Static general knowledge is the larger part of every UPSC general studies paper. The notices name the same areas again and again: the history of India and the national movement, Indian and world geography, polity and the Constitution, the economy and social development, and general science with environment and ecology. The balance shifts from exam to exam. NDA puts about half of its General Knowledge part on Physics, Chemistry and General Science. CSE favours polity, modern history, environment and the economy. CAPF adds security and human rights, and CDS spreads its questions across polity, history, geography, the economy and school science.
GK24's GK notes are written topic by topic in English and Hindi, as short, fact-first chapters that are easy to revise. They cover Indian Polity, Indian History, Geography, Indian Economy, General Science, Environment and Ecology, Art and Culture, Computer, and the fact lists of awards, sports, books and days. A new chapter is added in each subject as the series grows. Each note carries practice questions, and those that have appeared in an exam say which exam and year. Start with Polity and modern history, then Geography, the Economy and Science. Read a note, take its topic quiz, and come back to it in your monthly revision.
Pithora painting of Madhya Pradesh is made by which tribal communities?
Pithora is a wall painting of the Bhil and Bhilala people of the Jhabua, Alirajpur and Dhar belt.
Read the full explanation →Gond painting, the tribal art of lines and dots, comes chiefly from which region of Madhya Pradesh?
Gond painting belongs to the Gond people of the eastern districts of the state, chiefly Dindori and Mandla, where it began as a decoration of the mud wall and the floor and moved to paper and canvas in the late twentieth century.
Read the full explanation →Kadaknath, the black meat chicken carrying a GI tag, is associated with which district of Madhya Pradesh?
The Kadaknath is a breed of fowl of the Jhabua and Alirajpur tribal belt in western Madhya Pradesh, with dark flesh, dark bones and a very low fat content, and it is reared by the Bhil and Bhilala families of the region.
Read the full explanation →Bagh print, the block printing done with vegetable dyes, belongs to which district of Madhya Pradesh?
Bagh print takes its name from the village of Bagh in Dhar district, where the Khatri families print cotton and silk with hand cut wooden blocks and dye it in vegetable colours, chiefly alizarin from the madder root for red and indigo for blue.
Read the full explanation →The weaving of the Maheshwari saree is traditionally traced to the patronage of which ruler?
Ahilyabai Holkar ruled Malwa from Maheshwar in the eighteenth century and is credited with establishing the weaving of the town, bringing in weavers and having borders designed from the carving of the local temples and fort.
Read the full explanation →The Maheshwari saree is woven at Maheshwar, which stands on the bank of which river?
Maheshwar stands on the north bank of the Narmada in Khargone district and was the capital of Ahilyabai Holkar in the eighteenth century.
Read the full explanation →Chanderi, famous for its sheer handwoven fabric, is a town of which district of Madhya Pradesh?
Chanderi lies in Ashoknagar district, in the Betwa belt on the old boundary between Malwa and Bundelkhand, and its weavers make the light, glossy, almost transparent Chanderi fabric in cotton, in silk and in the silk and cotton mix for which the town is best known.
Read the full explanation →Awara Masiha, the biography of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, was written by which writer associated with Haryana?
Vishnu Prabhakar, who spent many years at Hisar and is counted among the writers of Haryana, wrote Awara Masiha, a biography of the Bengali novelist Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay built on years of travel and research, and it is the work for which he is best remembered.
Read the full explanation →Sant Garib Das, who founded the Garibdasi sect, belonged to which village of Haryana?
Sant Garib Das of Chhudani, in the present Jhajjar district, founded the Garibdasi sect in the eighteenth century and left a very large body of devotional verse, collected as the Sat Granth, which is still recited by his followers.
Read the full explanation →By one tradition, the poet Surdas was born at Sihi village, which lies in which district of Haryana?
One tradition places the birth of the Braj poet Surdas at Sihi, a village in Faridabad district, and Haryana claims him on that ground; other accounts place his birth at Runakta near Agra, so the question is always set as a tradition rather than as a settled fact.
Read the full explanation →Which poet is called the Surya Kavi and the Shakespeare of Haryana?
Pandit Lakhmi Chand is the greatest of the Saang poets of Haryana, and his raginis are still sung across the state.
Read the full explanation →Punjabi was made the second official language of Haryana in which year?
Hindi is the official language of Haryana, settled by the Haryana Official Language Act of 1969, and an amendment to that law in 2010 gave Punjabi the position of second official language of the state.
Read the full explanation →Mewati, one of the dialects of Haryana, is spoken chiefly in which district?
Mewati is the speech of the Mewat tract, which centres on Nuh district and extends into parts of Palwal and Faridabad and across the border into Rajasthan.
Read the full explanation →The Ahirwati dialect is spoken in which part of Haryana?
Ahirwati, also called Hirwati, is the speech of the Ahirwal tract in the south of the state, which covers Rewari, Mahendragarh and parts of Gurugram.
Read the full explanation →The Bagri dialect of Haryana is spoken chiefly in which districts?
Bagri is spoken in the south-western corner of the state, in Sirsa and Fatehabad and parts of Hisar, where Haryana meets Rajasthan and Punjab, and it is close enough to Rajasthani speech that it is often described as a Rajasthani dialect carried into Haryana.
Read the full explanation →In the Linguistic Survey of India by George Abraham Grierson, the speech of the Haryana region is recorded under which name?
Grierson, who conducted the Linguistic Survey of India, placed the speech of the central districts of this region under Western Hindi with the name Bangaru, and that remains its standard scholarly name.
Read the full explanation →Haryanvi is classed as a dialect of which group of Indo-Aryan speech?
Haryanvi belongs to the Central or Western Hindi group of Indo-Aryan, which descends from Shauraseni Apabhramsha and also contains Khari Boli, Braj and Bundeli.
Read the full explanation →The Malmas Mela of Bihar, held in an extra month that returns about once in three years, takes place at which site?
Rajgir, the old capital of Magadha in Nalanda district, holds the Malmas Mela in the intercalary month called Malmas or Adhimas, which returns about once in three years.
Read the full explanation →The Bihula Bishahari festival, which worships the snake goddess, is celebrated mainly in which region of Bihar?
Bihula Bishahari is the snake festival of the old Anga country, the belt around Bhagalpur, in which the goddess is worshipped as Bishahari and the sung story of Bihula, the young wife who is said to have brought her husband Bala Lakhandar back to life, is performed through the nights…
Read the full explanation →The Pitrapaksha Mela, when families offer pind daan for their ancestors, is held in which town of Bihar?
Gaya holds the Pitrapaksha Mela in the dark half of Ashwin, when families come from across the country to offer pind daan at the Vishnupad temple and at the appointed spots along the Falgu river.
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