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 secretariat of SAARC is located at
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation was founded in 1985 at Dhaka, where its charter was signed, and its permanent secretariat was set up at Kathmandu in Nepal in 1987.
Read the full explanation →The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were created at the conference held in 1944 at
The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference met at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in the United States in July 1944 and agreed to set up the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is why the two are called the Bretton Woods twins; both…
Read the full explanation →The World Trade Organization came into existence in
The WTO began on 1 January 1995 as the outcome of the Uruguay Round, and it replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as a permanent organisation with a dispute settlement system.
Read the full explanation →The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has its headquarters at
The OECD was established in 1961 as the successor of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, which had been created to administer aid under the Marshall Plan, and it works from Paris as a forum of mostly high-income countries that sets standards and publishes comparative statistics.
Read the full explanation →The New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS countries, has its headquarters at
The New Development Bank was agreed at the sixth BRICS summit at Fortaleza in Brazil in 2014 and began work with its headquarters at Shanghai, with K. V. Kamath of India as its first president and an African regional centre in South Africa.
Read the full explanation →Which country joined the BRIC grouping and made it BRICS?
South Africa was invited to join in 2010 and took part in the summit at Sanya in China in 2011, and the letter S was added to the acronym to make BRICS.
Read the full explanation →The first BRIC summit, held in 2009, took place at
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China met for the first summit of the grouping at Yekaterinburg in Russia in June 2009, turning an analyst's acronym into a working forum.
Read the full explanation →The term BRIC was coined in 2001 by
Jim O'Neill, then an economist at Goldman Sachs, used the acronym BRIC in a paper of 2001 to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China, the four large economies he expected to grow into a major share of world output.
Read the full explanation →At the New Delhi G20 Summit of 2023, which body was admitted as a new permanent member of the group?
The New Delhi Leaders' Summit of September 2023, held under India's presidency at Bharat Mandapam, admitted the African Union as a permanent member, so that the group now has a second regional organisation alongside the European Union.
Read the full explanation →The first G20 Leaders' Summit was held in 2008 at
The first summit at the level of heads of state and government was called in November 2008, when the collapse of large financial firms threatened the world economy, and it met at Washington.
Read the full explanation →The G20 was established in which year?
The Group of Twenty was formed in 1999, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, as a forum where the finance ministers and central bank governors of the major advanced and emerging economies could discuss the stability of the world financial system.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a hereditary disease?
Haemophilia is an inherited disorder in which a clotting factor is missing, so bleeding continues for a long time after an injury.
Read the full explanation →Goitre, the swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck, is caused by the deficiency of
The thyroid gland needs iodine to make the hormones thyroxine and triiodothyronine, and when the supply is short the gland enlarges in an attempt to trap more of it, which appears as a swelling in the neck.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following diseases is caused by a virus?
Rabies is caused by a virus present in the saliva of an infected animal, usually a dog, and it travels along the nerves to the brain, where it causes inflammation, fear of water and almost certain death once the symptoms begin; it is prevented by vaccination after the bite, a…
Read the full explanation →Kala-azar is transmitted by the bite of
Kala-azar, also called visceral leishmaniasis, is caused by the protozoan Leishmania donovani and is passed on by the bite of the female sandfly, which breeds in cracks of mud walls and damp soil.
Read the full explanation →Elephantiasis, or filariasis, is caused by
Filariasis is caused by the thread-like nematode Wuchereria bancrofti, which is carried by the Culex mosquito.
Read the full explanation →Night blindness is caused by the deficiency of
Vitamin A is used to make rhodopsin, the pigment of the rod cells of the retina that allows sight in dim light, so a shortage of it makes a person unable to see properly at dusk or in a dark room.
Read the full explanation →Scurvy, in which the gums bleed and wounds heal slowly, is caused by the deficiency of
Vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is needed to make collagen, the protein that holds tissues together, so its absence weakens the gums and blood vessels and delays the healing of wounds.
Read the full explanation →Dengue is transmitted to human beings by
This mosquito, marked by white stripes on a dark body, bites during the day and breeds in clean stored water in coolers, tyres and flower pots, which is why dengue control campaigns concentrate on emptying household containers.
Read the full explanation →Malaria in human beings is caused by
Four species of Plasmodium commonly infect human beings, of which Plasmodium falciparum is the most dangerous and Plasmodium vivax the most widespread in India.
Read the full explanation →