UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control, sent the Despatch in 1854 while Dalhousie was Governor-General.

The Charter Act of 1833 made the Governor-General of Bengal the Governor-General of India with authority over the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, took away their power to make laws, and added a law member to the Council, a post first held by Lord Macaulay.

The Government of India Act of 1858 ended the rule of the East India Company and transferred power to the British Crown, so the Governor-General was additionally styled Viceroy, the personal representative of the Crown.

The first passenger railway line in India, about thirty-four kilometres long, was opened on 16 April 1853 during the term of Lord Dalhousie, who had set out the plan for an Indian railway network in his Railway Minute of 1853.

Regulation XVII of 4 December 1829 declared sati illegal in the Bengal Presidency and punishable by the criminal courts, and it was extended to Madras and Bombay in 1830.

Awadh was annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1856, but the ground given was alleged misgovernment by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, not the absence of a natural heir.

He signed the Subsidiary Alliance in 1798, the first year of Wellesley's term, agreeing to disband his French-trained troops and to maintain a British force at his own expense.

The Permanent Settlement, also called the Zamindari system, was introduced in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1793. It recognised the zamindars as owners of the land and fixed their revenue demand for all time, so that the state gained a certain income but lost any share in rising production.

The Regulating Act of 1773 changed the designation of the Governor of Bengal to Governor-General of Bengal and gave him a Council of four members, and Warren Hastings, who was already Governor, became the first to hold the new title.

The Battle of Buxar was fought on 22 October 1764 in present-day Bihar, where the Company's army under Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of Mir Qasim of Bengal, Shuja-ud-Daulah of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II.

The Treaty of Salbai ended the First Anglo-Maratha War, fought during the term of Warren Hastings. By its terms Salsette remained with the Company, Raghunathrao's claim to the Peshwaship was dropped and Madhavrao II was recognised as Peshwa.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development was set up on 12 July 1982 on the recommendation of the Shivaraman Committee, taking over the refinancing functions earlier performed by the Reserve Bank of India and the Agricultural Refinance and Development Corporation.

The Agriculture Census groups operational holdings by size into marginal below one hectare, small from one to two hectares, semi-medium from two to four, medium from four to ten and large above ten hectares.

e-NAM was launched on 14 April 2016, the birth anniversary of Dr B. R. Ambedkar, as an online trading platform that links the regulated mandis of the States into one national market.

The Fair and Remunerative Price is the minimum price a sugar mill is legally bound to pay a cane grower, fixed by the Central Government on the recommendation of the CACP under the Sugarcane Control Order.

Under it, central nodal agencies, chiefly NAFED, buy pulses, oilseeds and copra at the Minimum Support Price when prices in the mandis fall below that level, and the losses are borne by the Government.

The Food Corporation of India was set up in 1965 under the Food Corporations Act of 1964, at a time of severe food shortage, to procure food grains, maintain buffer stocks, distribute grain through the public distribution system and keep prices stable for both the farmer and the consumer.

The Union Budget of 2018 announced that the Minimum Support Price would be kept at a level at least one and a half times the cost of production, and the cost used for that calculation is A2 plus FL, that is all paid-out expenses together with the imputed value of…

The C2 cost is the most comprehensive of the measures the Commission uses.

Set up in January 1965 as the Agricultural Prices Commission and renamed in 1985, it works under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.