UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Hydel or hydroelectric power depends on head, the vertical distance through which water falls on to the turbine, and on a narrow valley in hard rock where a tall dam can hold a deep reservoir.

Presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore session of December 1929 passed the resolution of Purna Swaraj or complete independence, unfurled the tricolour on the bank of the Ravi and called on the country to observe the twenty sixth of January 1930 as Independence Day.

The Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and gave to itself the Constitution on the twenty sixth of November 1949, and that day is kept every year as Constitution Day or Samvidhan Divas.

The fourth session of the Indian National Congress met at Allahabad in 1888 and elected George Yule as its president, and he was the first Englishman and the first non Indian to hold the office.

At Plassey on the bank of the Bhagirathi, Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, after buying over his commander Mir Jafar, and the victory made the Company the real power in the richest province of India.

Subhash Chandra Bose was elected president of the Indian National Congress at the Haripura session in Gujarat in 1938, where he set up a National Planning Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru.

The fiftieth session of the Indian National Congress met in December 1936 at Faizpur in the Khandesh region of what is now Maharashtra, and it was the first session of the Congress held in a village rather than in a city.

On the day of Baisakhi in 1919 a crowd gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, and Brigadier General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire without warning on the closed enclosure.

The annual session of the Indian National Congress in December 1920 met at Nagpur under the presidency of C. Vijayaraghavachariar, and it confirmed the programme of non cooperation that a special session at Calcutta had approved in September of that year.

Taking the four in the order they appear in history: Wood's Despatch came first, in 1854, and is called the Magna Carta of English education in India because it laid down a graded system of schools and universities.

In the First Battle of Panipat, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last Sultan of the Lodi dynasty, and the victory ended the Delhi Sultanate and founded the Mughal empire in India.

The Param Vir Chakra is the highest wartime gallantry decoration of the Indian armed forces, given for the most conspicuous bravery in the presence of the enemy, and its peacetime equivalent is the Ashoka Chakra; neither belongs to the civilian order of precedence.

Sri Lankabhimanya, which means the pride of Sri Lanka, is the highest national honour of that country and is awarded for exceptional and outstanding service to the nation; the name itself carries the clue, since the country is named in the award.

The Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum is the senior order of Japan, and the chrysanthemum is the emblem of the imperial house, which is why the flower gives the order its name and why the Japanese throne is called the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Until December 2011 the Bharat Ratna could be given only for exceptional service in art, literature and science or for public service of the highest order, and sport was outside its scope.

The rules of the Bharat Ratna provide that not more than three awards may be made in a particular year, and there is no obligation to make any award at all in a given year, which is why several years have passed with none.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, replacing an earlier Medal of Freedom of 1945, and it is awarded for especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural and other significant public…

Nishan-e-Pakistan, which means the order of Pakistan, is the highest civilian decoration conferred by that country and is usually given to heads of state and to those who have rendered outstanding service to Pakistan; the word nishan denotes the highest class in its system of awards, above hilal, sitara and…

The Legion of Honour was instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 to reward civil and military merit, and it remains the highest decoration of France, awarded in five classes of which the Grand Cross is the highest.

Both the Bharat Ratna and the Padma series were instituted on the second of January 1954, during the presidency of Dr Rajendra Prasad, and the first Bharat Ratna awards went that year to C. Rajagopalachari, C. V. Raman and S. Radhakrishnan.