UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

The Jaduguda mine lies in the Singhbhum belt of Jharkhand and has been worked by the Uranium Corporation of India Limited, a public sector company set up in 1967, since the late nineteen sixties; it was the first uranium mine in the country.

On 11 May 1998 India tested three nuclear devices at Pokhran under Operation Shakti, followed by two more on 13 May, and the day was declared National Technology Day to mark that achievement along with the test flight of the Trishul missile and the first flight of the Hansa aircraft…

The test was carried out in the desert at Pokhran in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974 and was described by India as a peaceful nuclear explosion; Raja Ramanna led the team.

The second stage uses the plutonium 239 recovered from the spent fuel of the first stage as the fuel of a fast breeder reactor, with a blanket of thorium around the core that is converted into uranium 233; a breeder produces more fissile material than it burns, which is how…

Apsara went critical at Trombay near Mumbai on 4 August 1956 and was the first nuclear research reactor not only in India but in the whole of Asia; the CIRUS reactor of 1960 and the Dhruva reactor of 1985 were built at the same site, which is today the Bhabha…

Bhabha founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1945, became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, drew up the three stage plan built around India's thorium, and led the establishment at Trombay that was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre after his death in 1966.

In a boiling water reactor, the design used at Tarapur, ordinary water is allowed to boil inside the reactor vessel itself, so the coolant leaving the core is a mixture of water and steam; the steam is separated at the top and driven straight to the turbine, without the separate…

The CANDU design, from which India's pressurised heavy water reactors descend, burns natural uranium, and natural uranium contains only about seven parts in a thousand of the fissile isotope uranium 235.

The Tarapur Atomic Power Station in Maharashtra was commissioned in 1969 with American assistance and was the first nuclear power station in India as well as in Asia; its first two units are boiling water reactors, a design used nowhere else in the country.

The cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was named for the Bharat Ratna in 2013 and honoured in 2014, the first sportsperson to receive the highest civilian award of the country and also the youngest recipient at that time.

The Gandhi Peace Prize was instituted by the Government of India in 1995, the year marking the one hundred and twenty fifth birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and it is given for social, economic and political change through non-violence, to an individual or an institution, Indian or foreign.

National Sports Day is observed on 29 August, the birth anniversary of the hockey player Major Dhyan Chand, who was part of the Indian teams that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, and the national sports awards are conferred around this day.

The prize is named after Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, the first Director General of the Council, and is given by the Council to scientists working in India, usually announced around its foundation day on 26 September.

The Dadasaheb Phalke Award was instituted in 1969 for lifetime contribution to Indian cinema, in memory of Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who made Raja Harishchandra in 1913, the first Indian feature film, and the first award went to the actress Devika Rani.

The Nobel ceremonies are held on 10 December every year, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel in 1896; the prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and economic sciences are presented at Stockholm, while the peace prize is presented at Oslo.

The Jnanpith Award was instituted by the Bharatiya Jnanpith in 1961 and given for the first time in 1965 to the Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup for his collection Odakkuzhal.

The country's highest sporting honour was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award in 2021, after the hockey player whose birth anniversary on 29 August is observed as National Sports Day.

India's gallantry awards come in two families. For valour in the presence of the enemy the order is Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra and Vir Chakra; for valour otherwise than in the face of the enemy the order is Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra, so the Ashoka…

The list of Bharat Ratna and Padma awardees is released on 25 January, the eve of Republic Day, and the honours are conferred by the President at Rashtrapati Bhavan later in the year.

Tamil was declared a classical language in 2004, the first language to receive the status, on the strength of its ancient Sangam literature and an independent literary tradition.