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.
The Kanheri Caves, built by Buddhists, are located in which of the following states?
The Kanheri caves are cut into a basalt hill inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai.
Read the full explanation →The famous caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri are located in ______.
The twin hills of Udayagiri and Khandagiri stand near Bhubaneswar and hold Jain rock-cut cells cut for monks in the first century BCE.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following features distinguishes the Elephanta Caves from other rock-cut sites of early India?
Elephanta, on Gharapuri island near Mumbai, is a Shaivite rock-cut group whose panels tell Shiva stories: the Trimurti Sadashiva, Ardhanarishvara, Gangadhara, the marriage of Shiva and Parvati and Shiva as Nataraja.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following heritage sites shows the Dravidian style of architecture?
Hampi on the Tungabhadra in Karnataka was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire, and its Virupaksha, Vittala and Hazara Rama temples are Dravidian work of the most elaborate kind: walled enclosures, towering gopurams, pillared kalyana mandapas, the famous stone chariot and the musical pillars.
Read the full explanation →In the context of temple architecture, the most important part of the temple is:
The garbhagriha, the womb house, is the small square windowless cell that holds the image of the presiding deity. Every other part of a temple is added around it: the tower rises over it, the hall stands in front of it and the circumambulatory passage runs around it.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following was NOT a scientific payload of India's Mars Orbiter Mission?
That instrument belonged to Chandrayaan 1, the lunar mission of 2008, and it was the one whose data confirmed water molecules on the Moon.
Read the full explanation →On which date did India's Mars Orbiter Mission successfully enter the orbit of Mars?
After a journey of about ten months the spacecraft fired its engine and was captured by the gravity of Mars on that day.
Read the full explanation →The Mars Orbiter Mission of India, popularly called Mangalyaan, was launched by which vehicle?
The Mars Orbiter Mission lifted off on 5 November 2013 on this flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following did Chandrayaan 3 NOT carry?
Chandrayaan 3 was deliberately built without one, because the orbiter of Chandrayaan 2 was still healthy in lunar orbit and could relay the lander's signals to the Earth.
Read the full explanation →The landing site of Chandrayaan 3 on the Moon has been named
The spot where the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down on 23 August 2023, in the high latitude region near the lunar south pole, was given this name shortly after the landing.
Read the full explanation →With the success of Chandrayaan 3, India became which country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon?
The Soviet Union was the first to place a craft gently on the lunar surface, the United States followed, and China became the third.
Read the full explanation →On which date did the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 make its soft landing on the Moon?
The Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 3 touched down safely in the high latitude region near the lunar south pole on that evening, and the rover Pragyan rolled out soon afterwards.
Read the full explanation →What are the names of the lander and the rover of the Chandrayaan missions?
The lander is named Vikram after Vikram Sarabhai, the physicist who founded the Indian space programme and is called its father.
Read the full explanation →Chandrayaan 2 was launched in July 2019 on which rocket?
Chandrayaan 2 lifted off on 22 July 2019 on the heaviest Indian rocket then flying, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three, which has since been renamed LVM3.
Read the full explanation →The presence of water molecules on the Moon was confirmed using data from which instrument carried by Chandrayaan 1?
This imaging spectrometer, supplied by the United States space agency and flown on the Indian orbiter, measured how sunlight reflected from the lunar surface and found the absorption signature of water molecules and hydroxyl, especially towards the poles.
Read the full explanation →Which launch vehicle carried Chandrayaan 1 into orbit?
The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in its extended configuration carried Chandrayaan 1 on 22 October 2008. The same family of rockets, in the C25 flight, later carried the Mars Orbiter Mission in 2013, which shows how much the Indian space programme achieved with a medium lift vehicle.
Read the full explanation →Chandrayaan 1, India's first mission to the Moon, was launched in which year?
Chandrayaan 1 was launched on 22 October 2008 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and reached lunar orbit within a fortnight.
Read the full explanation →The central office of the Reserve Bank of India was shifted from Calcutta to Bombay in which year?
The Reserve Bank opened at Calcutta in 1935 and moved its central office permanently to Bombay two years later, which is where the Governor sits and where policy is announced.
Read the full explanation →The authority of the Reserve Bank of India to regulate and supervise payment systems in India flows from which law?
It makes the Reserve Bank the designated authority for the regulation and supervision of payment systems in India, so that no person may operate a payment system without its authorisation.
Read the full explanation →Under the Minimum Reserve System followed since 1957, the Reserve Bank of India must hold assets of at least
Since 1957 India has followed the Minimum Reserve System of note issue, under which the Reserve Bank must keep assets worth at least two hundred crore rupees against the notes in circulation, of which gold must be worth at least one hundred and fifteen crore rupees and the remainder may…
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