GK Questions with Answers (2026) for SSC, Railway and Bank Exams

Indian Polity and Constitution GK Questions

1. On which date did the Constitution of India come into force?Answer: 26 January 1950 (the Constituent Assembly had adopted it on 26 November 1949, the date now observed as Constitution Day).
2. Who was the chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly?Answer: Dr B. R. Ambedkar (he was appointed to the post in August 1947, about two weeks after independence, while also serving as India's first Law Minister).
3. Which Article of the Constitution abolishes untouchability?Answer: Article 17 (it forbids the practice in any form and makes enforcing any disability based on it an offence punishable by law).
4. Which Article did Dr Ambedkar call the heart and soul of the Constitution?Answer: Article 32 (the Right to Constitutional Remedies, which lets a person go directly to the Supreme Court when a Fundamental Right is violated; he made the remark in the Constituent Assembly on 9 December 1948).
5. Which Constitutional Amendment added the words Socialist, Secular and Integrity to the Preamble?Answer: The 42nd Amendment Act, 1976 (passed during the Emergency, it changed so much of the Constitution that it is nicknamed the mini-Constitution).
6. On whose recommendation were Fundamental Duties added to the Constitution?Answer: The Swaran Singh Committee (the 42nd Amendment of 1976 placed them in a new Part IVA, as Article 51A).
7. What is the minimum age to become a member of the Lok Sabha?Answer: 25 years (Article 84 sets 25 years for the Lok Sabha and 30 years for the Rajya Sabha).
8. Under which Article can the President proclaim a National Emergency?Answer: Article 352 (it can be used when the security of India is threatened by war, external aggression or armed rebellion).

Indian History GK Questions with Answers

1. Who founded the Maurya Empire?Answer: Chandragupta Maurya (he overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha, with Chanakya as his guide and later his minister).
2. In which year was the First Battle of Panipat fought?Answer: 1526 (Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi, on 21 April 1526, and Mughal rule in India began).
3. Which battle of 1757 is often seen as the starting point of British rule in India?Answer: The Battle of Plassey (on 23 June 1757, East India Company troops under Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, after Clive had won over the Nawab's commander, Mir Jafar).
4. Where was the first session of the Indian National Congress held?Answer: Bombay, in December 1885 (W. C. Bonnerjee presided, and the retired British civil servant A. O. Hume was a key founder).
5. When did the Jallianwala Bagh massacre take place?Answer: 13 April 1919 (troops under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired on a crowd in Amritsar that had gathered on Baisakhi, partly to protest against the Rowlatt Act).
6. From where did Mahatma Gandhi begin the Dandi March?Answer: Sabarmati Ashram (he set out on 12 March 1930 and broke the salt law at Dandi on 6 April 1930).
7. When was the Quit India Movement launched?Answer: 8 August 1942 (at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee, where Gandhi gave the call Do or Die).

Indian Geography GK Questions

1. Which is the largest state of India by area?Answer: Rajasthan (its capital and largest city is Jaipur).
2. Through how many Indian states does the Tropic of Cancer pass?Answer: Eight (from west to east: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram).
3. Which longitude is used to set Indian Standard Time?Answer: 82°30' East (this standard meridian passes near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and was chosen because it lies roughly midway between the east and west of the country).
4. Which strait lies between India and Sri Lanka?Answer: The Palk Strait (it separates Tamil Nadu from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka).
5. Which is the largest freshwater lake in India?Answer: Wular Lake (in Jammu and Kashmir, fed by the Jhelum; it is listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance).
6. Which river is known as the Sorrow of Bihar?Answer: The Kosi (its floods regularly damage large areas of farmland in Bihar).
7. What is the southernmost point of India?Answer: Indira Point (on Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands).

Economy and Banking Basics

1. When was the Reserve Bank of India established?Answer: 1 April 1935 (under the RBI Act, 1934; it was nationalised in 1949, and its central office moved from Kolkata to Mumbai in 1937).
2. Whose signature appears on Indian currency notes?Answer: The Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (the one exception is the ₹1 note, which is issued by the Government of India and signed by the Finance Secretary).
3. When was GST introduced in India?Answer: 1 July 2017 (the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016 made it possible, and GST replaced many older indirect taxes such as VAT and service tax).
4. Which body replaced the Planning Commission?Answer: NITI Aayog (created by a Union Cabinet resolution on 1 January 2015).
5. Under which Article of the Constitution is the Union Budget presented?Answer: Article 112 (the Constitution calls the Budget the Annual Financial Statement, an estimate of the government's receipts and spending for the year).

Policy rates such as the repo rate change during the year, so they are kept out of this list. For the current figures, check the Reserve Bank of India's website, rbi.org.in.

General Science GK Questions

1. What is the chemical formula of common salt?Answer: NaCl (sodium chloride, an ionic compound with sodium and chloride ions in a 1:1 ratio).
2. Deficiency of which vitamin causes scurvy?Answer: Vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid; scurvy develops when the diet is severely short of it).
3. What is the SI unit of force?Answer: The newton, N (weight is also a force, so in SI units it too is measured in newtons).
4. Which gas makes up the largest share of Earth's atmosphere?Answer: Nitrogen (about 78% of dry air by volume, compared with about 21% oxygen).
5. Which cell organelle is known as the powerhouse of the cell?Answer: Mitochondria (they produce most of the cell's chemical energy, which is stored in a molecule called ATP).
6. How many bones does an adult human skeleton usually have?Answer: 206 (they are grouped into the axial skeleton, which forms the body's central axis, and the appendicular skeleton of the limbs and their attachments).
7. Which blood group is called the universal donor?Answer: O negative (its red cells can generally be given to patients of any ABO and Rh type, which makes it valuable in emergencies).

