animals and even huts; nowhere else in the world is a national park built on such a surface.

Imphal lies in the valley at the centre of Manipur, surrounded by hills, and holds the Kangla Fort, the old seat of the Meitei kings, and Ima Keithel, the market run entirely by women.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development began work on 12 July 1982 under an Act of 1981, on the recommendation of the Sivaraman Committee, taking over the agricultural credit functions of the Reserve Bank and the refinance business of the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation; it has its…

It is issued by the Government of India under the Coinage Act and carries the signature of the Finance Secretary rather than of the Governor of the Reserve Bank; all coins are likewise issued by the Government, while the Reserve Bank only distributes them.

The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India and insures deposits in commercial banks, local area banks, regional rural banks, small finance banks, payments banks and cooperative banks; the cover was raised to five lakh rupees per depositor per bank…

The National Payments Corporation of India was set up in 2008 by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks Association as a not-for-profit company under the companies law, and it operates the retail payment systems of the country, among them the Unified Payments Interface, RuPay, IMPS, NACH, AePS…

The Financial Stability and Development Council was set up in 2010 by an executive order of the Government, following a recommendation of the Raghuram Rajan Committee on financial sector reforms, and it is chaired by the Union Finance Minister with the heads of the regulators, the Finance Secretary and senior…

The Forward Markets Commission had regulated forward and commodity derivative trading since 1953 under the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Act 1952 and worked under the Ministry of Finance in its last years; it was merged into the Securities and Exchange Board of India on 28 September 2015, the first merger of…

The Tribunal was set up under the SEBI Act and sits at Mumbai; since the Finance Act 2017 it also hears appeals against orders of IRDAI and of PFRDA, so one tribunal now serves three regulators.

PFRDA was first created in 2003 by a resolution of the Government as an interim authority to oversee the new defined contribution pension arrangement, and it ran the National Pension System for a decade without a statute; the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act 2013 gave it statutory standing.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India was first constituted in April 1988 as a non-statutory body with advisory functions, and it received statutory powers through the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act 1992, passed in the year the securities scam made a strong market regulator unavoidable.

IRDAI began in New Delhi but its office was shifted to Hyderabad in 2001, and this move is exactly why the question is asked: the candidate who assumes that every financial regulator sits in Mumbai or Delhi gets it wrong.

Formally the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, it reported in 1926 and recommended a central bank separate from the Imperial Bank of India; the recommendation led to the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, and the Bank began work on 1 April 1935 with its central office at…

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India is the statutory regulator of insurance, created under the IRDA Act 1999 after the Malhotra Committee recommended opening the sector to private and foreign capital; it licenses life, general, health and reinsurance companies and registers agents, brokers and surveyors, and its headquarters…

The national academy for music, dance and drama is the nodal office for intangible cultural heritage under the Ministry of Culture, prepares India's nominations and maintains the national inventory of intangible heritage.

The General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention in 2003; it entered into force in 2006 and India ratified it in 2005.

Sankirtana is the Vaishnava practice of the Meitei people, performed in the temple courtyard, in which narrative singing is accompanied by the pung drum and cymbals and the performance moves from song into dance; it was inscribed in 2013.