UPSC GK Questions 2026

The Gayatri Mantra first appears in the third mandala of the Rigveda and is ascribed to the sage Vishvamitra. It is addressed to Savitr, the sun, and it is composed in the Gayatri metre, from which it takes its popular name.

The Jhelum is called Vitasta in the Rigveda, and it is one of the seven rivers of the Sapta Sindhu, the land in which the hymns were composed.

Beti Bachao Beti Padhao was launched on 22 January 2015 from Panipat in Haryana.

Census appears as entry 69 of the Union List in the Seventh Schedule, so only Parliament can legislate on it, and the operation is carried out for the whole country under one law, the Census Act of 1948.

Mewat recorded 907 females for every 1,000 males in 2011, the highest of any district in Haryana, even though the same district had the lowest literacy rate in the state.

Faridabad was the most populous district of Haryana in 2011 and also the district with the highest density of population.

Haryana's literacy rate in 2011 was 75.55 per cent, a little above the national rate of 74.04 per cent. The figure hides a wide gap between the sexes, because male literacy was 84.06 per cent while female literacy was only 65.94 per cent, a difference of about eighteen percentage points.

Density is the population divided by the area, and for Haryana that is 2,53,51,462 people spread over 44,212 square kilometres, which works out to 573.

Haryana recorded 879 females for every 1,000 males in 2011. The number follows directly from the population table: 1,18,56,728 females against 1,34,94,734 males in a total of 2,53,51,462 people.

The Census of 2011 found that 31.16 per cent of Indians lived in urban areas and the remaining 68.84 per cent in villages.

Among the union territories Puducherry recorded 1,037 females for every 1,000 males in 2011, the only union territory with more women than men and the highest figure in that group.

The Census of 2011 recorded 879 females for every 1,000 males in Haryana, the lowest figure of any state in the country, against a national average of 943.

Kabir, a weaver by trade and a disciple in the tradition of Ramananda, lived and preached at Varanasi and died at Magahar.

Lord Dalhousie annexed Awadh in 1856 on the plea of misgovernment, not under the doctrine of lapse, and the Nawab, a poet, dancer and patron of Kathak and thumri, was deposed and sent to Calcutta.

He moved the seat of the Awadh government from Faizabad to Lucknow in 1775 and made the new capital famous for its building and its court life.

He was appointed governor of Awadh by the Mughal emperor in 1722 and, like the Nizam in the Deccan and the Nawab in Bengal, turned the post into a hereditary one as imperial authority weakened.

The empress Nur Jahan raised the tomb at Agra for her father Mirza Ghiyas Beg, who held the title Itmad ud Daulah and served as a minister of Jahangir.

The Buland Darwaza is the towering southern gateway of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, raised by Akbar as a gate of victory in memory of his conquest of Gujarat.

The battle of Kannauj, also called the battle of Bilgram, was fought in 1540 and completed the work begun at Chausa a year earlier.

After the invasion of Timur shattered Tughlaq authority, Malik Sarwar, who held the title Malik us Sharq or lord of the east, made Jaunpur independent in 1394, and his successors ruled as the Sharqis until 1479.