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 is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences?
She shared the Physics Prize in 1903 for work on radioactivity, becoming the first woman laureate, and won the Chemistry Prize alone in 1911 for the discovery of radium and polonium.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Prizes are presented every year on 10 December because it is
The ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo are held on that date every year, and the prizes themselves are announced in October, some weeks earlier.
Read the full explanation →Which Indian was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998?
The correct answer is B, Amartya Sen, honoured in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics, including work on social choice and on the causes of famine, which showed that famines occur even when food is available if people lack the means to obtain it.
Read the full explanation →C. V. Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in which category?
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman received the Prize in 1930 for his work on the scattering of light, in which a part of the scattered light changes wavelength, an effect that carries his name and gave chemists a powerful method of studying molecules.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first Indian and the first Asian to be awarded a Nobel Prize?
He also wrote the national anthems sung in India and in Bangladesh.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in which city?
Alfred Nobel's will directed that the Peace Prize be decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, while the other prizes were left to Swedish institutions, and the Peace Prize is therefore announced and presented in the Norwegian capital.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was instituted in 1968 by
Sveriges Riksbank founded the prize in 1968 to mark its three hundredth anniversary, and it was awarded for the first time in 1969.
Read the full explanation →In which year were the Nobel Prizes awarded for the first time?
Alfred Nobel's estate had to be settled and the Nobel Foundation established before any prize could be given, so the first awards came five years after his death.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Prizes were instituted under the will of
The Swedish chemist who invented dynamite signed his last will in 1895 and left most of his fortune to endow prizes for those who had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.
Read the full explanation →The Barabar caves near Gaya, among the earliest rock-cut caves in India, were granted by the Mauryas to which sect?
The dedicatory inscriptions in the Barabar hills record the gift of the caves by Ashoka, and of the nearby Nagarjuni caves by his grandson Dasharatha, to the Ajivikas, an ascetic sect founded by Makkhali Gosala that taught a strict doctrine of destiny.
Read the full explanation →The Third Buddhist Council, held at Pataliputra during Ashoka's reign, was presided over by
Buddhist tradition places the Third Council at Pataliputra in Ashoka's reign under the presidency of Moggaliputta Tissa, who is credited with settling disputes in the order and with the compilation of the Kathavatthu, a work of the Abhidhamma Pitaka.
Read the full explanation →The Sudarshana lake, built in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, is known from the inscription of
The Junagadh rock inscription of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman, the earliest long inscription in polished Sanskrit, records that the embankment of the Sudarshana lake in Saurashtra was originally built by Pushyagupta, a governor of Chandragupta Maurya, and that conduits were added by Tushaspha in Ashoka's reign; it then describes the…
Read the full explanation →Who was the last ruler of the Mauryan dynasty?
He was the last of the Mauryas and was killed about 185 BCE by his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Sunga, who then founded the Sunga dynasty with its capital at Pataliputra.
Read the full explanation →Ashoka's personal name is found in which of the following inscriptions?
Almost all of Ashoka's inscriptions call him only Devanampiya Piyadasi, the beloved of the gods, of amiable appearance.
Read the full explanation →In Mauryan administration, the officer described as the chief collector of revenue was the
In the Arthashastra the Samaharta is the officer in charge of assessing and collecting the revenue of the realm from land, mines, forests, trade routes and city dues, and of keeping the accounts of income and expenditure on which the state ran.
Read the full explanation →The Lion Capital adopted as the State Emblem of India was originally erected by Ashoka at
The Sarnath capital has four lions standing back to back on an abacus that carries an elephant, a bull, a horse and a lion separated by wheels, the whole resting on an inverted lotus.
Read the full explanation →The Brahmi script of the Ashokan inscriptions was deciphered in 1837 by
Prinsep, an official of the mint at Calcutta and secretary of the Asiatic Society, worked out the values of the Brahmi letters in 1837 and so made Ashoka's edicts readable.
Read the full explanation →The Kalinga war and its aftermath are described in which of Ashoka's inscriptions?
It is the longest of the fourteen major rock edicts and the only source in Ashoka's own words for the war on Kalinga, the number of people killed, deported and dead of other causes, and the remorse that turned him from conquest by arms to conquest by Dhamma.
Read the full explanation →Who was sent by Seleucus Nicator as his ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya?
After the treaty of about 305 BCE between Chandragupta Maurya and Seleucus Nicator, the Greek ruler sent Megasthenes to Pataliputra as his ambassador.
Read the full explanation →When the Reserve Bank raises the repo rate to control inflation, the likely immediate effect is that
A higher repo rate raises the cost at which banks borrow from the Reserve Bank, so they raise their own lending rates.
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