UPSC GK Questions 2026

The Reserve Bank asked banks in 2005 to offer a no-frills account with nil or very low minimum balance so that poor households would not be kept out by charges, and in 2012 the product was renamed the Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account, with a free debit card and a…

Regional Rural Banks were set up from 1975 on the recommendation of a working group chaired by M. Narasimham, to provide credit to small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans, and the Regional Rural Banks Act followed in 1976.

The Aadhaar Enabled Payment System lets a customer withdraw or deposit cash, check a balance or transfer money at a micro ATM held by a business correspondent, identifying himself with the bank name, the Aadhaar number and a biometric such as a fingerprint, so neither a card nor a cheque…

NPCI was incorporated in 2008 as a not-for-profit umbrella organisation for retail payments, promoted by the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks' Association under the framework of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.

The Atal Pension Yojana, launched in 2015 and administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, admits subscribers between eighteen and forty years of age so that every subscriber contributes for at least twenty years before the pension begins at sixty.

The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana is a one-year renewable life insurance cover of two lakh rupees on death from any cause, open to holders of a savings bank account between eighteen and fifty years of age, with the premium debited from the account.

The expression describes the three pieces that together make a cash transfer possible: a bank account opened under the Jan Dhan Yojana to receive the money, the Aadhaar number to identify the beneficiary and remove duplicate names, and the mobile phone through which the beneficiary is informed and can transact.

Real Time Gross Settlement is designed for large-value transfers, each settled singly and immediately in the books of the Reserve Bank, and the minimum amount for a customer transaction is two lakh rupees with no upper ceiling.

MUDRA loans to non-farm micro enterprises are graded in three named categories: Shishu for loans up to fifty thousand rupees, Kishore for loans above fifty thousand and up to five lakh, and Tarun for loans above five lakh and up to ten lakh, with a higher slab added later for…

Payments banks were licensed on the recommendation of the Nachiket Mor Committee to widen access to deposits and payments, and the Reserve Bank's guidelines expressly bar them from lending and from issuing credit cards; their funds must go into government securities and deposits with other banks.

NPCI, set up in 2008 as the umbrella organisation for retail payments in the country, built and runs the Unified Payments Interface, along with RuPay, IMPS, the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, the National Automated Clearing House and FASTag.

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched on 28 August 2014 as the national mission for financial inclusion, offering a zero-balance Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account, a RuPay debit card with accident insurance cover and an overdraft facility for accounts operated satisfactorily.

Passed under Article 262, this Act requires the Union government to constitute a tribunal when a state asks for one and the dispute cannot be settled by negotiation, and the award of the tribunal, once notified, has the force of a decree of the Supreme Court.

The Mahanadi rises in Chhattisgarh and flows into Odisha, where the Hirakud reservoir depends on its flow, so the barrages built upstream in Chhattisgarh brought a dispute that led the Union government to constitute a tribunal in 2018 under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.

The Sardar Sarovar dam stands on the Narmada in Narmada district of Gujarat, and the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, whose award came in 1979, divided the water among these four states and fixed the dam's height.

The Rihand dam, in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, is built on the Rihand, a tributary of the Son, and the reservoir it created, Govind Ballabh Pant Sagar, is the largest artificial lake in India measured by volume of water stored.

The Tehri dam stands on the Bhagirathi in Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand, close to the confluence with the Bhilangna, and at about 260 metres it is the tallest dam in India.

The Indira Gandhi Canal, which was called the Rajasthan Canal when it was begun, starts at the Harike barrage in Punjab, just below the point where the Beas joins the Sutlej, and runs south-west through Haryana into the desert districts of Rajasthan.

The Kaveri rises in Karnataka at Talakaveri in the Brahmagiri hills, flows through Tamil Nadu to the delta, receives tributaries from Kerala and serves the Karaikal region of Puducherry, so all four are parties.

Article 262 allows Parliament to make a law for the adjudication of any dispute about the use, distribution or control of the waters of an inter-state river or river valley, and to bar the Supreme Court and all other courts from such disputes.