UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

NABKISAN Finance Limited, a subsidiary of NABARD, placed India's first social bond meant only for water, sanitation and hygiene work, and investors bid for 1.8 times the paper on offer.

The Campos are the tropical grasslands of the Brazilian highlands, the Pampas are the temperate grasslands of Argentina, the Downs are the temperate grasslands of south-east Australia, and the Llanos are the tropical grasslands of the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and Colombia.

Dadabhai Naoroji published Poverty and Un-British Rule in India in 1901, and in it he set out his drain theory, the argument that British rule was steadily draining India’s wealth to England through salaries, pensions, home charges and the profits of trade.

The tale of queen Maynamati and her son Gopichandra belongs to the Nath literature of eastern India, the body of songs and ballads around the Nathpanthi yogis.

The gaur, also called the Indian bison, is the wild bovine closest to domestic cattle and is protected in the Nagarhole and Bandipur national parks of Karnataka.

The Directive Principles of State Policy, in Part IV of the Constitution from Articles 36 to 51, were taken from the Constitution of Ireland, which had in turn drawn the idea from Spain.

The Planning Commission was set up in March 1950 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, so it was neither a constitutional nor a statutory body.

The Sarkaria Commission said the Governor should be a detached figure chosen without regard to party, and ideally someone who has not taken an active part in politics in the recent past or belonged to the ruling party at the centre.

The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 divided industries into three schedules. Schedule A listed seventeen industries to be the exclusive responsibility of the state, such as arms, atomic energy, railways and heavy industry.

Consumption of fixed capital is the national income term for depreciation, the fall in the value of machines, buildings and other fixed assets as they are used up or become obsolete over the year.

The Yamuna rises from the Yamunotri glacier on the Bandarpunch range in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, so its source lies inside the Indian Himalayas.

Tamil Nadu gets most of its rain from the north-east monsoon between October and December, which is why its rainy season comes when the rest of India is drying out.

Muhammad bin Tughlaq issued token coins of bronze and copper in 1329-30 that were to pass at the value of the silver tanka.

It is called the Morley-Minto Reforms after Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, and Lord Minto, the Viceroy at the time.

The Chalukya ruler Pulakesin II stopped Harshavardhana on the banks of the Narmada and kept him out of the Deccan.

This Act ended the rule of the East India Company and placed India directly under the British Crown. It was passed right after the Revolt of 1857, and is therefore also called the Act for the Good Government of India.

The Vice-President placed that figure beside two others to show how women’s economic participation has grown: around 9.2 million Self-Help Groups, covering more than 100 million rural women, and more than 250 million Indians lifted out of extreme poverty.

The inaugural address used this figure to show how far financial inclusion has spread, crediting the JAM trinity, Direct Benefit Transfer and the Goods and Services Tax with widening access, improving transparency and formalising the economy.

The Vice-President recalled that the institute was set up that year under Professor V. K. R. V. Rao and has stayed close to India’s development journey ever since; it hosts this conclave.

The conclave was organised on that theme by the Institute of Economic Growth, and the Vice-President used it to argue that economic resilience cannot be separated from social resilience, that inclusion is the foundation of resilience, and that no citizen, enterprise or region should be left behind.