UPSC Civil Services 2020 Previous Year GK Questions with Answers

The correct answer is A, Indian handicrafts were ruined.. The Industrial Revolution in Britain ruined Indian handicrafts in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Machine-made British cloth was cheaper than hand-woven Indian cloth. After the Charter Act of 1813 ended the East India Company's trade monopoly, British goods flooded Indian markets with almost no duty, while Indian goods faced high duties in Britain. Weavers and artisans lost their markets, famous textile towns such as Dacca and Murshidabad declined, and many craftsmen were pushed back to agriculture. Historians call this deindustrialisation. India turned into a supplier of raw cotton and a buyer of British manufactures.

B is wrong: Indian textile mills with machines came only later; the first successful cotton mill opened in Bombay in 1854.

C is wrong: the first railway line, Bombay to Thane, opened only in 1853, and the network spread in the second half of the century.

D is wrong: British goods entered India almost duty-free, which is exactly why handicrafts suffered.

Exam tip: Charter Act 1813 + free entry of British goods = ruin of Indian handicrafts (deindustrialisation).

The correct answer is B, 2 and 3 only. Statements 2 and 3 are correct; the Sthaviravadins belong to the older Hinayana tradition, not Mahayana.

After the Second Buddhist Council at Vaishali, the Sangha split into the Sthaviravadins (the 'elders', who kept to the strict rules) and the Mahasanghikas (the 'great community'). The Sthaviravada line led to Theravada, the Hinayana school now followed in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. The Lokottaravadins, who held that the Buddha was 'beyond the world' (lokottara), were a branch of the Mahasanghikas; their text, the Mahavastu, is well known. By treating the Buddha as a superhuman, divine being, the Mahasanghikas prepared the ground for Mahayana Buddhism and its worship of Buddha images and bodhisattvas.

A is wrong: statement 1 is false, as Sthaviravadins are not Mahayana.

C is wrong: statement 2 is also correct.

D is wrong: statement 1 is false.

Exam tip: Sthaviravada leads to Theravada (Hinayana); Mahasanghika and Lokottaravada lead towards Mahayana.

The correct answer is D, Neither 1 nor 2. Being eligible to vote is not enough to become a minister, and the disqualification after a conviction is not permanent.

Statement 1 is wrong: Article 164(4) lets a non-member be a State minister for up to six consecutive months, but the person must be qualified to become a member of the Legislature, which needs a minimum age of 25 for the Assembly and 30 for the Council. A voter needs to be only 18, so mere eligibility to vote does not qualify someone to be a minister.

Statement 2 is wrong: Section 8(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 disqualifies a person sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more from the date of conviction and for a further six years after release. The bar ends after that period; it is not lifelong.

A is wrong: statement 1 is false.

B is wrong: statement 2 is false.

C is wrong: both statements are false.

Exam tip: a non-member minister has six months to enter the House (Articles 75(5) and 164(4)); conviction with two years or more = disqualified for the sentence plus six years.

The correct answer is D, 2 and 3 only. Part IV holds the Directive Principles of State Policy, which no court can enforce but which the State must apply in making laws.

Article 37 says the provisions of Part IV shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles laid down in it are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country, and it shall be the duty of the State to apply them in making laws. The Directive Principles cover Articles 36 to 51 and were inspired by the Irish Constitution. They include equal pay for equal work, a uniform civil code, organisation of village panchayats, separation of the judiciary from the executive and the promotion of international peace.

A is wrong: Directive Principles are non-justiciable, so statement 1 is false.

B is wrong: it leaves out statement 3, which is also correct.

C is wrong: it includes the false statement 1 and leaves out statement 2.

Exam tip: Part III Fundamental Rights are justiciable; Part IV Directive Principles (Articles 36-51) are non-justiciable but fundamental in governance (Article 37).

The correct answer is D, a credit system granted by IMF to its members. The reserve tranche is the part of a member's IMF quota that it can draw on at any time, without conditions.

Every member of the International Monetary Fund pays a quota subscription. Originally a quarter of it had to be paid in gold, which gave the portion its old name, gold tranche. Today that portion is paid in reserve assets such as SDRs or major currencies, and the name reserve tranche is used. Drawing on it is not treated as borrowing: there is no interest, no repayment obligation and no policy condition, so countries count it as part of their foreign exchange reserves. India's RBI lists its reserve tranche position among the components of forex reserves.

A is wrong: the World Bank lends for development projects and has no reserve tranche.

B is wrong: it is not an operation of a central bank, though central banks hold it as a reserve.

C is wrong: the WTO regulates trade and does not grant credit.

Exam tip: India's forex reserves = foreign currency assets + gold + SDRs + reserve tranche position in the IMF.

The correct answer is A, the final goal of a stateless society. Both Gandhi and Marx saw the State as an instrument of coercion and imagined an ideal society in which it would no longer be needed.