Art and Culture GK Questions

1. Kathakali is a classical dance-drama of which state?Answer: Kerala (it took shape as a distinct art form in the 16th and 17th centuries).
2. The Kuchipudi dance form is named after a village in which state?Answer: Andhra Pradesh (the dance grew up in Kuchipudi village, from which it takes its name, and is one of India's major classical dance forms).
3. Bihu is the main festival of which state?Answer: Assam (it comes three times a year; Rongali or Bohag Bihu, in April, coincides with the Assamese New Year).
4. Who built the Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha?Answer: King Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty (around 1250 CE; the temple is designed as the chariot of the Sun god and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984).
5. Madhubani painting belongs to which state?Answer: Bihar (it is named after Madhubani district in the Mithila region, where women traditionally passed the art down through the family).
6. Ustad Bismillah Khan is famous for which musical instrument?Answer: The shehnai (he took it from ceremonies to the concert stage and received the Bharat Ratna in 2001).

Sports Basics

1. What is the length of a cricket pitch?Answer: 22 yards, or 20.12 metres (set by Law 6 of the MCC Laws of Cricket, which also fixes its width at 10 feet).
2. How many players does each kabaddi team have on the court?Answer: Seven (a team that puts out all seven opponents earns bonus points for an All Out).
3. The Durand Cup is associated with which sport?Answer: Football (first held in 1888 at Shimla, it is the oldest existing club football tournament in Asia).
4. The Thomas Cup is associated with which sport?Answer: Badminton (it is the men's world team championship; the women's event is the Uber Cup).

Important Days

1. Why is National Science Day celebrated on 28 February?Answer: To mark C. V. Raman's discovery of the Raman Effect on 28 February 1928 (the work won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930).
2. National Sports Day on 29 August honours which player?Answer: Major Dhyan Chand (the date is his birth anniversary; he helped India win hockey gold at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics).
3. Teachers' Day in India, 5 September, is the birthday of whom?Answer: Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (the philosopher became President of India in 1962 and asked that his birthday be observed as Teachers' Day instead of being celebrated for him).
4. National Youth Day on 12 January marks the birth anniversary of whom?Answer: Swami Vivekananda (the Government of India decided in 1984 to observe his birthday as National Youth Day).
5. On which date is the International Day of Yoga observed?Answer: 21 June (the UN General Assembly proclaimed it in December 2014, and it was first observed in 2015).

Firsts in India

1. Who was the first President of India?Answer: Dr Rajendra Prasad (he took office in 1950 and served two terms, until 1962).
2. Who was the first woman Prime Minister of India?Answer: Indira Gandhi (she took office on 24 January 1966).
3. Who was the first Indian to win a Nobel Prize?Answer: Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913, largely for Gitanjali, whose poems he translated into English himself).
4. Who was the first Indian citizen to travel to space?Answer: Rakesh Sharma (he flew on the Soviet Soyuz T-11 mission in April 1984 and worked aboard the Salyut 7 space station).
5. Who was the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest?Answer: Bachendri Pal (she reached the summit on 23 May 1984).
6. What was India's first satellite?Answer: Aryabhata (designed and built in India, it was launched on a Soviet rocket on 19 April 1975).
7. Who won India's first individual Olympic gold medal?Answer: Abhinav Bindra (in the men's 10 m air rifle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics).

Books and Authors

1. Who wrote The Discovery of India?Answer: Jawaharlal Nehru (he wrote it while imprisoned in Ahmednagar Fort after the Quit India Movement began; it was first published in 1946).
2. The song Vande Mataram appears in which novel?Answer: Anandamath by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (a Bengali novel published in 1882).
3. Who wrote the Hindi novel Godaan?Answer: Munshi Premchand (published in 1936, it was his last completed novel and deals with the exploitation of the rural poor).
4. Wings of Fire is the autobiography of whom?Answer: Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (written with Arun Tiwari and published in 1999).

How to Practise These GK Questions

Reading a list once feels productive, but it fades within days. What stays is what you have pulled out of memory yourself. A simple routine:

1. Cover the answers and go through one section at a time, saying each answer before you look.
2. Copy every miss, with its explanation line, into an error list, and revise only that list over the next few days.
3. Once a section feels easy, mix questions from different sections, because exam papers jump between topics.
4. Link facts into chains: Article 32 leads to the Supreme Court and writs; Plassey leads to Clive and Mir Jafar. One chain is easier to recall than a handful of loose facts.
5. Play quiz battles with friends on Sikhami. Answering against someone with the clock running feels close to exam pressure, and the questions you lose are the ones you remember.
6. If you find it hard to stay regular alone, revise with others in a study room or a club on Sikhami.

This page covers static GK only. Exams also ask current affairs, and the syllabus differs between SSC, RRB and bank exams. Check the official notification on your exam body's website (ssc.gov.in for SSC exams) for the exact syllabus and pattern.