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.
Parakram Diwas, declared in 2021, is observed on 23 January in honour of
The day was declared in 2021, the year of his 125th birth anniversary, and is named Parakram Diwas, the day of valour, after the Azad Hind Fauj he led.
Read the full explanation →Constitution Day, observed on 26 November, marks which event?
The day was declared Constitution Day in 2015, during the 125th birth anniversary year of Dr B. R. Ambedkar; the same date had earlier been observed as National Law Day.
Read the full explanation →The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution declaring 21 June as the International Day of Yoga in which year?
The proposal was placed before the General Assembly in an address on 27 September 2014, and the Assembly adopted the resolution on 11 December 2014 with a record number of co-sponsoring countries.
Read the full explanation →Good Governance Day, or Sushasan Diwas, declared in 2014, is observed on
The Government began observing the day in 2014 to stress accountability and the delivery of services in administration.
Read the full explanation →Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, or National Unity Day, is observed on 31 October to mark the birth anniversary of
The day was declared in 2014 and is marked by the Run for Unity; the Statue of Unity at Kevadia in Gujarat, 182 metres tall and the tallest statue in the world when it was built, was unveiled on this date in 2018.
Read the full explanation →Prafulla Samantara won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2017 for the legal battle to protect which hills?
Samantara pursued a twelve year legal battle that ended with the recognition of the community's rights and the blocking of a proposed open pit bauxite mine, and the Goldman Prize followed in 2017.
Read the full explanation →The Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar is conferred by
The correct answer is B, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, which instituted the award in 1987 for outstanding contribution to the protection of the environment by an individual or an organisation.
Read the full explanation →The Amrita Devi Bishnoi Award is given in India for
The Amrita Devi Bishnoi Wildlife Protection Award was instituted in 1994 and is named after Amrita Devi, who in 1730 at Khejarli in Rajasthan died, along with hundreds of other Bishnois, resisting the felling of khejri trees ordered by the ruler of Jodhpur, and the community has protected trees and…
Read the full explanation →Which Indian airport won the UNEP Champions of the Earth award for Entrepreneurial Vision in 2018?
The airport is also notable as the first in India built through a public limited company with participation by the state government, non-resident Indians and the public.
Read the full explanation →Madhav Gadgil received the UNEP Champions of the Earth award in 2024 in which category?
The ecologist Madhav Gadgil, who founded the Centre for Ecological Sciences at Bengaluru and chaired the expert panel that reported on the ecology of the Western Ghats, was honoured in 2024 for a career of research and advocacy rather than for a single project.
Read the full explanation →Purnima Devi Barman, a Champion of the Earth in 2022, works for the conservation of which bird?
Barman built a network of village women known as the Hargila Army to protect the tall trees in which the birds nest and to change the local view of a bird once treated as a bad omen; UNEP honoured her in the Entrepreneurial Vision category in 2022.
Read the full explanation →Afroz Shah received the UNEP Champions of the Earth award in 2016 for
Afroz Shah, a lawyer, began clearing plastic and other waste from the beach with a neighbour in 2015, and the weekly effort grew into a volunteer movement that removed thousands of tonnes of rubbish; UNEP honoured him in 2016 in the Inspiration and Action category and described it as among…
Read the full explanation →Alok Shukla won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2024 for the campaign to save which forest?
Alok Shukla, of the Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan and the Hasdeo Aranya Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, organised the forest dwelling villages in a campaign that led the state to cancel twenty-one proposed coal blocks, and the prize followed in 2024.
Read the full explanation →Which Indian activist received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1992 for the Narmada Bachao Andolan?
The correct answer is B, Medha Patkar, who led the Narmada Bachao Andolan against the Sardar Sarovar dam and the displacement it caused, and who received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1992, becoming the first Indian to win it.
Read the full explanation →The Goldman Environmental Prize, popularly called the Green Nobel, is given to
The prize was established in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman at San Francisco and first awarded in 1990, and it deliberately honours ordinary people rather than officials or researchers.
Read the full explanation →Where is the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme?
UNEP was set up in 1972 following the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, and placing its headquarters at Nairobi made it the first major organ of the United Nations with its head office in a developing country, and still the only large one based in Africa.
Read the full explanation →The Champions of the Earth award is given by which organisation?
UNEP was created in 1972 after the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and has its headquarters at Nairobi in Kenya.
Read the full explanation →The classical seated Buddha of the Gupta age, with hands in the dharmachakra mudra and robe carved as wet drapery, belongs to the school of
In the Gupta age a workshop at Sarnath, near Varanasi, carved in cream Chunar sandstone and produced the seated preaching Buddha whose hands form the dharmachakra mudra, the gesture of teaching, and whose robe clings so closely that art historians describe it as wet drapery.
Read the full explanation →Bamiyan, where colossal rock-cut Buddha figures stood until 2001, belonged to which school of art?
Bamiyan, in the highlands of what is now Afghanistan, lay on the trade route through the Hindu Kush and was part of the wide Gandhara cultural region, along with Hadda, Begram, Jalalabad, Swat and Taxila.
Read the full explanation →The headless statue of Kanishka, bearing an inscription naming him Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra, was found at
The best known of them is the standing figure of Kanishka in spotted red sandstone, broken at the neck, whose inscription names him Maharaja Rajatiraja Devaputra Kanishka, and it is now in the Government Museum at Mathura.
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