Marx held that after a proletarian revolution and a transitional dictatorship of the proletariat, class divisions would vanish and the State would "wither away", leaving a classless, stateless communist society. Gandhi called the State "violence in a concentrated and organised form" and hoped for an enlightened anarchy, a Ram Rajya of self-governing, self-reliant village republics in which people rule themselves. The two differed sharply on the means: Marx accepted violent revolution, while Gandhi insisted on non-violence and change of heart.

B is wrong: class struggle is central to Marxism, but Gandhi rejected it in favour of harmony between classes.

C is wrong: Marx wanted private property abolished, while Gandhi proposed trusteeship, in which owners hold wealth in trust for society.

D is wrong: economic determinism, the idea that the economic base shapes everything else, is Marxist; Gandhi gave primacy to moral and spiritual forces.

Exam tip: Gandhi and Marx agree on the end (stateless society) but differ on the means (non-violence and trusteeship versus class struggle and revolution).

The correct answer is A, Directive Principles of State Policy. The Directive Principles in Part IV lay down the social and economic goals that make India a welfare state.

Articles 36 to 51 direct the State to secure a social order based on social, economic and political justice (Article 38), adequate means of livelihood, fair distribution of resources and equal pay for equal work (Article 39), the right to work, education and public assistance (Article 41), and humane conditions of work and maternity relief (Article 42). They are not enforceable by courts (Article 37), but they are fundamental in the governance of the country. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar called them a "novel feature" and they were inspired by the Irish Constitution.

B is wrong: Fundamental Rights in Part III aim at political democracy by limiting the State, not at welfare goals.

C is wrong: the Preamble states the objectives of justice, liberty and equality in general terms, while the welfare state ideal is spelt out in the Directive Principles.

D is wrong: the Seventh Schedule only divides subjects between the Union and the States.

Exam tip: Fundamental Rights = political democracy; Directive Principles (Part IV, Articles 36–51, from Ireland) = social and economic democracy, the welfare state.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. The Alma-Ata Declaration is about primary healthcare and the Talanoa Dialogue is about climate change; the other two pairs are wrong.

The Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978, adopted at a WHO-UNICEF conference in present-day Almaty, Kazakhstan, set the goal of "Health for All" through primary health care. The Talanoa Dialogue was the facilitative dialogue launched at COP23 under Fiji's presidency in 2017 and run through 2018 to take stock of efforts under the Paris Agreement; "talanoa" is a Pacific word for inclusive, open discussion.

A is wrong: pair 2 is incorrect, because biological weapons are covered by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 and chemical weapons by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, while the Hague Conventions deal mainly with the laws of war and, in another series, private international law such as child abduction.

B is wrong: the Under2 Coalition is a group of sub-national governments committed to keeping global warming well below 2 °C, not a child rights body.

D is wrong: pairs 2 and 4 are incorrect and pair 1 is left out.

Exam tip: Alma-Ata 1978 = Health for All; Talanoa = COP23 Fiji; Under2 = states and regions on climate.

The correct answer is B, 2 and 3 only. Rakhmabai had been married as a child and refused to join her husband's household as an adult; he went to court for the restitution of conjugal rights, so statement 3 is part of the case. The judgment and the uproar that followed turned on whether a girl married as a child could be compelled to cohabit, and the campaign it fuelled produced the Age of Consent Act of 1891, which raised the age from ten to twelve years, so statement 2 is also part of it. Statement 1 is not: although Rakhmabai later studied medicine in England and became one of India's first practising woman doctors, the litigation itself was not about a right to education, which is why options A, C and D, each of which includes statement 1, are wrong.

The correct answer is D, Provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003. The FRBM Act requires the government to lay this statement before Parliament along with the Budget.

Section 3 of the FRBM Act, 2003 lists the fiscal policy statements that must accompany the annual financial statement: the Macro-economic Framework Statement and the Medium-term Fiscal Policy cum Fiscal Policy Strategy Statement. The Macro-economic Framework Statement assesses the growth prospects of the economy, with GDP growth, the fiscal balance and the external sector balance. The Act aims to bring discipline to government borrowing and deficits.

A is wrong because the document rests on a statute, not on convention.

B is wrong because Article 112 deals with the annual financial statement and Article 110 defines Money Bills; neither requires this statement.

C is wrong because Article 113 covers the procedure for estimates and demands for grants.

Exam tip: Article 112 = Budget; the FRBM Act, 2003 = the fiscal policy statements laid with it.

The correct answer is D, neither 1 nor 2. Statement 1 is wrong because the Constitution nowhere uses the expression basic structure or defines it. The doctrine is a creation of the Supreme Court in Kesavananda Bharati in 1973, and the courts have added features to it case by case, which is why no closed list exists. Statement 2 is wrong as it stands because the Constitution contains no provision that declares judicial review with such a purpose written into it; the power flows from provisions such as Articles 13, 32, 131 to 136, 226 and 246, and the language about safeguarding liberties and preserving ideals is the language of judgments and commentaries, not of the text.

