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.
The National Investment Fund, into which the proceeds of disinvestment are credited, was created in which year?
The National Investment Fund was set up in that year so that money raised by selling government equity would not simply fill the revenue gap.
Read the full explanation →The Disinvestment Commission set up in 1996 was headed by
The Disinvestment Commission was constituted in 1996 as an advisory body to examine enterprises referred to it and to recommend the extent, method and timing of disinvestment in each case, and it was chaired by G. V. Ramakrishna, formerly the chairman of SEBI.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is not a category of financial autonomy granted to central public sector enterprises?
The three real grades are Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna, and the last is itself divided into category one and category two, so there are four levels in practice.
Read the full explanation →Which was the first central public sector enterprise sold through a strategic sale in India?
In 1999 and 2000 the government sold seventy-four per cent of this bread-making company to Hindustan Lever along with management control, and it is counted as India's first strategic sale, that is, the first real privatisation of a central enterprise.
Read the full explanation →Strategic disinvestment of a public sector enterprise means
In official usage strategic disinvestment, or strategic sale, means that the government sells a substantial block of shares and hands over management control to the buyer, so the enterprise passes out of the public sector.
Read the full explanation →Which department of the Government of India handles disinvestment of public sector enterprises today?
It was created as the Department of Disinvestment in 1999, was a separate Ministry of Disinvestment from 2001 to 2004, returned as a department and was given its present name in April 2016.
Read the full explanation →Disinvestment of government equity in central public sector enterprises began in India in which year?
In that financial year, following the balance of payments crisis and the New Industrial Policy, the government began selling small blocks of shares of selected enterprises to financial institutions and mutual funds.
Read the full explanation →Which policy document is known as the Economic Constitution of India?
It is called the Economic Constitution of India because it settled for more than three decades which industries belonged to the state and which to private enterprise, through its Schedules A, B and C, and because it gave the Second Five Year Plan its heavy industry direction under the Mahalanobis…
Read the full explanation →Which law gave the Government of India the power of industrial licensing over entry, capacity and location of industries?
Under this Act a company needed a licence to start a new undertaking, to expand capacity substantially, to make a new article or to change its location, and the schedule to the Act listed the industries covered.
Read the full explanation →In the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948, which of the following was not the monopoly of the Central Government?
The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 made only three fields an exclusive monopoly of the central government: arms and ammunition, the production and control of atomic energy, and the ownership and management of railway transport.
Read the full explanation →According to the Industrial Policy Resolution 1956, in how many categories were the industries classified in India?
The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 placed every industry in one of three schedules.
Read the full explanation →Sudbury, one of the most important mining centres of the world, is known for which mineral?
Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, works a nickel and copper deposit of the Canadian Shield formed in an ancient impact structure, and it is the first name in any question on nickel, with Norilsk in Russia and New Caledonia in the Pacific as the others.
Read the full explanation →Cocoa, the raw material of chocolate, is produced mainly in which region of the world?
Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria grow most of the world's cocoa, on small farms under shade trees in the hot, wet equatorial belt along the Gulf of Guinea.
Read the full explanation →The Prairies of North America, the Pampas of South America and the Downs of Australia are all famous for the commercial cultivation of which crop?
All three are temperate grasslands with 50 to 75 centimetres of rain, a cool moist growing season and a warm dry harvest, which is exactly what wheat needs, and all three are farmed on large mechanised holdings for export.
Read the full explanation →The Corn Belt of the United States, the great maize-growing region, is centred on which states?
The Corn Belt lies in the central lowland of the United States, where warm summer nights, 50 to 100 centimetres of summer rain and deep well-drained loam suit maize, and most of the crop is fed to pigs and cattle, so the belt is also a livestock and meat region.
Read the full explanation →Hevea brasiliensis, the tree from which natural rubber is tapped, is native to which region?
The rubber tree is native to the equatorial forests of Brazil, and the boom of the nineteenth century made Manaus a wealthy city.
Read the full explanation →Shifting cultivation is known as ladang in which country?
The practice means clearing a patch of forest, burning the slash for ash, cropping it for two or three years until the soil is exhausted and then moving to a fresh patch.
Read the full explanation →The Mesabi Range, the leading iron ore area of the United States, lies close to which of the Great Lakes?
The Mesabi Range in Minnesota lies on the western side of Lake Superior, and the ore is carried by lake steamer to the steel towns of the lower lakes, among them Gary, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where it meets Appalachian coal.
Read the full explanation →Which city is known as the Manchester of Japan because of its cotton textile industry?
Osaka, in the Kansai industrial region, became the leading cotton textile centre of Japan, helped by a humid climate suited to spinning, a good harbour, cheap labour drawn from the countryside and a large home market, and the comparison with Manchester in England, the original Cottonopolis, is standard in textbooks.
Read the full explanation →The Witwatersrand region of South Africa is famous for the mining of which mineral?
The Witwatersrand basin near Johannesburg has produced a large share of all the gold ever mined, from conglomerate reefs that dip deep underground, and the city of Johannesburg itself grew out of the gold rush of 1886.
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