UPSC Civil Services GK Questions 2026

The trust that gives the Jnanpith Award instituted the Moortidevi Award in 1983 for a creative work that carries the spirit of Indian philosophy and culture, and the work may be in any of the languages of the Eighth Schedule or in English.

The Hindi poet of the Chhayavaad and Halavaad periods, best known for Madhushala, received the first Saraswati Samman in 1991 for his autobiography written in four volumes.

The foundation instituted the Saraswati Samman in 1991 for an outstanding literary work in any of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, published in the previous ten years, and the award carries the largest cash prize of any Indian literary honour.

The Malayalam poet, known simply as Akkitham, received the 55th Jnanpith Award, given for the year 2019. The Jnanpith is instituted by Bharatiya Jnanpith and is regarded as the highest literary award in India.

The Vyas Samman was instituted in 1991 by the K. K. Birla Foundation and is given for an outstanding literary work in Hindi published in the previous ten years.

Built in the early sixth century, it is one of the first stone temples to carry a shikhara over the sanctum, the feature that defines the Nagara style, and its panels of Vishnu reclining on Shesha and of Nara-Narayana are standard illustrations of Gupta sculpture.

The Gupta empire was divided into provinces called bhuktis, each placed under a governor called an uparika who was often a prince of the royal family.

Aryabhata completed the Aryabhatiya in 499 CE at the age of twenty-three.

The Sudarshana lake near Girnar in Saurashtra was an artificial reservoir first built in Mauryan times and repaired more than once.

Kumaragupta I, who bore the title Mahendraditya, is credited with founding the Nalanda Mahavihara in present-day Bihar. Later rulers, including Harshavardhana and the Palas, endowed it further, and it grew into the largest residential centre of Buddhist learning in Asia before it was destroyed in the late twelfth century.

Fa-Hien came to India in search of Buddhist texts and travelled through the Gupta dominions during the reign of Chandragupta II.

He ended the long rule of the Shaka Kshatrapas over Gujarat, Kathiawar and Malwa, took the title Shakari meaning enemy of the Shakas, and is also known by the title Vikramaditya.

Harishena was the court poet and a high officer of Samudragupta, and he composed the Prayag Prashasti in ornate Sanskrit, partly in verse and partly in prose.

The first two members of the family, Sri Gupta and Ghatotkacha, used only the modest title Maharaja, which historians read as a sign that they were subordinate rulers.

Gupta gold coins were called dinaras, a name borrowed from the Roman denarius that had already reached India through trade and through Kushana coinage.

Gupta imperial rule is conventionally dated from about 320 CE, the epoch of the Gupta era that begins with the accession of Chandragupta I, and it faded out by about 550 CE after the Huna invasions.

Fiscal policy means the use of taxation, public expenditure and public borrowing to influence output, employment and prices, and all three instruments belong to the government and are given effect through the Union Budget.

It empowers the Lok Sabha to make a grant in advance, pending the completion of the procedure prescribed for voting the demands for grants and the passing of the Appropriation Act.

A policy cut motion asks that the amount of a demand be reduced to one rupee. The reduction is symbolic; the purpose is to record complete disapproval of the policy underlying the demand, and the member moving it may advocate an alternative policy.

The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act was passed by Parliament in 2003 and its rules were brought into force in 2004.