Option A and Option B are therefore wrong, each accepting one of the two flawed statements, and Option C is wrong because it accepts both. The lesson for statement based questions is to be strict about the words defines and provision: a doctrine developed by the courts is not a definition given by the Constitution.

The correct answer is B, its unprofitability in the world market because of new inventions. Indigo lost its market when chemists learned to make the dye in a factory, so the Indian crop became unprofitable and cultivation shrank. Adolf von Baeyer worked out the structure of indigo in the eighteen eighties and the German firm BASF began selling synthetic indigo in 1897; within a few years it had taken most of the world trade, because the manufactured dye was cheaper and of a steadier quality than the plant extract. Bengal and Bihar, which had lived on indigo exports, saw acreage collapse in the first decade of the twentieth century. A is wrong because the Indigo Revolt of 1859 in Bengal and the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 checked the planters in particular districts but did not end the industry. C is wrong because national leaders raised the cultivators' grievances, not a case against the crop. D is wrong because the Government protected the planters rather than curbing them. Exam tip: synthetic indigo from Germany, 1897, killed the natural dye trade.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. Statements 1 and 3 hold while statement 2 does not, so this pairing is the right one. The Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures is one of the World Trade Organization agreements that came out of the Uruguay Round in 1995. It bars a member from placing conditions on a foreign investor that distort trade in goods, and the two named prohibitions are the local content requirement and the trade balancing requirement, which is why a quantitative limit on what an investor may import is not allowed. The agreement covers investment measures only insofar as they affect trade in goods, so statement 2 is wrong; services are handled separately under GATS. Statement 3 stands because the agreement does not tell a country whom to admit as an investor or on what terms, and so does not regulate foreign investment itself. A and D are wrong because each includes statement 2. B is wrong because it rests on statement 2 alone. Exam tip: TRIMS is about goods, GATS about services, TRIPS about intellectual property.

The correct answer is B, the Government is responsible to the Parliament and can be removed by it. A parliamentary system rests on the executive answering to the legislature, so the council of ministers stays in office only while it keeps the confidence of the House. India took this form from Britain: the ministers are drawn from the legislature, they are collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha under Article 75, and a no-confidence motion carried against them brings the whole ministry down. The President is the nominal head while the Prime Minister is the real head of the executive. A is wrong because a government of all parties is a national or coalition arrangement, not a feature of the system itself. C is wrong because the people elect the legislature, and it is the legislature that makes and unmakes the government; direct removal by voters belongs to no Indian office. D is wrong because a fixed term the House cannot cut short describes the presidential system. Exam tip: parliamentary means responsible government, presidential means fixed tenure.

The correct answer is C, 2 - 4 - 1 - 3. Mahendravarman I came first, Gopala next, then Bhoja and finally Parantaka I, which is exactly this order. Mahendravarman I ruled the Pallavas of Kanchi in the early seventh century and is remembered for the rock-cut temples at Mandagapattu and for his play Mattavilasa Prahasana. Gopala was raised to the throne of Bengal around the middle of the eighth century and founded the Pala dynasty. Mihira Bhoja led the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj in the second half of the ninth century, at the height of the tripartite struggle. Parantaka I of the Cholas ruled in the early tenth century and defeated the Pandyas at Vellur. A is wrong because it places Bhoja before Gopala. B and D are wrong because both begin with Parantaka I, the latest of the four rulers. Exam tip: the sequence runs Pallava, then Pala, then Pratihara, then Chola.

The correct answer is A, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey. All four of these countries sit in the G20, so this is the only group in which no name falls outside the forum. The G20 began in 1999 as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, and it was raised to the level of a leaders' summit in 2008 after the global financial crisis. It brings together nineteen countries along with the European Union, and the African Union was admitted as a member at the New Delhi summit. Its Asian members include India, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. B is wrong because Malaysia and New Zealand are not members, even though Australia and Canada are. C is wrong because Iran and Vietnam stand outside the group, while Brazil and Saudi Arabia are inside it. D is wrong because Singapore is not a member, though it is often invited as a guest. Exam tip: among the Southeast Asian states only Indonesia is a G20 member.

The correct answer is C, 1 and 3 only. Article 85 lets the President summon each House 'at such time and place as he thinks fit', and no article fixes a minimum number of sitting days. The only rule in Article 85(1) is that the gap between the last sitting of one session and the first sitting of the next must not exceed six months, so Parliament has to meet at least twice a year. The President summons, prorogues and dissolves on the advice of the Council of Ministers. Statement 2 is wrong because the Constitution does not mention three sessions at all; the Budget, Monsoon and Winter sessions are only a convention. Statement 1 is right because Article 85 gives the President the choice of place as well as time. Statement 3 is right because no minimum is laid down, which is why the NCRWC (2002) suggested at least 120 sitting days a year for the Lok Sabha. So A, B and D are wrong. Exam tip: Article 85, six-month maximum gap, three sessions by convention only.