UPSC GK Questions 2026

The twenty-year Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in August 1971 by Foreign Minister Swaran Singh and his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko, months before the war that created Bangladesh.

The Shimla Agreement was signed on 2 July 1972, after the war of 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh. It committed both countries to settle differences bilaterally and by peaceful means, and it turned the ceasefire line in Jammu and Kashmir into the Line of Control.

India, which had been an observer since 2005, was admitted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at the Astana summit in Kazakhstan in 2017, along with Pakistan.

SAGAR was announced in 2015 and sets out India's role in the Indian Ocean: maritime security and surveillance, capacity building and training for neighbouring navies and coast guards, cooperation on the blue economy and sustainable use of ocean resources, and first response during cyclones, tsunamis and other disasters.

BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, was created by the Bangkok Declaration of 6 June 1997, first as BIST-EC and then widened as more members joined; its seven members bridge South Asia and South East Asia, and its permanent secretariat is at Dhaka.

The Gujral Doctrine was set out by Inder Kumar Gujral in 1996, when he was Minister of External Affairs and later Prime Minister.

The Look East Policy was launched in 1991 under Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao, when the collapse of the Soviet Union removed India's closest partner and economic liberalisation created a reason to seek markets in South East Asia.

The Tashkent Declaration was signed on 10 January 1966 by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and President Ayub Khan of Pakistan to settle the war of 1965, with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin as host and mediator at Tashkent, then in the Soviet Union.

Article 51, among the Directive Principles of State Policy in Part IV, asks the State to promote international peace and security, to maintain just and honourable relations between nations, to foster respect for international law and treaty obligations, and to encourage the settlement of international disputes by arbitration.

The first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement met at Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, in 1961, with Josip Broz Tito as host and Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sukarno and Kwame Nkrumah among the leading figures.

The five principles of Panchsheel appear in the preamble to the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India, signed on 29 April 1954 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai.

The commission appointed in 1953 had Fazl Ali as chairman, with K. M. Panikkar and Hriday Nath Kunzru as members, and its report of 1955 was the basis of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, which redrew the map into states and union territories on broadly linguistic lines.

It was carved out of the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras after the death of Potti Sriramulu, who fasted for the demand, and its creation forced the government to set up the States Reorganisation Commission under Fazl Ali, whose report of 1955 led to the Act of 1956.

It divided the old Punjab, created Haryana, transferred the hill areas to Himachal Pradesh and made Chandigarh a union territory serving as the capital of both Punjab and Haryana, an arrangement that is itself the subject of long dispute along with the transfer of Hindi and Punjabi speaking villages.

Mizoram's case rests on the inner line notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, which it says marked out a wider belt for the Lushai Hills, while Assam relies on the boundary demarcated in 1933; the strip between the two lines is what both claim, and it is…

The Kotia cluster lies in the hilly tract where the two states meet, and both run schools, ration shops and panchayat elections there on the strength of their own records, which is why the claim has stayed before the Supreme Court for decades.

The correct answer is A, the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, which set up five Zonal Councils as standing forums where neighbouring states and the Centre could discuss matters of common concern, including border frictions, law and order and inter-state transport.

It allows the President, if it appears to be in the public interest, to establish a council charged with inquiring into and advising on disputes between states, investigating subjects in which some or all states and the Union have a common interest, and making recommendations for better coordination of policy.

It allows Parliament to provide by law for the adjudication of disputes about the use, distribution or control of the waters of inter-state rivers and river valleys, and to bar the jurisdiction of the courts in such matters; Parliament did both through the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act of 1956…

Original jurisdiction means the case begins in the Supreme Court itself, and Article 131 covers disputes between the Government of India and one or more states and between two or more states, which is the route by which land boundary suits such as the Belagavi and Kotia matters reach the…