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.
Who founded the French settlement of Pondicherry in 1674?
He obtained the site from the ruler of Bijapur and founded Pondicherry in 1674, and it became the headquarters of the French in India, holding that position until 1954.
Read the full explanation →The Dutch East India Company was formed in which year?
The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, usually called the Dutch East India Company, was created in 1602 when the States General of the Netherlands merged several competing trading ventures and gave the new body a monopoly of eastern trade.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first Portuguese Governor in India?
He reached India in 1505 as the first Portuguese Governor and held the office until 1509.
Read the full explanation →In which year did the East-India Company acquire the Diwani of Bengal?
After the Battle of Buxar in October 1764, Robert Clive concluded the Treaty of Allahabad with the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II in 1765, and the emperor granted the Company the Diwani, the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
Read the full explanation →Which architectural style predominantly defines the churches of Old Goa?
The churches and convents of Old Goa, built after Albuquerque took the city in 1510 and inscribed on the World Heritage list, follow the styles that Portugal itself was using: the ornate late Gothic Manueline manner and, from the late sixteenth century, the Baroque.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following was not a Portuguese colony?
Machilipatnam, also written as Masulipatnam, was the first Dutch factory in India, opened in 1605, and the English and the French also traded there; it was never a Portuguese possession.
Read the full explanation →In which year was Sri Lanka discovered by the Portuguese?
A Portuguese fleet under Lourenco de Almeida, son of the first Portuguese Governor in India, was driven to the coast of Ceylon in 1505, and the Portuguese soon made a treaty with the ruler of Kotte and built a fort at Colombo.
Read the full explanation →A sustained rise in the production of capital goods within the IIP is generally read as a sign of:
Capital goods are machines, plant and equipment that are bought not to be consumed but to produce other goods, and a firm orders them only when it expects demand to grow enough to justify adding capacity.
Read the full explanation →The Index of Industrial Production is best described as:
The IIP compares the physical quantity of goods produced in a month with the quantity produced in the base year, taking a weighted average of those quantity relatives, so it rises only when more is actually made and is untouched by a change in prices.
Read the full explanation →Under the use-based classification of the Index of Industrial Production, which category carries the largest weight?
Primary goods in this classification are the output of mining, crude oil and natural gas extraction and electricity generation, that is goods that enter production before any manufacturing has been done to them, so the category naturally carries the largest share.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is NOT one of the eight core industries?
The eight core industries are coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity, so options A, B and D are all on the list.
Read the full explanation →Which of the eight core industries carries the lowest weight in the core sector index?
Fertiliser output is important for agriculture and is watched before every sowing season, but the value of the industry's production is small beside refining or steel, which is why its weight is light and a big percentage swing in fertilisers barely moves the combined index.
Read the full explanation →Which of the eight core industries carries the highest weight in the core sector index?
Refining turns crude oil into petrol, diesel, kerosene, naphtha and feedstock for chemicals, and the value of that output is so large that a shutdown at a big refinery shows up in the national figure.
Read the full explanation →The Index of Eight Core Industries is compiled and released by:
The Office of the Economic Adviser, which sits in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, compiles the Index of Eight Core Industries and also the Wholesale Price Index, and it publishes the core sector figure every month.
Read the full explanation →The eight core industries together account for what share of the weight of the Index of Industrial Production?
The eight core industries are the energy and basic material industries on which the rest of manufacturing depends, and because they make up two-fifths of the IIP their monthly index is read as an advance signal of what the fuller index will report a little later.
Read the full explanation →The base year of the Index of Industrial Production series adopted in 2017 is:
In 2017 the base year of the IIP was shifted to 2011-12, the item basket was refreshed to take in goods that had become important since the previous revision, and the weights were recalculated from the gross value added shares of that year.
Read the full explanation →In the Index of Industrial Production, which of the three sectors carries the largest weight?
Mining, option A, has 14.37 per cent, and electricity, option C, has 7.99 per cent, so the three add up to a hundred.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following sectors is NOT covered by the Index of Industrial Production?
The IIP is confined to the industrial sector and has exactly three components, mining, manufacturing and electricity, which are options A, B and C. Agriculture and the whole of the services sector, which together account for the larger part of India's output, lie outside the index, and that is why…
Read the full explanation →Which organisation compiles and releases the Index of Industrial Production in India?
It works under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, gathers production returns from more than a dozen source agencies spread across ministries, and publishes the IIP every month as a Quick Estimate that is revised as fuller data come in.
Read the full explanation →Tropical thorn forests in India are found in areas where the annual rainfall is:
Tropical thorn forest and scrub is the natural vegetation of the semi-arid belt that runs through Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, south-western Punjab, western Madhya Pradesh and parts of the Deccan interior, where rainfall falls short of 70 centimetres.
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