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 Nobel Peace Prize is presented in which city?
Alfred Nobel's will directed that the Peace Prize be decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament, while the other prizes were left to Swedish institutions, and the Peace Prize is therefore announced and presented in the Norwegian capital.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was instituted in 1968 by
Sveriges Riksbank founded the prize in 1968 to mark its three hundredth anniversary, and it was awarded for the first time in 1969.
Read the full explanation →In which year were the Nobel Prizes awarded for the first time?
Alfred Nobel's estate had to be settled and the Nobel Foundation established before any prize could be given, so the first awards came five years after his death.
Read the full explanation →The Nobel Prizes were instituted under the will of
The Swedish chemist who invented dynamite signed his last will in 1895 and left most of his fortune to endow prizes for those who had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.
Read the full explanation →The Barabar caves near Gaya, among the earliest rock-cut caves in India, were granted by the Mauryas to which sect?
The dedicatory inscriptions in the Barabar hills record the gift of the caves by Ashoka, and of the nearby Nagarjuni caves by his grandson Dasharatha, to the Ajivikas, an ascetic sect founded by Makkhali Gosala that taught a strict doctrine of destiny.
Read the full explanation →The Third Buddhist Council, held at Pataliputra during Ashoka's reign, was presided over by
Buddhist tradition places the Third Council at Pataliputra in Ashoka's reign under the presidency of Moggaliputta Tissa, who is credited with settling disputes in the order and with the compilation of the Kathavatthu, a work of the Abhidhamma Pitaka.
Read the full explanation →The Sudarshana lake, built in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, is known from the inscription of
The Junagadh rock inscription of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman, the earliest long inscription in polished Sanskrit, records that the embankment of the Sudarshana lake in Saurashtra was originally built by Pushyagupta, a governor of Chandragupta Maurya, and that conduits were added by Tushaspha in Ashoka's reign; it then describes the…
Read the full explanation →Who was the last ruler of the Mauryan dynasty?
He was the last of the Mauryas and was killed about 185 BCE by his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Sunga, who then founded the Sunga dynasty with its capital at Pataliputra.
Read the full explanation →Ashoka's personal name is found in which of the following inscriptions?
Almost all of Ashoka's inscriptions call him only Devanampiya Piyadasi, the beloved of the gods, of amiable appearance.
Read the full explanation →In Mauryan administration, the officer described as the chief collector of revenue was the
In the Arthashastra the Samaharta is the officer in charge of assessing and collecting the revenue of the realm from land, mines, forests, trade routes and city dues, and of keeping the accounts of income and expenditure on which the state ran.
Read the full explanation →The Lion Capital adopted as the State Emblem of India was originally erected by Ashoka at
The Sarnath capital has four lions standing back to back on an abacus that carries an elephant, a bull, a horse and a lion separated by wheels, the whole resting on an inverted lotus.
Read the full explanation →The Brahmi script of the Ashokan inscriptions was deciphered in 1837 by
Prinsep, an official of the mint at Calcutta and secretary of the Asiatic Society, worked out the values of the Brahmi letters in 1837 and so made Ashoka's edicts readable.
Read the full explanation →The Kalinga war and its aftermath are described in which of Ashoka's inscriptions?
It is the longest of the fourteen major rock edicts and the only source in Ashoka's own words for the war on Kalinga, the number of people killed, deported and dead of other causes, and the remorse that turned him from conquest by arms to conquest by Dhamma.
Read the full explanation →Who was sent by Seleucus Nicator as his ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya?
After the treaty of about 305 BCE between Chandragupta Maurya and Seleucus Nicator, the Greek ruler sent Megasthenes to Pataliputra as his ambassador.
Read the full explanation →When the Reserve Bank raises the repo rate to control inflation, the likely immediate effect is that
A higher repo rate raises the cost at which banks borrow from the Reserve Bank, so they raise their own lending rates.
Read the full explanation →Under the minimum reserve system followed by the Reserve Bank of India since 1957, the Bank must hold reserves of
Under the minimum reserve system adopted in 1957 the Bank keeps assets of at least two hundred crore rupees against the notes it issues, of which gold must be worth at least one hundred and fifteen crore rupees and the rest is held in foreign securities.
Read the full explanation →The one rupee note in India is issued by the Government of India and bears the signature of the
The one rupee note is not a Reserve Bank note at all: it is issued by the Government of India through the Ministry of Finance, is a legal tender note of the government and carries the signature of the Finance Secretary.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a qualitative instrument of credit control?
A margin requirement is the part of the value of a security that the borrower must fund from his own resources; by raising it for loans against a particular commodity the Bank can discourage credit flowing into speculation in that commodity without touching the total supply of credit.
Read the full explanation →The cash reserve ratio that banks must maintain with the Reserve Bank is prescribed under
It requires every scheduled bank to keep with the Reserve Bank a cash balance calculated on its net demand and time liabilities, and this proportion is the cash reserve ratio.
Read the full explanation →The Monetary Policy Committee was given statutory basis by amending the Reserve Bank of India Act through which law?
It amended the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 to insert the provisions on the inflation target and on the Monetary Policy Committee, so that the policy rate is now set by a committee and not by the Governor alone, and the framework of flexible inflation targeting became law.
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