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 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in which year?
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was adopted at Paris on 17 June 1994 and it entered into force in December 1996.
Read the full explanation →Which one is not the major technique of soil conservation?
The question asks for the odd one out, and the heavy use of chemical fertilisers damages soil rather than conserving it: it acidifies the soil, kills soil microorganisms, leaves salt residues, and the surplus nitrate and phosphate wash into water bodies and cause eutrophication.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following soil-conservation methods is generally implemented in the coastal and dry regions?
A shelter belt is a row or a block of trees and shrubs planted across the direction of the prevailing wind.
Read the full explanation →Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in which year?
Sultan Mehmed the Second captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine or Eastern Roman empire, and the city became the Ottoman capital under the name Istanbul.
Read the full explanation →In which year did Apollo 11 land the first human beings on the Moon?
Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969, and Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on its surface, followed by Buzz Aldrin, while Michael Collins stayed in the command module in orbit.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Berlin Wall pulled down?
The Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to stop movement from East Berlin to West Berlin, was opened and then demolished by crowds on both sides from 9 November 1989, and its fall is the symbol of the collapse of communist rule in eastern Europe.
Read the full explanation →Who became the first human being to travel into space, and in which year?
The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth once aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961, becoming the first human being in space; the day is observed as the International Day of Human Space Flight.
Read the full explanation →The United Nations formally came into existence on:
The United Nations Charter came into force on 24 October 1945 once it had been ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of the other signatories, and that date is observed every year as United Nations Day.
Read the full explanation →The storming of the Bastille, which marks the beginning of the French Revolution, took place on:
A Paris crowd attacked and captured the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that stood for the arbitrary power of the Bourbon monarchy, on 14 July 1789, and that day is taken as the start of the French Revolution; France keeps it as its national day, known as Bastille Day.
Read the full explanation →In what year did the Great Economic Depression start?
The Great Depression began with the crash of the New York stock market in October 1929, remembered through Black Thursday and Black Tuesday of that month.
Read the full explanation →What is 'Little Boy'?
Little Boy was the code name of the uranium fission bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the first use of a nuclear weapon in war.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Treaty of Versailles signed?
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles and formally ended the First World War between Germany and the Allied powers.
Read the full explanation →During the French revolution, when did Napoleon ascend to power?
Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in November 1799 in the coup that overthrew the Directory, and he became First Consul of France, which is the point at which the French Revolution is usually said to have ended; he crowned himself emperor five years later, in 1804.
Read the full explanation →In which battle was Napoleon defeated?
Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo in present-day Belgium by the allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian commander Blucher.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Eiffel Tower built, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution?
The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889, a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and it served as the entrance arch of the World's Fair held that year to mark the centenary of the French Revolution.
Read the full explanation →Who is the author of the book 'India After Gandhi'?
India After Gandhi, published in 2007, is Ramachandra Guha's history of the Indian republic from independence onwards, covering partition, the integration of the princely states, the making of the Constitution, the wars, the Emergency and the economic changes that followed.
Read the full explanation →The Natyashastra, the oldest Indian treatise on drama, dance and music, is attributed to:
The Natyashastra, attributed to the sage Bharata, is the foundational text of Indian performing arts, covering the stage, acting, gesture, costume, music and above all the theory of rasa, the aesthetic flavours a performance should produce; every classical dance form traces its grammar to it.
Read the full explanation →The Harshacharita, a biography of king Harshavardhana, was written by:
Banabhatta was the court poet of Harshavardhana of Kanauj in the seventh century, and his Harshacharita is a biography in ornate Sanskrit prose that is a major source for the reign, alongside the account left by the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang.
Read the full explanation →Who wrote 'The Wonder That Was India'?
Arthur Llewellyn Basham, a British historian of ancient India, published The Wonder That Was India in 1954 as a survey of Indian civilisation before the coming of the Muslims, and it remains one of the most widely read introductions to the subject; a companion second volume covering the medieval period…
Read the full explanation →The Arthashastra, the ancient Indian treatise on statecraft and economy, was written by:
Kautilya, also known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta, is credited with the Arthashastra, a manual in fifteen books covering administration, taxation, law, espionage, diplomacy and war, and traditionally linked with the rise of Chandragupta Maurya.
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